Hey everybody,
Happy Monday.
Today I am going to do my best to explain and define,
Some of those weird terms us therapists use.
And if you are new to my channel,
Welcome!
I'm a licenced therapist making educational mental health content.
And I release videos every week.
So make sure you are subscribed,
And have those notifications turned on so that you don't miss out.
Now, I asked you on youtube stories,
To let me know what phrases or statements your therapist uses,
That make absolutely no sense to you.
So that I could do my best to decode it.
Let's just jump right into it.
Client: -exhales-
T (therapist): It's good to see you today.
T: I know last week you had a tough time,
Talking about your fight with your best friend. And how angry you felt.
But instead of quickly moving on to another topic,
I really want you to try and just sit with that feeling.
Okay. What therapist Kati is trying to say,
Is that instead of distracting yourself with something else,
So that you don't have to express or process how you feel,
In this example, it's anger.
You should be okay feeling that way.
Try to feel it.
Maybe describe how it feels.
It could make your muscles tense, make you grit your teeth,
Or even start to overheat, you know, feel physically warm.
In therapy, we try to get you to sit with a feeling,
So that you can talk about how you feel, Process what happened that lead up to it,
And then hopefully feel better.
Because we all know we can get really good at distracting ourselves from our feelings.
And that doesn't end up leading us anywhere good.
T: I know we have been talking about your anger,
And you're getting better at sitting with the feeling.
So today I want you to work on feeling that anger in your body.
Client: ...O...Okay. I could try that.
Okay. Now this one may seem a bit more clear,
Since we just talked about sitting with a feeling.
But being asked to feel an emotion in your body can be weird, and not make any sense.
But what therapist Kati is asking for you to do,
Is to pay attention to what your body does when you feel an emotion.
For example,
If that emotion is anger, again, does it cause your muscles to tighten?
Maybe those muscles just only in your neck.
Maybe you clench your fists.
Or you tense up your face.
Checking in with where we feel things in our body,
Can help us get better at noticing our emotions.
If we know that when we are angry, we clench our fists,
The next time you find yourself just doing that, you may realise that you're angry.
I know that sounds silly.
But it helps to get to know ourselves and how we react when we feel certain ways.
The sooner we know what we are feeling,
The sooner we can do things to process it or improve our mood.
You know, like going for a walk,
Talking to our therapist,
Petting a dog,
You name it.
T: I noticed when you talk about how angry you were when you got into that fight,
You become easily dysregulated.
T: What can we do to prevent that from happening so often?
Client: ...Mhm...
Okay, dysregulation is just a fancy way of saying that you are overreacting.
And I don't say that to be offensive or invalidating.
How you feel is valid.
But, to become dysregulated means that we aren't able to thoughtfully respond to life.
We are just reacting.
And since I do a lot of DBT, (or Dialectical Behaviour Therapy),
I work with many of my patients on building up their emotional regulation skills.
And those skills will help prevent us from becoming so easily dysregulated.
It can stop us from lashing out in anger,
Crying uncontrollably,
And overall, just creating chaos in our close relationships in our life.
T: I know talking about your past trauma can be really hard.
Not to mention triggering.
I would like to begin working on your trauma narrative next session,
If you are okay with that.
Client: ....O...Okay.... Sounds good.
Oh my god, this is such a therapist term.
And I'm honestly ashamed that we haven't come up with a better way of talking about it.
A trauma narrative is when our therapist helps us write down the story about our trauma.
This can take multiple sessions.
And it's important that we go at our own pace.
You know how I have talked about trauma memories being hard to process and file away.
Like in the movie Inisde Out,
Which I reference all the time, I know.
But each memory in that movie is represented with a marble.
Well, with a trauma memory,
That marble would have been dropped and shattered onto the floor.
And we have to pick up all those pieces,
And glue it back together, you know, little by little.
Until it's whole again.
And then we can roll it away to file it.
Trauma narratives help us put that marble back together piece by piece.
By writing out our own story and how it felt for us when we were in it.
T: I know working on this trauma narrative can be exhausting and difficult.
I just want you to know that I am always holding space for you.
So then you can feel however you need to feel.
Client: ....Okay.... Sounds good..
Now this one is just silly.
Because there are so many other ways to get your point across that would be more clear.
Holding space is when a therapist, or really anyone else in your life,
Is there for you.
They are completely present.
And willing to join you along your recovery,
Or just your life journey.
Without judgement or their own personal goals.
They will be with you.
And supporting you as you figure it out.
It's really just true therapist support.
T: I know we have been working on that trauma narrative for a few months now.
And I'm just curious if we could talk it through today,
To see if it has any emotional charge.
I'm guilty of using this one.
So my apologies if you have watched other videos of mine where I have used this phrase.
Emotional charge is when talking about something,
Causes us to have an intense emotional response.
Like, for instance,
If someone asked me to talk about losing my dad right after it happened,
I would tear up,
I would try, like full ugly cry.
And not be able to maybe even speak about it.
But after many years of therapy and just letting time pass,
I'm able to talk about it and not feel so sad and upset.
Therefore, that situation no longer has an emotional charge for me.
Does that make sense?
Once we process something,
It doesn't provoke us as much.
And we are able to talk about it easily.
It almost kind of ties in to that like dysregulation.
If we don't have an emotional charge attached to a story,
We wont become dysregulated by it.
T: I know you keep talking about how hard it is for you to make friends,
And I'm just curious if that is a thought or a belief.
This can be really hard to answer.
Because, what is the difference between a thought and a belief.
Well, it's actually pretty simple.
A thought is just something that passes through our mind during the day.
We can have thousands and thousands of them each and every day.
Thoughts about the weather.
How comfortable these jeans are.
Or how our romantic relationship's going.
Thoughts come in and go out.
But beliefs,
Now beliefs are thoughts that we accept as true.
For example,
If I have a thought that I am a terrible friend,
But then immediately I think, No, because another thought comes in right,
No, I'm really not.
I actually, I think I'm a good friend.
You know, I show up for people.
I am supportive.
Well that thought, I'm a terrible friend, was just a thought.
But, if I keep thinking that,
And after a while I believe it to be true,
It becomes part of who I think I am, That I'm a bad friend.
Then that thought has turned into a belief.
And that's why I'm always telling you to keep track of your recurring thoughts,
And make sure they are positive ones.
Because we want to prevent any negative and false beliefs,
>From taking up any space in our brain.
I hope you enjoyed this video, it was really fun to make.
And I'm happy to do more of these if you like them.
So let me know in the comments down below,
If you'd like to see a part two or maybe even a three.
Or what terms and phrases you would like me to decode for you.
Have a wonderful day.
And I will see you next time, bye.
It's the seconds, second,
Scene two.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community