ciphergoth comments on Why *I* fail to act rationally - Less Wrong

11 Post author: bentarm 26 March 2009 03:56AM

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Comment author: ciphergoth 26 March 2009 08:41:51AM 8 points [-]

I'm afraid I'm repeating myself when I say this, but there is already a school of rationalism that discusses exactly this question, and it's called cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. As far as I can tell, CBT is exactly the process of using our capacity for rational introspection to improve our mental health, and it is the most empirically effective talking therapy there is.

Comment author: anonym 26 March 2009 06:50:05PM *  3 points [-]

It is worth repeating. CBT includes many powerful techniques for understanding why we have the automatic thoughts & reactions we do and how to change the ones that upon reflection interfere with achieving our goals. It addresses the original poster's concerns exactly.

Comment author: bentarm 26 March 2009 11:55:44PM *  2 points [-]

ok, that's great. It sounds like 'something in the middle'..., so what should I do? I don't have any diagnosable pyschological illness, or even any problems a psychiatrist would be interested in, but I do sometimes have emotional reactions that I'd like to control.

Is CBT aimed specifically at helping people with pschological conditions? Or does it have useful elements that perfectly healthy people can use to help them get over perfeclty normal problems? And how can I find out about them?

Comment author: Annoyance 26 March 2009 07:10:01PM 0 points [-]

Yes!

It's the only empirically-effective talking therapy there is.

Depending on how the standards are set, it's also the only effective psychiatric intervention, period. Manipulating symptoms is nice but not nearly enough.

Comment author: thomblake 02 April 2009 05:15:10PM 1 point [-]

The jury's still out, but EMDR seems promising - it's questionable whether the eye movements are necessary, but it seems to perform as well as CBT.

Comment author: pjeby 02 April 2009 05:52:10PM 3 points [-]

Actually, in one study, TFT beat out EMDR, but then one of the researchers came up with a hypothesis to explain the effectiveness of TFT, EMDR, TIR, and the NLP V/KD technique... and designed something even better:

After the research study was over, there was much persuasive argument from each of the proponents of the brief therapy methods represented. In a later NLP workshop, Ed Reese challenged me to test the hypothesis of pattern destabilization. I proposed that any stimuli capable of affecting a perturbation in visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modes simultaneously would prove to be as effective in eliminating a traumatic experience as TFT, even without the use of their complex algorithms. The stimuli that I proposed to test the hypothesis with was a game readily found in all children's toy stores called Simon.

Comment author: ciphergoth 26 March 2009 08:34:15PM 0 points [-]

The research shows that not all of the efficacy of the drugs is down to the placebo effect.

Comment author: Annoyance 26 March 2009 08:54:49PM 0 points [-]

Certainly drugs have effects. Whether the effects of the drugs are really a help is questionable.

There are a few conditions that people usually just can't cope with without drugs, even though the drugs have serious downsides. Lithium is a godsend for manic depression, despite it being quite dangerous - but considering how effectively repeatedly cycling is for people's lives, it's worth the risk.

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