According to a study* conducted in the UK, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) offers long-term benefits for people with depression. In detail, this requires at least 46 months of therapy. This resulted to an improvement in some 43% of those who completed all the CBT modules over the course of 46 months under the care of a well-trained and qualified mental health professional. The benefits were at least 50% reduction in symptoms of depression. This benefit is in addition to psychiatric treatment with antidepressant medications.
Can you imagine that? Nearly 4 years of rigorous, scandalously expensive (from 1,500 to 2,500 pesos per hour) chit-chat with another human being who probably has more mental illness than all his patients, just to get about 50% relief for some 43% of patients who are already drugged with psychotropic medication that has a mere 43% (for youths) to 46% (for adults and geriatrics) relief of symptoms, not to mention an FDA warning about antidepressant use increasing the risk of suicidality in children, adolescents, and young adults.
If you’re a long-time skeptic of the mental health profession, you’re very very lucky. But my husband and I were so desperate we trusted psychologists and their treatments. Getting really bad treatment didn’t teach us a lesson because we still followed advise from Psychologists to keep looking for better practitioners. Yet the treatment I received from other psychologists did not help. Why? Because the entire field is just plain wrong. It isn’t a science, it isn’t anywhere near the medical practitioner who conducts lab tests and sees you have a specific bacteria in your lungs and prescribes the appropriate medication for it. The diagnostic methods for mental disorder is not science, it’s occult voodoo stuff like your Horoscope. I am not joking.
You know, I really wish that someone told me all about such a scam earlier. I also wish I met someone who had the Spirit boldness to introduce me to God’s Word on justification by faith. Because in terms of renewing your mind, which is what we need to heal from mental disorder and trauma, justification by faith through Christ alone has the power. There is no other validation more powerful than this. So, let me introduce you to something that has real power to renew the mind. I beg the Spirit to touch those who read this passage:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 5:1-5 NKJV
Ultimately, it is the Spirit of God who brought me to this faith, this justification, this hope and redemption. It was not by my own efforts or desperation, nor anybody’s attempts. The renewing of my mind happened nearly overnight in mid-June last year. Not 46 months at 1,500 pesos per hour to get 50% relief (if I was one of the lucky 43%) plus horrific side-effects. Grace is a free gift from the LORD. Praise be to God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV
*Long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy for treatment-resistant depression in primary care: follow-up of the CoBalT randomised controlled trial by J Wiles et al, Lancet Psychiatry. 2016 Feb;3(2):137-44. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00495-2. Epub 2016 Jan 7.