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I received CBT therapy for many years, starting as a kid. It was years of being told that my emotional and physical pain was an overreaction due to distorted thinking. I wonder what it would have been like to have my pain heard, acknowledged, and validated instead? (Thread)
It turns out, unsurprisingly, that I had many chronic illnesses that were previously undiagnosed due to my age, doctor bias, and lack of research around conditions. I had also experienced significant traumas that were not adequately explored or addressed by those therapists.
Yet the gold standard, go-to is CBT for everything, including PTSD and chronic illness. Even if you have physical symptoms and diagnoses or have experienced trauma(s), your response to pain is still gaslighted out of you. You& #39;re assumed to be "thinking about it the wrong way."
In my experience, and I& #39;ve had a lot of it, CBT can be glorified toxic positivity. It doesn& #39;t allow for fear or grief around illnesses and traumas. It encourages potentially ableist remedies like "getting out more" and "being social" when that might make certain conditions worse.
I& #39;m not saying this to give therapists a hard time. I& #39;m saying this because I want there to be more awareness and research around new modalities that have the ability to acknowledge emotional and physical pain without making someone feel invalidated and gaslighted.
We need to make sure that therapists aren& #39;t engaging in bias, the same bias that many medical professionals can fall into, that trivializes and dismisses physical pain and trauma that would benefit from different modalities of therapeutic treatment.
I now use my concerns about CBT when consulting with a potential new therapist. I was pleasantly surprised when one recently agreed with me and said that modalities like CBT are based around outdated ways of thinking about pain and illness. I hope that means change is coming.
I want to thank @buss_patriarchy and her excellent thread on CBT for inspiring me to share my experiences around this today. https://twitter.com/buss_patriarchy/status/1289076956873465857">https://twitter.com/buss_patr...
