12 Things I Learned from My Therapist
I've spent more time in therapy than I care to think about. More hours on that bloody couch than I've spent in the shower, brushing my teeth, or on the phone with telemarketers, because let's face it, when I'm home, there really are no decision makers at my house. If I calculate one hour a week for 12 years, that's 600 hours, which is 25 DAYS. What do I have to show for it? Lots of wisdom and advice. Journals and journals of it. But for your sake, I'll just list 12. And after you get done reading my shrink insights, I want you to tell me yours, because I'm compiling such pearls for a writing project.
1. Know your triggers.
From the first year of therapy: know your triggers. If a conversation about global warming, consumerism, or the trash crisis in the U.S. is overwhelming you, simply excuse yourself. If you're noise-sensitive and the scene at Toys-R-Us makes you want to throw whistling Elmo and his buddies across the store, tell your kids you need a time-out. (Bring along your husband or a friend so you can leave them safely, if need be.) For me it's best if I don't hang out in a bar with a crowd of drinkers, you know, if I don't want to drink myself.
2. Count to four.
I can't remember if I learned this pearl in therapy or in first grade. All I know is that breathing is the foundation of sanity, because it is the way we provide our brain and every other vital organ in our body with the oxygen needed for us to survive. Breathing also eliminates toxins from our systems.
Years ago, I learned the "Four Square" method of breathing to reduce anxiety:
* Breathe in slowly to a count of four. * Hold the breath for a count of four. * Exhale slowly through pursed lips to a count of four. * Rest for a count of four (without taking any breaths). * Take two normal breaths. * Start over again with number one.
3. Hunt down unrealistic expectations.
Yep, I identify those bad boys every week. I record them on a sheet of paper or (on a good day) in my head and then revise them about 2,035 times during the day. Cataloged are things like: "penning a New York Times bestseller in my half-hour of free time in the evening," "being homeroom mom to 31 kids and chaperoning every field trip," and "training for a triathlon with a busted hip." Listing the more realistic possibilities of actions I can take to inch toward my broad goals (being a good mom, an adequate blogger, and a healthy person) can be extremely liberating.
4. Celebrate your mistakes.
Alright, celebrate is an awfully strong word. Start, then, with accept your mistakes. But I do think each big blunder deserves a round of toasts. Because almost all of them teach us precious, rare lessons that can't be acquired by success. Nope, the embarrassment, humiliation, self-disgust ... all those are tools with which to unearth the gold. Just like Leonard Cohen writes in his song, "Anthem" that a friend of mine tapes to his computer as a reminder to ignore the perfectionist in him:
Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in.
5. Add some color.
My therapist often points out that I am color blind. I see the world in black and white. Example: either I am the best blogger in the entire blogosphere or I should throw my iMac into the Chesapeake Bay and become a water taxi driver. Either I am the most involved mom in David's school or I am a slacker parent who should let a more capable mom adopt her son. Does this kind of thinking sound familiar? In order to get a pair of glasses on my inner zebra, then, my therapist helps me add a few hues to every relationship, event, and goal so that I become a tad more tolerant of life's messiness, unresolved issues, and complicated situations that can't be neatly boxed up.
6. Believe in redemption.
Redemption is an odd thing. Because identifying the broken places in your heart and in your life can be one of the scariest exercises you ever do, and yet only then can you recognize the grace that comes buried with every hole. If the journey to the Black Hole of despair and back has taught me anything, it's this: everything is made whole in time ... if you can just hang on to the faith, hope, and love in the people and places around you long enough to see the sun rise yourself. Absolutely nothing is forsaken, not even those relationships and memories and persons that you think are lost forever. Most things are made right in time. So you don't always have to get it right on the first try.
7. Compare and despair.
The last thing you should do when you're stressed--which I always do when I'm stressed--is start looking around at other people's package (job, family support, balanced brain) and pine for some of that. I grow especially jealous of non-addict friends who can enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or those with moms nearby that offer to take the kids for sleepovers. But I don't have all the information. The mom who takes the kids for the night might also have an opinion for every piece of furniture in your house and her own spare key to your home so she can pop in whenever. So comparing my insides to someone else's outsides is a fruitless and dangerous game to play, especially when I'm stressed.
8. Learn how to recharge.
Many folks know how to have fun and recharge their batteries. Mentally-ill addicts like myself have to learn this from scratch. With the help of their therapist. After some experimentation I know that spending quiet time by the water (kayaking, running, biking in warmer months), reading spiritual literature, and watching a movie with a friend are all ways that will nurture me so that I can better tolerate stress.
9. Team up.
Think of the buddy system from Boy Scouts. Teaming up with someone means that you have to be accountable. You have to report to someone. Which brings down your percentage of cheating by 60 percent, or something like that. Especially if you're a people-pleaser like me. You want to be good, and get an A, so make sure someone is passing out such reviews.
Also, there is power in numbers, which is why the pairing system is used in many different capacities today: in the workplace, to insure quality control and promote better morale; in twelve-step groups to foster support and mentorship; in exercise programs to get your butt outside on a dark, wintry morning when you'd rather enjoy coffee and sweet rolls with your walking partner.
10. Categorize your problems.
My therapist is an organizer, so she likes to sort my problems into categories. The effect is fascinating: you feel like you have less of them. When we agree to tackle a class of problems--say "boundaries issues"--then a few tweaks here or there can be applied to a variety of situations. I don't have to spent time with each hiccup along the way.
11. Make a self-esteem file and read it.
It was my therapist who first told me to ask some friends to list some positive qualities about me, and to keep those lists in a folder that I could read when my self-esteem was below sea-level. Today that folder is the first thing I'd grab in a fire (alright, after the kids). It serves as my security blanket on many afternoons.
12. Look backwards.
Another great exercise my therapist taught me is to look backwards and cull from my past the strengths I used in certain situations. This means that on the afternoons my depressed brain believes death is preferable to life, I say to myself something like: "Self, you have been sober for 20 years!! Weaklings can't pull off a stunt like that. You've got the right stuff, girlfriend. Just hold on." (The soundtrack to "Rocky" is playing in the background, of course.)
What have you learned?
To read more of Therese, visit her blog, Beyond Blue at Beliefnet.com, or subscribe here. You may also find her at www.thereseborchard.com.
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What a great post, I really needed to read that today. Thank you
See Dr. Cara Barker's Profile
Thank you for your insightful blog. I'm with you. Everytime, as a shrink (Jungian Analyst), I hear someone's war story about how their pain was worsened by going for therapy, I cringe. Unfortunately, like in any field, there are quacks, technicians, and those whose Call and vocation it is to offer what they can. It is crucial to be discerning.
The whole work, according to Jung, is to access one's own soul (psyche), because, like the body, it is set up to help us grow, evolve, find joy, contribute. The point is not to 'get fixed,' but to find the part of ourselves that longs to come to life, and to bring this forward in ways which please the heart, and, hopefully, leave this a better world.
I thank him, as well as the many men, women, and children who have blessed my life through their invitation to accompany them on their journey. They have been Wisdom Teachers.
Toward this end, I'm starting a Facebook group late this weekend called "The Heart Whisperers
Gratitude your way,
Dr. Cara Barker
Correction made: I made an error in posting an URL for a website
I posted in my last post for this article.
The correct URL for the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE) is:
http://int
Sorry for any inconvenience this way have caused you.
At 17 years old, I saw psychiatrists and that was a bad experience for me for the 18 years I saw them. I have been of psychiatry since 1990.
I got labeled right away and put on psychiatric medications that made me gain weight and gave me adverse effects. I was given electroshock that damaged me.
Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist in NY state and author wrote an article two years ago called "Disturbing News for Patients and Shock Doctors Alike". In Breggin's article he discusses the electroshock (ECT) study done by Harold Sackeim that reports that ECT causes brain damage 100%of the time. See the article at Breggin.co
There is a worldwide movement to ban electroshock universally. There are planned ECT protests to be held on Mother's Day called "Stop Shocking our Mothers and Grandmothers". The ECT protests will be held in Ottawa, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; and Cork, Ireland.
The International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE) URL:
intcamp.wo
There is no blood test, nor scientific proof that exists to date that proves that mental illness exists at all. See this article:
www.depres
Psychiatry is the biggest medical fraud there is out there today.
Paula J. Caplan, a psychologist wrote a book called "They Say You're Crazy - how the world's most powerful psychiatrists decide who's normal".
Canuckgirl,
After reading your post I am quite sure you will enjoy reading the works of Dr. Thomas Szasz and particularly his work titled "Coercion as Cure" (a critical history of psychiatry).
He has been a very hard critic for a number of years and is still critical after all these years.
I am ok, you are ok and subjective feelings are all there is from the first day you entered this existance till the moment you depart through the last door. Enjoy and find the middle way in your travels.
Love your post so much I linked to it from my blog for women. What great support for those of us who need tangible tools to quell our occasional self-doubt and fear. Thank you!
My therapy has been one long, long incremental reality check with one very, very patient therapist.
That you did not need one and that you are ok and I am ok.
The rest is basicly a fraud which pays well.
Love the list. I've learned to add more humor to the heavy. It does make a difference.
http://ohh
I've never had a therapist. Couldn't afford one, and never been so bad off that the county foisted one on me. But I learned a lot from the therapist lady who used to be on SNL. I always remember that she said to look at yourself, and I often think, have I looked at myself lately?
The most powerful thing I got from my therapist over a decade ago (and it still works today) is when things seem overwhelming to me, ask myself this: "What one thing can you do right NOW, at this moment, to feel just a little better?" Do that one thing and the snowball effect of doing the next thing takes over and you feel like you are in control of your life once again. All we can really control is the moment we are living in now. Every other moment is just the story you tell yourself about how you got here, in this moment, now.
Here are my 12 things. They have saved my life, and they don't cost $200+ an hour:
1. I admitted I am powerless over people, place and things - that my life has become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn may will and my life over to the care of a Higher Power as I understand It.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
5. Admitted to my Higher Power, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.
6. Am entirely ready to have my Higher Power remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly ask my High Power to remove my shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons I had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong promptly admit it.
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power as I understood It, praying only for knowledge of Its will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all my affairs.
Congratulations on your success. On number eight, how does one know all of all the harm he/she has caused others? And then how does one make amends when the past harm has been serious?
great post...
my husband killed himself a year and a half ago. 4 months later I went back to someone who had been not only my therapist a long time ago but his. It saved a lot of time.
what have I learned from her
the pain I was experiencing had nothing to do with him. I truly married my mother.
trust...no
she's human...no
See Kari Henley's Profile
Great post!
I love the idea of hearing the pearls of wisdom from other therapists! Great idea.
I loved Jungian style therapy, as Cara Barker practices, where you are able to try on different archetypes and see how your life flows through them.
One of mine was the archetype of the Teacher. A great point that hit home was when my therapist pointed out there is no point in being a teacher if you are too busy blazing a trail, with no one left behind you! It made me laugh and made me think.
Bravo! This is a fabulous blog and you are a class A blogger. Not to mention sober person, parent and student of therapy.
I take my therapy very seriously. I tape my sessions and type them up. I then synthesize the strongest points onto one page per session into a book I call JEWELS. Whenever I'm down and I can gather my energy enough to pick up that book, I'm back in the saddle within five minutes.
Your list is very powerful because it is concise. I love the organizing piece, that so many situations can truly get handled with one slight modification.
I also compare myself to others. Always have and always had it done to me... and it's difficult to disengage that mental mechanism, but necessary. We each have gifts to give. If we want to be like another, we waste our time doing what isn't natural to us and don't find our own unique contribution.
What's amazing to me is that we all think others have an easy time of it. This isn't so. Some just spend more time hiding behind facades that pretend they are okay.
Excellent post.
I especially like #10. It makes problems seem less overwhelming and less intractable.
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