CBT Therapy?

Hi ManyStripes,

Thanks a lot for your reply. It's really opened up my view on CBT. I think I will give it a try, there's a few things in my life that I want to sort out and I don't think I can sort them without some help so CBT might be the right direction to go in.

Thanks for your reply ManyStripes. I am very grateful.

Kindest regards,

Matthew.

I was in a CBT group several years ago, as a result of my first, failed attempt to get an ASD diagnosis.  CBT isn't always done in groups, though.  And it wasn't specifically an ASD group, either.

I can't say it really helped me, but I was clearly the least in need of CBT in that group.  I could see it could be helpful for various other people, though.  And I can see it could be helpful with some aspects or consequences of, or problems involving, an ASD.

In the group I was in, we had some sort of therapist to take us through the CBT.  At the start, she introduced us to what CBT was, telling us it was based on philosophy.  She told us about how it was about dealing with disordered thoughts, so that disordered thoughts would cause us less problems in our lives.

She told us we'd need to get a book, which I think was The Feeling Good Handbook by David D Burns, MD.  It's a big book, but I think you'd normally only use some of what's in it, so don't be put off by it's bigness.  She also got us to do some fairly quick self-assessment things, which are included in the book, to see how we were at the start of the course.  I seem to remember being in a significantly better state than anyone else there, so it didn't seem I particularly needed to be there.  I continued to attend anyway - it was something to do if nothing else!

From then on, we worked through the book, and each week had 'homework' we were supposed to do.  I often didn't manage to get myself to do it.  I'm pretty sure this was actually due to my ASD, which I didn't get diagnosed until several years later.

Quite a few people dropped out of the group early on, but there were several of us who continued through to the end.

Each week, we'd do the self-assessments to see how we were getting on.  And, at the end of the course, which lasted a few months altogether, we did a final self-assessment to compare with how we were at the start.  Most of us had improved, often significantly, though one had got worse.  I only slightly improved, since I wasn't in a very bad state at the start anyway.  My score at the end was pretty much normal, or close to it, while others tended to have farther to go.  I think the score I had at the start was similar or better than many of the scores other people had at the end.

One thing CBT helped me to see was that some of my difficulties really weren't due to the sort of 'disordered thinking' that CBT is about, but must have had different roots instead.  As I said, I've since been diagnosed as having an ASD, and in my case it's Asperger's Syndrome, which seems to confirm what I found.

The group sessions were very structured and orderly, which was compatible with my ASD.  CBT helped me to get a clearer view of my own ASD, even though that was more of a side-effect of doing the CBT course.  And I could see that CBT could, potentially, be of some help to some people with ASDs, but also that ASDs can potentially get in the way of doing CBT, which probably means ASD-oriented CBT courses would be preferable for those of us with ASDs, or at least that whoever's providing CBT needs to properly accommodate people with ASDs.

So, you could try CBT, and even if it doesn't help, you might still end up with a clearer idea of what help you might need instead.