A lot of this may be true for people who respond well to CBT...distorted thinking can cause a lot of emotional distress.

However, you can't always say "STOP IT!" to mental illness any more than you would to cancer.

I think you are totally right that making good choices is critical. But first some people need to get to a place where they can. For example, my racing thoughts did not respond to various non-medicinal "positive thinking" approaches. They did respond very quickly to bipolar meds. With the meds, I am now much better able to make good choices.