[BlackCanary]

My new girlT caught my attention with the observation that when I get close to change, I shut down.
I told her I thought this was normal! She agreed.
I knew something wasn't right about this for me, but all I could come up with was "I'm not in therapy to fix something specific, like a fear of flying"

BUT
last night it occurs to me that I've not necessarily had change as my goal in therapy - maybe in a theoretical way (I'd like to know that my parents love me, what has to change to make that happen?).
With originalT, so much of our work helped me to understand myself and others. Then, if I wished, I could change how I interacted with my world to get a different result. It was gentle. It was powerful for me.

Are you working on a concrete change OR personal understanding of your inner world, mind, emotions? Is it either/Or?

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

Are you working on a concrete change OR personal understanding of your inner world, mind, emotions? Is it either/Or?

Personal understanding of my inner world, mind, emotions, plus the outer world of other people, too. But not with a T now.

I don't see that it has to be either/or, but if change is forced/urged, that would not be good by me.

[Oceanwave]

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

Are you working on a concrete change OR personal understanding of your inner world, mind, emotions? Is it either/Or?

Well, don't you need a personal understanding of your inner world/ mind in order to bring about change?

[granite1]

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

My new girlT caught my attention with the observation that when I get close to change, I shut down.
I told her I thought this was normal! She agreed.
I knew something wasn't right about this for me, but all I could come up with was "I'm not in therapy to fix something specific, like a fear of flying"

BUT
last night it occurs to me that I've not necessarily had change as my goal in therapy - maybe in a theoretical way (I'd like to know that my parents love me, what has to change to make that happen?).
With originalT, so much of our work helped me to understand myself and others. Then, if I wished, I could change how I interacted with my world to get a different result. It was gentle. It was powerful for me.

Are you working on a concrete change OR personal understanding of your inner world, mind, emotions? Is it either/Or?

i think i am working on understanding and wanting change also in how i see and interact with the world outside my head

[jexa]

I like the idea of understanding myself and indirectly bringing about change. I'll only be ready to change if I understand why I need to change and what I need to change vs. what I've been judging myself for unfairly, etc. Without understanding, do I really even know what the problem is?

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Oceanwave

Well, don't you need a personal understanding of your inner world/ mind in order to bring about change?

If you want permanent and healthy change I feel that you must have understanding.

This is a good question canary. For myself, they were both important. None of my change occurred without understanding.

[unico]

Both understanding and change are very important to me. I want to understand myself and others and forgive others, but I also want to change how I view the world/others/myself and change a lot of my behaviors.

[skeksi]

I think by understanding myself better, I am changing.

Both. Definitely both.

[Perna]

I don't see it as either/or. I have experienced thoughts, perceptions, and understandings to change in therapy; about both people and events in the past and ways of approaching current people and events.

[BlackCanary]

I remember being a bit frustrated with originalT, that he didn't push me or challenge me. When I might have distorted thinking, he did not tell me my thinking was incorrect, he might say "What about this?" or "Have you ever considered it this way?"
Then I'd spend time later thinking "why did he say THAT" but in the process I'd be thinking about his suggestion.
I realize that his approach in therapy was to give me all the options/ideas. Then I'd consider them against my original thinking. Then I'd come back and ask "I"m wondering what will happen if I try this?" We'd hash it out. Then I'd have a chance to try it IRL, and it might work great. Now I really OWN those changes.
It was a slow process - I'd reach a level of understanding about what I was not happy about, I'd understand why it was so, I'd understand what might be an alternative. Then I'd try it out. Then I'd report on trying it out. I might practice in a session.

New girlT says she's definitely CBT in her orientation, and perhaps originalT was mostly analytical (Jung)? She's telling me things, challenging me. OK, that's fine. But I am analytical, so I challenge her back (bosses LOVE this). I'm also from a long line of controlling people who always think they are right and don't really have total respect for the other person (our wives and husbands love this).

[Perna]

I don't think other people can really tell us much? I don't think anyone's thinking is wrong or distorted, it just works/doesn't work very well in our particular world I remember the multi-colored "sun" glasses of the 1960's and how, after you'd worn the pink or baby blue or purple glasses for a bit, you'd take them off and the world would look that way. Well, that's not "distorted" to my way of thinking, that's just what I was seeing in my little world. True, if I hadn't had those glasses on I would have seen something different but that doesn't make what I would have seen as better/worse or right/wrong, just different. The problem often lies in the fact that most other people one is around will see things in an "agreed" upon way and if we don't see thing that way, then we're going to be swimming upstream and some people are picky about who they let spawn in "their" pond

I have trouble with the CBT therapists because I have trouble with remembering not to pay attention to my opinion yet when I haven't tried what the other person is suggesting. I do a lot of reading and think I know a lot but have learned the most useful knowledge for me is experience. So, when a CBT type says to try X, I'm probably going to have thought of X and probably going to have a negative opinion of X, if only because the other person suggested it :-) I'll be quick with why it won't work but my "theories" won't have any personal experience behind them so aren't worth a whole lot, even to myself. Mr. Langley was sure he could fly too but took the Wright Brothers experiments to get and keep the dang plane off the ground.

[deliquesce]

i'm finding i'm a lot more goal oriented than i first supposed.
i came into therapy to fix things, and i get impatient when i can't see how the work we're doing will fix my current problems.
austin-t likes to delve a lot, but i dont see how exploring the relationship i have with my mother is going to help me. i prefer things to be problem-based e.g., this is the current problem, how do we fix it. there is scope for insight within that problem (maybe the relationship with my mother really is relevant) but i find it hard to see progress when all i've done is talked about my mum for an hour.

i tend to work on understanding which i hope leads to change, but since i'm super analytical i find that i can get stuck in the paralysis of analysis and then the change doesn't happen. sometimes i need to just do something differently and that works and then the understanding comes later. i think there's more than one way to skin a cat. (sorry, gross expression).

[sunrise]

I don't have just one goal in therapy. I have come to a lot of new understanding in therapy and been able to effect change in my life too. So I guess for me, they are intertwined. My main goals in therapy right now are to deal with my father's impending death, and to share with T (and deconstruct) some important events from my teen and early adult years that cause ripples to this day. I don't really have "change" as part of either of those. But T really does encourage me to face my father's death head on so maybe that is a "change" from how I might do it if I didn't consult him. And my early adult years left a bit of a shroud on me, and I want to be able to cast that off. So I guess it is change I may be seeking.... But understanding is key. It's interesting, BC, that you would try to separate those two from each other.

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

when I get close to change, I shut down

What do you mean? Like taking the last step to make a change is scary and so you hold back? Would it help to get more encouragement from T to take the plunge?

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

It was gentle. It was powerful for me.

Sounds like this was an approach that worked well for you. Some approaches work better for me in therapy than others. It's good to know this, so we can help our therapists out by telling them what works and what doesn't. (Or our preferences can help guide our choice of therapists.)

Originally Posted by BlackCanary

When I might have distorted thinking, he did not tell me my thinking was incorrect, he might say "What about this?" or "Have you ever considered it this way?"

His approach would work well for me too. I don't think I would respond well if someone told me my thinking was incorrect. That sounds very judgmental to me and not very productive. I think the way your (former) T challenged you to consider your thinking yourself had more potential to promote change than simply telling you that you are thinking incorrectly. The same is true in the classroom. If a teacher spews a lot of facts at you, a lot won't stick. But if a teacher guides you to discover the answers yourself by asking key questions, the answers you come to are much more likely to stick. In therapy, when the T sees a client just once a week, or is only allowed to do a brief course of therapy such as only 12 sessions, there may be pressure to just tell the client a lot of stuff rather than let the client discover, because the latter does take longer. But the change has potential to be more lasting.... Also, I tend to think there are multiple ways to think about things rather than a correct way and an incorrect way. Yet I do respond well to "reframing". T can share a different way of looking at something with me, and I can try that on for size and see if it works for me. That seems really different to me than someone saying your thinking is incorrect...

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by Sannah

If you want permanent and healthy change I feel that you must have understanding. This is a good question canary. For myself, they were both important. None of my change occurred without understanding.

same here (don't faint Sannah! ).

I've known for a long time, although inarticulately, obscurely, that things needed changing; but I was always unable to make the changes, since I understood nothing.

WIth the understanding that I am finding in therapy, it's as if I have the weapons, or tools if you prefer, to work on changes. And actually I think some changes happen automatically. Even I can tell that reduction of long buried anger, for example, has a significant effect on energy level and ability to deal with situations in new, healthier ways.