Preaching Prudence but Practicing Evasion

Just by virtue of having eyes and ears, we have emotional responses to everything. When we have experiences that create loss, damage, violate our sense of self or ethics (prompt an experience of feeling "less than" or being broken, also known as "shame"), frighten us or etc, we have to do something with how that feels. Just like falling off a bike and skinning our knee, we hurt in part because that's the healing process in action. Many therapists and others refer to these unresolved hurts as "issues".

If we don't have a means of healing/dealing with these, there are lots of unintended consequences. Not healing "hurts" (shame, fear, sadness, etc) causes "neurotic" behavior. "Acting out", drug use, manipulation, self-ful-ness, isolation, "codependent" behavior, "anxiety", avoidant behaviors, etc. Long term and in the wake of continued losses/traumas, these can turn into more serious problems- depression, relationship issues, "mental illnesses", addictions and etc.

Sometimes these other problems and behaviors are simply ways of surviving or "coping" with our feelings about things, sometimes they become problems in and of themselves. Exercise, church (etc), self-help books, "will", diet and nutrition, hobbies etc are all efforts that can be helpful in varying degrees, but for reasons too long for a blog post, they're insufficient and/or incomplete for this task. Some of these things sometimes turn into means of avoiding our feelings as well.

If we don't have a fairly organized (and effective) means of transforming or eradicating our experience in this way, as above, we create or perpetuate problems in our lives. Different therapists have different "tools" suggested to help resolve or diminish the intensity of these issues. My sense of this process though, goes something like this:

List the behaviors we use that put distance between us and how we feel. Some of these are external- but some are internal. Some examples are food, alcohol, work, spending, sex, focus on others, perfectionism (whether imposed on ourselves or others), TV, turning our feelings into anger, etc.

Diminish (or preferably, maybe necessarily) or stop those behaviors. There's many, many ways of making this happen- see my blog "Wanting to Stop" for some suggestions. As has been said in other blogs, "letting go" means little for something we are not fully letting ourselves "have" in the first place.

Give the feelings we're experiencing/left with as simple, and common a name as possible. I encourage mad, sad, glad (happy), afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt. And/or because we can certainly feel more than one at a time. Simple, because we often use euphemistic or complicated language as just another means to dissociate (separate) us from our feelings.

Share those feelings, as much as possible with the person we're having the feelings about, as close to the time we experience them. It's also really important that we're actually allowing ourselves to have the feelings as we're expressing them. Of course this isn't always appropriate because of time or circumstance. Sometimes, it's not appropriate because of the person we're with. Be careful though not to "preach prudence when practicing evasion".

As has been said by many, "you can't heal what you can't feel". This process is assisted by doing it with a professional who has has both education and experience in doing so not just as a therapist, but hopefully as a person as well. We are trained in various means that facilitate some really important parts of this process that are sometimes not intuitive to our friends, families, loved ones. Am getting at a fairly simple list of ideas here- stop doing what we do to not feel, have an organized way of naming and letting go of or diminishing their intensity.

What to Do?

From P.16 of the PDF "Statutes and Regulations" from the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (the regulatory agency that oversees MFTs, Social Workers, and etc):

"§4980. NECESSITY OF LICENSE (a) Many California families and many individual Californians are experiencing difficulty and distress, and are in need of wise, competent, caring, compassionate, and effective counseling in order to enable them to improve and maintain healthy family relationships."

Clients as above, come to us for wise counsel.  Among other things of course.  This idea has far-reaching implications, not just for our clients, but for us.  Wisdom is hard to come by!  Oversimplifying, "wisdom" in this case is often a euphemism for answers.

Claiming (or believing) one has wisdom or answers is of course a Bad Idea, yet it seems we have a responsibility to work toward them.  There's some great ideas and techniques supporting the principle of not giving "answers" (suggestions, direction, etc) outright to clients (or loved ones, certainly) from the therapist's chair.  My basic mode of operation is to try to lead someone to those answers, typically only giving direct suggestions when my efforts to lead a client to their own answers have been exhausted.

We do treat several diagnoses and/or issues that have "community standards", fundamental practices or "conventions" most therapists agree on how to treat.  Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other more severe illnesses for instance almost always direct the client to: not "self-medicate", takes the best supportive medication regime as directed, and is getting :talk therapy" and/or peer/familial support with their illness.  There are few that argue with the utility of these interventions.  There are other examples for addiction, depression, anxiety, and more.

Two things are of interest to me though.  The first is that during the therapeutic process, I often see clients get a suggestion, and dismiss the suggestion out of hand.  What I think is happening is that rarely do I suggest an idea that in a vacuum will ever be sufficient.  What I mean is, most any suggestions I have will never be singular.  It seems that the depth of our sadness or anxiety or pain or whatever often keeps us from "getting" what is offered, unable to accept the responsibility of taking several suggestions.  Summarizing: rarely is one idea sufficient to change anything in the therapeutic process.

The second thing that prompts me to mull this over is the "active" therapists versus the "passive" therapists.  In my view there is room (and each therapist I think, ought use) both styles, often with the same client.  There are times that we should be directive, and not just in terms of extreme examples like when a client is being abused.  Discouraging self-medicating, engaging a support group, ruling out medical concerns with a physician, ways to stop a behavior etc are all examples where there is little controversy over giving someone "direction" about an issue.

People come to us for answers.  We are paid to have a toolset, methods, principles of operating that in many cases should help diminish depression, stress, relationship conflicts, behavioral concerns and the like.  On the subject of not holding these ideas close to one's chest: there is a great (and occasionally controversial) martial arts instructor who critiques traditional means of training, idealizing the "teacher" and etc.  He also critiques traditional martial arts training as being "cultish"- keeping secrets, claiming answers from some (out of touch and unknowable) "higher source".  His "instructors" are all referred to as "coaches" or by their first names, and their focus is very simple: performance improvement.  That last idea is part of what I'm getting at here- the "answers" we give as therapists should improve "performance", which I would argue is diminished if we are too passive.  It is very significant of course, that what is being improved, is clearly defined.  If we think something might be helpful though- there are certainly compelling reasons we should disclose it.

When it comes to performance, we should be helping people get more in touch with their emotional condition, have those feelings gracefully, diminish (but not eliminate) the intensity of negative emotions.  Our interventions should help decrease or stop unwanted behaviors.  The direction we give should help increase intimacy.  Of course this is not an exhaustive list, it may take a long time for these things to happen, and some cannot happen without the others.

My experience has been that many (arguably most) of my clients have come into my office, suffering enough, and out of enough answers, that they are willing to do most things we come up with together.  Had they been in possession of this material on their own to begin with, there would be no (or little) need for my education and experience with the issues they struggle with.

My effort is to put me out of a job and it does people a disservice I think, to have an insight that I wait for them to come to on their own... which they've already arguably been trying to do.  Sometimes I ask my clients if they have spent a great deal of time in their lives, saying something like this to themselves: "I just wish someone would tell me what to do about this."  There are many things, that most (not necessarily all) people can do, directly, to diminish feelings of low self worth, sadness, struggles in relationships and most of the problems they come to a therapist.  If I didn't go to school to learn to help people know and do these things, then what exactly did I go for?

Love and Service.

Thanks for dropping by my blog page.  As the introduction notes, I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Psychiatric Technician, and Masters level Addictions Counselor in Pasadena, California.  Though I’ve been doing some private practice for many years in addition to the twenty-six I’ve been doing inpatient work, I’ve now gone out on my own, to do just private practice.

            Providing treatment is my life’s work.  Having not just survived, but also (somewhat) gracefully dealt with some suffering of my own, I have been given not just some answers- but with those answers, also responsibility to others.  Holding on to those responsibilities is not only bad for other people, it would be unhealthy for me too.  So, very early, I started being of service.

            Having worked inpatient for so many years, I’ve been lucky (and saddened) to take care of most every type of human suffering possible.  Most of my work has been with adults and adolescents.  Depression, loss, grief, addiction, trauma, abuse, stress, mental illness (for lack of a more graceful term), relationships, desires (and need) for personal growth or “life coaching”, chronic pain, medical illnesses, family problems, couples problems and more have all been tragically present and have arguably increased over the years I’ve provided service.  There is much work to be done about all of these things and more.  It seems now that the most effective way to care for these problems is for me to see individuals, families, and couples privately.

            It was suggested by someone I consider wise that I find a way to make myself available to people when they are not able to be around me.  Aside from writing a book, providing materials from talks I do in the community, I am starting a blog.  There is much work to be done, and many answers are possible that can improve the quality of all our lives, if we’re willing to live by some principles and do some work.  My hope is that I can take you along with me as I do so, by way of communicating here.

            And so to it.