https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...2TSkO5bRsWxu5q

The link above is to an article that presents - more articulately than I've been doing - a critique of CBT.

I started to write my own, but lost it when I went to find a link supportive of my view.

I am reminded of a quote from the works of Saint John Henry Newman, a theologian and philosopher. He said that it makes as much sense to try and argue someone into the faith as it does to try and torture them into it.

CBT attempts to correct cognitive distortions with the eventual aim of replacing maladaptive behavior. That is a laudable goal. I agree that CBT must recruit the client's already developed reasoning capabilities. But I feel CBT is an approach that puts way too much faith in the likelihood that one can reason one's way out of psychic distress.

I don't mean to over-simplify the modality. It requires that one reason one's way to more adaptive behavior. Then practicing that behavior reduces psychic distress. It sounds like a sensible strategy that is hard to argue with. That, however, won't stop me.

I'm afraid the theory behind CBT is just a little too pat for my taste.

You see, @Rosi700, I never came to the conclusion you thought I came to. I role-played for you the kind of thinking that I would engage in, were I a devote practitioner of CBT. Unfortunately, I failed to convince myself of a d@#n thing.

I'm old enough to remember when Transcendental Meditation was the Soup Du Jour for combatting dysphoria. More recently "Mindfulness" has been en vogue. CBT claims to be "evidence based," as a reliable road out of despondency. Zealots can assemble evidence to bolster any contention under the sun.