CBT

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I like the holistic attitude of William James. Reminds me of Gardner's take on "intelligence."

I'm with you on this, B19.

I would dispense with the "spiritual" aspects of James' philosophy as well.

Actually, this is pretty similar to a more philosophical problem of other minds (in fact, perhaps parts of CBT have their root in this). Are other people as conscious as I am? Or are they literally just robots? The whole "selfie generation" begs that question, to be honest (sound pretentious?).

This is an interesting discussion.

Adamantium, you wrote:

"That whole Skinnerian line was behind the worst psychiatric abuses of the CIA experiments."

The current parallel -psychologists colluding with politics - is the psychologists who are voluntarily working at Guantanomo Bay, colluding with the practices of torture there which are in breach of the Geneva Convention. The American Psychological Association's stated rules for governing practice standards have been specifically breached by this, and they have refused to act on complaints from other members, refuse to discipline or to deregister the culprits, APA have refused to do anything at all. Go figure...

"Nevertheless, I think there is some good in look closely at the distorted thoughts that come with deep depression and challenging them and CBT offers a method to do that".

I can see what you are saying, and yes, the alleviation of deep depression - who would not want that, only the most miserable of Scrooges. The thing is though, that the distorted thoughts are more likely to be an effect rather than a cause, and treating effects as a "cure" in depression worries me. For example: unemployed people who are depressed because they being beaten up by a partner (DV) and believe it's too dangerous to them, their children and pets to speak up about the abuse? I know you personally wouldn't for a moment approve of "curing" their thoughts about their plight in that way - you are far too humane for that - but that's what actually can and does happen when you let poorly/partly trained "practitioners" act out government policy which is not client centred at all, in the service of government policies.

In the past, UK governments were stern critics of the USSR for treating political dissidents as psychiatrically ill and forcing them to have "treatment". From my perspective, there are parallels to what is happening now in the UK, it alarms me.

I find your response to be clear-headed, Waterfalls.

Do you feel more confident than a few days ago?

I have a pretty bad toothache; I'll probably have to get the tooth extracted, and a bridge put in.

Otherwise: I'm all right.

The Tylenol and Advil I'm taking has helped matters considerably.

An issue I see with CBT for mild depression due to job hunting woes is that it pathologises a normal emotion. Negative emotions are normal and healthy in response to bad situations. If it's actually challenging thought patterns such as "I'll never find a job" "there's nothing I can do" and "I'm useless", then I can see it being useful, but it will be less useful if the approach taken is "your faulty thought patterns are the only thing stopping you from finding a job".

You have to take positive steps to get a job--especially these days. Negative thoughts have a way of "disinspiring" people from making the effort. Then it becomes a cycle...then the Blame Game starts.....