The Mental Emotional Health Blog

I would estimate in my practice that at least 50% of my overall time working with adults as therapist has been offering advice on how to deal with, or helping “clean up” the emotional messes inflicted on my clients by, toxic personalities. Some people are just chronically not nice.

So in my almost-daily skimming of a few sites for good articles, I ran across this one from Shine (Yahoo): 8 Toxic Personalities to Avoid by Brett Blumenthal (I also recommend her blog at Brett’s Blog ). She does a nice job of being specific and explaining why each personality is toxic.

Knowing what to avoid successfully in life is as important as finding your direction and purpose.

Have a great day everyone!

Devin

Enjoy and ponder these quotes from John Gray, Ph.D, who is the author of 16 best-selling books including Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus:

• We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways - the ways we react and behave when we love someone.
  
• When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.
  
• To grow in our ability to love ourselves we need to receive love as well.
  
• A man’s sense of self is defined through his ability to achieve results.
  
• A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
  
• Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems.
  
• When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer.
  

I thought of this idea for a blog entry a while ago. I’m not sure if it would even be interesting to any of you, but here it is.

It may be obvious, but a therapist experiences several emotions during each client session. Some therapists might deny that or not be aware of it, but it is definitely true for me. So I made some mental notes during a session with one of my regular clients, focusing on the different emotions I was experiencing during the conversation. After the session, I completed the list and it surprised me. These are all from one 50-minute session:

• pleased
• thankful
• curious
• confused
• confident
• tentative
• apprehensive
• anxious
• concerned
• content

With some of these feelings, I was mirroring the emotions I sensed from the client. Other times, they were just my emotional reactions to what was being discussed. In any case, it shows that therapists go through a range of emotions just like clients do.

An important perspective I learned in graduate school that I still hold to today is this: if showing your emotions will help the client then let them out; if not, keep them to yourself. (At least until later, when you do need to deal with your emotions wherever they came from.)  As a therapist, it is crucial to realize that the point of therapy is to experience and use emotions productively. The point is not to get to a “level of maturity” that is emotion-less.

By the way, the client felt better at the end of the session that day than when we started. I felt better later after I processed my own feelings. 

A good place to research mental illness is on the Mayo Clinic’s web site. I’ll provide the link to the main Mental Health page here: Mayo Mental Health .

 Take care everyone!

Devin

When things happen, it is almost automatic that you react. But if you overreact often or find yourself worrying about an event for long periods of time, there are a few ways to think in order to keep perspective and keep anxiety manageable.

When an unpleasant event happens:

1. Take two seconds before you react, and decide if it is a reaction you feel okay having. (This allows your rational mind to keep functioning, and avoids an emotional or impulsive reaction).
2. Take two more seconds and consider a likely consequence to your reaction. 
3. Take one minute (either right away or later that day) ask yourself what you can do now to move on from the event. The longer you mentally stay stuck in the moment and dwell, the tougher it is to let it go.
4. If you feel worried about it and expect to keep feeling that way for days, allow yourself a specific amount of time to worry about it. (Example: I’m worried about something next week. I will worry all I want for 30 minutes a day, and no more.) It may sound silly to put a time limit on it, but people sometimes allow worry to continue on and off most of the day and night and end up feeling more worried or depressed as a result.
5. Let it go through exercise. Good for your health + Good body chemicals released during exercise = Feeling better
6. Let it go physically and mentally. Take a pen, hold it in front of you, imagine all of your worry flowing into the pen from your mind, and then let the pen drop to the floor.
7. Get good, quality rest.