There are many, many reasons to be upset about the state of the world, but the purpose of CBT is similar to the purpose of stoicism. It is not meant to teach someone how to interface with society, but with themselves. Managing one’s emotional state by managing their cognitive state. This is a valuable skill to have even if in the midst of the apocalypse.
Even if you can change other people, generally speaking you can’t do it right here right now, so CBT is best served to interrupt or redirect cyclical thought processes that can’t actually motivate someone toward any positive outcome.
Having the thought - “This is fucked and I’m going to do X, Y, and Z” - is healthy.
Having the thought - “this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked” - on repeat in your head when you can’t currently do X, Y, or Z, is not. CBT is meant to help someone break out of the latter, not the former.
There are many, many reasons to be upset about the state of the world, but the purpose of CBT is similar to the purpose of stoicism. It is not meant to teach someone how to interface with society, but with themselves.
Nobody cares for the most part about the intended purpose at the end of the day, they care about the actual impact which is that CBT is a convenient framing to exclude the non-individualist reasons people are miserable.
CBT is a convenient framing to exclude the non-individualist reasons people are miserable.
The rest of my comment addresses this - again, this isn’t how CBT works. CBT does not say “if you constantly feel bad, it’s your fault, not society’s”.
It’s just a strategy to manage unproductive and unhealthy negative thoughts, not negative thoughts in general. It’s totally healthy to feel anger, grief, sadness, etc in response to all types of things. If someone is telling you otherwise, they’re not performing CBT.
There are many, many reasons to be upset about the state of the world, but the purpose of CBT is similar to the purpose of stoicism. It is not meant to teach someone how to interface with society, but with themselves. Managing one’s emotional state by managing their cognitive state. This is a valuable skill to have even if in the midst of the apocalypse.
Even if you can change other people, generally speaking you can’t do it right here right now, so CBT is best served to interrupt or redirect cyclical thought processes that can’t actually motivate someone toward any positive outcome.
Having the thought - “This is fucked and I’m going to do X, Y, and Z” - is healthy.
Having the thought - “this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked this is fucked” - on repeat in your head when you can’t currently do X, Y, or Z, is not. CBT is meant to help someone break out of the latter, not the former.
Nobody cares for the most part about the intended purpose at the end of the day, they care about the actual impact which is that CBT is a convenient framing to exclude the non-individualist reasons people are miserable.
The rest of my comment addresses this - again, this isn’t how CBT works. CBT does not say “if you constantly feel bad, it’s your fault, not society’s”.
It’s just a strategy to manage unproductive and unhealthy negative thoughts, not negative thoughts in general. It’s totally healthy to feel anger, grief, sadness, etc in response to all types of things. If someone is telling you otherwise, they’re not performing CBT.