How Doing CBT Exercises Using Bible Ontology Is Highly Effective at Reducing Delusions

After coming out of a psychotic break with treatment, the person regains a basic sense of reality. They can tell most of their delusions weren’t true. They know who they are again, and realize they were in the hospital because they needed to be, rather than that they had enemies who were conspiring against them to have their rights taken away. Their anger against family members subsides as they are able to see their family is on their side.

However, while they regain a basic grasp of reality, t’s very common for the person to still have some delusional thinking and for them to come to false conclusions about reality in various ways, drawing false conclusions. This happens because while the “wiring” of their brain and its connections is much closer to accurate and they get a lot of things right, they aren’t 100 percent improved.

It’s in this state that studies show Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very effective for people with psychotic disorders. CBT is helpful for some of the residual delusions, and can help them question them and see around them to know they aren’t true. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is basically just reality-checking using logic. The person goes through what they believe to be true about reality and how they believe it works, and then they question these beliefs for their accuracy, to see if they align with the world and whether they check out and make sense.

You can either do CBT on your own, or with someone – a parent, caretaker, therapist, friends, etc.

I’m in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder Facebook groups where there are thousands of members. Most of the members are people in this state where with medication they regained enough sanity to have a basic understanding of reality, but they still have some residual delusions and make some cognitive errors.

It’s very common in these groups for people to ask whether something they are believing is a delusion, and get help and input from others. They say things like “I’m about 80% sure my neighbors can’t read my thoughts or see into my head, but sometimes I have doubts and it’s like 20% of me thinks maybe it’s possible. Is there a chance it could be possible?” And then others respond and explain that no it’s definitely not possible, that they had that same delusion and it was just that, a delusion, and they’ve come to realize it couldn’t be true.

Groups like this are very helpful for this reason, among other important reasons.

While in the past it was believed by scientists and psychiatrists that delusions are always fixed beliefs that the person couldn’t question or see around, studies are now debunking this previously-held belief. Especially with people who are on medication and who have regained a basic knowledge of reality, logic exercises like CBT where they ask questions and reality-check their ideas, can bring them even more out of delusion. Not only this but CBT has even been shown to reduce voices. I’ve mostly studied into its effects on delusions as I believe this to be the most serious of the two symptoms, because delusions deal with judgment, and voices are just messages and internal sounds. if you can think logically enough to question voices then you aren’t in danger of obeying the voices and carrying out their ideas, which may be dangerous ones. So I’m not studied up on exactly how CBT reduces voices, but the way in which it reduces delusions I understand and it makes sense.

Unfortunately many psychiatrists aren’t aware of the recent scientific findings, and still think delusions are always fixed beliefs. We’ve seen this problem emerge among members in the groups, where even though they are hearing voices, and experiencing delusions they are 50/50 on, or perhaps 80/20 on, their doctors will take away their schizophrenia diagnosis, because they thought to question the delusions, and showed insight into wondering where they were true. These are people who are on medication and the medication is working to reduce delusions, yet still sometimes their schizophrenia diagnosis gets taken away, and the doctors do not believe they are experiencing psychotic symptoms. This can cause very real problems for the person as a change in diagnosis can result in their antipsychotics no longer being prescribed, and a change in medication that doesn’t treat their psychotic symptoms. Then symptoms worsen and they can have a full psychotic break where they are a danger to themselves and others do to completely losing their judgment and their grasp on reality.

I’ve even seen cases where a person gained some awareness even while in unmedicated psychosis. While it’s common for the severer cases to never gain awareness they might be psychotic, mental conditions with psychosis as a symptom are epigenetic in nature, so just as you might see depression wax and wane over the years, or have a friend with anxiety, and notice that she’s better some years, and other years where she goes through more stress her anxiety is much worse, you can see these same kinds of fluctuations in people with psychosis. Just like other mental conditions, it’s epigenetic, not purely genetic (though genetics usually predispose someone to having a tendency to develop psychosis, this doesn’t mean everyone with a predisposition will develop it, just as everyone with a predisposition to have cancer doesn’t get cancer), meaning the stressors we encounter turn on the expression of the genes, and if we can reduce stressors the symptoms will improve.

If someone has psychosis from black mold exposure, for instance, and then they move from the moldy home and spend several years in a mold-free, healthy house, you will usually see their psychosis reduce. Maybe their delusions will not be so much about impossible things like thinking they are God or that they can fly, and will morph into possible but unlikely things such as that the FBI is spying on them or that their spouse is cheating on them when there’s no actual evidence this could be happening and no good reason to believe it. Or perhaps the delusions will abate altogether and they will be an eccentric creative person, who is on the psychosis spectrum, but without actual delusions, just some eccentric thinking.

If you add in nutrient therapy for mental illness, such as the Walsh protocol, or treatments to bind mold mycotoxins and get them out of the body, the chance the person can improve rise.

In underdeveloped countries 50% of people with schizophrenia spontaneously improve. But that number is much lower in developed countries such as the USA. Functional Medicine doctors believe it’s lower due to all the pesticides we spray everywhere, even in cities, and all the other toxin exposures which are much higher here than in underdeveloped countries.

My point in saying all this is to point out that psychotic illnesses are epigenetic. Symptoms fluctuate in intensity and severity, they can be reduced, and it’s possible for a person to become able to see around a delusion that they previously couldn’t question. delusions aren’t 100% fixed.

However, for the very extreme cases who are unmedicated and untreated, such as the ones that get hospitalized – it’s true that doctors and family members do not have much success when trying to help them question their delusions. These people have lost the use of logic, due to how inflammation has rewired their brain, and they need to be effectively treated before they can regain the use of logic and question delusions or see they aren’t true.

Use the Word to Reality Check

When engaging in CBT and reality-checking, it’s important to understand that God’s Word is truth. You won’t find truth from a secular therapist. You won’t find truth from humanistic ideas which run rampant in psychology and psychiatry.

Thus your reality-checking needs to be done using God’s Word, otherwise you cannot arrive at truth.

Study Bible Ontology

The Bible is the source of true psychology, psychiatry, and true philosophy. Rather than telling us these fields are completely man-made ideas, the Bible supports these fields as being real, over and over again with many different Bible verses to back this up.

In the chapter “Does Mental Illness Exist or Is it an Idea Invented by Secular Psychiatry?” I explain how the Bible supports the idea that mental illness is real, science exists, and that we can study our brain and body to learn the condition they are in.

Then in the chapter “Is Satan Directly Involved in All Cases of Brain and Body Illnesses? Do We Have Authority as Christians to Rebuke All of them Away From Us?” I show how the Bible tells us psychological pain can bring on physical disease. Guilt from sin unrepented of, brings physical illness, including brain illness. This shows true psychology, with the brain influencing the body, and the path back to healing to be to repent of sin, follow Christ, and keep His commands by faith, which are life-producing.

From the very beginning in Genesis, we also see true philosophy as described by the Bible.

The world’s versions of psychology and philosophy are counterfeit versions. It has helped me tremendously to study Bible ontology. Ontology is the study of what things are. Only the Bible has the truth on what things are. It’s unbelievable reality that all humans do not even agree on what a human being is! A person’s religious and philosophical beliefs determine how they ontologically define a person.

The truth is that when a Christian and a secularist refer to a human being, we are not referring to the same concept or defining a person the same way.

For instance, in secular philosophy, a person is an animal that has evolved past the point of other animals to gain new abilities they don’t possess, such as the ability to reason and speak. Looking at human beings this way influences how scientists and psychiatrists see the brain, how they order and value each of the functions the brain can do, what they see as mental malfunction and what they see as the normal healthy functioning of the brain and where they draw the line between pathology and health, and what kinds of solutions they seek out. The whole purpose of the brain is completely different in secularism and in Christianity.

To the Christian people are not animals. We are distinctly different from them, with our brain possessing the ability of moral perception and judgment. People are beings under moral law, who can sin or do acts of faith and righteousness through Christ. This dimension is so much more important than what animals do that it’s not even on the same plane.

Human beings alone can be truly benevolent by choice, and possess moral agency. Human beings alone are held accountable for their wrongs and sent to court and jail.

Human beings alone are capable of evil, and the problem of evil makes no sense from an evolutionary view.

We see the concepts of ontology – what things are – when God says “Let us make man in our image”, and when He divides the day from the night, creating two separate distinct ideas. He then goes forward to divide the atmosphere from the sea, and to form dry land in the midst of the seas, making each of these things distinct and separate concepts and things from one another, defining them, as well as creating them.

We see also the true ontology of who God is. We see that He is three separate divine Persons with a shared perfect will and purpose, creating the world together, with Jesus’ divine Word working together with the Spirit who is seen hovering over the waters and bringing Christ’s Words to fruition. It is a joint effort of creation.

The Bible tells us “the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit; joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”
Hebrews 4:12

What this verse is telling us is that not only is the Word so sharp and particular that it can clearly point out the intentions of our heart when we study the Word and compare our attitudes with it, but that the Word created all things in our world, and it defined and laid the boundary lines between created things. Even the subtle difference between joints and marrow, and how to know when you’re looking at marrow and when you’re looking at the joint when you dissect an animal or look through pictures in a medical anatomy book, how each is defined, and how they are different from one another, is found in God’s Word.

When God said “Let there be light” His word defined what light was. In the Word “light” was the definition as well as the Almighty Power of the Spirit working with the Word to create light.

What this means is, the Bible is an absolute necessity for the person coming out of psychosis, who needs to know what reality is, and to distinguish reality from delusional thoughts and ideas that have no basis in reality.

What this means is God’s Word is a necessity for anyone who wants to know and arrive at truth and to avoid error.

To tell whether an idea is a delusion or whether it’s a true idea, compare that thing with scripture.

For instance, let’s say you’re having a hard time with the concept of telepathy. You’re not sure if your neighbors are reading your mind or not – you’re not sure if it’s possible. It feels like they are doing it. You have the sensation of someone looking in at your thoughts, and you have another sensation of them leaving after they’ve been there a while. You even think you can hear them whispering about the thoughts you were thinking and laughing about how ridiculous your thoughts are and asking why you didn’t go on to college so you’d have more intelligent thoughts.

Go to the Bible and study what it says about thoughts. Who can read your thoughts? The Bible actually says the ability to read a person’s thoughts is a divine ability that only God can do.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7

“you alone know the hearts of all men.”
1 Kings 8:39

The Bible tells us God alone knows the hearts of people. He alone sees into the heart and reads the thoughts. No person can do that. No angel can do that.

However, the bible is also clear that evil angels can introduce temptations into our minds

So the Bible truth on telepathy is that two-way communication is impossible. the reading of another’s thoughts can’t be done by anyone but God. But one-way communication is possible and happens every day. Demons insert tempting ideas and thoughts into our minds every day.

One-way communication is actually not called telepathy, so telepathy itself is impossible.

Pain From Reading Studies
While I do need to read studies to gather information, I do so with great pain. I remember my experience going to a medical library, which I recommend everyone do, because there is information there in the journals and books that isn’t being utilized “on the ground” by working psychiatrists and doctors, and so if you have a health history and “profile” and symptoms that are rarer or particularly difficult to treat, you may very well find that that people just like you have already been successfully treated and it’s been documented in the medical literature. For instance, let’s say your diagnoses you with treatment-resistant depression after trying you on four different SSRIs and none of them help you at all. He dismisses you as a patient telling you there’s nothing else he can do to help you. Well the medical literature will tell you differently. You’ll see people recovered from “treatment-resistant depression” with antihistamine medication – something your psychiatrist didn’t even suggest. You’ll see people have been recovered from severe depression with neuro-peptides, and growth factors found in colostrum and IVIG (immunoglobulin) IVs.

You can then collect and take this information to a new psychiatrist, and explain that you want to try some of these more cutting-edge treatments since you’re suffering terribly, and it’s worth it to you to give it a shot. Taking the evidence with you, you may have success getting the psychiatrist to try you on some of these things and you may recover from your depression.

I have found the medical library and PubMed to be great resources.

I remember when I first went to the medical library in Gainesville Florida at the University of Florida, I was greatly encouraged and amazed by how much information we really know that I hadn’t known up to that point that we knew. And there really is a wide array of treatments to try and lots of hopeful possibilities, that unfortunately are being under-used due to the current structure of our medical system, and pressure put on doctors to stick with the status quo protocols.

The potential for what this information could do and how it could be used filled me with hope and joy.

But unfortunately, since people worship people and not God, and since we’re motivated by selfishness desires on this fallen planet, even something as wonderful and helpful as extensive health knowledge is used for the purpose of pride and control.

One of the ways this is done is that medical professionals are controlled by the profession and aren’t free to be their own person. Intelligent doctors capable of agency and making decisions, are pressured into practicing medicine in a very cookie-cutter way that best benefits the pharmaceutical companies.

Recently I asked my nurse practitioner if I could have a NeuroQuant test ordered to check the blood flow in my brain and other important markers. She told me that she was afraid to order the test because the psychiatrist who works over her told her she they both might get in trouble if they order the test, and she didn’t want to risk that happening.

Functional Medicine doctors are much better and I usually see them and work with them.

While reading the studies it was psychologically painful to read the human brain described as though we are animals, with moral perception and judgment not being seen as the highest action the brain performs, not being valued above all others or taken seriously in the way it needs to be. Because in their view there is no objective morality. Our moral perception is just the way it is, not due to a higher transcendent moral law, but it evolved as a way of self-preservation. Animals who had a certain moral compass were able to survive and exist agreeably in their communities, and animals who developed other moral codes and perceptions died out and that’s why we all have the consciences that we have.

But of course there’s variety in what one society thinks is right and what another thinks is right, and this is attributed to cultural traditions and social evolution. Rather than ignorance and lack of access to the Bible or choosing to harden the heart to known truth and engage in corruption and moral failure at a societal level, which are the real reasons we know as Christians.

So evil is explained away as not really be evil. And with moral perception and judgment not being prioritized, psychotic people are released from psychiatric hospitals after being asked some basic logic questions and with a basic assessment done, but moral perception is not evaluated and the kinds of logic questions are too simple to be of much use at gauging whether the person is capable of living in society safely. Thus dangerous situations and tragedies happen, where the person commits suicide after being released, or they assault their partner or a stranger, etc.

This is negligence. Judgment and moral perception are the things medical professionals and agencies and communities should care about most in the treatment of patients, otherwise we’re showing the complete opposite of love and quality care.

Once again, it’s only the Christian who is going to use medical information – or any information and knowledge – in the right way, serving the right purpose for the glory of God and the benefit of men. We see over and over again through our world, how secular ideologies prevent people from using good things for the true benefit of humanity.

As Christians it’s extremely important that we humble ourselves and surrender any pride or love for control to God, and carry out our health and Bible ministries according to the truth in the Bible about ministry and the right way to conduct it, so reveal the truth about God and His principles of love, so people can see the outworking of these principles and how they are real truth in a world of secularism and false beliefs.

I’m posting a link here to a quantitative study that shows the high effectiveness rate of CBT used together with anti-psychotic medication to bring people with psychotic conditions out of delusions and reduce voices:

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis: A Health Technology Assessment – PMC

I’m also posting a link to a CBT course on udemy, that teaches family members of people with psychotic conditions, and therapists how to help delusional person to reality-check and gain a better grasp on the world and what things are and how they operate. I took this course and I absolutely loved it and found it to be very helpful at helping me practice how to evaluate whether I may be having delusional thinking and also for equipping me for my health ministry to help others with psychotic symptoms.

https://www.udemy.com/course/cbt-for-psychosis/

If you’re clicking on this link at a time when the class is $85, you need to know that udemy has sales all the time, so keep checking back and you’ll find it for like $13 which is what I paid for it.