[sittingatwatersedge]

Remember me, the one who doesn't do well with CBT (which has been called among other things, Crappy Band-aid Therapy)....

here's an article I found very interesting.

http://www.coherencetherapy.org/files/CaseEx-Underachieving.pdf

[BlessedRhiannon]

It's an interesting article, and I can see how such an approach might be effective for some people, in dealing with some situations.

However, I hesitate to say that it could work for every situation or every person. For people with serious trust issues, getting to the deep part of therapy just can't be done in a brief amount of time, because first you have to build trust with the therapist. That's actually been my biggest struggle with ever even considering CBT...I'm expected to trust a new therapist right away, and it won't happen.

Reading the case study in the article freaked me out. I could imagine my T starting that conversation when we first started working together, and me just shutting down. NOW, after 3 and a half years of working with T, maybe I could tolerate such a conversation...but I'm not sure. I actually had a strong physical and emotional reaction to reading the article, just in imagining my T using that approach on me.

Thank goodness there are so many different approaches to therapy and T's that are willing to tailor their practices to their clients needs.

The article sounds good on paper and good for a person who has an issue that they can physically see the improvement. But I'm with BR... not for everyone.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by BlessedRhiannon

For people with serious trust issues, getting to the deep part of therapy just can't be done in a brief amount of time, because first you have to build trust with the therapist. .

excellent point; I realize that I had read that article (and others at same place) from the point of view of having been working on all this for a long time.

I have a feeling that the technique is probably effective though; it seems to intersect with so many other approaches (schema, etc).
CBT for example asks, "what's in it for you (this problematic behavior)?" I would get so insulted, so angry, at hearing that question from T1; but it seems that CT is asking pretty much the same thing, only (since it's not CBT ) not so abrasively.

[feralkittymom]

I think there were a few occasions when my T used a similar technique, but within a framework of psycho-dynamic work.

[southpole]

Originally Posted by sittingatwatersedge

Remember me, the one who doesn't do well with CBT (which has been called among other things, Crappy Band-aid Therapy)....

LOL. I just started reading the article but in the mean time I'm liking this "Crappy Band-Aid Therapy" concept. If I do CBT when I'm really OCD I just keep looping. Here's the thought, now challenge the thought. here's the thought again, now challenge it again. The thought, the challenge. Thought, challenge ... etc etc ad nauseum

I had a purely CBT T for only 3 sessions who asked me to fill out thought records with the first column having the original thought and the next the "new" thought, In a week I filled about 15 pages with the same thought over and over and over and over ... she said I wasn't committed to change. So I changed Ts Now I find that combining CBT with core beliefs style therapy works for me.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Bruce Ecker (one of the developers of this theory) says they find it effective for quite a range of conditions, including depression, anxiety, panic, agoraphobia, low self-worth, attachment problems, sequelae of childhood abuse, sexual problems, food, eating, weight problems, rage, attention deficit, complicated bereavement, codependency, underachievement, procrastination, fidgeting.

I think I will go read some more articles. to me this is interesting stuff.

[WikidPissah]

several years in almost every kind of t imaginable. No help whatsoever.
2 months in CBT with Frau T - more accomplished than ever.

I have some complex issues, but when someone backed up and simplified them I was actually able to move forward. She referred me to a trauma specialist for more work, but gosh I loved her.

[Perna]

I'm bothered by the article's emphasis on the symptom. I don't think working on the issue causing the symptom is necessarily going to respond to short term work. I guess it depends on the symptom and what is causing it but concentrating on the symptom and my feelings about it just seem too oblique to me and if my headache is caused by a brain tumor (as happened to my mother; she was having grand mal seizures and was sent to a psychiatrist; as useful as talking about her mother/upbringing/past might have been to her it could not help the symptom) could be the wrong emphasis. I don't think therapy is about "believing" but about trust; I cannot tell you how many times I did not understand (YET!) but trusted my therapist knew what she was talking about and went along with her for awhile until I did understand.

I had a symptom for approximately 45 years, the one that brought me into therapy in the first place and, true to what the article said, it went away when I did not "need" it anymore. However, I did not need it anymore because of 20+ years work in therapy and my life. That I had it for 45 years, too, there was a huge area of habit involved and habits are not changed easily in short-term therapy. The length of time one has had a symptom would matter, I'd think; like a festering wound, some are not going to be fixable in short term therapy?

[sittingatwatersedge]

T agreed to walk me through one of the CT exercises & write down my responses.

I must say, the articles on coherence therapy don't mention how painful it is to speak out loud, out of the middle of the damaged emotional state that is causing the symptom, the emotions that one feels. It was grueling. I saw T wipe tears from her eyes - twice - that's a first, ever, ever.

we got through it and she read from the exercise, what have you learned? and I couldn't come up with a thing.
The exercise said you should take home the responses and look at them over the next week or two, but T didn't volunteer to hand them over. She said, This was so terribly painful. I said, But pain is OK, T, if it gets me where I need to go. When I asked her should I not take the notes home to think about, she said, Don't do it. I think this has done more harm than good.

I said, well, I guess I didn't do it right. And in classic CBT fashion, she growled at me and told me to rephrase that - so I said, OK I guess coherence therapy isn't for everyone. She said, that's better.

[BlessedRhiannon]

I think it was incredibly brave of you to try this approach. Like I said earlier...I'm just not sure it's right for everyone.

I had such a strong physical and emotional reaction to just reading the case studies, that I can definitely imagine how painful it must have been to go through the exercise.

[critterlady]

I can't imagine getting anywhere near those kinds of feelings in the beginning with my T. I'm only just starting to be able to touch them now, a year in. And as soon as I touch them, I back off to safety.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Not brave; I am just wanting so much to get past a stuck place.

And I do trust my T. I've trusted her to hear me, to help me with this and not to laugh at me; now have to trust her not to give up on me.

I don't know why it's so hard. I was hoping that an aggressive approach would break through. apparently not. well, T is very skilled; we'll get there.

Wow... its incredible that you asked your T to try it...

it was interesting to read but when I was reading the case study...the thought...if it seems to good to be true...it probably is...

If my xT asked me to finish a sentence in the first 6 months of therapy I probably would have bolted for the door...

my new T does CBT and other types too.

[sittingatwatersedge]

[quote=Readytostop;2825515] when I was reading the case study...the thought...if it seems to good to be true...it probably is... .[/quote]

not in this case. What I see of DOBT (coherence therapy) looks sound. Sometimes simple solutions (e.g., Salk polio vaccine) really work. See "Unlockiing the Emotional Brain" at Amazon.......

this much I know: if the experiment failed, it was just me.

not to worry!!

[unaluna]

I think a problem with the test case in the article is, if the patient is that attached to the parent, as I was, you can't go thru these steps without talking about them to the parent! Which sort of defeats the purpose, the intent, the progress. Could be I'm just dumb, but that's what happened to me. How does the T break your attachment to the parent, especially in these days of helicopter parenting? Or in the case of abuse, you always want to think it's your own fault - I thought, if only I could explain it right. That's why I'm always proposing to my T - it's my substitute for trying to get my mother to like me.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Hankster there are many case studies out there. I just picked one, out of many.

the exercise T went through with me started with an event of my choosing, then we went back farther.

ACKKKKK!!!!! now there's a Freudian slip. What I typed was, "then we went back father". lol

You're so right Hankster, it always goes back to the parent(s).

[unaluna]

No I liked the article very much. I think it hit too close to home!! I feel like I traded one dependency for another. One the one hand. On the other, I do see the progress I'm making. Life is weird!