Psych-Mat

How to better manage your thoughts, feelings and actions: The story of the two wolves.

Did you every hate yourself for thinking, feeling or acting in ways that were not acceptable to yourself but that you felt powerless to control? The purpose of this post is to help you find ways to manage your mind so that you can live your life more in accordance with what your judgment tells you is best for you.

 As we grow up, we gradually become aware that there are many things in the external world which we are largely unable to control including people in general and most events in our lives.   Initially this is difficult to accept but an even more shocking realization is that there are many things about ourselves that we seem powerless to control.  Some of these things are our own thoughts, feelings, and actions which unfortunately can be the source of much pain.  It may be a thought such as “I cannot stop hating my boss for passing me over for a promotion.”  It may involve an emotion e.g. “My girl friend left me and I cannot stop feeling sad, lonely and unloved because of that.”  Or our complaint may involve a behavior e.g. I cannot stop eating this delicious chocolate ice cream. “

But are we really powerless to control maladaptive thoughts, feelings and actions?  What follows is an old Cherokee Indian story which I hope you will find helpful if you want to more effectively control your mind and behaviour.  This story was sent to me by a dear old friend in Canada who despite medical difficulties routinely sends me positive messages.  The Cherokee are an aboriginal native group found in the Southeastern United States.  As is common with oral historical narratives, there are various versions of this story (See: http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html).

Codependence and the three A’s: awareness, acceptance, and action

I first learned of the three A’s, awareness, acceptance, and action from Alanon which is a wonderful self-help group for the family and friends of the alcoholic.  Alanon suggests its members utilize the "Three A's" in dealing with the problems specifically caused by alcoholism in the family (e.g. page 97, Hope for Today).  However, I have found the three A's immensely useful for coping with a wide variety of problems both personally and also in helping others in my professional practice as a clinical psychologist.  The purpose of this post is to explain what the three A’s are and how they can be helpful to solve in a wide variety of problems in living.

Let me briefly describe the three A's and how they are used.  When confronted with a problem in life, we may be tempted to try to immediately solve it. However such solutions rarely work because we are trying to force an immediate solution.  The three A’s concept suggests that a better approach is to take time to work on the first two A's, awareness and acceptance, before moving into the action phase of problem solving.  Hence the initial phase of problem solving is to increase one’s awareness of how the problem arose, its nature, and become conscious of the consequences that the problem has had on us such as losses or restrictions in our life.  After an appropriate amount of awareness work, we are then ready to move to the acceptance stage which involves emotionally working through these losses.  Only when we have worked through these initial two stages, can we be effective in the action phase of problem solving.

How to change a negative maladaptive life story to a positive adaptive one.

Before I went to sleep last night, I was reading Christine Baldwin’s “Storycatcher” in which she proposes that we create the “story” of our life by selecting certain memories and then linking them together to form a coherent narrative.  The latter is what I will call the “life story”.  A life story plays a fundamental role in our lives because as Baldwin states  (p. 124) “We all need a story to stand on: a core belief that affirms who we are, which we won’t relinquish no matter what.”  A life story that is affirming and supportive is a positive and adaptive one; one that is undermining and critical of the self is negative and maladaptive.  According to the cognitive therapy approach, life stories of the latter kind could contribute to clinical depression.

Although we cannot change one iota of what happened to us throughout our lives, we can change our story by the kinds of memories we choose to link into our self- narrative.  Baldwin writes “When we link evidence of inadequacy, our lives take on psychological pallor; when we link evidence of worth, our lives take on psychological vitality.”  ....  “We create these links, and we can unlink them: we call this changing our mind.”

Fortunately it is possible to change our mind and rewrite out life story at any time in our lives.  I will give a personal example of how I was lead to a radical re-write today of my life story after reading the passages quoted above in Baldwin’s book.  In our elder years of life we tend to reflect on our life story and to use it to evaluate our lives and start the job of putting psychological closure on it (if that indeed ever comes completely).  In my semi-retirement, I have been reflecting on my own career as a scientist and have felt some feelings of disappointment.

How to make psychotherapy for codependence more effective.

Recovery from codependence can be greatly improved by understanding the following points:

1.   There is overwhelming scientific evidence that psychotherapy is effective.

2.   Codependence therapy involves recovery not cure.

3.   Recovery depends on daily practicing of your recovery program

1.    Over the past seven decades there have been literally hundreds of scientifically valid studies showing the effectiveness of psychotherapy.  In general, the conclusion of all these studies is that the average client completing psychotherapy is better off than 80% those in control groups not receiving psychotherapy.  For a review of these studies, the interested reader is referred to read the 1999 book “The heart and soul of change: What works in psychotherapy” by M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan, and S.D. Miller (pages 24-27).

Codependence recovery: Information about therapeutic workshops for codependency.

One of the many ways, but a critically important way, that people recover from codependency is by attending therapeutic workshops given by experts in the field and designed to help the recovery process.  In this post I will share with you the names of some of these experts and the website addresses of therapeutic workshops for codependency which I have personally attended or have knowledge of.  I hope readers will send in their comments and include similar information about coda workshops they have attended or participated in.  I will later compile all the results in a new post.  I have no financial connection with any of these institutions and of course cannot guarantee any particular results for them.  The purpose here is to provide a convenient source of information about such workshops for those interested in attending one.

My introduction to the coda and recovery movement was not through any psychiatrist or psychologist.  It was through friends who knew better than I did what I needed. I had been in therapy with psychiatrists and psychologists of various theoretical persuasions ranging from psychoanalytic to cognitive behavioral and had made some progress. But something was missing; what really was wrong with me remained a mystery.  Then an old friend suggested I watch the John Bradshaw PBS TV series on the family and soon after a work colleague suggested we go to a coda workshop being presented by this same John Bradshaw in Toronto.  It was called “Homecoming: The Inner Child Workshop.”

Self-help groups and starting a CODA group

Some introductory remarks about self-help groups and a Coda self-help group in particular.

In past posts I have described codependency and how it affects the lives of many. My personal experience is that one of the most powerful ways codas are helped is by becoming an active member of a Coda self-help group. In this post I want to provide some information about self-help groups in general in the hope that it will lead some of the readers of this blog to form a coda self-help group.

What are the defining characteristics of self-help groups?

The Oxford  dictionary of English defines self-help as “the use of one's own efforts and resources to achieve things without relying on others”.  One of the defining characteristics of self-help groups is that they rely on the healing interaction of group members.  Reliance is on the collective, experiential knowledge possessed by group members and not on outside professionals.  The absence of professional fees and the “no profit” feature of self-help groups make them available to all who can physically attend.  Members do voluntarily make small donations to cover rent etc. so that the group is self-supporting.

Introduction to codependence

Greetings and thanks for reading this new blog. First let me introduce myself. I am Dr. Brian Scott, a clinical psychologist, registered in Singapore, Hong Kong, and in my home country of Canada (Ontario). I currently reside and practice clinical psychology in the warm sunny climate of Singapore. Previously I spent 7 years as a consulting clinical psychologist in Kuala Lumpur and before that, 7 years as a lecturer in the clinical psychology programme of the University of Hong Kong. To view my complete CV please visit my web site ScottPsychologicalServices.com.

The purpose of this blog is to provide psychological information to clients of my clinical practice and to people in general who are experiencing psychological stress. It is hoped that they will find it useful in their everyday lives. I restrict my practice to adults; that is those over 18 years of age. Parents of children with psychological problems are referred to clinical psychologists who have training for helping children.