I was inducted into the psychiatric system at age 11, when my suicidal depression was first identified by my mother, following my parents’ separation when my father left the house. As a minor, I did not give consent when I was placed in therapy. I worked with a social worker in a private practice, got diagnosed with clinical depression, and then… I just remember talking a lot. About everything that was going on inside of me, using my supposedly immature child-tween brain, using language to describe my pain. There was no play therapy.
I learned the art of brain-dumping to the therapist in a “big brother” kind of way. That was the expectation: tell the therapist everything that goes on inside of your brain, all the misery that you’re experiencing in school with having no friends, how you’re a loser, and how you’re glad that your dad isn’t yelling at you anymore. But I never got any answers that helped me get any friends. Even as an 11-year-old, this frustrated me. I wanted therapy to work, so each time I went to session I would talk and talk and talk. And the therapist never had answers.
I remember the one conversation that has stuck with me for many years, encapsulating my frustrating experience.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Yeah.”
She took a glass and filled it halfway with water. Before handing it to me, she asked:
“Is the glass half full or half empty?”
I don’t recall what I answered.
“Drink it.”
I did. I was genuinely thirsty.
“Tastes good, right?”
It was a useful metaphor she constructed, perhaps a way to explain the power of positive thinking in a visual way, maybe something a child would understand. She probably heard of this technique somewhere in some book, or maybe at some professional training.
I now reflect on this memory with a new viewpoint: now I am an LMSW therapist, licensed in New York state.
Using the glass half full/half empty metaphor to emphasize the importance of positive thinking over negative thinking reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is based on the idea that feelings and behaviors are influenced by thoughts. And if you can change the thoughts, you can resolve negative self-talk and self-sabotaging behaviors, which improves a person’s mental health overall.
Many therapists (including myself) use CBT techniques without formal training in the practice. There is the option to study it formally, leading to certification, from such places as the Beck Institute and the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. When CBT is offered to a client in its official format, there are homework assignments to complete, and the entire curriculum lasts anywhere between six to 22 weeks. Sessions can be tailored a client’s specific needs based on their diagnosis and experience, whether that includes anxiety, PTSD, depression, history of trauma, substance use, etc.
My own introduction to CBT was quite desperate, grounded in pure lived experience of using it myself. In January 2013, I was an inpatient at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, already hospitalized for two months. I was failing to thrive, and had been living on the unit longer than all of the other patients there. Due to my extensive history with schizoaffective disorder, doctors filed for me to go to a long-term state facility, which would have been Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village.
This was a dismal fate I needed to prevent, yet my resources were limited. Locked in a unit, I only had access to whatever medications I was being prescribed, as well as daily group therapy sessions. I had no access to a computer or the internet, where I could have connected with others outside of the facility for peer support, or done research on coping strategies that would have helped me.
In one group therapy session, a facilitator mentioned CBT. I was hungry to know more. After the group, I asked her about it, and later that day she gave me some printouts: A couple of articles about what CBT is, how it works, also several copies of a “thought record” worksheet. Her instructions: every time I had an uncomfortable thought or feeling, I was to write it down on the worksheet, which contained a series of questions to answer, which would allow me to process and better understand the reasonings behind my unpleasant thoughts.
This was all voluntary… I wanted to get out of the hospital! I had nothing better to do, and I certainly had overwhelming internal feelings that I didn’t know how to manage. At the time, written CBT homework genuinely helped me feel more in control and empowered. It was also synchronous with my way of processing already: I maintain a lifestyle of journaling, and write nonstop especially when living in hospitals. I did that CBT homework as if my life depended on it, because it literally did. I was discharged one month later, and escaped Creedmoor.
I can proudly say that my introduction to CBT was through lived experience, the peer way. I didn’t study it in a textbook, or attend or a class with other professionals discussing it as an abstract theory. I used it myself, to my health’s benefit, thus I have learned the essentials of it. This has proved beneficial for my clinical work. Over the past year, while working as a telehealth therapist with clients, I have now used CBT concepts in my work, both as topics for conversations, and also using various worksheets to initiate introspection and encourage self-empowerment.
Unfortunately, I do have criticisms of the approach. CBT attempts to improve a person’s wellbeing by training one to question automatic negative thoughts. However, there are times when such negative thoughts are valid, justified, realistic, and in need of being honored. I recall working in supported housing for TSINY in Queens, NYC, from 2014 to 2020. Many of my clients were BIPOC, everyone had mental health disabilities, most had co-occurring mild developmental disabilities, most came from impoverished backgrounds and were completely cut off from their own families, and everyone was financially poor.
CBT requires that a client enjoy a certain amount of socioeconomic privilege and financial stability in order to actually be effective. It would be heartless and unethical for me to tell my clients, “just think positive, no need to worry.” Would it really be beneficial to stop that “paranoid” judgment of looking over your shoulder, to make sure you don’t get jumped? I myself got punched in the face while riding the NYC subway with a client in 2019. Right. It’s all in your head anyway. (I speak facetiously here.)
Maybe this isn’t exactly CBT as the theory describes it. But therapists rarely practice according to the theory in real life. It seems most therapists have half-understood the theory, and many who attempt to use aspects of CBT have not studied it formally. Some desperately reach for worksheets when they run out of empathy or “coping strategies” to teach, and they use the language of CBT without having an underlying understanding of it. Admittedly, clinicians are also pressured to use aspects of CBT as an “evidence-based practice.” Unfortunately, this all can lead to the undermining and gaslighting of clients.
Although I use CBT now as a therapist, I never considered using it when I worked as a peer specialist. I saw the peer way of empathy as something completely different. In peer work, I challenged myself to regard people respectfully, also giving them the space to feel grief and pain without throwing band-aid solutions at them. If I were to challenge their negative thinking by simply advising, “think positive,” this creates a power imbalance, and this naïvely diminishes the reality of the discrimination they face, even from their own families. It also is not trauma-informed: it disregards the life lessons they have learned from their past trauma. I myself have sustained trauma due to extreme child abuse in early childhood.
In CBT’s defense, its proponents clearly describe the method as one which addresses present functioning, not a psychodynamic method that explores the past. As a therapist, I do feel that it is something that is offered best on a voluntary basis, and a dynamic subject for conversation. But in my opinion, the therapist must have flexibility and awareness to also move away from CBT-like interventions, when it is not helpful or appropriate to the client.
I now recall my childhood therapy sessions with skepticism. At every session, I described my adverse experiences in vivid detail.
“I have no friends, everyone at school hates me, I’m ugly, I want to die.”
The therapist continually advised that I think positively. Naïve advice! She didn’t see that I looked different from my classmates due to my mixed-raced ethnicity. I was continually bullied for my poorly groomed hair and unfashionable clothing that made me look like a boy, problems that were not my fault. My White Catholic family were the ones who purchased my clothes, forced me to get haircuts against my will, combed out my Desi curly hair. The therapist knew nothing of my parents’ Green Card marriage and neglect towards me, as they brought Nepali immigrants to live in the home with us, people who never spoke to me or acknowledged my presence. I couldn’t explain that grievance as a child.
My therapist’s attempt at having me “think positively,” using CBT, demonstrated her complete lack of shrewdness in getting underneath the surface of my complaints. Sure, I was clothed and didn’t appear abused. But it is not something to visually see: my mother and her parents were White Catholic folks who upheld conservative politics secretly while living in a Blue state. My grandparents especially had insular anti-feminist values, and encouraged within me an attitude of isolation and caution. “We don’t talk to strangers, we stick to ourselves. Don’t run, you might fall. Don’t swim, you might drown.” I was groomed to not trust anyone, but merely to be obedient and learn to play by myself, under watchful eyes. I had no social skills.
This attitude still today limits me. It is deeply embedded in my subconscious, my body, my intuition, censored my innate ability to trust others. I brought this with me to therapy sessions, and my problem was not at all identified. My mother was never involved in therapy, she just drove me there, dropped me off, I talked to the therapist by myself, and then she picked me up when it was over. Absolutely nothing was accomplished.
I think now of that “glass half-empty or full” metaphor that the therapist used in my session, giving me a half-filled glass of water… she asked if I was thirsty, I said I was. Why didn’t she fill the glass all the way to the top then, so that I would benefit from a full glass of water?
Perhaps there was a lack of empathy? I realize: a therapist has to respond dynamically to a client, not simply being on autopilot with observations and applying theories. This is the realm where errors are made, where people receive unethical treatment. A hasty frame of mind that a provider assumes, when they mindlessly write a prescription that is of the wrong dosage. The result of lack of expertise, where a therapist’s knowledge of modalities is limited, where they use the same approach with all clients.
I understand this was 1996, and the field has evolved since then. But such clinician errors still abound, and we must be vigilant to identify them. Clients must have the savvy to avoid this type of treatment, and clinicians who wield power must complete continuing education throughout their career, pushing their own level of comfort in learning new approaches that keep up with current times and political trends. This way, their services can be informed and responsive.
Thanks for sharing this! As a “therapist” who received almost no therapy training, I found exactly the same things you did. CBT is not a form of therapy, it’s a set of techniques, which have applicability to certain clients under certain conditions. It’s not something you can do with everyone, and the response easily determines the appropriateness if you’re using it poorly.
Most importantly, all therapy depends on an empathetic relationship with the client, and as you put it so well, an ability to respond dynamically to events in the therapy relationship and alter one’s course as more information comes to the therapist’s attention.
Milton Erickson said that therapy has to be reinvented for each client. I agree with him 100%. No workbook or theory or set of “skills” or homework can substitute for the hard work of legitimately gaining the trust of the client and helping him/her climb into the chaos and start sorting things out. The idea that one response will suit everyone with a particular ‘diagnosis’ is not just wrong, it’s utterly destructive.
And well done escaping that “funny farm!” Probably the greatest gift that you received from them – realizing that you are smarter than they are and can figure out what you need as far away from them as you can get!
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ALL people are FLAWED.
Parents are FLAWED.
Therapists are FLAWED.
Psychiatrists are FLAWED.
Psychologists are FLAWED.
There is a big difference between just being FLAWED and being outright consistently and deliberately BAD .
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I do love your article though, it is very soul searching and flexible and exploratory. You open door after door and leave them open without coming up with neat resolutions to your pondering. You show an interest, not a conclusion, and that trait is very brave and valuable.
I would say more but my schizophrenia is playing up, or my angels are, repeatedly interrupting me by excitedly whispering…
“Mr Whitaker is Catholic”.
So I am away to eat some berries.
Care for a sweet berry anyone?
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Neesa, I am sorry you had to experience this!
The white coat trip, calling 911 to win a family fight.
Here I am calling out Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who put his daughter into the mental health system at the age of 13, and then went on to build his entire political career out of mental health and trying to get affirmation that this has objective reality.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/04/saving-lives-cementing-stigma-review-just-like-you/#comment-200535
Joshua
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“CBT requires that a client enjoy a certain amount of socioeconomic privilege and financial stability in order to actually be effective.”
This is a good point that I hadn’t really considered before. If your life really *is* horrible, you’re poor, you have no education, no family/friends, no future prospects, then how will it go when you attempt to challenge your negative thinking? In interrogating your thoughts (“I’m a loser, my future is hopeless” etc), what if you find good evidence for their truthfulness? Of course it’s *possible* to overcome one’s circumstances and change the course of one’s future for the better, but when the deck is stacked against you, it does seem CBT techniques will be an exercise in frustration.
I come from a privileged background, and I’ve tried CBT. Yet I never found it useful. My depression had nothing to do with hopeless circumstances; I always had a good chance at a bright future. So CBT should have been able to help me defuse my distorted thinking, right? Well, anyone who’s ever been depressed knows that depressed thinking doesn’t really respond to reason and logic. I just couldn’t use my higher mind, my cortex, to neutralize something that was coloring my entire consciousness all day every day. Even if my thoughts were distorted, I wasn’t able to see that while inhabited by despair. While in despair, you are not lucid, you cannot see clearly. It’s a cloudy state of mind.
I found Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a third-wave CBT, more useful. It uses mindfulness to step back from your thoughts and get space away from them, rather than fighting and engaging with them as CBT would have you do. So much of mental illness–depression, anxiety, OCD–has to do with excessive thinking, rumination. It seems to me that CBT techniques involve more rumination. On the other hand, ACT is about recognizing that you’re thinking excessively, detaching from that, and allowing the thoughts to just be there and pass away on their own time, without you feeding them. You’re not analyzing them, you’re accepting them–not their truthfulness, but their presence. And I think that can be useful for anyone, regardless of their real circumstances.
What do you all think about that?
(I am not a therapist, just speaking as a therapy client.)
Kent
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My whole remit is about how excessive thinking, in over emphasizing “logical” ways of dealing with life, is imbalancing to the human animal. An animal who needs to live in a state of acceptance of the emotional flow, to discover balance and optimal wellbeing.
Depression is not an emotion. Depression is a lid pushed over emotions to stop an overwhelming build up of feelings from exploding in a fountain of joyous cathartic release. This lidding occurs in communities that shun the mess of emotionality. Shun, belittle, patronize, mock, ridicule, censor, laugh at, conspire against, ignore, condescend, reject, scapegoat, ostracise. All of these powerful punishments get meted out to the glaringly emotional in society. Logic and reason are but as bolts locking the depressive lid into situ, stopping you from being you.
I wrote at length on it in earlier comments to articles, around a year ago. You could click on my name to find those kinds of comments I did or bring forth old articles and then find my name.
I like your searching quality. I like the integrity of searchers. A searcher without being a “mind made up” accuser is so very refreshing in life.
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Kent, your comparison of CBT to ACT makes so much sense to me. Thank you!
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“Clients must have the savvy to avoid this type of treatment”
Yeah, one can try.
I make mention during ‘therapy’ of the problem my wifes family was having with her nephew. He had been removing tiles from the roof of his ‘girlfriends’ home to gain entry to the property. Then beating and choking her after smashing the door to the bathroom to get to her (“demolished” the term she used when describing this event). The kids who are watching this are falling asleep at school, and mother is being threatened with the kids being taken from her as a result. The father of the young man (brother in law) then goes and repairs the damage being done by his son whose methamphetamine problem is getting worse. Looks like he was on a path to a homicide but …. he’s just a little misunderstood I am told.
Now, the ‘nephew’ has been causing some problems for a number of people, and in fact has caused some issues for drug dealers, and he then heads home to mom and dads and is spending his days there.
So I speak to the ‘therapist’ about this issue, and she suggests that I tell the parents that the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang who has been effected by his ‘snitching’ has a code of honor which ‘punishes’ the closing of a meth lab. It will result in their home being firebombed.
So the Therapist suggested that I inform the father and mother of the danger they were in. Whilst they may have been upset with my disgust with their sons conduct, and had started threatening me as a result of me ensuring he stayed away from our home, that they be told “Your place will be firebombed should your son be allowed to stay there”.
Personally I found such advice a little …. I don’t really know what I’d call it. Anyway, I just find such advice not really helpful.
So when my ‘referral’ to this ‘therapist’ expired I really had no reason to be returning to her for $200 pieces of ‘wisdom’ from the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang members she was ‘counselling’. Doing a few ‘remotes’ maybe? A few ‘cashies’ referred to hubby for ECT? Where’s your ‘witnesses’ now Copper? lmao
Shame that the therapist and my wife thought otherwise, and were prepared to ‘spike’ me with date rape drugs (a psychologist with a Masters degree doesn’t have any prescribing rights in my State, and is NOT a doctor) and plant items on me to ensure that my ‘illness’ was ‘assessed’ after I was made an “Outpatient” by a Community Nurse and then Police used to point weapons at me and force me to talk (called torture if it is done in Ghana, but called referral after document “editing” in Australia).
See, before my wife attended the appointment she had made in my name at this Private Clinic, I had said to her “Do not speak with that woman, she is trouble”, thinking I had a right to not speak with her given she no longer had any rights over me (referral to clinic expired, no means of making a lawful referral, hence the need to commit serious criminal offences to have me talk to someone about my decision to leave my home. The threats which had been issued as a result of her ‘advice’).
Nothing to do with any ‘illness’ I had, the therapist just exercising her power to have anyone she chose to be drugged and snatched from their bed by police because they had refused to speak to her. How dare they? My husband is a psychiatrist, and I’ll have you ‘treated’ with electricity should you disagree with me.
Anyway, good to know that the Chief Psychiatrist has rewritten the law to ensure that she is never held to account for such criminal conspiring (care to see the letter?), and that arbitrary detentions and torture have been enabled by the State, who simply “edit” the legal narrative, deny access to legal representation, and “fucking destroy” anyone who dares complain.
How can I perhaps ‘avoid’ such ‘referral’ in future I wonder? Especially when I can’t even be told what my “Regular Medications” are when they are being administered to me via my food or drink, and then a doctor I have never met (until Police deliver me to him after fraudulent Forms are completed) writes a prescription for them hours after I was ‘spiked’ with them?
Looking back I don’t think that telling people that their home will be firebombed was such good advice, but I did pay $200 for it. And if I had known I would be forced into taking such advice, i’d have never gone to the clinic for a report in the first place.
And this document “editing” by the State. I watch as the parents of a child who died in a hospital attend the Coroners Court, not aware that any wrongdoing by the hospital would have been “edited” to fabricate the legal narrative required to obtain the outcome preferred by the State. Such a shame because they seem like people who have already been hurt by the death of their child, and are about to find out how the State “fucking destroys” anyone who disagrees with the standard of ‘care’. The Minister attending the hospital in the middle of the night (snapped by a journo) to ensure everyone was on the same page with regards the “editing” no doubt. And even if you show the “editing” for what it actually is, all they do is simply ignore you, as they got the result they wanted from the Courts with their “editing”, and you no need ‘treatment’ for you ‘illness’ of speaking the truth, and will be delivered for that ‘treatment’ if you don’t shut up.
It’s not like you could expect any honor from people with ‘history’.
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An don’t misunderstand me here.
It’s not like there was any sort of ‘medicine’ going on. Looking back it was fairly obvious that the psychologist was merely positioning herself as a ‘spotter’. Identify people with ‘secrets’ to keep, and wallets to be emptied. Make referrals to someone who can ‘assist ‘ in that regard.
Car Salesmen have a similar system in place, though they can’t use an electrical chord plugged into the 240 volt to make you sign to purchase the car. And then have police make you come back in a months time for another trade in.
But how do you get such people into ‘treatment’ in the first instance? Having a corrupt Community Nurse in your pocket who will make people into an “Outpatient” before calling police and lying would be handy. Especially if they then knew a doctor who would sign for the ‘spiking’ with date rape drugs post hoc and conceal the offending. In fact, use the effects of the ‘spiking’ as symptoms of the illness that needs to be ‘treated’ with the date rape drugs? And I can confirm it works very well. The description of my reaction to the ‘spiking’ used as evidence I needed to be ‘spiked’….. and the Chief Psychiatrist writes’
“lt is noted Mr Boans provides justifiable explanations for what was listed. The presence of potential individual explanations regarding certain behaviours does not diminish the capacity of an AMHP to consider the broader clinical picture which may give grounds to suspect mental illness. Of importance is the observed behaviours of the patient which can represent a risk to the person or other however justifiable the reasons for behaviours may be.”
So if your ‘spiked’ with date rape drugs, and it looks like a mental illness, you will be taken by police to a locked ward where the drugs you were ‘spiked’ with will be made into your “Regular Medications” and you will be injected with that drug and a cocktail of other drugs for the symptoms your exhibiting?
Is it me, or does anyone else see a problem with this ‘model of care’? And keep in mind, the AMHP had made me into an “Outpatient” before he even left the hospital to meet with police, so the idea of “observed behaviours” seems a bit rich given the decision that I was going to be bashed by police to force me to talk and then ‘verballed’ in his Forms to make it appear lawful to detain me? This guy hadn’t even laid eyes on me yet, and he had me diagnosed with a mental illness and I was now his “Outpatient”. A Nurse doing diagnoses and prescribing covert drugging’s? They really are short staffed huh?
I wasn’t offering “justifiable explanations” I was suggesting this guy was a criminal, and that the Chief Psychiatrist was uttering with his fraudulent documents which were fabricated using an act of torture.
But then the Chief Psychiatrist trumped me by removing the protections afforded the community by the law, and denying me access to any legal representation, who would have had a right to examine unredacted documents, but which he (the C.P.) would ensure did not occur via his negligence and obstruction of human rights protections (while they sorted the little problem out)
Funny really when you think about it. “justifiable explanations” well, what I was saying was that it would have been impossible for the “Observed behaviour” to have been observed, because (a) I don’t believe my “thoughts” can be observed, and (b) the AMHP would have needed to travel back in time 4 weeks to actually make such observations. (cue the theme music from Dr Who)
So I disagree with the C.P. on the advances in psychiatry in that regard also.
And please consider carefully that we have here absolute proof that the effects of these drugs actually causes the symptoms they describe as being a ‘mental illness’. In fact, they are weaponising such information and using it to incarcerate people unlawfully. Their “justifiable explanation” that the ‘illness’ was caused by the intoxicant administered without their knowledge, is justification enough to incarcerate and force drug. And once laid out with the ‘chemical kosh’, you won’t be waking up for about 4 weeks. Maybe some dribbling in the ‘cage’ and then gradual release to the open wards.
Commit the crime and they will provide you with assistance in concealing it (and others will do the “editing” and make false claims of ‘good faith’ crimes). I don’t really think that this is ‘medicine’ but by maintaining the LIE of “Outpatient”, despite being aware it is uttering, one can deny access to the protection of the law. And police will assist in the fucking destruction of the complainant. Showing how much they respect the Charter of Health Care Rights, and of course the human rights they so often boast about being “worlds best practice” at.
The only thing they are good at is cover ups and threats and intimidation, fraud, slander and the hypocrisy which is clear for all to see.
There is of course a narrative that may run through this of “Oh the Community Nurse did what he thought was for the best, given the situation”. And that narrative would be wrong, and would fall apart should anyone even try and put it forward. He KNEW what he was doing was criminal, and did it anyway, knowing that others would simpy close ranks and continue offending until the problem was resolved (in a rather ugly manner it would seem. Though with “edited” documents such ‘assisted dying’ would now be lawful). And the damage done? Well, only to me and my family…… and I assume a lot of other families given his ten years of respite from accountability by the negligence of authorities.
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The Chief Psychiatrist quote from above;
“lt is noted Mr Boans provides justifiable explanations for what was listed. The presence of potential individual explanations regarding certain behaviours does not diminish the capacity of an AMHP to consider the broader clinical picture which may give grounds to suspect mental illness. Of importance is the observed behaviours of the patient which can represent a risk to the person or other however justifiable the reasons for behaviours may be.”
Of importance are the observed behaviours of the PATIENT? Now it was pretty easy to see from the documents that I wasn’t anyone’s PATIENT, and that in fact the Community Nurse had simply LIED to police in that regard to have them cause an ‘acute stress reaction’ (usually a bashing for the ‘patient’, a few knee drops to the head and neck during restraint).
And there is provision for those people who are referred by police under the relevant section to be considered “referred persons” (who have not yet been examined by a psychiatrist, but who police “suspect on reasonable grounds should be made an involuntary patient”.
The Chief Psychiatrist is kind of jumping the gun here a bit by allowing a Community Nurse to make someone a ‘patient’ before they even assess them?
Okay, so maybe the C.P. should back up a bit and examine the documents with that FACT in mind? Or maybe not, because then what he is looking at are a series of criminal matters which is not the preferred reality, and his “justifiable explanations” of why these criminals are not being held to account might not be accepted by a public being terrorised by arbitrary detentions and torture concealed by the Mental Health Act.
Best he simply ignores the facts, and runs with the “edited” documents? Okay, now there’s a need to fabricate a justification for the Community Nurse…….oh the poor man was simply trying to help, and he felt so strongly about that he was prepared to commit offences to help. Offences he was warned about carrying a long prison term when he became an AMHP, but which he believes as a result of years of successful cover ups, he will never be held to account for.
What an absolute disgrace, and such a shame that no one will even take a look because …. well, they are sure that the people who failed to cover it up, have done a much better job this time around. Must be nice to bury your mistakes, and then bury them again when they rise from the dead? And not a soul to check that there has been some form of fairness and justice in the ‘resolution’ (as opposed to “editing” realities you prefer no one looked at. Why conceal something you thought wasn’t wrong? Because you knew it was wrong? Mens rea. What was in the heart exposed.)
Still, I suppose that keeping me imprisoned by denying me my property saves them having to cut off my fingers and flush me down the toilet after a hydrofluoric acid bath as ‘treatment’ should I ever get the right to speak to anyone ‘outside’ this vile place. Possibly the best $200 my wife ever spent of my money, considering the ‘profit’ made by denying me the right to a lawyer because the fraud was going to end up in the Federal Courts. Is this the new area of “Divorce Coaching” they are advertising on the tv? How to have your partner ‘fuking destroyed’ with a telephone call? Your brother, your son.) The use of ‘plausible deniability’ quite a good defense when people are neglecting their duty. Ask the Operations Manager who fuking destroyed me and my family. She was quite good at setting up scenarios. Many a patient committing suicide after one of her ‘operations’.
And I don’t suppose the Community Nurse shows anyone asking him questions that he finds subjecting ‘patients’ to acts of torture funny. Though he does find time to laugh at anyone he has tortured, and who thinks that there is a system in place enabling them to make a complaint. Because there isn’t, despite the Articles of the Convention. His failure to recognise torture (if that’s their false claim…. possibly the “edited” version), a failure of the State under the Articles.
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I am not familiar with CBT but I expected that it was a training-type of therapy, and not “psychodynamic” in any way.
If all you have is a training type of therapy, it can only possibly work on people willing and able to be trained. That does not include many people who are in trouble.
This is an interesting story, but limited by the usual restricted understanding that most people have of what people are and how best to help them when they get in trouble.
The obvious takeaways include the fact that you can’t just apply an approach (like CBT) in a rote way and expect it to work. The therapist must be mentally and emotionally agile, and the patient must be willing. The therapist must be VERY will-trained to handle any but the simplest of cases.
And of course, there are all sorts of barriers in the way of getting therapy, including economics and all manner of related factors.
Without therapies that really do work and don’t take a ton of training to apply correctly, there is actually not much incentive to create a system that actually works. We see this in Medicine as well, and particularly in Public Health.
We really need a boost in our understanding of life and the availability of therapies that work. Without those things, we might as well pack up and go home. I think many people in this field already have.
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