Methinks thou doeth protest too much.

>Methinks thou doeth protest too much.

I love this argument. It was championed by Freud, I believe, and goes like this:

"When I say something and someone responds, there are two possibilities:

1) They agree with me, which shows I am correct!

or

2) They disagree with me, which means they are in denial, which proves I am correct!"

> since they are the self declared experts on whether thoughts match reality.

[citation needed]

> [citation needed]

Are you sure about that? You may be suffering from a cognitive distortion. I suggest you make an appointment with a qualified therapist.

No, it's pretty common practice to provide support for extraordinary claims. It's actually a normal behavior-- people usually don't respond with gaslighting, but given the level of other responses you've provided, this fits.

Am I gaslighting you and making extraordinary claims or are you catastrophising, making a selective abstraction, personalizing, magnifying, making an arbitray inference, overgeneralising, filtering, blaming, global labeling, discounting the positive, mental filtering, or jumping to conclusions?

I recommend checking with a therapist and finding out.

Yikes.

I have a better idea.

Get this book series.

https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Magic-Vol-Language-Therapy/...

One of the best reads I've ever done, and for the saavy mathematician/programmer who has a knack for deconstructing mental constructs via linguistic analysis, it'll equip you to be able to do better at handling your own woes, or at least being able to keep tabs on someone you decide you trust enough to allow them to engage in some neuro-linguistic programming.

YMMV.

Therapists have their uses. But to get the most out of them, you have to spreckin' the lingo. Then again, if you already can, you're more than half way there.

This actually looks like it might be of interest to me. Thanks!

Hi staticman2, have you been mistreated by a (CBT) therapist?

Allow me to constructively suggest you read up on Negative Countertransference: [1]

The importance of spreading information about what good therapy feels like, and what should not happen in therapy cannot be stressed enough.

[1] https://www.simplypsychology.org/countertransference.html#:~....