Talking To A Therapist Can Literally Rewire Your Brain

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/therapy-brain-changes_us_587e440ce4b07b9dd704c13b

If you can change the way you think, you can change your brain.

That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that challenging unhealthy thought patterns with the help of a therapist can lead to measurable changes in brain activity.

In the study, psychiatrists at King’s College London show that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strengthens certain healthy brain connections in patients with psychosis. This heightened connectivity was associated with long-term reductions in psychotic symptoms and recovery eight years later, according to the findings, which were published online Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

“Over six months of therapy, we found that connections between certain key brain regions became stronger,” Dr. Liam Mason, a psychiatrist at King’s College and the study’s lead author, told The Huffington Post in an email. “What we are really excited about here is that these stronger connections lead to long-term improvements in people’s symptoms and overall recovery across the eight years that we followed them up.”

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I’ve been talking to therapists for the last ten years. The only problem is that during that time I have had numerous psychotic breaks that set me back to square one. Each time this happens to me my confidence, will to live, and self esteem become nil.
That is why I don’t believe that CBT is an effective treatment for psychotic disorders. Maybe, unless you want to be the most well adjusted, optimistic psych patient on the ward every time you have a relapse and keep returning to the same hospital.
Depression, anxiety, all the other mental disorders that don’t involve loss of contact with reality yea I can see this working. But if you are sz sza or bipolar 1. It’s a waste of time and money in my opinion

do you think therapy can help us?

I do - because the research does suggest that it can. Not as much as medications - but in different ways.

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has anyone on this forum benefited from seeing a therapist and does anyone know if you can talk to one online? any recommendations?

what is therapy anyway? do they talk to you in a certain way and make you see things clearer or something?

I see a therapist weekly.
She helps to keep me on the right track.

She seems to know very little about helping others with Psychotic disorders but I still find her to be helpful.

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i just noticed an online therapy/counselling site but its expensive $150 per month but you can contact them every day.

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@Hedgehog in particular has had amazing results with CBT, as have several other people here. It works for me in preventing the conditions that lead to psychosis.

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sz.com can help for talk therapy too

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I would be cautious as to the results re the very small sample size. CBT for psychosis is something that very much divides professional opinion(best thing ever vs virtually useless). The truth may lie somewhere in between.

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Well I’m glad to hear that. It’s been helpful for me to challenge some of my negative attitudes, but as far as prevention goes, they say it helps, I’ve yet to experience it.

CBT helps a lot of people.
It just wasn’t particularly helpful for me.

I still benefit from talking to a therapist.
Supportive therapy helps my situation.

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CBT got me calm, but I could only relate to the whole CBT concept after I had reached a certain minimum threshold of wellness. I think the adage ‘when the student is ready the teacher will show up’ is apt here.

Hypnotherapy worked wonders for me also. The hypnotist neutralised my distressing memories one by one over the course of about 30 two hour sessions. It cost a fortune for the 30 sessions though…

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I’ve been seeing a therapist for the past two months as part of my financial assistance program. It is helpful. She encourages me to try out school or a job and gives me an optimistic feeling… It’s fun.

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My clinic requires that I go to group therapy once a week so that I can get to see the pdoc for meds. It’s part of the deal. Me and my therapist are close and he is very kind to me. One time he changed the plugs in my truck.

I saw a therapist for about 10 years and for the first few years for 3 times a week, then once a week (this was back in the 70’s when insurance was much more liberal with therapy).

I believe that certainly my way of thinking was re-wired by learning to see many of my emotions as natural and many of them as cognitive distortions of situations I confronted. I think I definitely learned to be more objective and less delusional in reaction to lots of triggers that came up in my life and still come up.

I feel that my reactivity has been permanently changed, yes.

It’s too bad money is so tight today.

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