and a description of the sort of things I experienced with CBT:
By mummytosteven on Friday, 11 March, 2005 7:20:53 PM
if you do get accepted for NHS CBT, waiting list is quite likely to be in the region of 18 months, unfortunately.
what I had by way of CBT was for two separate things
1)CBT for OCD
2)CBT for depression/anxiety/low self-esteem
For OCD, it was cognitive in terms of getting me to look at attitudes towards risk and responsibility more realistically, and behavioural in terms of me reducing compulsive handwashing
For Depression etc, it was something called Schema Therapy. I only really did that specific therapy as I wanted to carry on with the same guy I saw for the OCD, (apparently it is usually longer term, for people worse off than me). I found it very helpful as it focussed on how you had an unrealistic view of yourself, and have developed unhealthy thoughts/behaviour patterns due to that, and how to break out of the pattern. One of the things I did with my therapist was looking at things on a "continuum" - i.e. rating certain statements about myself between 1 and 100, like how good a mother I was, and then working through why I felt I was doing stuff wrong, what I should be expecting of myself etc.
So that instead of when something goes wrong/someone says something critical of going off into a long fret/thinking I am crap/useles/failure etc that I am aware of what I am doing and can stop myself "wallowing" in self-criticism.
sorry for that long ramble, hope you find something useful in there