Image Not Found On Media Library

River Street, Blue Building
5690-970 New York City

GET CONNECTED
INSTAGRAM FEED
Instagram connection not available.
TOOLKIT
Image Not Found On Media Library

Type and hit ENTER
Hi Mark, Do you have an email list you can subscribe to? Thanks for all of the great content. AUTHOR: John AUTHOR EMAIL: johnmchenry4@gmail.com AUTHOR URL: SUBJECT: markfreeman.ca Contact Form IP: 98.122.164.68 Array ( [1_Name] => John [2_Email] => johnmchenry4@gmail.com [3_Message] => Hi Mark, Do you have an email list you can subscribe to? Thanks for all of the great content. [entry_title] => Contact [entry_permalink] => https://www.markfreeman.ca/contact/ [feedback_id] => 2ac250ef4cfa0b349ab4329506168cf1 )
Image Not Found On Media Library
  • Coaching
  • Keynotes
  • Journal
  • Books
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED
  • Home
  • Journal
  • Coaching
  • Keynotes
  • Books
  • Brain School
  • Contact
Be yourself, Mental Health Care, System Transformation

The Internet Killed Traditional CBT

June 22, 2016
-
Posted by Mark

When I was doing Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) therapy for OCD, it was very behavior-focused. It was all about progressively cutting out compulsions, starting from the easiest and working up to the most difficult. Although ERP is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), it’s generally heavier on the B than the C. But it’s not uncommon for a therapist to incorporate cognitive techniques as well, like adding up the evidence for or against a thought and trying to see, “rationally”, that the intrusive thought or worry isn’t “true” or “real” or particularly likely to happen. My therapist tried to help me with that a couple of times, especially with compulsions I had around preventing fire. But that only ever made me more convinced that my anxieties were true. If I had any doubt that laptops didn’t spontaneously combust and burn houses down, all I had to do was go online and I could find multiple stories to back up my fears. I didn’t even need to search for the stories. Visiting any news site or scrolling through Facebook ensured my brain was fed on a steady stream of terribly improbable but terribly real terrible events.

The Internet makes everything possible. You’re sucking on a fire hose of real evidence for every imaginable fear. Have an unusual pain in your gut? You can send yourself to the hospital armed with support from Dr. Google that it’s probably cancer, maybe you need your appendix out, and you’ve got a parasite living inside of you. Feel the flu coming on? You’ve got HIV now (maybe ebola). Left your laptop plugged in and worry it’ll catch on fire and burn your home down? You can spend the rest of the day reading about that, like this story: Charger catches fire! Or this one about a Macbook that caught fire and sent a guy to the ER with burned hands: My Macbook caught fire (note that the story says the original owner is now deceased… Coincidence? I think not.) And this one would have sent me into a compulsion spiral back in the day because the laptop wasn’t even plugged in when it caught on fire and melted a hole in the laundry basket: Macbook caught fire — with happy ending! And let’s not forget about that iPhone that caught fire on an Alaska Airlines flight in March earlier this year: Girl’s iPhone bursts into flames mid-flight: ‘I thought we were going down’ When “eight inch flames” started shooting out of the phone, she wisely tossed it under another passenger’s seat. Not my problem now… EVERYBODY PANIC.

When CBT was being developed back in the 80s, and even as it gained in popularity in the 90s, patients simply did not have the data available to them that they can gather today.

In the 90s, if a patient came in and said, “Everybody hates me,” the therapist could try to help them see that’s a “distorted” thought. They could add up the evidence to show them that everybody doesn’t really hate them. They could help them change that thought to change how they feel — a basic practice of traditional CBT. But now, if a patient comes in and says, “Everybody hates me,” and the therapist tries to help them see that’s not rational, the patient can pull out their phone, bring up Instagram, and show their therapist a selfie under which every member of their class has said far worse things than “I hate you.” That patient could be under a constant barrage of cyberbullying. That’s data. To an anxious brain, that’s deadly data.

Objectively, those cyberbullies are jerks and that patient probably isn’t hated by everybody. But my point is, doing CBT will be significantly more difficult because of the context in which that patient operates. Old-school CBT wasn’t designed for the Internet Age. The patient and the therapist need to be aware of that. Newer forms of CBT, the so-called “third wave” of behavioral and cognitive therapies, like Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, etc, are arguably more equipped to handle a world of infinite possibilities because they emphasize accepting experiences rather than trying to categorize them into tiny rational and irrational boxes.

Like many tools that haven’t survived the last 20 years, traditional CBT doesn’t scale well. It doesn’t equip people to handle the data available to them.

In the summer of 2015, a paper published in the Psychological Bulletin, analyzed 70 studies on CBT conducted between 1977 and 2014, and found that CBT was decreasing in effectiveness. There are likely multiple reasons for this — placebo effect, incompetent therapists, etc — but into that mix of factors, we also need to consider that the environment has changed drastically. In the past, before the Internet, if you went to your therapist and said, “I’m afraid my electronics are going to catch fire if I leave them plugged in,” she could have helped you see that’s not something that’s happened to anybody you know. It’s extremely unlikely. There’s no evidence that it happens. She might have suggested you label that as an “irrational thought” or an “OCD thought”. It’s false. But now, you can go back up to some of those links I posted earlier — they’re on forums — and you can reach out to the people to whom it actually happened. You can get to “know” them. And then, when you go into your therapist’s office, and she asks you how likely this is, you can say, “It’s happened to a couple of people I know.”

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Events, System Transformation

Shanghai and the changing world of manufacturing

June 28, 2017
-
Posted by Mark

I was in Shanghai to participate in a meeting on the future of manufacturing. It had been …

Read More
June 28, 2017
Posted by Mark
Be yourself, Testimonials

How I Finally Recovered From OCD

March 4, 2017
-
Posted by Mark

I had watched Mark’s videos over and over again, especially my favorite one, “How to Deal With Intrusive Thoughts”. …

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Read More
March 4, 2017
Posted by Mark
System Transformation, Workshops

A workshop on cybersecurity and the usefulness of ACT

April 29, 2018
-
Posted by Mark

Back in the fall of last year I was facilitating a workshop with Syntegrity Group and IEEE …

Read More
April 29, 2018
Posted by Mark
← PREVIOUS POST
Interview with The OCD Stories Podcast
NEXT POST →
There are no OCD sub types or themes. Only OCD (and llamas).

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

ABOUT ME
Author. Coach. Facilitator. CEO at TOOLKIT. I create tools that help people make and sustain difficult changes.
TOOLKIT HQ

And this is a good mug. Click the image to grab yours from the Toolkit Store. FREE SHIPPING through the holidays. I can verify that it does an exceptional job at hold coffee, tea, Red Bull, water, and kombucha. Goes excellent with cookies and donuts (sold separately).

SEARCH
FOLLOW ALONG
RECENT POSTS
  • Online Mental Health Writing Workshop
    January 11, 2021

    I’m teaching another round of my writing workshop! The Write Your Brain mental …

  • Life after recovery
    November 19, 2020

    I always enjoy collaborating with OCD UK because they have such a helpful …

  • The Tune-Up on Twitch – Mental Health Recovery Q&A
    October 10, 2020

    Bring your brain by the Toolkit Shop for the Tune-Up twice each month …

  • What is quality treatment for OCD and Anxiety Disorders?
    March 10, 2020

    One of the reasons I originally started to share about mental health and …

  • 5 Tips for Taking Mental Health Workshops Online
    June 20, 2019

    I’ve been facilitating workshops for years, in mental health and business strategy. Adapting …

POPULAR TAGS
recovery
OCD
anxiety
mental health
video
Acceptance
compulsions
therapy
mental illness
change
psychology
skills
fear
systems thinking
mindfulness
treatment
workshop
Everybody has a Brain
practice
meditation
design thinking
work
intrusive thoughts
travel
blogging
Vintage
Trends
Shopping
Party
Music
Social
LifeStyle
Kids
Family
CBT
stigma
Love
Exposure & Response Prevention
ACT
health
mental health at work
goals
lived experience
peer support
interview
Knives out. Dice up a recovery salad. #mentalhea Knives out. Dice up a recovery salad. 

#mentalhealth #tweet #recovery #knives #anxiety #psychology #therapy #mindfulness #cooking #mentalhealthawareness #recoveryispossible #contamination #OCD #health #recoveryquotes
You don't have to listen to your brain's reasons! You don't have to listen to your brain's reasons! This isn't different. You know it was going to pull this trick. Where do you want to go? What do you want to give your time and energy to?

#mindfulness #recovery #mentalhealthquote #mentalfitness #stress #reasons #thinking #psychology #addiction #anxiety #fear #control #compulsions #habits
This also applies if it did happen. You can do stu This also applies if it did happen. You can do stuff differently up there!

#thinking #ruminating #brain #mindfulness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthnotes #quote #reminder #psychology #therapy #recovery #cognitive #acceptance #fear #anxiety #control #writing #brain #writersofinstagram
From last night's Twitch stream exploring examples From last night's Twitch stream exploring examples of Exposure Therapy vs ERP vs ACT. No actual cookies were harmed in the making of this theoretical example. Obviously, in reality, you would gather up every crumb of that cookie and eat it (while contacting the closeness of death and the wonders of life in that moment).

#mindfulness #ERP #ACT #recovery #therapy #psychology #science #cookies #Twitch #acceptance #death #stoicism #reality #life #mentalfitness #fear #anxiety
Don't turn into a ruminating centipede. It'll feel Don't turn into a ruminating centipede. It'll feel like you're going somewhere. If you just think a little more about it, you'll finally solve it! But not really...

Illustration by @pupik.love

#ruminating #illustration #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #thinking #mindful #mindfulness #happiness #psychology #therapy #mentalhealthart
Don't get stuck on the smelly pile of crap this we Don't get stuck on the smelly pile of crap this week. Yes, it smells. Yes, it's a crap disorder. Yes, you hate it and want to chase solutions to make it go away. But focus on changing the big systems producing the pile of crap symptoms you hate. What's feeding that system?

#mentalfitness #mentalhealth #Twitch #psychology #recovery #anxiety #intrusivethoughts #fear #depression #diagram  #mentalhealthnotes #science #TOOLKIT
Closure smosure. We have experiences that are pain Closure smosure. We have experiences that are painful. We can touch that pain, be honest about it. It can be painful and we can do things in the present that matter to us. It can be painful and we can make choices in the present that align with what we value, that create and build the things we want to see in the world.

#recovery #regret #fear #pain #mentalhealthnotes #mentalhealth #psychology #mindfulness #emotions #community #closure #falsememory #guilt
You still trying to avoid human experiences? How's You still trying to avoid human experiences? How's that working out for you?

#recovery #psychology #mentalhealth #therapy #mentalhealthquotes #ocd #pureo #fear #phobia #erp #mindfulness #mentalfitness #mentalhealthmatters
All of the stuff you're doing in your head: that's All of the stuff you're doing in your head: that's practice. Whatever you're doing up there, you're getting skilled at that. What do you want to get skilled at today?

#mindfulness #recovery #mentalhealthnotes #mentalfitness #practice #judgment #nonjudgment #psychology #fitness #skill #focus #goals
You don't wait to feel strong before lifting weigh You don't wait to feel strong before lifting weights. The strength comes after, and even then, you'll just keep on pursuing more exercises that make you feel weak, that make you sweat and gasp for breath. You go towards the difficult experience. You fuel that and support that. So why would you take the opposite approach with emotions?

#mentalfitness #emotions #mentalhealthnotes #psychology #sweat #fitness #recovery #weightlifting #failure #success #anxiety #socialanxiety #fear #depression #love #guilt #mindfulness
If I’m trying to be optimistic that good things If I’m trying to be optimistic that good things will happen, I’ve actually thrown away any power I have. I’ll need things I don’t control to magically turn out in my favor. It’s a lottery mentality.

So I bring power back to me. I’m optimistic that I will learn and build skills to handle the dumpster fire in a shit storm that is this world. I will practice skills and nourish my needs so I’m prepared for whatever happens. I want challenging situations that don’t go “right” so I can learn to handle them. I’m optimistic about my capacity to try new things, to discover limits, to enforce boundaries, and make difficult changes that help me thrive in any situation.

#mentalhealth #happiness #optimism #positivethinking #lawofattraction #recovery #fear #anxiety #mentalhealthquotes #psychology #goals #fitness #sweat #challenges #life #reminder #mentalfitness
It is so useful to recognize how seemingly "normal It is so useful to recognize how seemingly "normal" checking and controlling fuels the symptoms we hate. If you're struggling with things like derealization / depersonalization, or fears around sexuality, losing your mind, developing psychosis, and anything else that involves losing control of you and your identity, look broadly at how you interact with uncertainty in your life. The brain is simply being logical. If I react to uncertainty about a door lock, or an email, how can I not react to an uncertainty about my existence?! The time we spend on uncertainties that don't trouble us much is what causes the uncertainties that do trouble us.

#uncertainty #fear #anxiety #depersonalization #derealization #recovery #checking #YouTube #pureo #ruminating #realization #mentalhealth #mentalfitness #mentalhealthquotes #psychology

LATEST TWEETS
Twitter
thepathtochange
Follow
RT @MorganCShields: If you were hospitalized in a psychiatric unit/hospital within the past 5 years, please consider taking our survey and/…
5 hours ago
- thepathtochange
It's easier to create change from a place of seeing ourselves as whole (instead of holes to fix and fill). We can… https://t.co/CAiUygpMg6
10 hours ago
- thepathtochange
@PsychNiles Created it.
12 hours ago
- thepathtochange
The fact we see so many (or any) studies like this, where a placebo delivers greater improvement than a drug, doesn… https://t.co/al9bFthYQJ
15 hours ago
- thepathtochange
RECENT POSTS
  • January 11, 2021
    Online Mental Health Writing Workshop
  • November 19, 2020
    Life after recovery
  • October 10, 2020
    The Tune-Up on Twitch – Mental Health Recovery Q&A
  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME
  • GET IN TOUCH
  • BUY SHOUT THEME
MADE IN PORTUGAL. WITH LOVE.
The Internet Killed Traditional CBT | MARK FREEMAN