Question:
I've seen my new therapist twice now, and let me tell you 2
50 minute sessions (minus paperwork) is not a lot of time.
He's not what I expected, or what I thought I wanted, but
he's not what I'd had before either, so maybe he's what I
need. I guess we wait and see?
Answer:
I've seen my new therapist twice now, and let me tell you 2
50 minute sessions (minus paperwork) is not a lot of time.
He's not what I expected, or what I thought I wanted, but
he's not what I'd had before either, so maybe he's what I
need. I guess we wait and see. At any rate, here is what he says about depression, and
about treatment for it:
The ABC's of depression --
A = Adversity, or Activating events. Those things in your life
that cause you to feel happy, sad, embarrassed, angry or whatever.
B = Belief. What those As cause you to believe.
C = Consequences of the Beliefs.
He says that everyone has As, but that depression lies in the
Bs and Cs. For example, suppose you lose your job. That's
a bad thing and will probably cause most people to feel sad.
But some people will stop at, "I screwed up and I lost my
job." And others will go on to "I'm a screw up because I lost
my job." Thereby damning your whole self because of one
(or 10, or 100, it doesn't matter) individual things that you've
done, or that have happened to you.
Therefore, he says that the key to beating depression does
not lie in changing the As, but in changing the Bs. That is,
if you get a new job, then sure, you'll feel better, but you
are still vulnerable because something might happen to that
job too. And besides, some As will never be fixed.
Instead, he says, you need to throw away the entire paradigm
that we are the sum of our actions. That we can judge
ourselves or others as "good" or "bad," as "successes" or
"failures." We all just "are".
I suppose what he's talking about is self-acceptance. But
he doesn't seem to mean that we can therefore do whatever
we want. The things we do are still good or bad things.
And of course there are consequences for doing bad things.
And we will want to work on any of the As in our life that
are causing us unhappiness. He sounds smart to me A's will occur no matter how hard you try to avoid them. B's are
controllable. C's naturally occur.
You might be interested in researching REBT...Rational Emotive
Behavioral Therapy. Albert Ellis is the "king" The focus is on
changing "faulty" thinking...which is the "b" that you described. An
example would be; you asked your husband to fold the laundry. He
didn't do as you asked. You then interpret it to mean "he doesn't care
about me, he doesn't love me and there is something wrong with him."
The fact of the matter is that he could have simply forgotten. Another
fact of the matter is that despite you wishing that he'd do what you
asked him to do, he doesn't owe it to you to do it. Yes, if he agreed
then he is breaking a promise. But...it does not necessarily go deeper
than simply breaking a promise. It's crucial to avoid the
"entitlement" issue with REBT. In other words, I deserve to have the
laundry folded, he "should" fold the laundry, etc.
I won't say that it's easy to change your pattern of thinking; I will
say that it's worth the effort (in most cases).
Good for you for taking the step and going to see a therapist.I will go one step further, we all just are *valuable*. It is funny to read
this post since it is related to some material on parenting I have been
reading lately and the importance of communicating to your kids that they
are valuable in their very existence since self esteem based entirely on
accomplishment can be knocked down in a minute. I would be happy about any theory of depression which allowed you to be
happy. I surely hope this, or if not this then something, helps you out. You
clearly are a very strong person. I cannot remember whether or not I apologized for the martyr thought. If I
did not, or heck if I did, I would like to apologize now. You know what I
had forgotten is your job. Rome was not built in a day. You rock. I can see that this could be related, though opposite, thinking.
I'm more likely to believe, "he doesn't love me and there is
something wrong with me," than "he doesn't love me and
there is something wrong with him." In either case though,
it's still it's still magnifying the importance of actions. Yesh, it's the "how" to do it that has me stumped. It's
one thing to say intellectually that something makes
sense. It's another to put it into practice emotionally.
I *know* that I can't look at my life with enough
dispassion to judge it correctly. I know that I don't
know enough about my friends and neighbors to
accurately judge my worth against theirs. That
doesn't stop me from feeling at times that "anyone
else would be able to..." Or "no one else would
have..." or whatever.
