Chris People Therapy and Coaching

‘Stop being nice at the expense of being real’.

This post by Jefferson Fisher reminded me of Andrew Salter’s work on emotional freedom and authenticity. He describes that many of us are caught up in ‘emotional constipation’, which ranks up there as one of my favourite phrases in psychology and psychotherapy!

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t be kind or appreciative or giving. Those are traits or values I deeply admire - but they need to be authentic. An issue arises when ‘being kind/nice/generous etc.’ stops being a genuine expression of care and is instead becomes a rigid rule based on fear of judgement, ridicule or conflict.

Do check out Jefferson Fisher - he provides a very cool resource for skilful communication, conflict resolution and assertiveness.

I love James Clear and Atomic Habits. He manages to simply communicate concepts that are key in our individual practices. In this extract he simply separates outcome-based goals from process and values-based goals and practice. This is a distinction I try and help my clients also make.

Outcomes are good yes, and we should still strive towards them, but they are only an indicator (a 'KPI') of our progress in our process and connection to our values.

There is no finish line for love, education, fitness or any other value-based goal. We wake up every morning and re-commit to being the version of ourselves we aspire to be. One of the many benefits of process and values based goals is that they are less impacted by unforeseeable life events than outcome-based goals. We can (almost always) still make some small, incremental progress towards our values, even if we can't do everything we'd prefer. If the outcome we desire is to run a marathon, and we somehow break an ankle during our training (and so the outcome is no longer possible), we can still commit and take action towards our process/values-based goals of increasing our fitness through regular training. We might just need to focus on, for example, upper body strength training for a while instead. The original outcome is no longer available but the process and values-based action can still continue.

In the words of Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic) "Our job today is the same as its always been, and this is true tomorrow too. Nothing changes that, nothing exempts us from that, nothing prevents us from doing that."

May the 4th be with you! To all my fellow Star Wars nerds out there, have an force-filled day.

A few years ago I wrote a very light-hearted analysis on the lessons to be learned from both the light and dark side and what we can take from some of my favourite moments using a cognitive behavioural lens. Please feel free to check it out:
https://www.brighton-hypnotherapy.com/post/may-the-4th-be-with-you

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭?
PART 4: Building Skills

Starting to get into the nitty-gritty now, good and effective therapists help their clients develop the skills needed to progress towards the life they aspire towards.

There's no one way to 'cut this cake' of different skills in therapy. You could define these any number of ways. My favourite, again inspired the great Donald Meichenbaum, is to divide skills broadly into 3 categories -
* Internal or intrapersonal skills, which tend towards being around working with, or shifting our emotions/feelings and cognitions/thoughts (such as judgements, predictions, dwelling on the past, memories, images, rules we make or have about ourselves, life and the world, and many others). These skills can take a huge array of forms and approaches but in my practice will often include aspects such as emotional regulation, relaxation training, attentional control, distress tolerance, self-monitoring and awareness, urge surfing, emotional authenticity/freedom, mindfulness, self-efficacy (self belief), bolstering positive emotions (such as gratitude and awe) & motivation, and helpful self-talk, as well as self-hypnosis.

* External or interpersonal skills, which tend towards how we interact with the world and other people. These might for example include skilful and effective communication, conflict management, assertiveness & problem solving.

* 'Wrap-around' skills - which may include helping a client live a more complete or full life and helping to guide them towards skills that I can't always directly help them with. Examples might be for example how to access business, legal or financial advice, or working on a CV, or finding ways and places to socialise.

You might notice that some skills cross these categories. Problem solving for example cwould probably be considered both an interpersonal and intrapersonal skill.

Often when clients get sufficiently skilful, they naturally start coaching others in the same skills. Don Meichenbaum refers to this as being in 'consultative mode' and tends to show the skills are really starting to bed in.

The development of these skills helps the client to develop a pathway or stepping stones towards achieving the goals and aspirations we will likely already have articulated and agreed upon in our work together. A central idea throughout will be on understanding, normalising and preparing the client for future 'wobbles' or relapse. Understanding that almost all of us will indeed wobble, and if/when we do, we will be ready.

Next up in this series...Personal experiments

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭?
PART 3: A Hopeful Future

Helplessness and hopelessness are commonly associated with mental health concerns. We need only think about issues such as anxiety, low mood/depression, and stress (all of which are super common: data from the NHS indicates common mental health conditions affect about 1 in 6 people) to see the impact of this.

Good and effective therapists should help ignite that beacon of hope that helps you to see that life doesn't always need to be this way, and it doesn't need to be the way it's always been. They (we) do this frequently through goal setting, and helping their clients to start to see the existing strengths, resilience and 'islands of competence' that they are already demonstrating in order to cope with what challenges them. These strengths are important to us, we can leverage the heck out of what you have already shown you can do, and every single one of us has something we can draw on.

If our clients are not hopeful about the future, why would they bother to come to therapy at all? For me, this has always felt like a particularly important, if not the most important, Core Task in psychotherapy.

As an aside, I've literally just been to see Project Hail Mary, which is being described as a 'Hope-Core' genre. I came away feeling incredibly uplifted. See it if you can!

My takeaway? Find a therapist who ignites that beacon of hope in you. Someone who helps you see your strength and competence and what you've achieved 'in spite of' the challenges you face. Someone who can help you set effective SMART goals for a more hopeful future, and then helps you achieve them.

As I have mentioned before, this series is inspired by the great Dr Donald Meichenbaum and my work with Don and the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. For anyone who is interested Don expands on his original 7 Core Tasks further in his blog post here: https://www.donaldmeichenbaum.com/blog/on-deliberate-practice-the-pursuit-of-expertise-in-psychotherapy

Finally, the eagle-eyed will notice this was always supposed to be a 7-part series but I mistakenly called it 6 in the first 2 posts. Oops.

Next up in this series...Building Skills.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭?
PART 2: Shared Understanding

Psychologists and psychotherapists love to use a bunch of really jargon-y terms. Its like a shared language we use to talk to each other. However this can absolutely get in the way of talking to our clients as it can become a sort of slightly pompous barrier to genuine communication with people outside our profession. I am always reminded of that quote form Einstein when he said

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

'Case Conceptualisation' is one of those jargon-y terms we often use as psychotherapists. It just means 'shared understanding' - i.e. we should be able to discuss together, be curious as a team, and help you as our clients understand our combined best guess (or a 'working model') about what is going on for you, and from there, our best guess about the most effective way to help you.

As we discussed in part 1 of this series, this is done as a a team, and together. It is not a one-sided lecture. Your understanding of the challenges you face, as well as the information you provide on your personal strengths, resources and talents, as well as the real obstacles to doing something about it (for example the time you have available), is also vital to the clinical experience we bring.

My takeaway? Find someone who seems curious and understanding to the issues you face and helps you to understand the interconnectedness between particularly triggering situations, and your thoughts, feelings and actions. From this position of compassionate and shared understanding, the exercises or tasks you do together should feel relevant, necessary and generally just 'make sense'.

You can read more about the importance of the role of the Shared Understanding (or case conceptualisation) in this interview with CBT legend Donald Meichenbaum here:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-therapy/200812/seven-questions-for-donald-meichenbaum