Tag: psychology

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on Mad in the UK in May 2019, we are reposting some of our favourite blogs over...

It feels challenging to commit to a lifetime process of self-reflection and self-improvement when someone is offering you an easy way out.

It’s not dangerous to think. The idea that it is, which underlies CBT, has a long line of proponents, from the Spanish Inquisitors to Soviet Russia, who would be only too happy to see it advanced. Humans love to shut down other people’s minds, especially the minds of the most hurting and vulnerable, which are often the most interesting.  

Our system fails because it colludes with social structures that themselves generate harmful ways of being in the world. The sector at best sedates these states while at the same time exonerates harmful social arrangements by over-emphasising the so-called internal and disordered causes of structural distress.  

Sami Timimi explores the common factors that influence therapy’s success, the evidence base for psychotherapy, and the over-promotion of CBT.