Reverse Thinking

Solution Focus

Recently, I have been writing about psychologies that can help people solve real-life problems instead of theorizing about how they got screwed up (Psychoanalysis) or thinking about thinking and making lists, rather than taking action (Cognitive Therapy).

Fundamentally, the kind of psychology I favour is one that focuses on possibilities rather than problems. On strengths rather than weaknesses. On the present rather than the past. And on the new directions available to you rather the problems you are stuck with right now.

When I first started out in therapy in the 1980s this focus on solutions rather than on problems came out of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Later on, I learned a lot from Richard Bandler, and also from Bill O'Hanlon.

When I developed Reverse Therapy I retained that focus on the options that helped people get well rather than the Headmind blocks that kept them stuck in Illness, Depression or Anxiety.

Here is a list of some of the most common traps that keep you in problem-territory rather than solution territory:

• Attention deficit ('I am ill/depressed/stressed/dysfunctional 24/7')
• Personality theories ('I am an over-sensitive, depressive, addictive personality')
• Comparisons ('Other people cope - so why am I having panic attacks?')
• Trauma ('I'll never get over this')
• Guilt ('If people knew the truth about me they'd never get over this')
• Self-pity ('I've tried so hard...')
• Waiting for Santa Claus ('I've tried so hard...when is Santa going to come and rescue me?')
• Defeatism ('I've done everything I can...there's no point trying any more.')
• Martyrdom ('One day people will appreciate how hard I tried.')
• Cynicism ('Nothing makes any difference and people who tell me otherwise are deluded.')

Now here is the most important point:

Focusing your attention on, or talking about, or trying to resolve these problems directly, will get you - or your therapist - absolutely nowhere!

Why? Because your attention expands according to what you pay attention to. If you feed Headmind with problems it will magnify them. If you give it possibilities to look at, it will magnify those, too.

By contrast, here are some option-focused questions which could guide your attention towards something better:

• When was the last really good day you had and what did you do to make it that way? How can you do more of that - today?
• How can you balance what you do for others by doing something for yourself - today?
• What is the most emotionally rewarding action you can take - today?
• Think of one of your current goals/projects. What one small thing thing could you do about that - today?
• Who is good for you to be around? Call/email/text that person - today
• Which (brief) activities give you balance, peace of mind, enjoyment? When can you find time to do at least one of those - today?

     "The greatest personal limitation is to be found not in the things you want to do and can't, but in the things you've never considered doing"

     Richard Bandler  

Positive Psychology

Last Friday I wrote about the poverty of Psychology and its irrelevance to the practical problems of life. Right now I am writing a new article on the new psychology of life and its connection to Reverse Therapy.

In the meantime, here is a TED film of Professor Martin Seligman talking about Positive Psychology and how it can help us to achieve pleasure, creative flow, service to others, and authentic happiness.

For me, the most important point Martin makes is that the way out of a lot of life problems is to focus your attention away from tragedy, and towards the exercise of your talents.

Interesting, too, that Martin talks about eudaimonia - the happiness you achieve through exercising your personal genius - on which I have written elsewhere in this blog.

You can access that TED talk here.

Psychology? Don't even think about it

Despite the fact that I have a PhD in the subject I dislike being called a Psychologist.

I can confidently state that I have never learned a single thing about human beings by studying Psychology. In fact, most of the (unconscious) knowledge I possess about the way the human mind works was acquired before I was 16 years old.

I honestly believe that most human beings are as good at 'psychology' as the academics are - if we mean by 'Psychology' the study of why human beings behave as they do. We most of us pick it up as we go along. For example, the vast majority of us know (even when we won't admit it) what people really think and feel about us. And we get better at it as we go on. Partly, the reason for that is that understanding how 'minds' work is about knowing how to play by the rules that thinking and behavior is based on.

With some exceptions, most Psychologists I have met have been deficient  in the basic human skills of empathy, kindness, conversation and dancing. One abiding memory I have is an annual Christmas Party I once attended when I worked for the NHS, in which the Psychologists attending (once drunk) got up to dance with all the grace and Bodymind intelligence of Lady Penelope, or Brains, from Thunderbirds. That's right, they looked like puppets on a string. And their conversation wasn't much better either.

But there have been signs recently that a Psychology that can actually make a practical difference to peoples' lives is slowly emerging. I will be writing more about that tomorrow.

      "No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand. Only charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

       Anton Chekhov

Kindness is stronger than love

Love? Or Lurve?

My friends sometimes accuse me of being a cynic when I call for the word 'love' to be deleted from the dictionary on the grounds that it is too often confused with 'lurve' - a state in which sexual desire combines with the idolization of a person you know very little about in order to produce a fantasy. It can also produce obsession, jealousy and self-pity - which is what most songs about 'love' are actually about.

The delusion takes between 1-5 years to wear off, at which point the lover awakes to discover that a) the sexual thrill has worn off and b) the object of his/her attentions is a real, live human being with many faults, many weaknesses, and many annoying, even disgusting, habits. Statistics show that approximately 50% of couples will break up by the fifth year of the relationship.

The fact is that, if your lover isn't also your best mate, then you don't have enough to sustain a relationship. You may stay together because you have children, or because you are financially co-dependent on each other, or because the alternative is loneliness - but you will end by despising each other.

Before I discovered Reverse Therapy I used to work as a Relationship Counsellor. For the most part, I oversaw therapy sessions acting as a mediator while each partner went out of the way to vent their bitterness, hatred, blame and disappointment on each other. That was when I started to realize just how destructive lurve can be. When the object of their worship ceases to provide worship in return some people can get very nasty.

Love means being kind

Properly speaking 'love' is a verb, not a noun. Love isn't a state you fall into, its something you do. In the Gospels, when Christ says 'Love others as you do yourself' the Greek word Agape is used, which means something like 'respect', 'benevolence', 'charity' or 'kindness'. The Good Samaritan is shown exercising Agape - he picks up the wounded traveller, dresses his wounds, feeds him and cares for him. Why? Because it hurts him when he sees suffering. Kindness is based on empathy, which is a form of emotional intelligence.

Love is hard to live up to. Being kind is so much easier and simpler. And you can exercise it at any time, with any person, in any situation.

• Stopping to talk to beggars on the street (instead of just giving them money)
• Saying 'what's wrong?' when your partner yells at you (instead of shouting back)
• Being childlike and friendly with children (instead of ignoring them)

You don't even have to have feelings for the other person in order to be that way. Being kind is its own reward because you end up feeling better about yourself. Kindness towards others heals them and it heals you. It might even bring you closer to your God.

"This is my religion: There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple. The philosophy is kindness."

           The Dalai Lama

The end of the world

I saw 4 clients last week who reported with anxiety symptoms due to reading/watching/hallucinating the news about the credit crunch.

Remember, Headmind - like the newspapers, makes money out of bad news. You don't have to go there if you don't want to.

Click on to learn more about how to make Headmind work for you and eliminate worries.

I counsel all my readers not to read newspapers, or watch BBC doomsters who are merely adding to the daily panic.

If you haven't managed to get Headmind back under control yet then here are a few jokes that might help your sense of humor. They were sent to me by a reader in the City of London.

• CEO - Chief Embezzlement Officer.
• CFO - Corporate Fraud Officer.
• Bull Market - A random market in which a trader who talks a lot thinks he is a financial genius.
• Bear Market - A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
• Broker - Your new life in a nutshell.
• Stock split - When your partner and his/her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
• Cash flow - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet, fast.
• Financial Advisor - Someone who is now receiving psychiatric treatment for persistent delusions

Image by Mike Licht,...

Neuroplastic

Over the past few weeks I have asserted that our ever-faster rate of discoveries about the brain will transform assumptions about emotions, disease, free will, personal change, and how Bodymind really works.

Research into brain neuroplasticity is another example of that.

Neuroplasticity refers to the way in which the brain can renew itself and reprocess damaging experiences.

Renewal occurs through:

• Cell growth
• Cell replacement
• The formation of new cellular connections
• The formation of new neural networks
• The creation of new cellular memories
• The reversal of ageing

Relearning occurs through the absorption of new experiences that:

• Change the way we remember things
• Erase stress responses
• Replace depression and anxiety patterns with a solution-focus
• Increase endorphin release
• Replace trauma with detached responses
• Reverse burnout
• Expand creativity
• Interrupt addictive behavior
• And many other changes besides

The old view of the brain is that it was like an attic which, over time, filled up with cobwebs, out-of-date toys, and unwanted junk. And then you went senile. The new view is that it is more like the interactions you have with a friend: the experiences you have together will change you both in unpredictable ways.

My namesake, Howard Eaton, has some great material, including podcasts, on neuroplasticity and its implications for health on this blog here.

There is also a great video on neuroplasticity on this link here. Amongst other matters, it talks about how one woman overcame severe 'mental illness' (not my phrase but those psychiatrists love it!), using meditation to reprogram her brain to grow new neural connections which - in turn - interfered with her bad psychotic habits.

This article is by way of an introduction to a huge subject and I will be writing about the implications of neuroplasticity and emotional experience in later posts. But here is a thought for today.

If you try doing one thing you have never done before - each day - then you are going to:

• Open up new cell networks
• Learn a different way of being
• Solder those new possibilities into Bodymind
• Improve your memory
• Stay young
• Achieve liberation

What is your choice for today?

My own experience? Since breaking my right wrist two months ago I have learnt how to a) be left-handed, b) develop patience, c) slow down, d) - no, I won't specify that one (but it was good)

Let me know of any enlightening experiences you have with this.

Image by DerrickT

Why the mind isn't in your head

As I have written before, this century will see an explosion in our knowledge about cellular intelligence. And we will come to realise that Mind isn't just in the head. It's in the body, in the brain, in the heart, in the hormones, and in the cells. It's also out there in society, in our culture, in our schools, in our legal system and in the media we watch, read and listen to.

Much of what we think of as 'mind' isn't personal. Our thoughts are mirrors of the ideas transmitted to us through the systems we encountered in earlier life: the family system for one, and the educational, employment, legal, marital, cultural and media systems we were introduced to later on. To a large extent external 'mind' is about knowing how to work the rules.

Here are two illustrations:

What would happen (to you) if you went into a supermarket, filled up your basket with groceries, went to the check-out counter and then, one by one, offered to haggle for each item? Or if you stopped at each broken road sign, pulled out some tools and then started to repair each one?

You'd typically expect to be treated as crazy. That's because 'the right way of thinking' is based on the implied social rules we are all expected to know. People who don't seem to know the rules are assumed to have something wrong with their minds.

Looking inside the human being we notice that mind is distributed over different places there too. The so-called emotional brain (limbic system) follows one system of rules based on Bodymind evaluation of the situation. The Heart, too, has its own 'brain', as is shown by the fact that it can 'remember' feelings associated with other people and alter the heart rhythm when you meet them again (which is why our heart races when we fall in love). We also know that the autonomic nervous system, the immune system, the gut, and even the muscles each have miniature brains that make decisions independently of the brain in your skull. Going further on down the chain, Candace Pert has shown that every cell in the body (and there are at least 10 trillion of them) has a consciousness of its own.

Taking both external minds and internal minds together then most of the decisions we make are neither personal nor conscious. Instead, we are like a theatre audience watching a play - constantly trying to make sense of changes in the plot, without necessarily being a party to it.

Over the coming few months I will be writing a series of articles on this subject and I hope to show that it has profound implications for our understanding of what it means to be human.

Watch this space.

'Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them'.

Pascal

Are you a burnt-out case?

Following up on last week's blog on Burnout, here is a simple quiz to test whether or not you, or someone you know, is at risk of burning out.

The scoring goes like this:

0-6 Low risk
7-14 Moderate risk
15-22 High risk
23-30 Burnout

The scores are indicative only. If the test reveals that you may have burnout then please consult a Reverse Therapy practitioner.

You can download that test on the link below.

BurnOut test

Also, for those of you who have not yet used the Effective Thinking Skills test, you can download that test here.

Effective Thinking Skills test

Image by boldiest

Check this out

An interview with me was published on The View From Here page in The Director magazine this month.

If you'd like to find out whether I said anything interesting you can read that interview by getting on the link below.

The View From Here

The picture of me on the right is one of the interview photos.