Why Is There Such a Stigma About Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

I did not say anything about any experimental treatment or any huckster, I am just saying that

is not true. A lot of them start with "many people have tinnitus, for most of them it is not a problem, so your reaction is the problem". Practically they imply that if people were not anxious or depressed it would not matter how intrusive their tinnitus was, it would not bother them and they would not suffer. That is wrong and that should change. That's what I meant.

 

Ironically I'm a guitar player for 25 years, and picked up drumming 2 months ago. I use Zildjian L80s, RTom Black Hole mutes, and an acquarian kick mute. A non-smart phone dB meter shows my kit peaking at 92db at my ear and averaging 84 dBA.

I'd strongly suggest the moderate investment if you want to keep drumming. I wear 27dB ear muffs and I never get spikes.

 

I still want to know how to "think" my way out of this a.k.a mental Wax on Wax off..

I am worse then the early days. Difference being, I understand more...

And being in the minority is a double edge sword.

It's great that not so many suffer.

Like I read somewhere you think. How come they don't suffer or some habituate quickly. What is wrong with me, I'm doomed.

 

Those things are the same. The whole reason they turn to coping mechanisms instead of curing you is because they acknowledge there is no cure. No doctor tells you to habituate to strep throat. That's b/c we have amoxicillin. You're taking their words too literally. Your reaction is the problem is basically the same thing as saying "your reaction is the only that thing can be altered in a measurably way."

A doctor will say the same thing to an amputee. Your life is forever changed but with time most patients go on to find happiness again.

Nobody is touting CBT as a cure. If ya don't believe me, talk to a CBT. There is one here that will talk to you for free, or you can just read his bio.

 

If you dig through my old posts I know a few people (in real life) that saw volume reductions multiple years past onset. I had a spike again a few weeks back back and for a 3rd time it faded to very low. My first big issue with tinnitus was noise induced. The second was strep ear (yes that's a thing - was caused by irrational fear of a spike from antibiotics leading me to avoid meds), and this past time was also a bad head cold.

 

I love CBT for treating my mental illness, but tinnitus is not mental illness.

 

I get spikes with double hearing protection 25 dB molds and 33 dB industrial cans on top. This whole thing is so whacked. What I learned from the old community and being repeated here, a lot is psychological. I do see benefits to meditation. I can be a bit of a spazz at times It can calm me down. I don't suffer from mental health (even though I think we all have a certain level of it in all of us ) This definitely f*cks with my mental health. No denying that. My wife suffers from chronic facial nerve pain. She gets botox injections for it. I scored me a nice Les Paul studio smokehouse burst.

Ironically I did this to myself playing e drums with headphones I have a nice vintage Tama Arstar.

 

There's a difference between saying "There is no cure but many people eventually learn to cope" and "Tinnitus can't be debilitating in itself, it's just your emotional reaction that makes it debilitating."

Also, there are many CBT therapists that say we can all achieve habituation which is basely like being cured, promising things such as being able to "live a life unaffected by tinnitus".

That's definitely not the same thing. You can find many articles and videos by German ENTs stating whether someone struggles with tinnitus or not is purely due to their emotional reaction towards it. I even got told that I "will continue to suffer" because I "don't understand what tinnitus is about", that's not taking their words too literally or out of context.

The same ENT is now promoting his CBT app for tinnitus by saying "no one has to suffer from tinnitus" and "how much you suffer from tinnitus is not decided in the ears but in your head". Rilana Cima and her colleague from the University of Maastricht argue in a similar way. We also regularly see posts in the Support and Success Stories section that boil down to "it's just your attitude".

 

It was the same on the old community I was on. It was all your fault that you had to "challenge your thinking." Depending on who you were, if you challenged this theory and was posting too often due to having hard time you got crapped on. This is why I had enough. Oh and no one can get worse. In that case this must be the best condition to be afflicted with.

I realize we need a positive outlook and I do carry on with most of my normal activities save for drumming for the time being. But some days it is not easy. As mentioned my wife suffers from facial nerve pain so we get each other and can vent @ home.

Dr. Hubbard's video pretty well states that CBT will work better since he states in said video "The use of masking with hearing aids will slow down or hinder habituation" and something along the lines of if one does not get past it in 18 months one may look at medications option.

This in itself can be faulty since there is no set timeline, we are all different.

 

Is CBT actually purported to be a treatment for mental illness? I've not done a lot of research on CBT, but I've never heard this before.

 

It's even in the wiki article about cognitive behavioral therapy. It was developed by psychologists for psychological disorders.

 

Tinnitus can possibly cause stress, anger, anxiety, depression. CBT can possibly help with those.

 

Possibly but I think the "beef" people have is, it is touted as a habituation tool. I have mentioned there are some benefits to calming one's self. As far as to ease the suffering I have yet to see any benefits, but that's just me.

Same for TRT. It is not because it failed to help me that it means the practice is useless, even though it has been mentioned in the research thread that Jastreboff no longer takes part in research conventions since the method is considered irrelevant or something along those lines.

Tinnitus is far from being the only condition that "specialists" have a had time treating.

 

Love how you say all there is to say with so few words! Now let's all move on shall we?

 

When you have beyond intrusive tinnitus and stress, being simple has it's benefits.

 

Therapy is by definition treatment. Just as pharmacotherapy is treatment with drugs, psychotherapy is treatment with psychology. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is the practical application of Cognitive-Behavioral psychology.

Yes, it is treatment or part of the treatment for many mental illnesses. Mental illnesses may be treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy alone, pharmaceuticals alone, or cognitive-behavioral therapy plus pharmaceuticals - depending on the illness, the severity, and other individual factors.

For anyone interested, I would recommend Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders by Aaron Beck. It's written in plain language. It only covers cognitive psychology, but it's a good start for anyone who has depression or an anxiety disorder.

 

CBT is indeed used to treat depression and anxiety disorders. But depression and anxiety disorders are caused by irrational beliefs, not normal emotions. Tinnitus is real.

I would like to know, what is the behavioral component in treating tinnitus with CBT? I know all too well the behavioral component in treating my disorder: exposure and response prevention (ERP). Is that also the behavioral component in treating tinnitus with CBT?

 

Someone at my gym uses mindfulness to deal with mental disorders. He is one of my favorite people there. Super nice person. I work in healthcare. I understand the challenges to a certain degree.

 

That's the thing. The established model for CBT is that tinnitus stress is irrational, which it is clearly not. They describe the negative emotional and psychological effects of having tinnitus as a "phobia" and a "catastrophic misinterpretation".

 

I miss drumming immensely.

 

Me too. I am hanging onto my kit hoping I reach an acceptable level of habituation. When this 1st hit I was going to sell everything. I sold my DW kit and held onto my TD50. Since I do not drum in my condo anymore, I sold the kit and went back to Acoustic kit with some triggers. I had a killer space and was playing to tracks. In the long run it became too much to deal with. Guess worse case I can become a half decent guitarist.

To quote JA "phobia" and a "catastrophic misinterpretation"= to what I believe is "Distorted thinking"

 

John...ok, now I understand why you believe CBT is not helpful for tinnitus sufferers. If my psychologist thought that model, I certainly would not continue seeing him. I think the difference between most of the people here and some of us here is that I am being treated by the VA (Veterans Affairs Health System). The top 3 issues suffered by combat veterans is tinnitus, hearing loss, and PTSD (in that order) so the VA has a vested interest in helping us. Hopefully, in the process, the private sector brings what helps us to the non-veteran population at a reasonable cost.

My psychologist does not believe my tinnitus stress is irrational. He treats my distress as real as the next soldier in pain because he/she suffers very real physical or very real emotional damage to their person. Maybe the difference is the mindset of civilian clinicians versus clinicians that treat combat veterans. If this is true, that makes me very sad for all of you suffering and not having researchers and medical staff believe in you and help you because I truly understand that suffering with tinnitus 24/7 can sometimes be as difficult as surviving in a war zone.

 

And that is just the thing: clinician mindset. Be personal and reasonable in the diagnostic approach, and I will take any negative conclusion you can give me and deal with it. But don't act like the patient is the problem here...

 

Get the mute system. There is no way this will hurt your ears with hearing protection on. Seriously man. It's an acoustic kit that can be played with un-amplified acoustic guitars and it "feels" real. tunable heaads, cymbals that aren't rubber.

Doubles on the kick take more work, is the main fallback.

 

I got a reaction even using silent heads and low volume cymbals. In my case best wait to be habituated if that's possible...

 

That's what I'm afraid of. Even slapping on my acoustic bass can cause a little spike in the ear nearest the guitar.

 

That's interesting because I can play guitar without any problems. I'm a much better drummer. YouTube and apps are great teachers. I have accomplished my early goal of strumming open chords, cranking distortion and playing 2 finger power chords... As far as VH & Malsteem solos well you know...

The reason Tom is not probably not getting a reaction. Like my learning the guitar you are actually distracting by making your brain work at something new and foreign. So the theory goes.

 

I think our experiences and perspectives are very similar (you can probably articulate them better). Ditto your point re half the people we know irl having tinnitus.

 

Does anyone have access to the full study? I would like to know if and how they talk about tinnitus loudness.

Evaluation of a Cognitive Behavioral Model of Tinnitus Distress
A Cross-Sectional Study Using Structural Equation Modeling
Handscomb, Lucy; Shorter, Gillian W.; Hoare, Derek J.; Hall, Deborah A.

Objectives:
There is a great deal of variation in the extent to which people with tinnitusfind it distressing, which cannot be explained solely by differences in perceived loudness. The Cognitive Behavioral Model of Tinnitus Distress proposes that tinnitus becomes and is maintained as a distressing problem due to a process of interaction between negative thoughts, negative emotions, attention and monitoring, safety behavior, and beliefs. This study used path analysis to assess how well different configurations of this model fit using questionnaire data obtained from people with tinnitus.

 

I hope they measured loudness relative to a 1kHz tone, otherwise the matching is worthless.