This is related to the incredibly important skill, search for the historical causes of your thoughts, rather than their justifications.
Isn’t this not recommended by CBT? Everything I’ve read has been present-focused or forward-focused, whereas Freudian therapy is typically past-focused (“ok, we’ve figured out what you should do next time” vs. “ok, we’ve figured out who you should blame”).
CBT focusses on the immediate causes, not the long-standing causes. “I’m feeling anxious because I’ve just got an email from my boss and it makes me worry that he’s angry”, not “I’m feeling anxious because of my troubled relationship with my nursery carers”.
Contrast also “It bothers me when you leave soda cans on the table” vs. “You’re such a slob, stop being such a slob.” Or contrast: “I’m upset” → “I’m upset because I think the other person is looking down on me” → “I’m upset because the person’s tone of voice sounds like people who looked down on me in high school”. This is related to the incredibly important skill, search for the historical causes of your thoughts, rather than their justifications.
The arrows implied a progression to me, and the mention of “historical causes” in that context seems like “original causes” rather than “examples of this occurring in the past.”
There’s at least a recent past aspect to CBT. If you say “Everyone at work hates me”, you’ll be asked for specific evidence that specific people (and how many of them compared to all the people at your job) hate you.
I think the bigger difference between CBT and psychoanalysis is something like, CBT: “Your feelings are the residue of your thoughts, many of which are totally wrong and should be countered by your therapist and you because human brains are horribly biased.” vs, Psychoanalysis: “Your feelings are a true reflection of what an awful, corrupt, contemptible, morally bankrupt human being you are. As your therapist, I will agree with and validate anything you believe about yourself since anything you report about yourself must be true by definition.”
CBT still works with specific past instances of your emotions to chart feelings into thoughts. It’s good to do that so you can see clearly that thoughts always proceeded your feelings about a matter.… and also to see what the content of the thoughts are if they are, sneaky, “automatic” thoughts.
For example, “Jill made me sad.” might be examined and reframed as “My automatic thought that hearing I was wrong about what day the garbage was picked up made me think: I’m wrong, therefore, I’m stupid, therefore, I’m worthless, therefore I’m sad. Those were all my highly-optimized and compressed thoughts which executed so fast… in such well-worn pathways… that I didn’t even notice them. So my thoughts about that made me feel sad, not Jill.”
Isn’t this not recommended by CBT? Everything I’ve read has been present-focused or forward-focused, whereas Freudian therapy is typically past-focused (“ok, we’ve figured out what you should do next time” vs. “ok, we’ve figured out who you should blame”).
CBT focusses on the immediate causes, not the long-standing causes. “I’m feeling anxious because I’ve just got an email from my boss and it makes me worry that he’s angry”, not “I’m feeling anxious because of my troubled relationship with my nursery carers”.
Right. The full example he gave is:
The arrows implied a progression to me, and the mention of “historical causes” in that context seems like “original causes” rather than “examples of this occurring in the past.”
There’s at least a recent past aspect to CBT. If you say “Everyone at work hates me”, you’ll be asked for specific evidence that specific people (and how many of them compared to all the people at your job) hate you.
I think the bigger difference between CBT and psychoanalysis is something like, CBT: “Your feelings are the residue of your thoughts, many of which are totally wrong and should be countered by your therapist and you because human brains are horribly biased.” vs, Psychoanalysis: “Your feelings are a true reflection of what an awful, corrupt, contemptible, morally bankrupt human being you are. As your therapist, I will agree with and validate anything you believe about yourself since anything you report about yourself must be true by definition.”
CBT still works with specific past instances of your emotions to chart feelings into thoughts. It’s good to do that so you can see clearly that thoughts always proceeded your feelings about a matter.… and also to see what the content of the thoughts are if they are, sneaky, “automatic” thoughts.
For example, “Jill made me sad.” might be examined and reframed as “My automatic thought that hearing I was wrong about what day the garbage was picked up made me think: I’m wrong, therefore, I’m stupid, therefore, I’m worthless, therefore I’m sad. Those were all my highly-optimized and compressed thoughts which executed so fast… in such well-worn pathways… that I didn’t even notice them. So my thoughts about that made me feel sad, not Jill.”