real and cool therapy exists but a lot of the most prominent strains of it (looking at you CBT) are individualist nonsense that will never help people see what’s actually making them miserable and essentially serve to keep people locked into a capitalist realist mindset
just based off personal experience. CBT as I’ve experienced it places the problem on the individual and expects them to shift their mindset to essentially become more compatible with this awful world. I think if you’re neurodiverse, have an emotional disorder or generally your mental health goes beyond “I get sad/anxious sometimes” it’s totally unfit for purpose. I’ve had numerous psychologists/therapists agree with me on this, it’s thankfully coming to be seen as a dated practice that doesn’t work for as many people as once thought. Like I said not opposed to therapy in general, I did a course of DBT last year and it helped me more than any other mental health intervention I’ve ever undergone. But CBT to me as a neurodiverse individual feels like professional gas lighting.
Here is an image from a psychology textbook, an extreme example for sure but it illustrates what I see as the problem with CBT under capitalism. It’s individualist in the sense it maps problems with people back onto their own mindset instead of ever helping them see the greater picture that’s causing them pain in a lot of cases. Not saying all therapists need to be commie polemicists but good ones help you explore big-picture reasons for why you feel like shit which CBT doesn’t.
I don’t think CBT is inherently individualist. Under a capitalist setting maybe, but in a post-capitalist world people would still have to deal with trauma somehow.
What you say may be true, but reading about le communism and “organizing” doesn’t make me feel any better. Maybe I am contributing to a better society, but it doesn’t make ME feel any better. And that’s the thing honestly. For me, being knowledgeable about the larger forces that exploit us and trying to help others or voicing my discontent is just a cope because it’s easier to look at something so nebulous and grand than it is to look at myself and contribute to ME. I hate Jordan Peterson or motivational video type assholes, but honestly, there are times where I envy that such people are simple minded enough to hear some asshole yell at them and get up and do something to change themselves for the worse; and I don’t mean that I’m not simple minded or smarter than anyone for being depressed and apathetic - I just think those people are idiots lol.
It doesn’t matter if society instantly turns into a communist utopia tomorrow and therapy is reformed or whatever. You can’t change someone; they have to want it themselves, or at the very least they have to believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. But for me it’s like driving in the tunnel and seeing 50 different routes towards the light on the GPS, and I just sit there in the darkness.
i like psychodynamic. It’s really the only type i’ve interfaced with and it’s nice, it’s literally just me talking and being guided into what I’M saying; not what the therapist is saying
real and cool therapy exists but a lot of the most prominent strains of it (looking at you CBT) are individualist nonsense that will never help people see what’s actually making them miserable and essentially serve to keep people locked into a capitalist realist mindset
Sorta interested in more details, or an article, if you have it.
just based off personal experience. CBT as I’ve experienced it places the problem on the individual and expects them to shift their mindset to essentially become more compatible with this awful world. I think if you’re neurodiverse, have an emotional disorder or generally your mental health goes beyond “I get sad/anxious sometimes” it’s totally unfit for purpose. I’ve had numerous psychologists/therapists agree with me on this, it’s thankfully coming to be seen as a dated practice that doesn’t work for as many people as once thought. Like I said not opposed to therapy in general, I did a course of DBT last year and it helped me more than any other mental health intervention I’ve ever undergone. But CBT to me as a neurodiverse individual feels like professional gas lighting.
Here is an image from a psychology textbook, an extreme example for sure but it illustrates what I see as the problem with CBT under capitalism. It’s individualist in the sense it maps problems with people back onto their own mindset instead of ever helping them see the greater picture that’s causing them pain in a lot of cases. Not saying all therapists need to be commie polemicists but good ones help you explore big-picture reasons for why you feel like shit which CBT doesn’t.
Good post. Thank you.
I don’t think CBT is inherently individualist. Under a capitalist setting maybe, but in a post-capitalist world people would still have to deal with trauma somehow.
well we are under a capitalist setting, I think it would look very different under socialism sure but that’s what it’s doing currently
What you say may be true, but reading about le communism and “organizing” doesn’t make me feel any better. Maybe I am contributing to a better society, but it doesn’t make ME feel any better. And that’s the thing honestly. For me, being knowledgeable about the larger forces that exploit us and trying to help others or voicing my discontent is just a cope because it’s easier to look at something so nebulous and grand than it is to look at myself and contribute to ME. I hate Jordan Peterson or motivational video type assholes, but honestly, there are times where I envy that such people are simple minded enough to hear some asshole yell at them and get up and do something to change themselves for the worse; and I don’t mean that I’m not simple minded or smarter than anyone for being depressed and apathetic - I just think those people are idiots lol.
It doesn’t matter if society instantly turns into a communist utopia tomorrow and therapy is reformed or whatever. You can’t change someone; they have to want it themselves, or at the very least they have to believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. But for me it’s like driving in the tunnel and seeing 50 different routes towards the light on the GPS, and I just sit there in the darkness.
i like psychodynamic. It’s really the only type i’ve interfaced with and it’s nice, it’s literally just me talking and being guided into what I’M saying; not what the therapist is saying