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Put an end to the abusive use of psychotropic drugs and psychotherapies

We first expose the fundamental importance and very widely ignored by the infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance in terms of psychic illness. This triangle is presented to the question 'What is cognitive dissonance?'that we invite you to read beforehand.
We will then succinctly present the psychic mechanisms at work in two effective and sufficient psychotherapy in the general case.

Let us list the different modalities of action of the oppressor individual A on the victim B, in an infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance:

These three sources of oppression correspond to the expression of an individual's omnipotence at the social, physical, and intellectual levels respectively.
In the remainder of this document, we will speak, by extension, of the infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance, when an aggressor A creates psychological suffering in a victim B, even in the absence of complacent individuals C.

When they exist, the deleterious effect of complacent individuals C on victim B is absolutely not negligible. Indeed, to maintain the lie to oneself which preserves the alliance of the complacent C with the aggressor A, C needs to convince the victim B of the truth of this lie, therefore will create confusion among B, which will result by an existential malaise, all the more easily since C is experienced and highly intelligent and B is young. C becomes by force of circumstances an A using the third modality.

The MeToo movement has made us aware of the extent of inappropriate sexual gestures. Furthermore, both in terms of sexual assaults linked to the world of cinema, as well as those perpetrated within the Catholic Church, society has become aware of the key role played by those who know and say nothing. We have a triangle A aggressor, B victim, C complacent with A.
However, MeToo only concerns sexual assault, which as we have just seen, is only a small part of the sources of oppression. Denial, namely the refusal to take a fact into account, is a much more general problem in our society. It causes the same type of problems as sexual assault when it is not reported, namely the internalization of the fault in the victim, and the loss of bearings linked to the action of complacent individuals, with all its psychological consequences. harmful.

At the political level, the pressure to make others accept an untruth or reproduce behavior that they consider inappropriate has been particularly strong in communist countries where lies are almost absolute. At the domestic and professional level, this problem is currently universal and probably represents nothing less than the main source of psychological unhappiness bypassed instead of being treated.

Faced with psychological suffering, it is appropriate to proceed methodically:

1. Is the cause organic?
The primary search for an organic cause is the basis taught during psychiatry studies, and the justification for psychiatrists to also be doctors.

2. Are we in the presence of an infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance (with the presence of C individuals or not)?
In this case, it is a question of identifying it, explicitly denouncing it at a minimum, and entering into struggle if possible. We could describe the implementation of this stage as nothing less than the largest mental health project of the 21st century. Indeed, although this infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance is present everywhere, this stage is today avoided, in particular at the level of highlighting complacent individuals C, to go directly to stage 3 or 4.

3. Psychotropic drugs artificially change our brain chemistry.
The limit of psychotropic drugs is that they reduce psychological discomfort without drying up the source, just as painkillers reduce physical discomfort without curing the illness. The problem with psychotropic drugs, just like that of painkillers, is the side effects.

4. Psychotherapies far too often seek to act like psychotropic drugs. They forget that the basic action should be that of step 2, namely to highlight, denounce and combat the infernal triangles of cognitive dissonance. In doing so, they contribute to gradually locking the individual into a harmful spiral of denial of reality and compensation, without confronting the real problems at the source.

Finally, let's return once again to the infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance, and study the effect of complacent C on victim B in the domestic context. A C has an interest in victim B using psychotropic drugs or psychotherapies as opposed to highlighting the infernal triangle of cognitive dissonance. He will therefore not hesitate to intrigue for this. Indeed, if the triangle is identified and denounced, then C finds himself once again faced with his own cognitive dissonance, with an injunction to action which endangers his relationship with A, something he does not have the courage for. See question 'What is an adult?'.
At the professional level, it's the same thing, but the psychotherapies are administered by coaches, and psychotropic drugs are requested by the victims to "hold on".

Once this preamble has established that the use of psychotherapy should not be a way to get around the necessary fight against injustice, we can present two serious psychotherapies.
To understand their mode of operation, it is necessary to master the notion of cutting of our psyche into two strata. These strata, presented in the article Should you listen to your emotions? On the one hand, the cognitivo-affective system are on the one hand, and on the other hand reason.

Cognitivo-behavioral therapy (in cognitive English Behaviour Therapy or CBT or simply CT)

Please note: cognitive therapies exist under multiple variants which are not equal. Here we refer to the 'Cognitive Behaviour Therapy' method as formalized by Aaron T. Beck.

Its therapeutic principle is as follows: contemporary science has established that memory is not a reliable and stable recording system of the events that we have experienced. In particular, each time we remember an event, it is re-recorded, reinforced, slightly modified, we could say just as well polluted as they are corrected, by our state of mind of the moment, and our knowledge acquired after this event. This mechanism was established during the multiple studies which were carried out to determine the reliability of the sometimes contradictory testimonies of witnesses, in judicial affairs.

The Beck method therefore consists in asking the patient to formulate the thoughts that come spontaneously (expression of what we have called the cognitivo-affective system), and literally pass them to the filter of reason, so that they re-register in a less intrusive form for the individual. The questioning of these thoughts mainly relates to generalization in terms of content and time that the cognitivo-affective system tends to perform. The generalization in terms of content can take the form of traumatic elements faces to which we have been powerless that we generalize in a 'I am a' existential. Generalization in time consists in assuming that the same causes will always produce the same effects, therefore that we will always be helpless if we have been helpless in the past in the face of certain events.

In Beck's cognitive-behavioral therapy, the art of the therapist consists on the one hand to cut magma from negative thoughts in multiple small elements that can be effectively challenged after the other, where the whole of a single blow would not produce a result, and on the other hand to work the reason of the patient instead of trying to convince him.

At the beginning of the 21st century, CBT therapy tends to include elements of ACT therapy, in particular in the form of the importance given more only to the negative thoughts of the individual, but also to positive elements such as his values u200bu200band aspirations. In addition, the cognitive triad highlighted by Beck (negative thoughts concerning oneself, the world, and the future) can be seen as a prototype cutting in Act axes.

Acceptance and commitment psychotherapy (in English, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Act)

If cognitive behavioral therapy aims to use the reason to literally clean the content of our thoughts stored in our cognitive-affective system, acceptance and engagement psychotherapy aims to limit the importance and credit that we give to these thoughts. Act is therefore relatively close to meditation methods, while being a more global system, and rid of the beliefs of traditional spiritualities.

Psychotherapy Act offers to work 6 axes:

1. Do not try to block the rise in negative emotions.
This is the first counter-intuitive concept, particularly at a time when occupying your mind, fixing your attention on entertainment (smartphone, television, radio, book, etc.) has never been so easy. Overload his schedule produces the same result.
The practice of meditation is very old, although often associated with Buddha which is the most famous figure, but not the inventor. If it is so largely foreign to us, it is probably because in Judeo-Christian culture, it is widely replaced by prayer, which is only a atrophied form insofar as we direct its thoughts towards God, and above all we seek the ultimate truth at the level of the cognitivo-affective system, in opposition with point 2 below.

2. Not considering that the emotions that go up are the reality or the expression of what we are (defusion).
It is the second and last counter-intuitive concept. Our instinct dictates to us that what we strongly feel is what is most real and most intimately linked to our deep self. However, the emotions that our cognitivo-affective system brings up to the surface permanently, and even more strongly when the present situation is vaguely closer to a situation passed with a strong positive or negative affective charge, are generally neither representative of current reality, nor representative of what we are. These emotions are often only the product of our brain, whose mission is to find solutions to our problems, which bug in loop on the problems for which it has not found a solution, or simply proceeds by superficial associations.

3. We are what we seek to become.
Our tendency too much to represent us as the fruit of our history, and to act by simple reaction to the emotions that our Cognitivo-Affective System brings up, that is to say to be turned towards the past. Act invites us to turn to the future, and take the time to represent the person we want to become, regardless of our history, even if it often remains an engine. Transforming trauma or dissatisfaction spent in a source of motivation to act in order to achieve an ideal is called sublimation. In order to operate, it should be well defined and maintained on the front of our mind the ideal that we want to achieve, the person we want to become.

4. Get into the here and now.
Cet axe correspond au concept Carpe diem de la philosophie Stoïcienne. On retrouve le même concept dans le Bouddhisme. L'idée est double :
On the one hand, not to say that we will be happy ... Later, when such and such a problem will be solved. Getting into the here and now is an exercise in everyday life which consists in seeking pleasure in the most harmless gestures. The sun on its skin, a kind word received, a tasty bite, etc.
D'autre part, être pleinement à ce que l'on fait, par opposition à laisser sa pensée divaguer sous l'effet des émotions (ruminations) produites par le système cognitivo-affectif.

Il y a dont une potentielle contradiction entre le point 1 (laisser remonter les émotions négatives), et ce point 4 dans la mesure ou fixer son attention sur ce qui se passe ici et maintenant est aussi une manière de bloquer la remontée des émotions négatives. La manière adaptée de lever cette contradiction est de consacrer des moments à la remontée des émotions, par exemple des temps de méditation. Durant ces moments, on fixe son attention sur ces émotions, sans pour autant les considérer comme réelles (point 2) .
In other words, the rise in emotions must be framed by reason, and not suffered.

5. Explain the person we want to become.
Act therapy speaks of clarifying its values, to better differentiate this from point 3 (clarify the person we want to become). It is a bit risky because the values u200bu200bare strongly subject to the progressive effects of cognitive dissonance.
In fact, Act is just a technique. Her designers have understood that she had to rely on content, that they associate with values, and that they have the great wisdom not to try to define, which would make them switch to an ideology. In Greek philosophies, the content corresponds to the representation of the world and morality.
This site is more ambitious than Act, since like a Greek philosophy, it also defines content. However, what means that we do not rock in the ideology is the result of two points:
Firstly, values u200bu200bare the product of scientific observation of what our behavioral genetic heritage is, and the minimum to be corrected by culture (taking into account facts and solving problems to the detriment of the practice of alliances) to limit social violence.
Second, the admissibility of each value comes from the coherence of the whole, where religious and political ideologies tend to present major inconsistencies, because their broad success implies endorsement the game of alliances.
The first point was not accessible to Greek philosophies.

6. Translate all of this into acts.
Here we find the last point of problem solving, namely the need to advance effectively to represent yourself, and plan, the next actions to be carried out, as opposed to think that we will jump from a voucher from what we are today that we would like to become in the end.
We once again find this concept in Buddhism, in the form of the saying 'The path is the goal', which invites us not to remain focused on the final objective (wisdom or illumination), but to concentrate its efforts on the next just actions to be carried out.

The whole aims to establish what Act calls mental flexibility, that is to say, faced with adversity, the ability to decide reliable if it is advisable to persevere or adapt, instead of remaining in doubt and concern. This is strongly connected to the second step in problem solving (analysis).

DE DE LAND OF Psychotherapy

The two psychotherapies that we have just presented succinctly make it possible to prevent its future to be too determined, and especially in a little constructive manner, by past trauma. They also have the advantage, under the general impetus given by the DSM manual, to be supported by studies of measuring their effectiveness as conforming as possible to the modern scientific method.

On the other hand, they constitute a complete system. Thus, ACT can be seen in a very global way as a Buddhism expurgated by its beliefs (reincarnation, illumination, etc.), and CBT act can be seen as a psychoanalysis exposed to its beliefs (unconscious, Oedipus complex, etc.).

Finally, it should not be forgotten to learn the following techniques in addition:

Go deeper

The book Cognitive and Behavioral theories in Clinical Practice, from Nikolaos Kazantzis, Mark A. Reinecke and Arthur Freeman, presents a panorama of the cognitive psychotherapies available.

Chapter 2 (Beck’s Cognitive Therapy) contains the verbatim of a therapeutic exchange aimed at reducing the generalization of memories associated with negative emotion.
A more developed presentation of this type of psychotherapy (CBT and now CB-R) is offered in the book Cognitive Behaviour Therapy - Basics and Beyond - Third Edition, by Judith S. Beck, daughter of the founder Aaron T. Beck.

Chapter 5 (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) presents a more complete method (ACT) to treat the negative emotions of the cognitive-affective system. This method is based on 6 different techniques.
The book Act with anxiety by Richard Sears provided an accessible manual to apply these different techniques.

See question 'Why is politics important?' which evokes the danger of psychologism, which consists of interpreting any discomfort as a lack of adaptability of the individual.