Discussion Therapy And "Incorrect Beliefs"

[Anonymoususer1234]

I've done a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy in my life. One major focus of these therapies is correcting "incorrect belief" or "cognitive distortions" that we have about ourselves.

But I've found that framework kinda useless to be honest. I don't really have incorrect beliefs about myself. I have negative beliefs about myself but they aren't incorrect, they're just facts.

As an example, I probably won't have any close friends within my lifetime. A cognitive behavioral therapist would call that an incorrect belief but I really don't think it is.

I can't carry a conversation. I don't even like people that much. Unless something in my brain chemistry suddenly snaps and I become outgoing and approachable and interesting I won't make any friends. That's not a cognitive distortion. That's a logical conclusion.

They might then say: "You can change those things. You can become more social."

But they don't get it. It doesn't work like that. No amount of practice makes conversation any easier. I've tried and failed for years.

Having friends just isn't in the cards for me. I've accepted that. It's not an insecurity or a cognitive distortion. It's a fact.

Does anyone else have a similar experience, where therapists try to claim that you have false beliefs even though those beliefs are grounded in logic and evidence?

 

[Sluggish_Slump]

idk my therapist could challenge certain beliefs but she never outright claimed they were false (maybe because she specialized in psychoanalytic therapy)

 

[Celerity]

CBT may as well be switched up to CTB. I found it useless for similar reasons. Trying to reframe your thoughts when upset is an impossible, almost inhuman ask.

Honestly, I think the entire theory predicating the therapy to be bullshit. I don't think so-called "neurotypicals" are any better at cognitive reframing. Just look at our popular discourse or how people talk to and about each other. Where is the logic and evenhandedness there? Instead, it seems much more likely that the average Joe is simply not assailed with the torrential downpour of negative ideations and feelings that we experience on a daily basis. It's a lot easier to move past 1-5 crappy thoughts than 100.

Meditation, when I managed to do it, seemed more helpful, but that's the trick isn't it - actually managing to do something beyond closing your eyes and breathing for 30+ minutes.

 

[TransilvanianHunger]

I think CBT misses the point. "Incorrect beliefs" and "cognitive distortions" are real, but they're not something that can be changed by telling a person that what they think is incorrect, or that they "can change". I'm heavily biased towards analytic therapy, so any time I hear about someone's experience with CBT and similar modalities I can't help but shake my head.

Our incorrect beliefs and cognitive distortions are rooted in unconscious processes—we don't create them consciously, no one has negative beliefs about themselves because they chose to have them. It's like that saying, "you can't reason somebody out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". These beliefs and distortions don't originate in the conscious part of the person, and you can't convince the conscious part to discard them. A therapeutic process that looks into the unconscious origin of these beliefs and ideas can pull them up to the realm of consciousness, and then the person can act to change them. CBT completely ignores the unconscious life of the patient, so the root of all these beliefs and distortions remains untouched.