This boils down one of the most important issues with CBT: the unquestioned idea that the psychologist can tell what thoughts are appropriate or inappropriate in the context of the patient's reality. THREAD (1/)
Health anxiety often highlights the problem with this. If you are chronically ill, how often should you be thinking about it, and to what intensity? Often, newly diagnosed patients seem 'obsessed' to those who have a casual or zero understanding of disability. (2/)
Yet an intense focus when we're still trying to figure out what does and doesn't work for us is a natural & healthy reaction to the often intense onset of disability caused by chronic illness. (3/)
The 'health anxiety' narrative seems to be because the abled find panic inconvenient and messy. I guarantee you that if they were to become ill, they would be worried too, & they would not be happy to have their concern minimized as though it had no rational origin. (4/)
Then there is 'catastrophizing'. To what degree is this based, again, on the CBT practitioner reframing what they hear within their own, abled experience of the world? (5/)
"I would not be worried about being rushed off to the ER but not receiving care; therefore, your expectation is irrational" is..... a weird and unhelpful frame. (6/6)
Translation in Spanish:
