Sometimes people are skeptical about cognitive behavioral therapy and my dedication to learning such a manualized approach to psychotherapy. Perhaps, they think, it is an overly rationalist way of looking at human experience.
CBT does NOT tell us not to feel our feelings. It tells us to interrogate the thoughts that precede those feelings to determine if they are in accordance with “reality” as we perceive it. Maybe you have a thought that you are unlovable or unworthy. A careful comparison between those thoughts and your experiences may lead to the conclusion that you have often felt unloved and that you have concluded that you therefore are unlovable. You can probably see the shortcoming of this conclusion. That does not mean you will never feel the longing and hurt that feeling unloved yields, but it may mean that you no longer feel the hopelessness that comes with anticipating a future devoid of love.
Still, CBT is not a panacea and it is important that we avoid believing that ANYTHING is. But we have to start somewhere, and much thought, care and research has gone into crafting this method of treatment. Once I become an expert at administering this treatment, I am certain that I will continue to use a myriad of tools to help my clients. But I’d be foolish to think I can come up with something on my own, out of whole cloth, without at least trying to learn from the wise minds who have come before me in my field.
It reminds me of jazz. There is a style of jazz called Free Jazz - it involves playing notes “outside” the scales that are usually used in the genre. It sounds wild and unfettered, almost noisy. But to the trained ear, it is more than just noise because its practitioners first learned standards and scales and modes and learned to play “inside.” They did not just pick up instruments and start playing haphazardly.
Don’t believe that a therapist who came up with his or her own method is necessarily better. That therapist might not be a free jazz player; (s)he might just be playing around with his or her instrument. You don’t want that done with your mind. Training can be restrictive, but not if one keeps an open mind.