how it works
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
John Maynard Keynes
Most of our problems have their origins somewhere or other in our upbringing. which we carry with us where-ever we go . We perpetuate the familiar feelings of our past by the way we move, the places we go, the company we attract. The food, drugs, sights and sounds we take in.
We are attracted to surroundings and relationships we are at home with and match our expectations, even when they are uncomfortable or destructive. They are familiar and we have ways to handle them. And if we can't find them, we re-create them, or even imagine them out of thin air to match old expectations. And end up realising our worst fears and avoiding wonderful opportunities.
Noticing thoughts and feelings opens the way to uncovering these self limiting habits and ideas that are usually so taken for granted as to be invisible.
Some override commonsense and erode health and vitality. Some limit achievement and put a ceiling on prosperity and happiness.
As we notice we can gradually let them go and allow ourselves to take each moment anew as an adventure into the unknown - free of the constraints of past conditioning.
motivation
The first step is to begin to care enough to do something. Clients bring problems to us because of uncomfortable emotions and feelings about them. Otherwise there is little motivation to come. Emotions tell us what's important and problems lose their significance as their negative feelings fade.
Sometimes the object of an emotion is the problem – like a relationship or an unfulfilled goal or a loss. Other times an emotion itself is presented as the problem – usually simplified as anxiety, anger or depression.
Emotions prime us to step out of the past, become our own authority and take control of our life.
existence
Humans are social animals. We only fully exist in relation to other people. If we stop communicating for too long our language, verbal and emotional reasoning fades. Our image of ourselves with roles, expectations, rights and duties dissolves. We lose the idea of who we are. Therapy is a chance to practice existing.
relationships
Research shows that social connections are the largest contributor to recovery in therapy. The quality of the relationship with the therapist usually shows up as the next most important factor. The kind of therapy does not make a lot of difference.
Almost all of us have more than just personal goals. More than anything else we want to belong. We want good connections with others. We can practice belonging and being accepted within a therapeutic relationship.
externalising thoughts and feelings
Ideas are words coloured by feelings. They are largely a social activity evolved for communicating and can only be fully understood by evaluating other peoples' reactions to them. They only stop rattling around inside us and become three dimensional and real when they are outside of ourselves in conversations where we can see them through the eyes of others.
When we converse we introduce a real-world perspective that is missing when ideas go around in circles in a corner of our head. Problems can be examined more objectively when they are outside of us in spoken words and a therapist's responses.
coming to our senses
When we experience ourselves talking to someone in a relaxed environment our attention shifts from our preoccupations, fantasies and conjectures to our experience of our self with the other person.
As we shift focus to the world around us our problems are experienced in a wider perspective. We notice that we are not the only ones with problems. And there are solutions.
As overwhelming preoccupations fall away, our senses of touch, vision, taste and smell become clearer and more sensitive. We begin to notice things that were hiding from us right in front of our eyes. We can begin living more in the present.
Some Person Centered Therapies include physical activities like moving, touching, drawing or writing which anchor the deliberations of the session even more in the physical world.
feelings
When we know our feelings we can see them coming and use them to work out what we want rather than let them drive us from below the level of awareness from where they pop up unexpectedly and catch us by surprise.
A teenager survived a large drug overdose after escalating episodes of uncontrollable rage and mood swings arising during confrontations with his parents. He attracted a range of different psychiatric diagnoses and was trialled for a few months on a range of medications with side effects that were alarming, sickening and bewildering. After remembering the conflicts and the strong feelings in detail in our single session together he began to notice what set them off and afterwards prepared for conflictual situations by finding ways to either step back or calm down. His parents became increasingly anxious and angry until after a couple of years they became relaxed, warm and supportive (as usually happens over time).
a neutral environment
Distressing memories from the past can be revisited in a safe and calm therapy room. A therapist's voice, face and posture contains the knowledge from years of experience that disastrous life situations can be turned around. Memories can be faced and examined more clearly where they are less overwhelming. And remembered in a broader perspective. Then they can be worked around or used to plan the future.
expanded mental capacity
When we hear ourselves voice a preoccupation and hear and see someone else's responses different parts of the mind are brought into play. We expand our intellect.
And instead of one person thinking, now two are thinking together. Extra intellectual capacity is plugged in. This interaction has a mind of its own that may find new ways to look at things.
release from exhausting inhibition
When we allow the awareness of negative feelings like sadness, guilt or fear into consciousness we are released from the ongoing task of denying them and restraining ourselves. We are also released from the fear of these negative feelings arising in us. We don't have to pretend so much. Our body is released from tension. The negative mental chatter can slow up. The energy that was spend covering up is now available to do what we really want. Displacement and diversionary activities are no longer as necessary. Parts of our life that were starving of energy and initiative can get going again.
This is a bit like the way energies are re-balanced by acupuncture. Processes that are over-activate are calmed and depleted processes are invigorated.
awareness of Ideas
I thought I was unlovable – how could I have thought that? That held me back for 60 years. It was transformational.
A veteran with severe symptoms of PTSD lived in a small tin shed at the bottom of the garden away from wife and children as he could not tolerate their behaviour. One day in a blinding flash it came to him that he was the problem – he had thought that they were the problem along with workmates, customers and bosses. He quit drinking, left his high stress job, took up community volunteer work and went into business and was quickly successful, enjoying life for the first time in decades.
fears and hopes
One of the secrets of playing music is to be able to hear what you are actually playing and not just how you are wanting to sound. Awareness of ourselves and the world opens us to what is happening rather than what we fear or hope might be happening. Then we can find real ways to get to where we want to be.
empowerment
Person centered therapy is an opportunity to practice control and decision-making in a safe environment. With power and authority to initiate topics and contemplate actions. This is a chance to practice status and worth and build self esteem.
beliefs
Many unquestioned conventional beliefs and official stories about things like money, work, drugs, birth, pesticides, learning, death, food, relationships, health, God, wars, politics and child-rearing are wrong or misleading. Just noticing them is usually enough to warn of the risks and side step the dangers.
social and financial pressures
Social and financial pressures can override the evidence of our senses and draw us into activities that harm us until we notice them. Noticing is not so easy as our culture encourages relying on experts rather than our own judgment.
A couple was heavily in debt paying a mortgage on their dream home, maintaining 2 cars. He was stressed in a middle management job doing the work of 3 people. She was a depressed, overweight, stay at home mum keeping all this on the road. They had aspired and succeeded further than any of their friends but their marriage was slowing to a halt. They had no time together – they just did things for the kids the house the mortgage, families and friends. All the family were stressing. Their GP's were suggesting medications for them to cope. After a a blazing row and ultimatums he stormed out, and had an accident and they realised that they could not go on like this. He noticed that he was repeating the aspirations and behaviour of his family and went and talked to them about it. She took a job and went to the gym. They set aside time to be together and to do their own things. He strictly limited his time at work and spent time with the children as soon as he came home from work so they would know they were his first priority. By re-organising and delegating he did better than before at work in less time. After a few months when he had recovered his health and confidence he looked for a job that would not intrude on his family and found one in a firm that looked after its staff and was incidentally at a higher level. He had learned to manage high stress and workloads but not to go beyond his capacity so he was a valuable asset.
noticing others
Someone may transform a conflictual relationship after noticing they are distressed or are distressing someone important to them.
A woman in her late thirties had incapacitating PMT since adolescence. She knew that alcohol and sugar made it worse but strong cravings would over-ride the dread of the next episode. Her family lived in fear of her rages which began a decade before and were becoming more intense and spreading into the rest of the month. One morning she was shocked to find her daughter trembling in bed when she came to get her up and flashed back to her own fear of her mother's anger. She checked with her mother and found she was repeating her premenstrual mood swings. The cravings vanished and she began an upward spiral of improving family relationships and increasing tolerance and satisfaction.
discovering who we are
When we know who we are we don't need to struggle to maintain a persona that really is not ours but comes from someone else – often a parent
After a lifetime of extreme conflict and struggle with their mother and refuge from rage and despair in drugs and alcohol and 4 years of therapy a sudden realisation - ”I don't know what to do – no idea” a blank overwhelmed powerless puzzled moment – was all that was needed for a client to stop, step back, and begin to reorganise their life And become the person they really were – someone who did not know what to do - rather than someone who had to wrestle their existence from their mother -– They let go of the conflict. They claimed their independence and a measured distance in the areas they wanted and remained dependent where that suited. When their stress diminished, drugs and alcohol became less important.
liberating existing skills
Therapy that begins with someone's own personal knowledge and insights has a head start. Increasing awareness liberates our existing (and often unnoticed) knowledge and skills rather than instructing new skills or ideas to override old ones.
New insights grow from one's own experience and expand existing feelings and world views. Without having to build new belief systems or undergo religious conversion.
time
Intellectual understanding is not enough. All of our mind, body and way of life has to be involved in change not just the words in our thoughts.
The mind can take time to process and integrate a new insight. Some transformations take seconds to permeate our body, emotions, mind and environment. Some take years.
Most of the work happens outside the session. Clients take their discoveries away to process and build on. Awareness grows as chains of images and insights together with shifts in mood are set off.
light and dark
When Jacques Schupbach, a Social Worker in London, explained the workings of healing to me he explained that push and pull was required. Not just push and not just pull. When therapy is working there is light and dark. Extracting and applying. Pain and pleasure. Panic and relief. Tension and release. Healing is teased out.
knowledge is ignorance
Knowledge colours the way we see and think. Everything we learn limits as well as enhances our understanding. As well as opening new horizons each new idea renders some thoughts less thinkable and some things less visible. Or even invisible and unthinkable. So an idea opens some doors and close others. Ideas are enchanting prisons.
Most personal progress comes from either unlearning or putting old experiences into perspective. If only we could maintain the innocence of childhood.
analogues
Even if we are not addressing core underlying problems, whatever we talk about will be an analogue of underlying problems. A preoccupation with a change in a relationship, job or family role, health, a crisis or traumatic experience is often the starting point.
While someone is working out their relationship to a therapist they are at the same time working on the old habits and feelings they are transferring to their therapist from their upbringing and close relationships. A therapist becomes aware of this by noticing their own emotional responses. The counter-transference. Play therapy works like this.
When minor or diversionary or masking preoccupations are being worked on underlying problems start to resolve even if they don't fully emerge into conscious awareness. A therapist might not even come to understand the underlying problems in detail or how their resolution has come about.
deciding to come
Deciding to come is the most important step in therapy. Often this is all that is needed and the role of the therapist is ceremonial and their task is not to get in the way of a healing process that is under way and perhaps even complete and just needs witnessing.
copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 9. Jan. 2012
