I'm sure if the medical profession actually gave a shit about us then we would quite happily accept some CBT. In fact, some of us might actually welcome it.
I have done classic CBT and I was happy with it. The problem with CBT is that most of the claims being made with specific diseases appear to be hype. The methodology used results in biased data, and over time this disappears.
I do not question that CBT has some capacity to assist people cope. If the discussion is about quality of life then I see no reason why CBT is any worse than most (not all) other therapies, and for some patients its probably superior, especially versus the over-use of dangerous drugs.
Comparing CBT with brainwashing has some negative connotations. Yet the technology has similarities. Its the purpose and methods used that, if used appropriately, make CBT a viable therapy. Misused is in some ways worse than brainwashing.
When you read about CBT you should really be asking ... which CBT? Its no longer one structured therapy. Its who knows how many therapies under a broad umbrella. They all use the same basic idea of challenging thoughts with words, and inducing patients to incorporate different word choices and thoughts as a kind of homework. Yet the choice of thoughts to target is not some uniform process.
CBT for quality of life, in general, is fine. This includes sick people.
CBT as promoted by therapists for specific diseases, with implication of cure or remission or recovery, is hype. Sometimes dangerous hype. CBT when combined with other unproven restorative therapies is problematic. When combined with GET, graded exercise, for either ME or CFS, it looks to be dangerous, not just problematic. It is very dangerous when weak implications of this therapy are taken as gospel by government, medical authorities, bureaucrats and insurance companies. How many hundreds of thousands are suffering, directly or indirectly, because of this? We know of specific cases of ME patients whose deaths were probably due to forced CBT/GET and other psychiatric therapies.
This is also part of a wider issues, the biopsychosocial movement. Currently the UK is being investigated by the UN for basic violations of rights of the disabled, due to its work and pensions policy and how that was enacted, which uses as its justification arguments developed by BPS proponents. The evidence shows, the governments own published data, that over 30,000 extra disabled are dying per year in the UK via this policy. That implies that the death total is probably over 100,000.
When a small number of people are killed by terrorists the world reacts. In most cases the world should be reacting as it is, though there are hyperbolic or excessive exceptions. Somehow a hundred thousand dead in the UK is no big deal. This might in part be because, and I am somewhat speculating, that other countries would not fare much better in this regard. Or because they kill with rules and regulations and not poison gas, explosives or bullets.
To reiterate, CBT is many different therapies. More and more its being claimed as restorative. Many of the claims are now in serious doubt due to the evolving scientific results.
I think that CBT claims not based on objective evidence need to be looked at very closely, and never regarded as gold standard evidence.
PS What
@Esther12 said.