Hello. It's nice to see you again. I'm glad that you decided to come back for a second
session. How are you feeling today? Okay. And what kind of week have you had?
Okay, I see. [WRITING]
Okay, okay. Did you have any thoughts, or questions, or
worries, left over from our last session? Okay. Okay, I see, yeah.
Okay. Okay, so, what we're going to do today is
I'm going to tell you a little bit about human psychology. And this will help us to understand
a little bit about why you are experiencing the problems that you are experiencing at
the moment, and also the factors that have made you vulnerable to developing these problems
in the first place. And we can then use this information to plan your treatment. How does
that sound? Okay.
Okay, so, I'm going to draw you a diagram which I'm going to give you at the end of
the session to take away. So, all you have to do is sit, and listen, and try to, I suppose,
absorb the information that I'm giving to you, okay?
Are you ready to begin? Okay.
Okay, so, our personality [WRITING]
is made up of three beliefs. Beliefs about ourself—so, our worth,
our value. Are we good enough? Are we likeable, lovable, interesting? The second belief is
beliefs about others, so, how we expect to be treated by others. Do we expect to be treated
well, with understanding, kindness, respect? Do we expect to be misrepresented or mistreated,
for example, okay? And, the third belief that makes up our personality is a belief about
the world. Is the world a safe place? A fair place? A place where good things happen on
the whole, or not? Okay.
Now, when something happens to us—over here, 'event'—that event is filtered through the
lens of our personality. Like this—our personality and the beliefs that we have about ourselves,
others in the world, influence how we think about that event, think about what has happened.
[WRITING]
So, it determines our day-to-day thoughts.
Now, these thoughts are what we are most aware of, and although it is possible to access
these deeper thoughts, on a day-to-day basis, this is what we're most aware of. And it's
these day-to-day thoughts that influence how we feel.
Okay, so, positive thoughts lead to positive feelings, negative thoughts to negative feelings,
anxious thoughts to anxious feelings, and so on.
Okay. And, then, how we feel about something influences
how we think about it. So, you can see—here—there's a feedback loop, and psychologists call this
'mood-congruent thinking'. So, when we are in a particular mood state, it's far easier
to access similar thoughts. So, you find that when you're worrying about something, you
notice you then start worrying about lots of different things. If you're feeling very
down or depressed about something, all the bad things in your life seem to crowd into
your head—it's easier to think about them. But then, when you feel happy, you don't tend
to think about those things as much. Okay, so, moving on. How we feel influences
what we do—so it influences our behaviour. So, when we feel happy and positive, we go
out in the world, and we get things done, and we achieve things. But, when we feel down,
or depressed, or, maybe, anxious, we tend to withdraw and avoid.
Now, the other interesting thing is that what we do also influences how we feel—here.
So, it's another feedback loop. So, if we are out in the world achieving and
getting things done, it makes us feel better. But, if we are withdrawing, or hiding, or
avoiding, that tends to make us feel worse, okay?
One more arrow to draw—there we go. And, what we do—our behaviour—also influences
how we think on a day-to-day basis. So, we're getting out in the world, and we're achieving
things, we think, 'Okay, I'm doing okay, this is good.' We are hiding away from the world
or avoiding the things that we should be doing—we think more negatively about ourself.
I know I said, 'One more arrow', but, actually, I've just remembered there's another arrow.
Because, all of this, everything that's going on down here, then feeds back into our personality.
What we're doing, how we're feeling, and how we're thinking feeds back into our fundamental,
or core, beliefs about ourself, others, and the world.
Okay. Now, where do you think our personality beliefs
come from? Okay. Okay.
So, you're right; it's a combination of two things. You've probably heard people talk
about 'nature' and 'nurture'. So, 'nature', is basically what we're born with—a tendency
towards being, maybe, anxious or depressed. But, what's important is this tendency isn't
realised unless our environment brings it out. So, we could be born with a tendency,
or a predisposition, as psychologists refer to it, to be quite anxious, but if our environment
is very calming, that predisposition won't be realised. But, equally, if we are born
with a tendency towards being quite calm, but our environment is quite tense and stressful,
that tendency won't be realised either. So, our environment is very, very important. And,
the most important environment is our very early experiences, principally because they
are our first experiences, and those first experiences always have the biggest impact.
So, [WRITING] I'm going to add that in there. Okay.
Now, I know there's quite a lot of information there, but, as I said, I'm going to give you
this to take away. But, before I do, I'm going to use this to just explain a little bit about
what you can expect from therapy. So, [DRAWING] therapy has two phases. The first phase works
below the dotted line. So, in the first phase of therapy, we're going to be working to stabilise,
or balance, your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviour, so that on a day-to-day
basis, you start to feel better. But, as you can see from this diagram, there's still some
stuff up here, that, if left, is going to feed down, and possibly, probably, reignite
these things—here. So, the second phase of therapy is about addressing what's up here.
It's about addressing the factors that have made you vulnerable to developing these day-to-day
symptoms in the first place—to ensure that these don't come back once therapy is over.
Okay, do you have any questions about that? Okay, so, what I'm going to suggest is that
you take this diagram away with you, and turn it over in your mind in the coming week. And
then, when you come back next week, we can talk about any thoughts that you had about
it. And, if it still resonates with you, we can begin to use the information to start
making some of the changes that you want to make.
Okay, so that's the end of our session today. I really enjoyed talking to you,
and I will look forward to seeing you next week. Bye-bye.