[tony]

Hi,

I have read the book and thought it was excellent and feel I could relate to a lot of what you said.

I did most of the exercises and scored badly in probably all of them. For example the one at the end of chapter 1 I had all S for survial and none for happiness.

The only thing now is knowing exactly what to do about it. I have had some kind of therapy before and soon realised that I have perhaps always suffered from some kind of stress,(i'm 23 now) this shocked me a lot at first as it was something I had never realised at all.

However, you say your trigger was the loss of your mother which I can understand, yet nothing really bad ever happened to me. My parents got divorced when I was 14 which I suppose tipped me over the edge and put me into a life of drink, drugs and very unstable life which I have led since then but I can remember always being like that its just that was the catalyst to set me off in a much worse state.

Since then I have developed a horrible form of Ocd which is driving me mad at the minute and a very high level of anxiety. I've tried numerous times to get my life back on track by doing numerous things getting jobs, girlfriends, starting college, giving up alcohol, yoga etc etc but each time i've ended up back where I started at and I feel like giving up at the minute. I've also started to self harm and feel the need to cut myself most days with a knife although I know I wouldn't kill myself at the minute.

I have been referred to cognitve behaviour therapy by the nhs so hopefully some good will come of that, what do people think? Having read the book I feel I may benifit more from pyschotherapy but i'm not sure, as I dont think just changing my thoughts would do me any good.

What does everyone think of my post? I'd be interested to hear any replies (esp Benjamin, if you have time) if not any feedback would be helpful.

thanks

[Benjamin Fry]

Iím sorry to hear of your difficulties. I hope that you have been able to confide in your NHS doctor about your self harm. It is important that this is known about by another person who you can see in person. Perhaps this is why you have been referred to CBT. CBT is used by the NHS largely because it offers the possibility of targeted measurable results in a relatively short space of time. This makes administrators happy.

Iíd tend to agree with you that longer term contentment would be gained from a more robust course of psychotherapy. Have a look at this post for a very good discussion of the issue.

Let me know if you need any more help after reading that.

[tony]

Thanks for the reply.

I've managed to start some therapy so hopefully this should help me out. I'd mention it on here but i'm not sure if it would be allowed or not. My therapist said to me my problems will be due to some kind of trapped emotion (s) which sounded similar to the book so hopefully it should work or at least help. At the minute I have to keep a diary of when i get worse and write down any emotions I am feeling and things along those lines.

Sorry if i have sent it to your pm box my mistake