“Results oriented”?
Because that’s not what CBT is. In no way are you told to “simply” change how you think or feel. Heck, you even left out the second part of the acronym—the B stands for behavior. You’re taught that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors all motivate one another, and then are taught ways to disrupt that cycle. You’re giving techniques to gradually make changes. At no point are you ever told to just “think differently.” You’re trained to actually do so. It’s not easy at first, but it gets better as it becomes a habit.
Sure, it doesn’t work in all situations. But no therapy does. But it doesn’t in any way make it equivalent to just telling people to “cheer up” or “clam down.” I seriously doubt those would have the same level of experimental success.
To answer the OP: The people described in the original post want others to JUMP from the “illness” to “wellness” without going though any messy intermediate healing process. Now in what other situation is someone telling someone else to jump?
All I can think of is Mark Twain’s story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, where the character Jim Smiley urges his frog to jump.
“Jim Smileys”?
Now let us describe this behavior as a syndrome.
There is a famous quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald “There are no second acts in American lives.” There are arguments over what he meant. One school refers to the original quotation in context and states that it refers to a belief there are no second chances - once you’ve screwed up that’s it. The second school states that Americans live their lives like a play that jumps from the first act (where the characters and situation is introduced) to the third act (where the situation is resolved) without the intermediate second act (where the situation is developed).
So call this the “Fitzgerald syndrome”. Or “The fallacy of the missing second act.”
I suggest some portion of the explanation for some comments such as described in the OP, at least with respect to some persons describing mental/emotional issues, is folk who just aren’t that interested in hearing about and dealing with other peoples’ perceived problems. Essentially saying, “We all have problems. Deal with it.”
FWIW, self articles are full of this. “Five steps to a better life” usually includes something like: Step 1. Learn to love yourself. Step.2 Stop being anxious etc etc
In all fairness, Fitzgerald did die at 44.
I have some sideline knowledge of CBT and, more specifically, rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) via volunteer work I do in an al-Anon type group. Part of the idea is that you can learn more effective cognitive strategies through practice over time (and, biologically, there has been support that new neural pathways are formed via neuroplasticity with this sort of practice) that is helpful for many people. It is incredibly helpful to me, but my personality and life philosophy is such that it is the type of therapy that would be incredibly helpful for me. So there is some tautology there. But it’s certainly not “stop being a weakling and think differently, you schmuck!” There’s also a newer modality called dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) which has cognitive therapy as a big component of it, but in what I would term a gentler form, and also stresses a lot of mindfulness and other relaxation techniques to use to bring oneself down to a less excited state where thinking patterns can be more effectively challenged.
It’s certainly not a panacea, and it doesn’t work for everyone, and for many people, it should also be used in conjunction with psychiatric care that addresses physical/biological components of maladaptive behaviors, emotional dysregulation, and the such. For someone like me, though, it’s far more effective than Rogerian-style client-centered talk therapy, which for me was just a waste of time when I tried it in college. But we are all wired differently, so if it doesn’t work, try something else.