Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 3

Waves_and_Smiles

I agree with you, MU in that things like racing thoughts and panic attacks are best dealt with by CBT. They will teach you techniques like thought blocking that can be very helpful with things like that.

The thing to consider with analytical therapy is how much do you think your past is affecting you now? For me, I had PTSD through the roof, I was memory blocking and was very conditioned by all of the rubbish I was told as a child. CBT wouldn't have worked for me as a first therapy because I couldn't look at the here and now, I was reliving my past constantly whilst still being abused and needed to remove that baggage first. CBT will look at the behaviour you have and give you techniques to deal with it with minimal looking back, analyisis will look far more at why it's there in the first place and then work on changing it.

So to use one of your examples if you are having panic attacks but no clear past thoughts come with them then CBT would work, if you are like me and were having panic attacks with a lot of flashbacks about the past that you can't let go of then analytic therapy might be better. It all depends on how much you believe your past might be holding you back from moving towards the person you want to be.

Also, something to consider is the analytic therapies are often much longer than CBT. A CBT course may last 8 weeks, with analytic therapies you are often looking at 6 months to a year or more, simply because once you start working on recalling painful things from your past you have to work through them for as long as it takes until you can let go, there is no time limit on how long it takes to put something horrible to rest once and for all.

Doing both like me is always an option if funding is available.

System

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

I agree with you, MU in that things like racing thoughts and panic attacks are best dealt with by CBT. They will teach you techniques like thought blocking that can be very helpful with things like that.

The thing to consider with analytical therapy is how much do you think your past is affecting you now? For me, I had PTSD through the roof, I was memory blocking and was very conditioned by all of the rubbish I was told as a child. CBT wouldn't have worked for me as a first therapy because I couldn't look at the here and now, I was reliving my past constantly whilst till being abused and needed to remove that baggage first. CBT will look at the behaviour you have and give you techniques to deal with it with minimal looking back, analyisis will look far more at why it's there in the first place and then work on changing it.

So to use one of your examples if you are having panic attacks but no clear past thoughts come with them then CBT would work, if you are like me and were having panic attacks with a lot of flashbacks about the past that you can't let go of then analytic therapy might be better. It all depends on how much you believe your past might be holding you back from moving towards the person you want to be.

Also, something to consider is the analytic therapies are often much longer than CBT. A CBT course may last 8 weeks, with analytic therapies you are often looking at 6 months to a year or more, simply because once you start working on recalling painful things from your past you have to work through them for as long as it takes until you can let go, there is no time limit on how long it takes to put something horrible to rest once and for all.

Doing both like me is always an option if funding is available.

Thank you WaS, more things to consider.

I think a lot of my past is at this time, unresolved, in that i haven;t come to terms with a lot of it. The abusive relationship for example still affects me to this day, i;ve been conditioned to think i'm not worth anything and that nobody could ever want me, obviously i know thats not true, Swain would do anything for me and does everything to make me happy, but in my head i'm still expecting it to all go wrong, thats im not worthy of ove and that eventually he'll leave me. *there may also be abadonoment issues with my dad, he was for the most part and absent parent and instea dof dealing with it ive cut him out of my life for the past 10 years), so pershaps anyalytical migth help me process what happened and not let it affect me as much now.

I;ve read cbt can be helpful for anxiety and intrusive/racing thoughst in that it will enable me to deal with properly , it like i know my thoughts are not correct a lot of the time, its just overcoming them and thinking more rationally about things.

Waves_and_Smiles

Which feels more important to you right now? Dealing with anxiety and racing thoughts or resolving your past issues? Do you feel you are able to deal with the former without dealing with the latter at this point? Do you feel they are linked?

I do think you could benefit from analytical therapy because you have so many painful things in your past. Sometimes the only way to lay them to rest is to relive them with someone whom you trust to guide you. Analysis is very much about that, you would recall what happened and then look at how it changed your thoughts and behaviour and then work on letting it go.

Another way of looking at it is to examine which aspects of your health you want to treat at this time. Analysis couldn't help me with racing thoughts and hallucinations, the only thing that causes those is a chemical imbalance so I needed CBT to give me very practical help on how to cope with that happening, looking back at the past wouldn't have achieved anything. My PTSD on the other hand is due to the abuse I went through and wouldn't have responded to CBT because my behaviour relating to that is very much caused by emotional damage and things I was terrified to face, I needed analytical therapy for that.

In my case I had 8 years of analytical therapy and had mostly resolved my past, then I developed schizophrenia and was back to having almost no tools to deal with my mental health so had to have a totally different therapy to deal with that on a day to day basis. Despite having years of wonderful psycho-analysis it gave me almost nothing to help deal with voices in my head telling me I was evil and about to die daily, I had to learn a whole different set of CBT techniques to deal with a chemical imbalance that no amount of talking it through would fix.

They are both incredibly helpful therapies and can very successfully be used together, just not at the same time. It sounds to me as both would help you.

System

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Which feels more important to you right now? Dealing with anxiety and racing thoughts or resolving your past issues? Do you feel you are able to deal with the former without dealing with the latter at this point? Do you feel they are linked?

I do think you could benefit from analytical therapy because you have so many painful things in your past. Sometimes the only way to lay them to rest is to relive them with someone whom you trust to guide you. Analysis is very much about that, you would recall what happened and then look at how it changed your thoughts and behaviour and then work on letting it go.

Another way of looking at it is to examine which aspects of your health you want to treat at this time. Analysis couldn't help me with racing thoughts and hallucinations, the only thing that causes those is a chemical imbalance so I needed CBT to give me very practical help on how to cope with that happening, looking back at the past wouldn't have achieved anything. My PTSD on the other hand is due to the abuse I went through and wouldn't have responded to CBT because my behaviour relating to that is very much caused by emotional damage and things I was terrified to face, I needed analytical therapy for that.

They are both incredibly helpful therapies and can very successfully be used together, just not at the same time. It sounds to me as both would help you.

I think the pressing issue is the racing thiughts/anxiety/panic attacks. Thats whats affecting me most currently. The rest i think might be best delat with after i;ve got my current issues in check. As you say both might be beneficial its just deciding which is the one which needs dealing with first. So i thin for now i shall ask about CBT and see if that offers some relief and way to deal with current thoughts. The rest has been on hold for many years anyway and bar the relationship side of things (whihc it hink cbt could help with too) i can wait a bit longer to deal with it.

Thank you so much for the advice and opinions, its very insightful and has given me a better idea of what i need to be focusing on

Waves_and_Smiles

That sound like a good idea, MU. A short course of CBT will teach you techniques that don't involve looking back that you can put into practice as the troubling situations occur in the present day. Once you have those and feel better armed to deal with those horrid situations then you can look at whether you want to deal with unresolved issues from your past. There is no rush, I had therapy on and off for 24 years, taking a break and then going back when I felt ready to deal with something new.

Be prepared to work hard at CBT, you will have homework that will be checked (but not graded!). But it is very helpful and can make a huge difference with day to day living.

System

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

That sound like a good idea, MU. A short course of CBT will teach you techniques that don't involve looking back that you can put into practice as the troubling situations occur in the present day. Once you have those and feel better armed to deal with those horrid situations then you can look at whether you want to deal with unresolved issues from your past. There is no rush, I had therapy on and off for 24 years, taking a break and then going back when I felt ready to deal with something new.

Be prepared to work hard at CBT, you will have homework that will be checked (but not graded)! But it is very helpful and can make a huge difference with day to day living.

Thank you (again!) WaS

I'm going to ask my doctor tomorrow about CBT and if its possible for me to have it. I think it might be a great starting point an helpful for me. Thank you for your advice. It helps more than you know

Waves_and_Smiles

You're welcome, MU! Let me know how it goes, if you get confused about anything feel free to ask me questions! It's a bit confusing at first because there are forms and rating scales but it all falls into place after a while. It is also a pretty quick fix if you do everything your therapist advises. My best example of this is my CBT for a spider phobia. I went from literally being unable to be in a house with one (I sat at a bus stop at 3am once because a tiny one was on the wall) to being able to hold them in 5 hours flat and I love them now. CBT can work amazingly quickly.

System

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

You're welcome, MU! Let me know how it goes, if you get confused about anything feel free to ask me questions! It's a bit confusing at first because there are forms and rating scales but it all falls into place after a while. It is also a pretty quick fix if you do everything your therapist advises. My best example of this is my CBT for a spider phobia. I went from literally being unable to be in a house with one (I sat at a bus stop at 3am once because a tiny one was on the wall) to being able to hold them in 5 hours flat and I love them now. CBT can work amazingly quickly.

Does it work on fear of mushrooms? :rotfl: i'm going to have to overcome that at some point, Swain loves then and once we live together i want to cook him some awesome food....some of which includes mushrooms

It sounds hard, but very positive

Waves_and_Smiles

CBT will work on any phobia at all and within one long session mostly! It is almost miraculous how quickly the phobia disappears! I was really lucky because I wasn't being treated for phobia's but I happened to mention it to my favourite psychiatrist and he laughed and asked if I wanted to stop it happening? He told me it would only take half a day to remove a lifelong phobia and I thought he was joking but he wasn't. Those are the things where CBT shines, it can stop anxiety and phobia's in their tracks. Mention the mushrooms if you get a friendly therapist!

Pyxis

This is for MessedUp!