Hey CS
I did keep an eye out for your post, but it never appeared. I do the same sometimes, think I've posted, but haven't. Sorry to hear you've been unwell. I was a bit worried when I hadn't seen you post.
There's lots of research backing CBT, so that's great you're doing an online course. I've been seeing my current psychologist for a decade now. Prior to that I saw four or five others, whom I didn't really gel with. But in my experience, one of the first things they all do is explain CBT, so you can understand the relationship between thoughts/feelings/actions (from memory). So basically in changing one aspect of this, you can effect change in the other interrelated components, which makes sense. It's been a while so feel free to correct me if I'm off track.
So everything that I do with my psych I presume is CBT based. So if tell her I'm nervous about going on campus for uni, we examine my thoughts to see if they're accurate, my behaviours (what will I do? what can I do differently?), and my feelings (does it make me happy, sad, excited?). What can I change? What will make a positive difference?
Does that sound similar to what you're learning about?
Interestingly, I've only recently come to the conclusion that I've been just waiting on my therapist to fix me, instead of working on myself, which I should have been doing all this time. No point kicking myself, at least I know that now! So I can take those techniques and apply them for myself between sessions, as well as all the supplementary helpful things like yoga, meditation, healthy eating...
Of course, it's all pretty hard work, as you've mentioned, so it doesn't always happen anyway, and we need to be ok with that too. Some days are just "not today" days.
(Sorry for talking your ear off here!)
Anyway uni is going ok. I'm on track, I think 🙂 How's your daughter managing so far?
Katy x
