Monday, July 4, 2016

Freedom From Mind Traps

     A therapy that relies on the strength and goodness of the individual is an improvement over a therapy that blames the past and "creates memories" that experts agree to be unreliable and false even if vividly remembered.  In contrast to the destructive and unreliable therapies Cognitive Therapy emphasizes that there are "traps" that hold people back from fully realizing their potential including:

1.  Assuming the intentions of others:  We assume that we know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.”  This is destabilizing to relationships whether assumptions are correct or incorrect.
2.  Dire expectations:  We predict the future negatively: things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. “I’ll never be able to see my family again.” or “I won’t be able to be a good mother to my children." 
3.  Catastrophizing:  We believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won’t be able to stand it. “It would be terrible if I failed.”  "If I get back in contact with my family they will all hate me."
4.  Labeling:  We assign global negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.” or "My family are all horrible.  They hate me."
5.  Discounting positives:  We claim that the positive things you or others do are trivial. “That’s what wives are supposed to do—so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.”
6.   Negative filtering:   We focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.”
7.   Overgeneralizing:   We perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.”
8.   Dichotomous thinking:   We view events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone,” or “My family is bad.  I need to detach from them completely.”  
9.   Blaming:    We focus on the other person as the source of our negative feelings, and we refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “My parents parents caused all my problems.  They always deny it.  If only my family was not "so abusive" or "so cheap".”
10.  What if?   We keep asking a series of questions about “what if” something happens, and we fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. “Yeah, but what if I get anxious?,” or “What if  my family contacts me when I have told them not to?”
11.  Emotional reasoning:   We let our feelings guide our interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my family must be terrible.”
12.  Inability to disconfirm:  We reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict our negative thoughts.  For example, when we have the thought  I have this depression so I must have had a childhood trauma and then we reject as irrelevant any statements or evidence from all in immediate family that this event never happened. 

A partial list from Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn’sTreatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2012).
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WARNING: 
          If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.
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       Pseudo memories initially seem very real especially if medicated or entranced.  Those who claim "repressed memories" will typically isolate themselves from those who truly know the accused and speak the truth.  When and if the accuser eventually realizes falsehoods were articulated, isolation may continue out of shame.  Accused innocents may hide the embarrassing accusations in order to protect their reputation or reconnect.  Counselors separate from clients who no longer are dependent and seek to avoid lawsuit by claiming neutrality.  So then a "therapy" that nurtures the creation of falsehoods that are relayed as truth is empowered, through ignorance, to repeat the tragic cycle that destroys more innocent lives and families.

This site contains true stories of brave people including those misled by "do it yourself therapy books", accusers duped by bad therapy,  innocents who endured horrid false accusations (many innocents lose careers, are imprisoned or impaled by grief); and those who watched in horror as the damage was done to lives and families.
This website is a small effort to light the darkness with truth.
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    State collected data, insurance studies, lawsuit payouts and asset seizures have largely ended the use of "regression therapies" by insured therapists and established institutions since the 1990's.  Courtrooms now require scientific validation and have ceased allowing the false information generated by "recovered memory therapies."  "Do It Yourself Therapy" books and well meaning friends are the usual perpetrators of "recovered memory" techniques.
Those untrained in the psychological sciences often misunderstand or are misinformed about what is now common knowledge among professionals that practice ethical competent counseling.
Needlessly fractured families along with innocent people who are defamed and even imprisoned only add to the evidence of how destructive this therapy is.

data from Washington study cited in pg 107 of  "Second Thoughts" by Paul Simpson
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Location: Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA

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