One Approach to Beat All Anxiety Disorders

Nice article below from Craig April on acceptance.  Acceptance is achieved by repeatedly 'going into the out of' - exposure therapy.  The experience is drawn out and extremely painful but it's a bit like opening a zip-file on a computer; things reveal and change themselves purely because you keep going into the trapped experience.

Panic Attacks, Social Phobia, Obsessions Or General Anxiety - How to Beat Them With One Approach
By Dr. Craig April

"All you have to do to beat anxiety is to accept that which you feel is presently unacceptable."

Think about this for a moment. If you could truly accept whatever you fear, then why would your anxiety continue? It wouldn't and couldn't. And just to clarify, "acceptance" doesn't mean expecting or sensing that what you fear will happen. What I mean by "acceptance" is being okay with whatever you fear happening. Truly feeling that if what you fear happens, you'll accept it and live with it. "Fine, let it happen. Whatever will be will be".

Lets apply it to some examples of anxiety:

Example 1.) Panic attacks: If you could accept whatever panic attack symptoms you fear, such as fear of going crazy, losing control, not breathing, etc. then you wouldn't be concerned about it anymore and it would go away.

Example 2.) Social anxiety: If you truly accepted the possibility of being judged or criticized, then you wouldn't care about this anymore.

Example 3.) Obsessions: If you truly accepted whatever your unwanted thought is telling you to fear and acknowledged that you can't completely protect yourself against this source of anxiety, then you wouldn't fear it anymore.

Isn't this quote freeing? To know that all you have to do is just accept what you find unacceptable and then your anxiety will go away can be quite liberating.

Look, I know this is easier said then done. It takes thinking about your anxiety in a whole new way, but more importantly, it also requires new behaviors and approaches. That's why obtaining treatment proven to be effective is so vital. In fact, keeping this quote in mind while you learn strategies and techniques that are reducing your anxiety can get you there that much quicker.

This quote can give you proper motivation to start or continue to fight your battle against anxiety. Why? Because it is absolutely true.

Apply it to your own anxiety by asking yourself: "If I accept __________, then what would I still fear?"

Copyright 2009, Craig April, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved

Dr. Craig April is an anxiety management specialist and Director of The April Center For Anxiety Attack Management in Los Angeles. He and his staff treat all aspects of anxiety symptoms with proven cognitive-behavioral methods.

To visit us on the web and get your FREE anxiety quotient where you can score your symptoms, go to http://www.KickFear.com

P.S. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for our FREE monthly newsletter.

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Remove the Social Acid Called Shame from Your Life

'Beware those big bouncing balls of blame
cuz if they hit you
you'll die of shame'

Found a good article below by Jane Straus about the difference between guilt and shame.  Guilt is useful, shame isn't.  Guilt is what we do to ourselves (quite rightly, sometimes) when we allow our impulsiveness get the better of us and need to adjust but shame is often what others do to us. 

Shame is about social rejection and isolation and it's an extremely painful experience.  Remain in a state of 'shame' long enough and you start to accept that you're 'not good enough' - and the whole world will agree with you because other people will do anything to avoid wearing the veil of shame themselves.

I've sat in many a meeting created to resolve a problem but which turned into a 'who's gonna take the blame and shame' party.  Who will play the scapegoat?  Who will feel bad so that others don't have to?

Shame is a strange social game that can have long-term and sometimes tragic consequences.  And it's very rarely based on morality.  An example I saw of this recently was in a supermarket where a teenage boy, part of a large family waiting at a checkout, was making a loud nuisance of himself and the boy's father told him to behave. Big mistake. The whole family, including the mother, erupted at the father and screamed at him for 'bullying' the boy.  You could see the shame on the father's face - he didn't know where to put it.

Single parents (mainly women) are very sensitive to comments about their single status because of the shame lying in wait for them from the narrow-minded (although that's not as heavy duty as it used to be).

Quite a lot of our national media is concerned with naming and shaming individuals for mass market approval - we are programmed to identify and throw to the lions anyone who fits the bill - as long as it's not us.

Like all emotional responses shame can be removed by going into the feelings attached to the response and challenging the negative thinking involved with a different viewpoint.  You may not be able to get others to 'forgive' you but you can certainly learn to forgive yourself (in most cases there's nothing to forgive - they're just passing the buck of responsibility to you because they can't bare to feel the guilt that's rightfully their's).

Regards - Carl

Guilt V. Shame

By Jane Straus

What is the difference between guilt and shame and why is the distinction crucial for our emotional and spiritual health? It’s invaluable to discern the difference between guilt and shame so that we can respond appropriately in situations and can ask others to respond to us appropriately and fairly also. It’s also vital that we know whether we are feeling bad because of something we have done or because we have simply gotten into the habit of feeling bad.

Guilt is something our conscience compels us to feel when we have acted in a way that is not in alignment with our own moral compass. If we believe in being honest and we lie, we will feel guilty (even if we justify it as a “white lie” to ourselves or others). If we believe in the Golden Rule, “Do unto others…,” we will feel guilty if we treat someone disrespectfully or unfairly. In guilt, we feel bad about what we have done, not who we are. We are able to distinguish between the goodness of who we fundamentally are and the mistake we have made that requires correction/amends/asking forgiveness.

Shame is a different experience. When we feel shame, it is not for what we have done, not for a particular behavior, but for who we are. When in shame, we want to hide; we feel that we don’t deserve love or respect. Shame is often a pervasive experience that we don’t recognize within ourselves. Shame can feel quite “normal.”

When we feel ashamed, we emit a certain aura/vibe/energy. Others who pick up on this energy may misinterpret it and assume that we have behaved badly, causing them to overreact or for us to believe we deserve excessive punishment. We may not recognize the ways we carry and show our shame and wonder why others are so hard on us. This is how others mirror our beliefs about ourselves and why it’s so important to heal our shame.

Shame can cause us to continue to act in ways that lead us to feeling guilty. So guilt and shame are part of a vicious cycle. How can we heal our shame?

1. The first step in breaking the cycle is learning to discern between guilt and shame. The following are the chief symptoms of shame. If you can identify with even one of these points, you are likely to be living in shame.

• Comparing ourselves to others and finding ourselves always falling short

• Embarrassment when we receive compliments

• A general sense of unworthiness

• Distrust that others truly like us or respect us—“waiting for the other shoe to drop” in every relationship

• Accepting excessive blame—more than a situation warrants

• Continually behaving in ways that go against our own standards of behavior

• Feeling bad about certain thoughts, even when we have no intention of acting on these thoughts

2. The second step is to look at your recent “wrongs” objectively. What triggered those behaviors? What did you do about rectifying your actions? Did you over-apologize? Did you allow someone to verbally or physically punish you for your behavior? If you overcompensated in any way, then you are carrying shame, not just guilt, and you are doing yourself harm.

3. The third step is to retrace your path to where the shame started. Often, shame starts in childhood when a trusted adult shames us for something outside of our control: our sexuality, our intelligence, the way we spoke or dressed, a behavior we didn’t know wasn’t okay. Children soak up shame easily.

4. See the past with your adult eyes. Would you want to shame a child for what you feel shameful about? Let the child within you know that it was not his/hers to carry and that you release him/her from the shame now.

For more understanding about guilt and shame and to discover how to thrive, order Jane Straus’s book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life, available at online bookstores. You can also log onto www.stopenduring.com to read more about Jane’s enlightening ideas, listen to interviews with her, preview one of her seminars, or sign up for personal coaching with Jane. To enjoy her frequent pearls of wisdom, register online for her free e-newsletter.

About the Author: Jane Straus is a life coach and author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. Read more, listen to interviews, preview her seminar, or sign up for personal coaching at http://www.stopenduring.com. Sign up for her free enewsletter to enjoy her pearls of wisdom.

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Afflink.

A Bit More About Person-Centred Counselling and the Johari Window

One of the most difficult things for people in pain to do is to accept themselves, especially those parts of themselves causing the pain.  It's very easy to make the jump from feeling bad to thinking 'I am bad'.  Angry people, for example, are not 'bad' people.  They've usually got something to be angry about!

A key element of an effective Person-Centred Counselling relationship is Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR).  UPR creates a sense of external acceptance that gradually affects the unconscious of the client - 'well if they can accept me as I am then I guess I can'.  But it's more than a verbal sentence - it's an overall sensory experience.

UPR assumes all people are basically good and a Counsellor must hold their client in high regard if they hope to support them properly.  This doesn't mean every Person-Centred Counsellor can do this with every client.   During my Person-Centred Counsellor training we were asked to consider what kinds of clients we would not be able to offer UPR to.

I, and quite a few of the other trainees, immediately responded we could not work with people who had sexually abused children - we found the area far too emotive for us to guarantee UPR for a client of that nature.  However one trainee explained he found the way child abusers developed fascinating and was currently counselling an abuser and did not feel disturbed by the client at all.

I would have no problem working, for example, with gay or transsexual clients.

If your counsellor, for whatever reason, is unable to treat you with Unconditional Positive Regard they should refer you to another Person-Centred Counsellor who can.

We definitely see evidence of UPR as Carl Rogers continues to work with Gloria in the videos below - we also see another important principle at work - Client Autonomy.  Despite the fact Gloria keeps asking for 'advice' she eventually develops her own solutions.  This approach helps the client better understand the acceptance process while learning they can actually cope with and develop strategies of their own to manage it so improving their confidence levels.

CARL ROGERS AND GLORIA COUNSELLING - PT 3

CARL ROGERS AND GLORIA - COUNSELLING - PT 4

CARL ROGERS AND GLORIA - COUNSELLING - PT 5

Finally I thought I'd finish off by giving you a bonus video about the 'Johari Window'.  It's a useful model and something helpful to be aware of - there are always things about ourselves we do not know or have become blind to.  There's a link below the video to get more detailed information and some free downloads.

Johari Window @ Yahoo! Video

If you're interested in getting further free information on the Johari Window (including a pdf or word diagram) please click here: businessballs .

Regards - Carl

About Person-Centred Counselling - Meet Carl Rogers

Could you tell your mother you can't understand why she married Dave when it was obvious that Jack was the better man out of the two?  Can you tell her you have fantasies that Dave will fall under a bus some day and Jack will replace him?  Do you like yourself when you think this way?  Person-centred counsellors are trained to adopt a certain approach to their clients that helps them to accept and work with the unacceptable parts of themselves.

I've recommended Person-Centred counselling (aka Humanistic Counselling) to a few friends who have all benefited from the experience but there are usually some standard questions such as 'what do they make you do?' or 'will they give me the answers?'.

The videos below are of Carl Rogers - considered the 'father' of Person-Centred Counselling (these videos are still being used in the initial training of counsellors today).  I'm posting three videos today and three tomorrow - they show you what Person-Centred Counselling is like.

Carl Rogers

Here Carl Rogers meets Gloria - and we start to see how the client has control of the session. None of this is scripted; it's a genuine first session.

CARL ROGERS & GLORIA COUNSELLING - Part 1

CARL ROGERS AND GLORIA COUNSELLING PT 2

Ever had counselling or have questions about the process? Please leave a comment below.

Regards - Carl

Michael Neill on Pushing Birds Out of Nests

How wide have you spread your wings this week?  Prepare for flight.

Michael Neill On Catching Birds and Flying Free

Click the banner below to go to Michael's site.  Don't worry; I don't think he really pushes people off things - I think he shows you how to throw yourself off and scream 'wheee' at the same time.

Afflink

Found this interesting article about trauma and counselling below.  There's a mistake in our thinking when we think the problem with emotional disorders lies in our 'thinking' - emotional disorders such as trauma are caused by a blocked and frozen emotional response.

The solution lies in finding a way to get the emotional responses flowing and eventually released from the body.  In some cases healing a traumatised response may take as long as the original experience that caused it.

Trauma And Counselling

By Pedro Gondim

Trauma, stress and memory

The word 'trauma' originates from the Greek 'wound', and it refers to both psychological and physiological aspects. Trauma occurs as a result of a serious event and it has deep roots in various levels of the human mind and behaviour.

What causes trauma? Psychological trauma is a broad concept, and its origins are co-related with two well-known mechanisms of the human mind: stress and memory.

Albeit commonly associated with negativeness, stress is an evolutionary advantage. The stress triggering mechanism allows most people to react to dangerous situations prior to consciously detecting it - also known as 'fight or flight' response. The level of a stress response generally dictates the intensity of psychological trauma in an individual.

Memory and trauma are interrelated processes - without the memory of a traumatic event, psychological trauma is non-existent. In addition, memory also plays an active role in the incidence and intensity of stressful responses. Once stress is triggered by an event (a stressor), several processes instigate the assessment of the situation by higher functions of the mind (prefrontal cortex - responsible for decision-making).

If the situation does not constitute danger, the stressing mechanism will gradually shut down and the body will return to normal functioning. If the situation reflects danger, the individual will need to decide what to do - and in that process - the amygdala (a part of the limbic system which plays a key role in human emotions, particularly fear) directs the hippocampus (a central region of human memory) to imprint that information differently from other events. This long-term storage of the memory is explained by its emotionally-attached significance.

Such a mechanism is another 'smart' human feature. Next time the same stressor (or similar) is identified, that memory will be instantly retrieved in order to assist in the individual's reaction. At a subconscious level, there will be an overstressed response to the event. At a conscious level, comparison and previous experience will induce better decision making.

Trauma and Health

Trauma is inevitable in our lives. From the birth of a child, to all stages of its development - traumatic events are common and also part of the 'human experience'. However, the level of trauma caused by an event dictates the short and long-term effects of that occurrence.

For instance, trauma can be related to several mental illnesses. Conditions such as Schizophrenia, Depression, and Bipolar Disease can be triggered by traumatic events. One condition in particular, is directly related to trauma and very common in the counselling context: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD).

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) occurs when an individual develops a set of behaviours and reactions based on a traumatic event. The traumatic experience interferes with normal functioning, causing the affected person to present avoidance behaviour.

This condition can occur at any age and traumatic stress can be cumulative over a lifetime. Responses to trauma include feelings of intense fear, helplessness, and/or horror. This condition has roots in the relationship between stress, trauma and memory.

It is perceived that PTSDs are originated from a 'defect' in the brain's memory processing functions. As previously described, emotionally attached events are stored differently (at a 'deeper' level). These memories include stressful and traumatic events, particularly those which resulted in some kind of harm and emotional distress to the person.

Upon the identification of the same stressor (or similar) that caused a reaction for the previous situation, the body would instantly trigger an overstressed response. However, in most cases, the new event will not constitute a threat. For instance, a noise could be a stressor from a situation in which a person ended up being assaulted. The same noise, or something similar, could occur in other situations which are harmless. Unless that stressor is reinforced (results in danger over time), your brain will adapt to the stimulus and gradually reduce the stressful response. This process is called 'extinction' (Pavlov's Theory).

If extinction fails to take place, the individual will continue to react (stressfully) to the original stimulus, or similar ones. This is the case for PTSD sufferers. Because the human body is not prepared to maintain stressful status continually, side effects will appear. These effects are both physiological (Coronary Heart Disease, ageing acceleration, etc) and psychological (fear, avoidance, etc).

This explains the occurrence of PTSD in war veterans who were exposed to stress over a long period of time and accident survivors who have been exposed to a highly stressful and traumatic situation.

Trauma and Counselling

The effects of trauma may vary greatly among people. The extent, frequency and intensity of each event are presented according to each person's mindset and previous experiences. And because traumatic events are cumulative over life, it can be quite difficult to provide a treatment that comprises all problems derived from separate traumas.

Most people adapt to trauma in their lives, and through the extinction process, do not experience much psychological harm derived from past events. However, for patients with PTSD, and other stress-triggered conditions, the situation requires further attention.

Currently, counsellors use three major treatments to combat PTSD. These treatments are largely based in psychotherapy, introspection and conditioning:

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on modifying an individual's behaviour by changing their thinking. Therapists believe that by focusing in the individual's perspective, it is possible to bring about behaviour change, and therefore, cope with the trauma. This form of treatment is recommended by the World Health Organisation and it is widely used to combat PTSD symptoms.

Debriefing is single section-based treatment which occurs shortly after the traumatic event. The debriefing process evolves on the 'traumatised' individual's verbal expression of the event. It is suggested that by 'letting out' those memories and feelings, the person is more unlikely develop suppressed emotions, which reduces the effects of trauma. Debriefing is widely used for professionals that deal with traumatic events on a daily basis (e.g. paramedics).

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a technique based on a psychophysiological approach. According to the theory, the overload of emotions derived from traumatic events interferes with the individual's information processing episode. That interference, at a physiological level, produces 'flawed' pathways of memory retrieval, which in turn, results in the non-logical perception of the event. For instance, a victim of rape, albeit aware that the fault was of the perpetrator, continually invokes self-blame for the incident. The process of desensitisation and reprocessing would serve to reprogram those pathways, resulting in the extinction or partial extinction of negative symptoms.

About the Author: Pedro Gondim is a writer and publisher for the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. The Institute is Australia's largest counsellor training provider, offering the internationally renowned Diploma of Professional Counselling. For more information, visit http://www.aipc.net.au.

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From tomorrow I'm gong to be doing a few posts on the father of Humanistic/Person-Centred Counsellling; Carl Rogers.

Regards - Carl

Seth does an exposure therapy session and talks about setbacks

Seth goes through his daily exposure therapy routine here (which involves challenging himself to drive further and further away from home).

There are several things to notice:

Acting Like an Expert

No-one is as expert in an anxiety disorder as the person who has it - if you have one you have to start to realise that.  Do you notice how Seth reports on his experience as though he's sitting on the outside of it rather than as a subjective victim?  This is the objective viewpoint at work and he is using his camera to enhance the affect.

If you want to achieve something in life you have to start acting and behaving as though you already have.  This perspective changes the way you function at an unconscious level.  Nothing improves the motivation to learn something better than wanting to teach it to help others; even if you haven't quite learned the lessons fully yourself yet.

Seth has a really good grasp of the process - he's just got to get through it is all.  With lot's of positive self-talk and fierce disciplined determination he will do.



Something else Seth spoke about was 'anticipatory anxiety'.  There are three main types of anxiety involved in this work:

• anticipatory


• actual response


• after-shocks (this stage of the response tends to be accompanied by a sense of helplessness and despondency).

There is a way of seeing all three of these as just one stream of energy which helps you stop thinking about 'which type of fear is it?'  Imagine you have a river of negative energy stored in your body related to the situation you fear; as you approach the situation to which the energy is connected you start opening up and allowing the river through; in direct exposure mode you're letting the full flowing river go by without trying to halt in; in after-shock there's still a period where the emotional energy dregs are still seeping through.  If you picture yourself as releasing a portion of the store of trapped energy every time you do this it helps to make it a more positive experience.

In the next video Seth talks about another experience that all recovering anxiety sufferers go through: setbacks

Dealing with and overcoming anxiety 53 - A setback

Please leave any thoughts, arguments or advice below.

Regards - Carl