Does it get better?

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^^^
hopefully you never had an RET [Rational Emotive Therapy or Ellisian] guy.

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Yes, the "rehabilitation" place I went to did a form of CBT. I'm not sure if it's the form you are mentioning.

They kept insisting that my thoughts directly lead to my feelings, and not vice-versa. They also refused to acknowledge that one could have almost rouge and uncontrollable thoughts, which is funny, because they had a schizophrenic group. Every time I would speak up about how irrational some of their beliefs were, they insisted that all diagnoses in the DSM-IV were purely chemical and everyone NEEDED medications (even for eating disorders). This was directly conflicting with their belief that one just needed to magically "get rid" of negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts, thus influencing your emotions to be positive only (which was apparently only based on assumption, as everyone kept saying it works, yet no one was ever cured or could point to scientific evidence regarding this being a valid form of therapy). Every time I said this, they insisted I was putting words in their mouth, even though we held groups that focused on finding situations where someones' life is worse than yours, thus reinforcing that "It could always be worse" (somehow that was supposed to make your current issues invalid, and thus go away). We even picked out articles and had to pick out what was positive. Someone picked out an article where there was that horrible earthquake in Haiti. They said "Well, the positive is at least not everyone died!" WHAT A HORRIBLE THING TO SAY!

When I stood up to them and asked "Is anyone actually getting better? Or are you guys continuously listening to this crap and "hoping" your "hard work" will somehow pay off?", they insisted that this all DOES work, it merely takes "time". Uhhhh huhhhh. I felt like I was in a cult, and this wasn't the first time I have been through this. They receive government funding, yet almost no one is socially integrated into the community properly. I was FORCED to go to this place because I was in a group home. If I didn't they said they would kick me out (even though I paid to live there and was going to individual therapy).

It made me extremely suicidal, and my therapist at the time actually cried at how upset I was when I came out of those groups. She helped validate my feelings and agreed what they are saying are unhelpful. They told this one autistic woman to stop talking all of the time. She was lower functioning. I'm like....you don't belong here, you deserve better. I always stuck up for her and the others. The clients actually preferred talking to ME because I simply validated what they felt and they *gasp* felt better! These people needed empathy and someone to talk to, NOT to be told to "be positive".

I was a trouble maker there, I guess. They had to have individual sessions with me because I couldn't make it in those groups anymore. I suspect it was because I kept calling them out on their own BS. LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_e ... or_therapy
"Albert Ellis has suggested three core beliefs or philosophies that humans tend to disturb themselves through"

My therapist a year and a half ago tried to give me "homework" with that wording on it. She didn't understand when I came back suicidal and told her that I can't do it. She kind of implied that it's my choice if I don't do it, yet it will only lead to me being worse off if I refuse.

I'm ALREADY highly rational. I ALREADY recognize my own irrational thoughts. I kept explaining that's not the problem. The problem is being able to accept my LOGICAL thoughts when my feelings contrast with them. I don't care about my irrational thoughts, as I know they are irrational and I can pick them apart. My brain was telling me to be so logical that it didn't accept emotions. I just wanted to be able to accept my emotions as a valid part of me.

She didn't want me to accept that some thoughts are irrational. She wanted me to change the thoughts. Erm. Does she not know that humans ARE irrational? Does she not know that emotions are NOT logical necessarily, and they don't have to be? She kept telling me to change this and change that, and I just wanted to love myself. It ripped apart any self-esteem I built up for myself and I left feeling even more worthless.

the one useful thing I got out of CBT was that the human brain can only hold one discrete thought in working memory at any time, and that if a bad thought is hogging that space, one way to deal with it is to rudely shove it aside with another thought, ANY other thought- but the more bizarre a thought, the better. so if I'm perseverating on something nasty like dementia or arthritis, I will suddenly think "eat all the children!" or "I like rubber ice cream!" then that will kill the bad thought and I will feel better. before I learned this I instinctively knew that if I distracted myself while I was thinking bad thoughts, it would kill the thought, I used to slap myself to break the thought cycle.

I almost mentioned this earlier... this attitude reminds me of some Christians. If told by someone that they're in a difficult situation and they're having a very hard time, that Christian will say that they need to pray, and if told that person has prayed, then they say they're not praying right, or hard enough so that the problem is their fault. Not helpful at all.

I've heard it referred to as shooting the wounded. Apt, don't you think?

it's the flipside to "I only vote for winners."

It gets better when you get out of school. But it takes time to undo all the years of brainwashing you get in school.