Center for Psychology

After a couple of particularly down weeks last month, I decided I needed counseling.   I searched the area for psychologists, checked with our insurance, and finally found a place that I am totally thrilled about.  It is the Center for Psychology, and today was my first appointment.  I saw Dr. Suzanne McKenna, and I really enjoyed our time together.

Yesterday, in anticipation of our appointment, I printed and dropped off some of the blog posts from this blog for her to read through, to get an idea of me and my struggles.  When I met with her, she had read them all and referenced them frequently.  It gave us some good things to talk about.

Dr. McKenna asked wonderful questions that allowed me to see my assumptions and expectations more clearly.  And then she challenged my assumptions and expectations.  She pointed out that the insights that I come to in my writing are wonderful, but I seem to have a hard time moving them from my head to my heart.  It is one thing to know something, another to feel and believe it.

Here are some highlights I appreciated:
-She pointed out that my expectations are often unrealistic and lead to a feeling of failure.
-Expectations are ours to set, as is our definition of success and failure.
-The experiences of life are like a bell curve.  Some are awesome, some are terrible, and most of them are average.  When we feel terrible when something is wonderful, or expect the majority of life to be awesome, there is a cognitive disconnect that can be be worked on.
-Don't judge things.  Don't worry if the glass is half full or half empty.  Recognize that it is water, and you could drink it, water a plant with it, or toss it out the window.  Accept what is and simply decide what you will do with it.  Making a judgement about whether a situation is good or bad, right or wrong leads to unhappiness, severely limits your options, and is unproductive.
-As a corollary of that, stop using "should" in self-talk.  Instead of saying "I should be happy for my kids" or "I should be this or do that," decide what I want to do.  "Should" makes it a judgement of right or wrong, and leads to beating myself up.
-Dialectic Behavior Therapy sets up the spectrum of accepting yourself as you are and challenging yourself to improve.  They seem mutually exclusive, yet there must be harmony between them for a happy, successful life.
-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seeks to make one mindful of self-talk, or how one interprets a situation and  his/her own behavior, and, when it is particularly negative and leads to unhappiness, reformulate it so that perceptions and interpretations reflect a more positive scenario.
-She said that if I lived the insights I was having in my writing, I would be a very healthy person.  Having the answers is not the same as living them.

Her challenge to me was to remove "should" (and all its synonyms) from my self talk.

I'm already looking forward to our next session.