What are boundaries? They are the limits of our personal space...the point where we tell others "Stop! I don't want you to cross this line." Think of this as being similar to real estate property boundaries...everybody knows were the property begins and ends so they don't violate that boundary, the majority of the time.
Why are boundaries important? Creating and maintaining boundaries gives the person who has them a sense of self-respect. S/he does not feel walked on by others, but respected by family members, friends, and within the community. The person knows what limits s/he has set for others and does not allow them to cross those boundaries.
How are boundaries created? This is based on the person. S/he has to think about what limits to set with others. Things like how much personal space do I need around me before someone is sitting/standing too close? Or how much contact can I handle with people who make me uncomfortable? These are just a few examples. There are many more boundaries that need to be set and a lot of them are individual to the person setting the boundaries.
Who needs to set boundaries? Everyone! Including me.
What happens if someone tries to violate my boundaries? When I have difficulty with someone trying this with me, I gently explain to them that they are crossing the line and I don't like where they are going. At this point the person usually backs off and frequently apologizes. Rarely does it create a bigger problem. When a bigger problem does get created, I leave the situation.
Boundaries provide structure to relationships. Without them, we would be stepping on each others toes with little disregard for the other person's feelings. They are easy to create, but sometimes difficult to maintain because we sometimes fear hurting somebody else's feelings instead of protecting our own. Yet boundaries are important in maintaining our own self-respect.
Psychology/MFT related
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Mindfulness
What is mindfulness? It would appear that this would have a simple answer and to some extent it does. Mindfulness is being aware of what you are doing in the moment. Sounds easy, right? However, the act of being mindful encompasses much more than that. Being mindful can be a difficult process to learn. For example, say you are doing the dishes. Paying attention to what is going on in the moment while you are doing the dishes, without your mind wandering, can be hard to do. Focusing on the way the water feels on your hands, the movement of scrubbing the dishes instead of going on autopilot, because this is something that most of us do every day, is challenging.
What are some ways to be more mindful in your daily activities? One excellent example is through mindful eating. This is about being fully present while eating, noticing all five senses during the experience. It is also about being nonjudgmental about yourself before, during, and after eating. Eat, don't do anything else. Notice with food smells like. Notice how the food looks. Notice how it feels in your hand or with the utensil. Notice salivation and taste. Chew each bite at least 20 times. Notice any feelings of food in your stomach. Continue eating the rest of your food paying attention to all of these sensations. Notice feeling satiated and full. This can be practiced with something small that you typically eat in handfuls such as popcorn, nuts, chocolate, dried fruit, or chips. You can practice one mindful meal a week for one month. Then practice 3 mindful meals a week for another month. Eventually, it will be useful to practice one mindful meal a day. Some statements to answer as you're practicing mindful eating are as follows: "Things I noticed when I was 'Mindfully Eating'; Things that I was surprised by or didn't expect an eating mindfully; 'Mindful Eating' will be useful to me by; Ways that I eat mindfully on a regular basis." (Moonshine, 2008).
In being mindful, it is important to do one thing at a time. If you are driving, just drive. If you are at work, focus on the tasks at hand. If you are taking a break or practicing self-care dedicate yourself to that moment. Being mindful is focusing on the here and now and being present in the moment. It is a skill that takes practice, but is well worth the reward.
What are some ways to be more mindful in your daily activities? One excellent example is through mindful eating. This is about being fully present while eating, noticing all five senses during the experience. It is also about being nonjudgmental about yourself before, during, and after eating. Eat, don't do anything else. Notice with food smells like. Notice how the food looks. Notice how it feels in your hand or with the utensil. Notice salivation and taste. Chew each bite at least 20 times. Notice any feelings of food in your stomach. Continue eating the rest of your food paying attention to all of these sensations. Notice feeling satiated and full. This can be practiced with something small that you typically eat in handfuls such as popcorn, nuts, chocolate, dried fruit, or chips. You can practice one mindful meal a week for one month. Then practice 3 mindful meals a week for another month. Eventually, it will be useful to practice one mindful meal a day. Some statements to answer as you're practicing mindful eating are as follows: "Things I noticed when I was 'Mindfully Eating'; Things that I was surprised by or didn't expect an eating mindfully; 'Mindful Eating' will be useful to me by; Ways that I eat mindfully on a regular basis." (Moonshine, 2008).
In being mindful, it is important to do one thing at a time. If you are driving, just drive. If you are at work, focus on the tasks at hand. If you are taking a break or practicing self-care dedicate yourself to that moment. Being mindful is focusing on the here and now and being present in the moment. It is a skill that takes practice, but is well worth the reward.
References
Moonshine, C. (2008). Acquiring competency in achieving proficiency with dialectical behavior therapy: Volume II, the worksheets. PESI: Eau Claire, Wisconsin.Saturday, July 14, 2012
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Imagine yourself sitting there feeling anxious without
knowing the reason why. You may feel
nauseous, have difficulty concentrating, and feel restless. There is muscle tension, you are easily
fatigued, and you have difficulty sleeping or you have restless sleep. You find it difficult to control the worry. Now, imagine that going on for six months or
more. These are some of the prevailing symptoms
of generalized anxiety disorder or GAD.
I have known people with GAD who told me that there were times
when they have been so anxious before going places that they wanted to turn around
and go back home because the anxiety they were feeling at the moment was so intense. This speaks of the potential debilitating
nature of GAD. It affects all areas of
the sufferer’s life. I realize for those
who've never had GAD it can be difficult to understand its effects because you
may be thinking “we all get nervous or feel a little anxious sometimes,” right? The difference with GAD is the intensity of
the anxiety is greater and the length of time that it occurs is longer.
Frequently, it is difficult for those without GAD to
understand how the person with GAD feels.
This is unfortunate. The well
intentioned attitude portrayed by well-meaning friends and family of "there's
nothing worth being that worried about" often makes the person feel worse
because s/he may now believe s/he are disappointing family or friends.
So what is the solution?
As the therapist, I would refer them to see a psychiatrist for
medication evaluation. I would teach
them relaxation techniques to help relieve anxiety such as mindfulness,
meditation, and deep, diaphragmatic breathing.
Also, since I'm a certified hypnotherapist, I could use hypnosis as a
relaxation technique as well. Discussing
the issues of concern can also be helpful.
Of course, this is only some of the things I could do.
GAD can have a paralyzing effect on the individual. It is important for the individual with GAD
to have supportive friends and family and to seek counseling in order to find
ways to gain control over their anxiety.
GAD does not have to rule their life.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
My Favorite Psychological Theorist
I
realize it might sound strange to some to be talking about my favorite psychological
theorist but I think that the work of John Gottman is very interesting. Over the last three decades John Gottman and his wife Julie Swartz-Gottman have created, with
the help of their “Love Lab” studies, an effective method of treating couples
in distress. This method is centered in
the here and now, is emotion focused, and experiential in nature. What follows is a brief description of the
Gottman method of couple therapy.
First
let me add some interesting facts… Gottman defines a well–functioning couple as
those partners that remain relatively stable and happy over time. The couple is able to maintain control during
negative conflict, create shared meaning in the relationship, and increase
positive influence. They were able to
have a 5:1 positive to negative interaction ratio, which Gottman found was
important to maintaining an effective, stable relationship. A dysfunctional couple is partners that
either stayed in unhappy relationships together or broke up. The couple is unable to maintain control during
negative conflict, create shared meaning within the relationship, or to increase
positive influence. This type of couple
had a lower positive to negative interaction ratio of .8:1 (Gottman, 1999, p. 35).
Gottman's
work is based on the Sound Marital House Theory (Gottman, 1999, p. 105). There are seven levels to this theory
arranged in hierarchical order. 1. Create love maps. Love maps are a road map of one's partner's
inner world. These maps are built by
asking the partner open ended questions.
2. Make the admiration and
fondness system by articulating respect and love in everyday small moments. 3. Turn
toward instead of against or away from their spouse’s requests for affective
connection. 4. Permit positive sentiment override, meaning
not taking negative or neutral partner events personally. 5. Take
a multi–pronged approach toward managing disagreements by using a gentle method
in stating complaints, receiving influence, compromise, physical soothing, and
by creating communication with continuous problems that explores each individual’s
life dreams within conflict. 6. Honor
each other's life dreams. 7. Construct a shared meaning system by creating
informal and formal rituals of connection, building shared values and goals,
common views of symbols and supporting each other's life roles. The Sound Marital House Theory provides an
overall structure for Gottman's assessments, therapy, and key interventions and
techniques.
There
are five goals the Gottman method. I
will briefly go over the five goals however I will not discuss the different
steps involved with each goal. For
further information, I would recommend reading the chapter on the Gottman method
of couple therapy in S. Gurman's Clinical
Handbook of Couple Therapy (4th ed., 2008). The first goal in the Gottman method is to
down-regulate negative affect during conflict.
Although conflict is inevitable, it is important to be able to achieve
repair after the fight which means being able to process the fight by talking
about it without getting back into the fight.
This also means being able to reduce what Gottman calls the four
horsemen of the apocalypse, his greatest predictors of divorce. This
involves increasing the partners’ knowledge of the occurrence of the horsemen
and teaching them how to use the appropriate antidotes. The four horsemen are as follows: criticism,
defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.
The antidotes for these are: complaining, accepting responsibility for
at least part of the problem, respect within the relationship, and self-soothing.
Goal
two in the Gottman method is to up-regulate positive affect during conflict. This occurs by having couples turn toward
each other when bids for affection are made couples can also build friendship
in their relationship by increasing the activation of the positive affect
system in non-conflict periods. This could
potentially lead to an increase in positive affect during conflict. Goal three of the Gottman method is to build
positive affect during non-conflict.
This can be partially accomplished by teaching clients to savor positive
affect. Goal four of the Gottman method
is to bridge meta-emotion mismatches.
Meta-emotion is the way people feel about having emotions. There are two broad types. Those people who are emotion dismissing have
poorly developed dictionaries of different emotions and did not care or know
what they were feeling not having needs as a strength. Those people who are emotion coaching see
emotions as a guide on how to proceed through life. They validate others emotions. A meta-emotion mismatch predicts the pattern
of turning away from bids such as the "pursuer-distancer" pattern. Goal five is to create and nurture a shared
meaning system. This is something that
all couples unintentionally or intentionally build, so it is important for the
counselor to assist them in creating a positive shared meaning system.
This
provides a brief example of Gottman’s goals in therapy. He has published numerous books filled with
assessments, references to the many tools he uses in his therapy sessions, and
he offers seminars on how to use his methods in therapy. He continues to do research as well.
References
Gottman,
J. M. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically
based marital therapy. New York: W.
W. Norton & Co.
Gottman,
J. M., & Gottman, J. S. (2008). Gottman method couple therapy. In S. Gurman
(Ed.). Clinical
handbook of couple therapy (4th ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Hypnosis-What is it?
Today's blog is about hypnosis. There are a large number of misunderstandings about what hypnosis is...that it is some sort of mind control by the hypnotist or mind reading, for example. Or the act of hypnosis is somehow cavorting with evil. Defining hypnosis is really very simple. Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD in her book Hypnosis: Smile On Your Face, Money In Your Pocket defines it as "a natural state of heightened awareness where you easily accept suggestions, listen to inner wisdom, replace limiting imprints and (meet) with your higher self" (p. 19). We all enter into various levels of hypnosis throughout the day, while we are watching TV, a movie, or reading a book, while we are driving down the freeway passing the exit signs without noticing them, and even while you are sitting in a church listening to the pastor give the message you are in a state of hypnosis. When you intentionally engage in practices like meditation or yoga that involve deep breathing and a sense of inner calm you are practicing self-hypnosis.
I've given examples how hypnotic states happen to each person during everyday events. Now I will discuss what happens during intentionally induced self-hypnosis. Here I will be talking about what
I do when I go into hypnosis. This is
the same process that I teach others when I am guiding them through the process. First, I make sure that I am well hydrated by
drinking plenty of fluids and that I have gone to the bathroom before starting. Also, I make sure that I have 15 to 20 minutes
or more of free time to spend in a relaxed state and turn down (or off) any
phones or other distracting noise. Here
I find that soft music or white noise playing in the background can be very
soothing; however, music with words can be very distracting. I find a place in the room to either sit or lie
down that is comfortable. Then I take a
relaxing deep breath. Hold for 5
seconds and let it out. I take another
deep breath and let it out. I continue
to deep breathe. In my head, I'm telling
myself with each breath, I'm going five times deeper into relaxation than I was
before. For me, personally, it takes 5
to 7 deep breaths before I am relaxed enough to move onto the next portion of the
hypnosis.
At this point I would think
about the pathway to my favorite place to make the journey in my mind. When I was first learning hypnosis, it was
soothing to me to have a longer trek because I was nervous and it helped me
relax more. Now that I've been doing
hypnosis for a while, I found that my trip down the path does not need to be as
long to have the same purpose. But in
the beginning, I would think about every detail of the path: the sites; the
smells; what I felt on my skin; what I tasted; everything down to the last
detail. This makes for a vivid
experience. My favorite place happens to
be a rock below a waterfall on the South Fork of the American River so my trail
goes through the forest in the woods.
Once I have arrived at my favorite
place, I can sit on my “rock” and enjoy the view in my mind for a while,
relaxing. There is no tension in my
muscles; my breathing is calm and even; to an outside observer I may appear to be
asleep. While I am meditating on the rock
I can give myself positive affirmations and reverse negative statements. (Note:
the subconscious doesn’t hear the negative in negative statements, so if you
tell it not to do something…it hears just the opposite.)
The main "business" that I
do while I am in hypnosis, besides positive affirmations, is go to my "control room." This is a location that I have created at my
favorite place that has door on it with a lock and key that only I can open. Inside this room is a control panel to all
the parts of my body including my mind. Everyone's
control panel looks different, but in explaining it to clients I compare it to the
knobs on radio. The volume on the dial or
lever can be turned up or down to increase or decrease the sensation being
felt. For example, if I'm feeling highly
anxious, I can go into my control room, see what number my anxiety knob is set
to and turn it down to a number that I'm much more comfortable with. This can be done with any sensation being felt. Any issues of concern can be taken care of at the same visit, each with it's own control, dial, knob, or lever.
To
bring myself back to room awareness I count to five. 1, slowly, calmly, gently. 2, everything is relaxed. 3, I’m feeling great from head to toe. 4, it is like I have splashed my face with
fresh spring water. 5, my eyes are open and
everything is fine (Stockwell-Nicholas, 2009). That is the basic extent of what happens with hypnosis. There really is nothing mystical about it.
It is my hope that this explanation has clarified for the readers what hypnosis is and isn't. Of course, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section and I will answer them either there or in future blogs.
References: Stockwell-Nicholas, S. (2009). Hypnosis: Smile On Your Face, Money In Your Pocket. Creativity Unlimited Press. Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.
Monday, June 11, 2012
New beginnings
I have recently been able to get a new job as a registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern at Life Practice Counseling Group. This is a private practice facility with low rates in order to better meet the needs of the private pay community. The counseling group works with MFT trainees and MFT interns as the primary counselors and does not accept insurance. This is an important step for me because this is my first paying job since 2002. Needless to say, I am very excited and happy about the prospects this job holds for me. I am a little nervous about the private practice portion of the position because it means I will have to find my own clients (so if anyone reading this knows of anybody that needs counseling, my rates are $65 per session and I have two offices in Sacramento). I can be reached via my cell phone at 916-949-6517. My official start date is July 2. Okay enough of the shameless advertising, on with the rest of my post.
So, I have entitled this post new beginnings as this is a new start for me, but also because I wanted to talk about how important new beginnings are in people's lives. As I'm sure we have all observed in our day-to-day living, when we have something new come up in our lives it creates in us feelings of excitement, nervousness, maybe exhilaration, and upon completion helps us to feel good about ourselves. Think, for example, about the first time you went to school. You probably felt nervous, anxious about meeting new people, and excited about the prospects of what you're going to learn or what was going to happen. Once that first day was over, the might have felt a mix of emotions such as happy with all the new friends you've found, sad that the first day is over, and a release of anxiety now that you knew what to expect from school. Of course this is just an example of what you might have felt. There is a broad range of emotions possible.
New beginnings give us a chance to start over. For many of us this is an important step in our lives, the chance to begin again with a clean slate. Sometimes this is all a person needs in order to get back on their feet after making a mistake. Or maybe it is a chance to try something new after learning about it in a book. The important thing is allowing ourselves to have new beginnings.
In the future, my blogs will be psychology/MFT related postings on various topics from emotions to theoretical orientations and multiple topics in between. I look forward to the opportunity to share some of my information with you.
So, I have entitled this post new beginnings as this is a new start for me, but also because I wanted to talk about how important new beginnings are in people's lives. As I'm sure we have all observed in our day-to-day living, when we have something new come up in our lives it creates in us feelings of excitement, nervousness, maybe exhilaration, and upon completion helps us to feel good about ourselves. Think, for example, about the first time you went to school. You probably felt nervous, anxious about meeting new people, and excited about the prospects of what you're going to learn or what was going to happen. Once that first day was over, the might have felt a mix of emotions such as happy with all the new friends you've found, sad that the first day is over, and a release of anxiety now that you knew what to expect from school. Of course this is just an example of what you might have felt. There is a broad range of emotions possible.
New beginnings give us a chance to start over. For many of us this is an important step in our lives, the chance to begin again with a clean slate. Sometimes this is all a person needs in order to get back on their feet after making a mistake. Or maybe it is a chance to try something new after learning about it in a book. The important thing is allowing ourselves to have new beginnings.
In the future, my blogs will be psychology/MFT related postings on various topics from emotions to theoretical orientations and multiple topics in between. I look forward to the opportunity to share some of my information with you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)