There are seemingly simple questions which have complicated answers. When I am asked these types of questions my anxiety peaks a little, my heart beats a little harder and I get a little sweaty. I think, Do you really want to sit here and listen to me long enough to really understand the answer? Are you willing to listen with an open and non-defensive heart? Because I don't want to waste my time and energy for the outcome to be that you are mad at me for telling you the truth.*
I tell the truth. I'll tell you the truth, unless of course I assess that you can't handle the truth. If you are a client of mine I teach you to handle the truth, so I never back down from a question like this. If you are a client of mine, however, you've already come to the conclusion (or someone else with authority in your life has) that you need/want therapy. It's not so easy with you, my friends, family, neighbors, ward members, etc., because in these relationships I need you. And if you get mad at me for telling you the truth, I am punished by you withdrawing. I marvel at the human ability to be resilient, AND the human lack of ability to accept the truth. (BTW, this is call DENIAL).
One may argue that the truth I am telling is an opinion. That may well be. An educated and experienced opinion is valuable nonetheless. For example, if it is my physician's opinion that I should stop smoking in order to avoid tragic health problems like cancers and lung and heart disease than I would be FOOLISH to not consider her thoughts on the matter. The truth is, they cannot predict for certainty that I will develop such health problems from smoking, but they KNOW FOR CERTAINTY that I am risking them. Hence, the truth I tell folks.
Why is it that needing therapy is such an insult anyway? (Hint: that's a trick question to get you thinking). In my favorite case the client, in the final months of therapy, emphasized over and over how grateful he was for the opportunity to become healthy, and hence experience happiness he never thought possible. He felt relief. For example, I have asthma. It's been quite persistent and severe in the past. In the throws of an asthma attack the only thing I can think of is getting enough air to survive. I'm not thinking about what's for dinner or what's on TV later, I am thinking, Deep, slow breaths. Deep, slow breaths. When I was prescribed my first emergency inhaler when I was 13 years-old the first time I experienced the rapid effects of the medicine loosening up my bronchial passageways hot tears stung my eyes...I had never experienced such physical relief in my life. I, for the first time, knew I was in control of my asthma rather than vice versa. Emotional relief is possible too, I know this to be truth. WARNING: self-disclosure ahead: I've also experienced this type of relief via my own experiences as a therapy client.
I fully understand why it feels like an insult to need therapy. Accepting that truth is to accept that you are less than perfect, to accept that life has not gone the way you hoped. You question your capabilities, you worry you are inadequate. You feel ashamed, unworthy. You worry that those around you can see those secrets you've been hiding. You don't want to talk about those at all (or even think about them). You would do almost anything to never think/talk about those secrets, including put off the therapy. You may be worried discussing such things in therapy will make you feel worse. Here's the truth: it will, temporarily. Because digging something out that has been buried for so long is a painful process. Long term, you will feel relieved. I PROMISE, and so do my clients who have trusted themselves enough to embark on the process.
I had a client say this when I informed them that they had completed therapy, "I can't stop coming, you're the only one that knows my secrets."
"They are no longer secrets, " I replied. This is true even if they choose to never tell another. By talking about it you allow yourself to regain control of it. If you are avoiding talking about it, it is controlling you. This truth is the most basic psychological principle, by the way.
Finally, a teenaged boy came in to session one day furious. He wouldn't tell me the problem and I spent the next 30 minutes staring at him, his anger impeded his ability to redirect his attention to other topics. After awhile I said, "If you're not willing to talk about this or any other issue than I'll end session and save your parent's money and everyone's time." He then told me that he was angry at another boy at school who was calling him 'jelly bean' (due to my client's head shape). He ranted on for a time until I said, "Wait a second, turn your head to the side...okay to the other side...Yeah, he's right. Your head does look like a jelly bean." Of course you can imagine his face reddening but before he could storm out of my office I added, "A jelly bean-shaped head is a good shaped head. You can choose what you find insulting." If someone suggests therapy, it is not an insult, at least you don't have to see it as insulting. Therapy is an opportunity. And some would say, the best opportunity of a lifetime.
The following lists those behaviors which cannot go another day without therapeutic intervention:
-Thoughts/behaviors of physically harming self
-Thoughts/behaviors of physically harming others
-Psychosis
-Abusive behavior: verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse
-Substance abuse/dependence
-Violating the rights of others
The following lists those issues which are causing more damage than one would suspect and I would recommend therapy to begin ASAP:
-Abuse victimization, past and/or present: verbal, emotional, physical, and/or sexual
-A traumatic even where you felt completely out of control of your mortality
-A depressed mood lasting two weeks or longer (inability to be motivated, experiencing little or no life satisfaction)
-Anxiety impeding regular daily tasks and/or relationships
-Few or no satisfying interpersonal relationships
-Eating problems
-Encopresis in children (pooping inappropriately)
-Enuresis (wetting bed/pants after previously being trained)
-Gross personality change in a child lasting more than two weeks, no identifiable trigger
-Sexual behavior concerns in a child
The following lists those issues which would benefit from therapy sooner rather than later:
-A mildly depressed mood lasting more than a year
-Life changes which have caused emotional strife/anxiety
-Loss, grief
-Difficulty being successful academically or at work
-Anger management problems including: name calling, belittling, aggressive words, aggressive behavior, impulsive behavior (not thinking through potential consequences before action), destruction of property
-Chronic opposition and/or defiance in a child older than age 5 (Parents, be ready to do more changing than the child)
The following lists issues which are not appropriate for therapy, unless you are willing to pay $120 per hour:
-Children not doing their chores
-Children ignoring their parents
-Children talking back to their parents
-Pet behavior problems unrelated to children's/owner's behavior problems (I wish I was lying)
*I am amazed how many people put me in this position to only punish me for being honest.
Dad, about boundaries, it's at least a 12 week course.
3 comments:
We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually.
That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.
Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not know and recognize.
On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy.
He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion.
He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down’s Syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only visitors are children, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years.
He knows all that.
He’s been there.
He’s been lower than all that.
He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us , or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.
You know that people who live above a certain latitude experience very long winter nights and can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day.
Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we’ll open the door and let him.--Cheiko Okasaki
PLEASE READ THE ABOVE COMMENT. IT'S THE BEST THING I'VE EVER READ, EVER.
Your blog was FANTASTIC but your comment/sis. Okazaki's quote was even more FANTASTIC!!! Thank you for sharing. I think i will copy and paste that somewhere for me to read often as a reminder.
Post a Comment