Cognitive Behavior Therapy - who has tried it?

My wonderful bf got me a book on CBT called "Feeling Good". I was dubious because i'm pretty sure SAD is a physical illness, but I was willing to give it a whirl, since I reasoned that my crappy childhood, mother that had depression and my own bad habits and negative thoughts could maybe be turning what might be a mild case of SAD into the major depression hell I go through instead. Anything is better than that, right? Btw, I do regualar light therapy, take an a.d. and supplements including St. John's Wort to top it up and get out and walk on the better days.

After just a few days, I'm really noticing improvement. Today is really cloudy and the physical symptoms of fatigue and brain fog are w/ me, but I don't feel depressed.

Here is a good article about CBT and SAD
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051029095458.htm

You could get a book and do the exercises from there, I've even found them online. I'd like to get more direction for it, as in counselling or group, but in the meantime its not stopping me from starting at home. I need all the help I can get, and it is helping some.

Are there really no people who have tried CBT? I thought it was esp. big in the UK, sometimes too big, like when they try to foist in on people w/ ME/CFS. But that's a whole nother thread...

Jeanne

At least its pretty soon now, but that's a crazy wait. Why not start it on your own though? A book can be extrememly helpful.


Jeanne

However,if it helps you,then go for it!

Hadrian,

It does compartmentalize things, but that's for the sake of organizing the methods into categories that we can learn and use as tools to help us cope and to give us new ways of seeing and dealing w/ things.

Because you are the one to do the exercises, you bring your own personal history to it when you apply the tools you've learned to yourself. Maybe it depends on the books you've read too. I've known of CBT for at least a decade and read different stuff from different authors. I was turned off by cold and impersonal attitudes from certain authors too. This author, David Burns MD, is much warmer and puts so much into helping his patients he's actually given his home number. He also gives lots of individual life examples to layer his dryer explanations.

I was very turned off at first too, because he believes that our moods and reactions to things always cause our depressions. Though I disagreed strenously, I agreed not to throw the baby out w/ the bathwater based on that and was more impressed as I kept reading and actually gave the exercises a go. I have a notebook handy and tend to use it in the morning when depression is the worst and I'm hoping to turn it around. Its helping a great deal, because my negative thoughts aren't bouncing around in my head all day w/ me not knowing how to cope w/ them. I write them out and then write some solution or self defense if its a self critism, something I can believe and that brings me hope and relief.

If it works for you Jeanne,then great!