Do you rate cbt as a cure for sz

in what way can cbt help

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Cognitive Psycho-Analyst is more important. But I think they can never cure SZ or for that matter DD (delusional disorder) - which I have. I think for SZ meds are the only option to limit the illness.

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CBT helped me more than any other therapy. It has given me the tools to manage even some intense aspects of sz, i.e.: voices telling me how worthless I am and to slaughter myself with the kitchen knives. I still have all the same aspects/symptoms, but CBT has taken the edge off, so to speak. I can use my mind to manage my mind. It works for me.

CBT helped me manage a lot of catastrophic thinking… paranoid thinking… it helped me get some of the more ugly voices and violent thoughts under control too.

The meds still help keep the voices and the hallucinations down… the CBT has helped me cope and helped me from loosing it when things get a bit stressful.

Good luck to us all.

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I agree with @SurprisedJ here. CBT elements of my therapy have helped my catastrophic thinking as well as my splitting defenses. Splitting is all or nothing, black and white thinking, which actually makes me quite productive but maybe a little too intense about it. I either go hard as possible and work like I am supposed to make a 95 or above or else I die, or I just sort of dont even show up. Seriously, it’s a defense mechanism against feeling a lack of power over my experiences which was very real to me during my unmedicated and insane substance abuse days. I like to say it’s like getting in a horrible car accident and then being so cautious and consciously trying while driving that you either drive like a chauffeur or you dont even leave the house.

Also, the pills are black and white. My medication is black and white, all or nothing, and unless I take them and coffee as prescribed on the dot every day three times a day, I do lose my mind, so it follows that I start to see the world in black and white when my sanity depends on me viewing part of my life (medication compliance) in black and white. There is no skipping a dose, there is no flexibility. If I dont take my meds, and I am on a lot of them, I become horrifically ill, but if I do take them, I am no longer ill and instead a perfectionist over-achiever.

That being said, CBT is not a cure. Nothing is a cure for this shitty illness. It has it’s place behind medications. I personally find different types of psychotherapy such as psychoeducation at the advanced level to be most helpful. I also like rational-emotive therapy. Me being a researcher and student in psychology, working in psychotherapy research means that I am an atypical patient by a lot of means. I know what I am being served in therapy and my shrink knows that I am aware. So, CBT works better for more basic patients, me being notably different. I often talk to myself and notice that I use CBT principles to reframe the way I am viewing things which changes my behavior.

For example, I had a problem with my phone email app this morning, it wouldnt connect to the internet and I am waiting on some important emails about research and grad school letters of recommendation. I was getting irritated and anxious. I reframed it like this “it’s thanksgiving, so professor is working today, it is just gonna be junk mail” and calmed down and quit trying to screw with the stupid app which wasnt working and then I felt better. I later checked my email on my computer expecting junk mail and guess what, three junk emails no word from the profs.

Change cognition–behavior changes accordingly–less negative feelings and thoughts

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My therapist in the past called it “thinking in absolutes” and got me to break that habit.

One of my friends had a quote she would refer to: It’s not always black and white, there are always shades of gray.

CBT is helpful to manage the aftermath of delusions which can splinter our identities and cause distress. CBT is helpful in re-programming the mind and thought patterns to better healthier ways of approaching a problem.

http://carl-jung.net/psychotherapy.html

What is Active Imagination?Active imagination is a method of assimilating unconscious contents (dreams, fantasies, etc.) through some form of self-expression. The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the
personality (particularly the anima/animus and the shadow)
that are normally not heard, thereby establishing a line of
communication between consciousness and the unconscious. Even when the
end products-drawing,
painting, writing, sculpture, dance, music, etc.- are
not interpreted, something goes on between creator and creation that
contributes to a transformation of consciousness. The first stage of active imagination
is like dreaming with open eyes. It can take place spontaneously or be artificially induced.

                In the latter case you choose a dream, 

or some other fantasy-image, and concentrate on it by simply catching
hold of it and looking at it. You can also use a bad mood as a
starting-point, and then try to find out what
sort of fantasy-image it will produce, or what image
expresses this mood. You then fix this image in the mind by
concentrating your attention. Usually it will alter, as the mere fact of
contemplating it animates it. The
alterations must be carefully noted down all the
time, for they reflect the psychic processes in the unconscious
background, which appear in the form of images consisting of conscious
memory material. In this way conscious and
unconscious are united, just as a waterfall connects
above and below. [Carl Jung: The Conjunction, CW 14, par. 706.]

            The second stage, beyond simply observing the images,

involves a conscious participation in them, the honest evaluation of
what they mean about oneself, and a morally and intellectually binding
commitment to act on the insights.
This is a transition from a merely perceptive or
aesthetic attitude to one of judgment.

                Although,

to a certain extent, he looks on from outside, impartially, he is also
an acting and suffering figure in the drama of the psyche. This
recognition is absolutely necessary and marks an important advance. So
long as
he simply looks at the pictures he is like the
foolish Parsifal, who forgot to ask the vital question because he was
not aware of his own participation in the action. [An allusion to the medieval Grail legend. The question
Parsifal failed to ask was, “Whom does the Grail serve?” ].
. . But if you recognize your own involvement you
yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions, just
as if you were one of the fantasy figures, or rather, as if the drama
being enacted before your eyes were real.
[“The Conjunction,” CW 14, par. 753.] The
judging attitude
implies a voluntary involvement in those
fantasy-processes which compensate the individual and-in particular-the
collective situation of consciousness. The avowed purpose of this
involvement is to integrate the statements of
the unconscious, to assimilate their compensatory
content, and thereby produce a whole meaning which alone makes life
worth living and, for not a few people, possible at all. [ Ibid., par. 756.]

            --

*From Jung Lexicon by Daryl Sharp, M.A. Jungian Analyst