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"Cognitive Behavioral What?
Having heard that cognitive behavioral therapy is evidence-based, I went looking to find out what it is. According to the National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists,
http://www.nacbt.org/whatiscbt.htm:
“1. CBT is based on the Cognitive Model of Emotional Response.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change.”
Move over Pollyanna. Could it be that none of these therapists has ever been maimed, raped, threatened with death, or tortured, or has killed people in a war? Perhaps if one goes and slaps one in the face, one can tell the therapist if he or she feels angry or hurt, it’s their own fault for thinking that way. “Well, I’m just sorry that you feel like that.”
Now I see where TCBH LPC Julie King got her spiel. “If you had trouble with all those people, who’s the common denominator? It’s you.” Tell that to your friend or wife who’s been raped and then has to go back to work with a bunch of sexist yahoos. See how long your relationship lasts.
Maybe it works for some people in some circumstances, but it seems to me that even then it has to be applied with some sensitivity or it just defeats itself. The counselor or psychiatrist who tries force it on someone, and then claim they are “just not self aware” if they don’t buy it, does more harm than good. Rather like the husband who berates his wife a month after she was raped, because she didn’t get over it and service him in the manner to which he was accustomed.
I use the example of rape because most people in this country have understood it better and longer than things like schizophrenia, PTSD and depression. Women, after all, form a majority of the electorate and have a better union than people with mental illnesses. If you go to PubMed.gov, the online journal abstracting service of the National Library of Medicine, and do some research, you will find that many if not most people with serious mental illnesses reported seeing or experiencing abuse or abandonment when they were children.
Now we are noticing that Veterans experience the same effects. Someone on the Diane Rehm show noted that when they lose control in the service and get a dishonorable discharge, they lose all the mental health benefits they would otherwise have had. The commentator recommended that (for the benefit of society as a whole) whatever else they lose, they should not lose this.
Now imagine if State of Oklahoma institutions like TCBH weren’t falsifying medical records and evaluations, just to lock people up involuntarily and keep themselves running. Imagine if they fired the corrupt staff and went back to the original model of Mental Health Courts; supplying an alternative for mentally ill people who had actually been charged with a crime due to mental illness, instead of just accused. Imagine if they provided proactive, but voluntary and non-coercive programs for the mentally ill, including Veterans dishonorably discharged due to mental health issues. Imagine how much more good they could do if they weren’t stuck on feeding their own importance, no matter what the cost to their inmate patients.
Now try to get that through our State Legislature during its annual silly season. If they are afraid of Sharia law in our courts, imagine their terror of people with mental illnesses who actually exist. It’s hard to get rational discussion on a difficult subject into or out of some men; the opening in a penis is very, very small. I’ve met women like that, too. Maybe they envy all the wrong penises. "
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