Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Is Not Akin to “Gaslighting Yourself,” and Here’s Why:
Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more posts from somatic therapists warning that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is not only ineffective, but potentially harmful, particularly for people with trauma or complex PTSD.
One of the main criticisms is that CBT labels trauma responses or emotional flashbacks as “cognitive distortions,” which is seen as pathologizing or dismissive. And I get where that concern comes from. When someone is dysregulated, overwhelmed, or deep in a triggered state, trying to “reframe” or “challenge” their thoughts can feel invalidating or just straight up inaccessible.
But here’s the thing: when practiced with care, CBT doesn’t have to be dismissive. In fact, it can be deeply compassionate and trauma-informed. The issue isn’t the modality, it’s how it’s applied.
In CBT, a “cognitive distortion” isn’t a denial of emotional truth. It simply refers to a thought that might not reflect the whole picture or the current context. It doesn’t say that you didn’t feel alone, hurt, or unseen. That pain is real, and it matters. The purpose isn’t to minimize your experience, but to gently explore whether your current interpretation of a situation is being shaped by earlier emotional programming.
Trauma isn’t just what happened to us… It’s how our nervous system learned to make sense of the world in response. The beliefs and survival strategies that imprinted as a result were adaptive. They worked at the time. But that doesn’t mean they’re still serving us today.
As kids, we don’t yet have the capacity to separate “I feel alone” from “I am alone,” or “I feel unloved” from “I am unlovable.” Those interpretations become embedded, hardwired into how we relate to ourselves and the world. And unless we pause to examine them, they follow us into adulthood as quiet assumptions: I’m too much. I’m not enough. I have to earn love. I’ll be abandoned if I speak up.
CBT, when done well, doesn’t say that our beliefs were irrational for the child we once were. It simply asks: Are they still true for me now? Are they helping me move forward, or keeping me stuck in familiar patterns of pain?
That exploration can be powerful and liberating, especially when held alongside compassion, curiosity, and emotional attunement.
It’s true that if someone is in a heightened state of emotional activation (think: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) that cognitive reappraisal isn’t always helpful. Their executive functioning (e.g., reasoning, problem solving, planning) might be offline. In those moments, what’s often needed first is safety, regulation, co-regulation, and grounding. All things that should be included in any form of therapy or counselling, no matter the framework.
To say that CBT is inherently harmful ignores the nuance of how it’s used. Trauma-informed CBT weaves in space for the emotional, the somatic, and the relational. It doesn’t rush to correct or convince, it invites reflection. And maybe most importantly, it recognizes that we can hold space for our emotional truths and question whether the beliefs we carry still belong to us. Learned beliefs, like “I’m not enough” or “I have to be perfect to be loved”, are just that: learned. They’re not signs that something is wrong with us. They’re signs that we adapted to survive.
And so it’s not harmful to ask: Are these beliefs helping me now? Are they aligned with the adult I am today? Or are they reminiscent of a time when love and safety felt out of reach?
When CBT is paired with trauma awareness and emotional attunement it can be a powerful tool, not for bypassing our pain, but for reclaiming our agency within it.
