Has anyone done cognitive behaviour therapy?

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Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.

Can anybody give a "snapshot" example or two of specifically how it worked (or didn't work) for them?

I think it helped me better determine what were self-esteem issues and what were sensory and communication issues. Not really knowing much about Asperger's/ASD until a little over a year ago, I went through most of my life feeling irritated and very anxious in social situations. I realized after a while that I didn't hate people, but it was easy to think negatively of people in general because I was associating them with these horrible feelings. Now I can see where a lot of irritation and anxious are purely from noise, eye contact, and being over stimulated. However, as a kid how would I know? I'd never assume others heard differently.

Issues with social cues that I misread (and didn't realize I was constantly misreading) also led to low self-esteem. So learning about Asperger's/ASD helped me better understand what I was going through, but CBT helped me better deal with negative thoughts and self-esteem issues I'd accumulated through life. It takes time, but it's easier now to brush off a minor slight from someone and to let go of more lifelong issues, like constant criticism from family (not contacting them helps, too).

And to the poster who asked about what happens in CBT--you are basically recognizing your feelings as your perception, not the objective truth. You are using logic to understand a situation, rather than seeing the truth as the result of a situation being filtered through your emotions.

Yes, one of the the attractions for me in all this is the chance to see exactly how my low self-esteem impacts on my decision-making. I feel that if I'm ever going to make any progress, I need to learn to catch my conviction of low worth in the act of pushing my judgement into avoidance and the acceptance of apparently bad stuff, and to apply a correction.

josh383 and HighLlama, thanks for trying to help me understand....I don't think I can explain the parts I'm missing, but I will try to remember to look for that book next time I go to the library.

This really only helped me get through the last year of high school.

One CBT example is dealing with negative self-talk like, "I suck in social situations." When I explore that overgeneralization, I realize that it's more accurate to say, "I've come a long way, and I'm still learning."

Another one is, "People won't like what I write." A more helpful way to frame this concern would be, "I'm giving my writing a chance."

Here's another one: "Nothing ever works out for me" could become, "This new thing I'm trying might work."

Here's one about it NOT working:

I've had this happen with a few therapists:

Instead of trying to change the thinking process, they were interested in changing my reaction to an incident. For example, I may have the though "If I am rejected by that person, it means no one will like me", instead of trying to switch to to something more positive, they would try and change my feelings around no one liking me and think of reasons why it's okay if no one likes me. The other things they'd sometimes to is try and convince me that if someone was clearly rude, that the person wasn't actually being rude, rather then change my thoughts regarding their rudeness.

Others therapists, would ask me to change the thought to "If I am rejected, that person may not know well enough yet and even if they don't like me, that doesn't mean everyone hates me". They may ask me to think of situations where I thought a person didn't like me, but actually did.

I find it really depends on the therapist's style.

We have tried getting me CBT but faced with the usual red tape anf brick walls.

A staff member took me to see someone in an organisation, they said they could obly offer 12 sessions which was not long enough and to ask for a referral from the doctor which we did but it meant engaging with a mental health team which I dont want to do, I do not see why that should be because I dont have a mental illness.

They often refer to mental health when they aren't really talking about mental health. I mean, when you come down to it, CBT is basically Anne Landers with a PhD. This does a disservice to both those who have a genuine mental illness like schizophrenia or BPD and those who don't, since it stigmatizes the latter and leads to under-serving the former.

That being the case, you just have to jump through the hoops, recognizing that they have more to do with insurance and bureaucracy than with care. I have a terrible time with my own insurance company, since I'm socially phobic and they keep finding excuses to turn me down for straightforward medical care, at which point I freak out and can't go through the appeals process.

The cognitive part has been adequately described by some of the commenters already. But what is the behavioral part?

There are some behaviors that may be used in CBT to either (a) make you aware of what your underlying assumptions are or (b) teach you a new way of coping. Examples:

- wear a rubber band on your wrist. Every time you have a particular thought (e.g., "I am worthless") you pluck it, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to become aware of it.

- particular method of journaling, such as "event," "circumstances," "what I thought about it," "alternative interpretations"

- practicing deep breathing and systematic relaxation (gets better with practice)

- desensitization. Say you have an irrational fear of germs on doorknobs. First get close to a doorknob in a public place, notice your anxiety, apply deep breathing. Next, place your hand near it without touching. Finally, touch doorknobs. May be done with therapist present.

It all depends what your particular issues are. These therapies are very well validated by a great deal of empirical research. With or without understanding your autism, they can still be applied in areas that are troublesome for you.

I did over two years of weekly therapy, my counselor had to alternate her approach for different areas we delved into since I'd never even contemplated what mental illness was all my life and thought I was merely inept or had 'deserved' the messes I got into and was just defective, therefore I was extremely reticent to accept much of what she said or open myself up for many months. Over time and with her extraordinary dedication and patience, we explored quite a lot and she pretty much helped me not jump off a bridge or summat haha. Psychodynamic was more useful to me and also bouts of art therapy, everyone is different depending on what they need guidance through and what their life story had dumped upon them. CBT approach just ended up with me interrogating her and not getting anywhere as I poked holes in the thought process.

I think I responded a hell of a lot better when it didn't seem an automated talk through, I have to feel some kinda rapport and she explained psychodynamic is much more intense and demanding and takes longer to produce effects and encourage a change, I don't respond well if I don't feel I have churned enough soil.

I had no idea I was autistic during our course of therapy, we had only really began to dig deeper such was the severity of my mental health and then I went into a self imposed hibernation again until last year when I pursued several branches again regarding obtaining further answers (autism was a correct guess obv). I don't think cbt outright is something that would ever help me but you have to try it to find out and the mental health worker may be trained in several areas to adjust their treatment for you. I would need a therapist well versed in autism in the future to avoid putting someone through such difficulty trying to figure me out again, my gp even said cbt offered by nhs is not going to be useful for me. I have to appreciate the virtues of cbt as I desire to be a therapist in some capacity and grasp that people's brains work in different ways.

Sounds like you had a rather top-down experience. To me it seems blindingly obvious that the first step in any therapy would naturally be to clarify the "contract," i.e. to get the client to choose the style they feel best with, particularly how directive or nondirective the sessions should be. Yet it seems it's rarely done. Perhaps outcomes would be better if we took the bull by the horns and declared our preference at the start? If the therapist just doesn't do the client's preferred level of direction / nondirection, this would probably then quickly become apparent and a new therapist could be sought, saving a lot of time and trouble.