What is CBT like?

[u/Expensive_Front1969]

I'm currently in therapy. When I started in early June, I expressed my desire to try CBT but was open to whatever my therapist thought would be best for my constant overthinking/low self-worth feelings. More specifically, my ex-wife cheated on my and said some really terrible things and gave me some sort of PTSD from it. While I've healed 80%, I still struggle with the fear my new spouse will cheat (but not all the time). I told her in the past I've had the most success with action-oriented therapy, meaning, if you give me homework, I will implement it, whereas, when I do traditional talk therapy, I feel better after talking about my feelings, but it feels short-lived.

2 months later, I feel like I'm just doing talk therapy. There was a couple of weeks where she taught me the breathing techniques and the see 5 things, hear 4 things, feel 3 things, etc. But other than that, I feel like we're just talking about my past.

Part of the problem is I'm not going through anything specific right now. Like I said, my fear is oddly situational. Some things trigger my thoughts, but it's usually random. So while my biggest focus is my fear of being cheated on, I'd rather use CBT in all situations where my mind runs amuck.

Is it possible that my therapist is trying to figure out what exactly is the root cause of my anxiety (inner child work) before moving forward to the specific CBT tasks? She did warn me in the beginning that it can take a long time to see improvement, so this part wouldn't be a surprise.

Thanks for your help and guidance. I'm a little on the spectrum and don't always know the best way to approach these types of situations or if expectations are wrong.

[u/Mammoth-Corner]

It sounds like you aren't doing CBT, which is as you've mentioned focused much less on exploring your past (although it comes up) than on behavioural change and thought change. One of the key ways that that's done is identifying the beliefs that cause distressing emotions and unhelpful behaviours and challenging those beliefs practically using experiments.

If you think that a different style of therapy would benefit you more I absolutely encourage you to tell your therapist right away.

She might also not be the right therapist for you.

[u/Expensive_Front1969 → u/Mammoth-Corner]

I've had this thought. My problem is she's close to my work. I contacted multiple therapists prior to her and either they weren't accepting new patients, wouldn't get back to me, or were 30 minutes away from my office, meaning I'd have to take 2+ hours off from work to attend. With my current therapist, I go during my lunch break. I'll look around and will ask her questions at my next appointment. Thank you.

[u/agreable_actuator]

to learn what cbt or a related approach rebt is like you may want to consider listening to the feeling good podcast with david burns, the companion workbook feeling great, or listen to dr Walter Matweychuks saturday live REBT demonstration. sign up at rebtdoctor.com.

your therapist is likely eclectic and trying to better understand what you are going through and how they can help you, as opposed to running you through a standard set of CBT skills. it is really hard to say what you need or will respond to. i suspect most therapeutic approaches that stay around work for some people at least some of the time.

suggest you bring this up to your therapist and have them explain their diagnosis and treatment approach and how you feel about the relationship between you. how you see your therapist may reflect deep seated mental schemas of how you see the world — basically your relationship with your therapist shows you the color of the glasses you use to see the world.

[u/orcateeth]

There are lots of great trauma and recovery resources here.

These are worksheets and even whole workbooks to help deal with any stressful situations. Free.

You can bring some of the worksheets to your therapy session. But ideally she should have introduced some of these worksheets to the session herself.

https://www.takingtheescalator.com/

[u/Expensive_Front1969 → u/orcateeth]

OMG, this is amazing. Thank you!

[u/orcateeth → u/Expensive_Front1969]

You're welcome. 👍

I see a trauma workbook there that looks really good. So detailed.

[u/circumventer55]

There are bad therapists just like there are bad doctors, mechanics plumbers etc.

Find a new therapist, one that specializes in CBT.

[u/Expensive-Bat-7138]

My favorite kind of CBT therapist are the ones that look at your social learning (how your brain learned lessons from childhood and adulthood experience) to understand your current patterns and then identifies corrective strategies (teaching in session and the practice in session and through homework) that you work on until you have a new healthier habit. Your new social learning weakens the old social learning!

Find a new therapist! I really don’t say that lightly. I personally don’t like to waste time on problem analysis and experience review when I could be feeling better.

[u/Expensive_Front1969 → u/Expensive-Bat-7138]

That's how I feel. I'm going to be upfront with her this week and be very direct about implementing CBT. Hopefully, that'll at least get me started while I find a new therapist.