دار بيبليون
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Spiritual Psychology. Notes from a Video Conference by Lwiis Saliba on Zoom, Wednesday 11/20/2024
At the beginning of this presentation, I would like to return to a personal experience that was reported to me by one of the viewers of the previous conference. We mentioned the words of Aaron Tim Beck (1921-2021), founder of the school of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) who said: “People do not feel anxious or emotional because of what happens to them, but rather because of their interpretation of these events”. This listener told me that this observation was enough for him to change his strategy in his self-treatment and the confrontation of a deep-rooted and persistent emotion that causes him a lot of pain: Anger. He added by explaining: I simply worked to change my interpretation and understanding of the harmful and insulting words or behaviors coming from others. Instead of seeing them as an insult and contempt for me, I began to consider it coming from a person who lacks wisdom and I should not care about his words or actions, etc. And so instead of getting angry and irritated by what he says or does, I became sarcastic or indifferent, thus sparing myself a tantrum that gets on my nerves.
Indeed, the formula proposed by the school of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is worth contemplating and experimenting with, namely: “Change your beliefs and you will change your life.” These are of course practical beliefs and behavioral concepts. For example, if we adopt the non-violence approach taught by Gautama Buddha or Jesus, we will spare ourselves many emotions and reactions of “honor and dignity” and other considerations that are dictated to us by our ego and our inferiority or superiority complexes, which cause us much suffering, anxiety and other negative emotions.
The authors of the book “Break Free from OCD” deal with obsessive-compulsive rumination, which is a disease of people who are panicked and anxious about harming their loved ones, like a mother who is plagued by obsessive thoughts of smothering her child! They first see this anxiety about doing harm alone as proof that one will not do it (p. 271): “Unfortunately, most people who commit horrible crimes do not worry about their thoughts of harm and do not spend much time trying not to do bad things.” This is the same mechanism as obsessions. A person’s anxiety about these thoughts that he considers bad, his fear and his persistent attempts to expel them from his mind, all this only increases their urgency, and the effective solution is not to pay attention to them (p. 271): “Most people have fleeting thoughts that revolve around harm, and although they find them a little unpleasant, they do not worry about them at all.” In this regard, the authors explain and prescribe a remedy (p. 77): “If you have thoughts associated with violence or evil, it may seem difficult to believe that they are not inherently bad. You just don’t want to have them (…) It is your engagement with the thought that makes it difficult to deal with.” In fact (p. 169): “It is natural and inevitable that harmful thoughts, images, and doubts will come to me, and trying to get rid of them only makes them more prominent and important. Repressing the thoughts only generates more of them.” Thus, the afflicted person becomes (p. 192): “Like someone digging out of a hole! All he has to do is stop taking his thoughts seriously and stop trying to understand or justify them!” » Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi has a golden piece of advice that echoes what these psychotherapists say: “Don’t take your thoughts seriously, because you are not a prisoner to them.” The authors go on to explain (p. 193): “Treat fears as fears, not as indicators of impending danger.” For treating OCD (p. 195), they advise: “No to trying to push the thoughts out of my mind, yes to ignoring the thoughts.”
The most important treatment for OCD and other types of obsessions remains (p. 210): “Behavioral treatments for OCD, sometimes called Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP), are based on the principle that anxiety can be habituated over time.”
The authors explain (p. 202): “If you do things differently, you will realize that your OCD has been lying and intimidating you all along.” To illustrate their point, the authors give a simple and very telling example (p. 203): “Like a tyrant, the threat of misfortune is so terrifying that the person continues to pay the price. OCD blackmails you over time (…) It’s scary to stand up to a bully at first, but OCD is like most bullies: threats are just threats, and if you stand up to them, the bully becomes powerless.” (Like the singer, do you give me dinner or do I do like my father once did?)
The authors look at diseases and disorders related to OCD. The first and most important is depression (p. 297): “Depression often results from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). The amount of restriction and confusion caused by OCD means that most people with OCD have a secondary depression.”
The second is health anxiety, which is an excessive preoccupation with health and fear of illness (p. 303): “Health anxiety is similar to OCD. But what distinguishes health anxiety is that the person monitors his or her body for symptoms and attempts to self-diagnose.”
The third is phobia, panic or unjustified phobias, and just as phobias are treated with a contraphobic attitude, OCD is treated with a contraphobic.
The fourth is perfectionism or obsession with perfection (p. 292): “Compulsive people tend to be obsessed with perfection… Perfectionism makes one more obsessive.”
This is a tendency that must be explained in relation to obsessions (p. 56): “A large number of beliefs are strongly linked to OCD: the need to be perfect is one of them.”
The authors continue (pp. 64-65): “The problem arises when perfectionism is not a source of satisfaction, but a constant source of fear. In the case of OCD, we believe that we are responsible for doing everything well, and this becomes the center of things. In short, people who suffer from psychological distress are people who set high standards for what they think they should achieve, and instead of feeling satisfied if they achieve what they want, they live in fear of not achieving these standards.”
They go on to emphasize the need for self-compassion (p. 66): “If you’re always criticizing yourself, telling yourself that you’re terrible and bad and stupid because you keep making the same mistakes, it can reinforce OCD and make it more vicious.” Buddhist psychology offers similar advice: “Don’t judge yourself harshly. Without self-compassion, you can’t love the world.” And in Christianity it is said: “Love begins with oneself and then extends to others.” (Saliba, Lwiis, Thus the Buddha Taught, p. 162). The authors strongly condemn self-cruelty as the main cause of loss of self-confidence (p. 66): “Many of us criticize ourselves based on the implicit view we have of ourselves. This self-criticism has its origins in childhood or in early experiences that have been reinforced over time by harsh self-criticism. But over time, the negative judgment we make of ourselves weakens our self-confidence.” Although the types of obsessive-compulsive disorder vary and change over time and space, the basis remains the same and therefore the treatment remains the same: Exposure and Response Prevention (p. 174): “Although obsessive-compulsive disorder presents itself in different forms, the essence of OCD is the same in all cases, even if the details vary. It is important to understand how OCD works in each type to see how it might work in your case.” The patient remains primarily responsible and the one who will make the bulk of the therapeutic effort (p. 75): “There is no other way to treat OCD; overcoming it, with or without the help of a specialist, must be done through the patient’s own efforts, toil, tears and sweat.” In this they join our Master the wise Swami Vijayananda who said: “The best psychotherapy is that which we ourselves do on ourselves through meditation.”