Quote:
Originally Posted by 1914sierra
It can take some digging, but generally I'll find my reaction is one either I would have had earlier in life to something that happened to me or the reaction has become habitual because of old beliefs I have about life or myself that developed due to issues earlier in life. Then we look at those incidents, those beliefs, where did they come from, do they still serve me positively now or can I consider changing those types of thinking, etc. since they may not have a thing to do with my reality now? That isn't surface work; that is deep and emotional and often very painful work. But I find over time that I am able to leave the past in the past and move forward.
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I think that this is the thing that rubs me the wrong way about CBT. I think it is all fine to investigate where an idea comes from, but the fact that you can just change or learn new beliefs as a way of undoing trauma is completely puzzling to me. I think that I just see what CBT therapists call beliefs as painful emotions that have to be worked though that are attached to the trauma. I don't really see the belief as some flexible thing that therapy can target. Beliefs to me are things that are constantly being reinforced by the outside world, and are something that people will always internalize and struggle with. To me it is about recognizing where the belief is coming from and what purposes it serves. This to me offers away of diffusing the belief, but I don't think that it will ever go away, or that it can simply be replaced with a new idea. But I do think you can find ways to push back against it or argue with it, rather than simply accepting it. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but there does seem to be an important distinction to me.