What makes my work really fun is watching people go from a myriad of miserable symptoms to spontaneously handling things differently and feeling a cores sense of stability and self-trust.
Of course this is a process that unfolds over time. The time it takes is directly related to what a person’s previous life experience is. For some people, things unfold quickly because they have a lot of internal resources and positive experiences in their lives.
For others this can take a very long time if they are missing many important core internal resources and their life experiences have been pretty horrific. That doesn’t mean they don’t experience improvement during the process. It just takes longer to rebuild internal core capacities and neutralize previous life experiences that are still driving present day behavior.
There is a difference between managing problems, emotions and behaviors and resolving them. My journey as a mental health professional has been discovering what works for resolving them.
I have a very different way of conceptualizing mental, emotional, and behavioral health. Mostly because I found that the traditional way of helping people did not create real change. I often found people would manage the way they felt, how they behaved, what they thought. And they would be very frustrated that they either could not get themselves to do things differently or they felt like a fraud when they did. And it took enormous amount of energy to think the right good thoughts and act the right good way. It was exhausting.
It did not matter how bright the person was or how motivated or determined they were, it was always an ongoing struggle to think, feel and act differently. Of course, the feelings did not really change because feelings will always be an indicator of unresolved issues.
Someone asked me the other day about anger management. Their spouse told them it should not be that hard to manage their anger. I pointed out there is a difference between anger management and resolving what is driving the anger. By resolving the root cause the symptoms resolve.
Of course, I cannot do therapy in this venue, but I can share with you various experiences and insights I have had during the course of my career. And ways of working that could be useful for you. Things to look for when you are looking for your own help to make changes. And of course, my own viewpoints on the pros and cons of various programs and tools.
Thank you for joining me!
Debra
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