The Mental Emotional Health Blog

What’s the most challenging part of assessing yourself? Being objective about it. Still, it is a great skill to have in order to grow as a person. In my thinking (pun intended), it is near impossible to not be at least a little subjective in viewing yourself. 

A subjective view depends on the subject (i.e. the person), and you can think of being subjective as similar to looking through your own personal lens that focuses or limits your perspective. An objective view focuses on the object, which is a reality-based observation without bias. So being objective is similar to looking without a lens. You see what you see; no more, no less.

I hope I don’t get too confusing here, but recognizing that you are being subjective helps you to be more objective. As a therapist I love the word “metacognition” because every day I train my clients to develop it as a skill, and try to use it myself. Metacognition is defined as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking processes” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metacognition) . The better you can be aware of how you think, the more accurate you can be in knowing your personal strengths and weaknesses, and how you learn best in any situation.

If you can analyze and manage your own thought patterns, you can manage your emotions since emotions are tied so closely to thoughts. People who are annoyed or frustrated can persuade themselves to become angry with their thoughts, especially if they convince themselves they have a right to be angry. People that have panic attacks can learn to calm down with self-soothing words to self, or at least can learn to not make their panic attacks worse.

So here’s an interesting activity: watch a commercial, and during those 30 seconds or so take notes or talk into a tape recorder. Record only your thoughts, whether they shifted around to different subjects or stayed focused, any memories that came to mind, etc. Then check your notes about an hour later and assess what you recorded. As you get more familiar with how the process works, apply it to several situations and see what you find. For me, some days I can shift quickly to metacognition without taking notes, and other days I need to take notes or I’ll forget most of what I was thinking. Don’t be discouraged if your note-taking or recording doesn’t keep up with your thoughts. Your mind is quicker than you can write or talk.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

As a therapist, I believe gaining and keeping the trust of my clients to be essential to the therapy process. I spoke with another therapist a few years ago and was surprised to hear him say, “I don’t care if my clients trust me or not.” Since I knew this therapist and respected his work with clients, I can say that he didn’t mean to imply that he purposely damages the trust clients have in him. Still, I was surprised to hear that trust wasn’t that important to him.

Trust is essential in the therapy room. Trust allows the sharing of very personal and sensitive information. Trust brings the client back whether a session went well or not so well. I also firmly believe that the more a client trusts a therapist, the more likely it is that the client will apply what he/she has learned in therapy.

In closing, here is a metaphor to consider. Trust in therapy provides the willingness for a person to approach the door of personal growth, and the motivation to return to that door as many times as needed before moving through that doorway toward the next door.

Have a great day!

Consider this:  therapy is a guided learning process. You and a therapist/counselor can define where you are in life, how you generally function, and who you are. How are you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?  You have ideas (maybe some confusion or pain), and your therapist can provide ideas as well.  I strongly feel that a counselor should be trained to explain to you how you function and how you can grow and develop as a human being.  Symptoms and patterns are important, but they do not define you. You have the power to make the decisions.

Devote yourself to being a learner.  Some people disliked school.  Okay, some outright hated school.  Self-learning can take many forms, but doesn’t really ever stop.  You can improve the way you question yourself.  Now I’m not proposing that you start doubting yourself all the time.  I’m talking about having an internal dialogue about you. 

Healthy self-questioning could include the following examples. 

• How am I thinking right now; do I have have several, quick thoughts, or do I have one thought I am focusing on? 
• What was I thinking while that was happening? 
• How was I thinking? 
• What can I learn from this? 
• What is distracting me? 
• How are my emotions or memory involved in my thought process right now?

As a therapist, I am biased towards the therapy process of course. But it’s foolish to think that the therapy room is the only place people can learn about self and grow. A good therapist will identify your strengths and potential, and persuade you to use them. I believe a great therapist will do so well that you take credit for your own success and growth. A “thank you” is appreciated, though. We’re human too.

There is an old phrase: You never stop learning. I agree with that. Even if you feel stuck in routine, like every single day is the same, your memories and experiences continue to develop. In therapy, it sometimes happens that a client has similar sessions over a long period of time where he/she talks about the same subjects or the same events, but then the focus takes a new direction.

One possibility is that people have limits to how often they discuss something before feeling the need to change the topic. Even repetitive things build on each other. For example, I like Snickers bars so I enjoy one once in a while. If I had one daily, I’d eventually tire of them because the experience itself builds up to a certain level. (Actually my stomach would build up at the same time.)

So the question is, what is the best way that you learn? Are you an observer who sits back and takes things in, or do you need to be involved in the situation? Some learn better by hearing, some by reading or seeing, and some learn actively (kinesthetic learning) . For me, I sometimes like a combination of learning styles,  but it also depends on what I’m trying to learn. The best way for me to learn Spanish was to read, listen to my teacher, practice speaking, and writing. By comparison, when I took golf lessons a few years ago to improve my golf swing (a fun, never-ending challenge), I listened to the golf pro talk about what I needed to adjust, but not much improved until I was able to physically feel the difference in my actual swing. By the way, patience is definitely a virtue. I have so much more respect for professional golfers after I learned how much goes into developing and maintaining a productive and consistent golf swing.

So pay attention to how learning happens best for you. Then you can apply that style to whatever you want to learn, and adjust as needed.

Keep moving forward, and grow as a person!