Quote:
Originally Posted by jexa
Those of us who are here on PC are a self-selecting group. I think most of us here come for support because we are in need of expressing more of our thoughts and feelings than most people and maybe a lot of us get very triggered by therapy and need a place to process that. I think a lot of us are sensitive souls who struggle with deep, complex emotional processing difficulties.
Other people might go to CBT with a pretty basic problem that can be resolved in a few months. Like someone with a fear of flying, who is not wanting to work on anything else in therapy, can get really quick treatment for the fear in therapy and then doesn't need any other help. So their treatment could be just a few sessions. Some people with OCD (and I have seen this in person) can be totally free of OCD symptoms after like, 10-12 sessions. It's amazing, CBT really can work that quickly for some folks.
When you have complex problems, childhood trauma, a dysfunctional family, multiple diagnoses, things like that -- treatment is just going to take longer. Your ability to even solve a problem and face emotions might be completely disrupted by your history. And I think a lot of us on PC are in that group. When they say CBT can work that quickly, they are usually talking about people with relatively straightforward difficulties.
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Exactly why it's so important to not follow this as a guideline for a number of sessions. When I say I have anxiety, for example, that is probably something that could be treated with short-term therapy. Add this to depression, self-esteem issues, and a boatload of transference and resistance, however, and it becomes much more complex. I wish I could work with a different approach other than CBT - the idea of such short-term therapy does not sit well with me at this point.
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