Using what you have learned in therapy

I realized today that I have years and boatloads of insight thanks to therapy...BUT... translating that to "real life" relationships hasn't really worked so far.

For example, I know that with any authority figure I automatically react as if they are in a parental role (good or bad, T or boss people.) My friends, I treat as siblings--it is hard for me to get close because I always feel in competition with them. Knowing this hasn't helped me change anything. I am worried that the T will be the only person I am close to, ever.

How do you struggle to take what you've learned and apply it to RL?

That's just it, isn't it? Does it ever come to that, when we become our own T? I'm trying so hard to do that right now. Like you,"I have years and boatloads of insight thanks to therapy" ... my own degree in the subject, I figure. Yet I spent bunches of Friday & more time today in his office trying to sort stuff out that it seems to me I have preparation for.

Maybe we know but don't have the confidence. Maybe we know but can't see the answer--because we're too close to the question. Maybe George Carlin wondered the same thing.

It's sure frustrating, though.

Roadie

LOL there has to be a carlin quote somewhere and I will find it!!

Being my own T feels awful. I know what he would say, yet I still need him to say it to me. The dependency never ends!

Does therapy improve RL relationships? That's a very good question.

I'd say the answer is yes, but it is very difficult to see the improvement.

My boss says I'm more stable and seem to be coping better. I'm not sure I believe him!

Practice. I know it sounds painfully simple, but it's true. My group T actually has us practice skills with easy, non-intense situations so that when it all hits the fan, we have some practice under our belt. Also, going a little at a time, rather than trying to change everything at once. And using opposite action, sometimes I just do the opposite of what my destructive/ineffective tendency is- another simple thing I've found very helpful. Like, I wake up and want to stay in bed, skip class and work, and generally avoid the world. It's super easy to do, and I've done it plenty of times before. What I've done is realize that whatever I've been doing has actually been making the situation worse and is just really ineffective for me, so now I do the opposite. It's not always clear cut to determine the opposite, it kinda depends on the urge you have that you want to change. In this case, for me, it's that I know when my alarm goes off, I have a set amount of time to get ready and that I will be out of the house by 9am, no matter what- messy hair and what-have-you. Or, let's say I'm running late to class, even if there's 10 minutes left in class, I'm going. Which hopefully pushes me to get going a little faster to avoid that embarrassing situation. When I apply this, I get out and have a decent day. When I don't I literally stay in bed till 4pm (seriously did this last week). So, which one do I want to do now? Today, I chose to get up and get going, and my day was so much better than when I isolated and holed up in my room.

Do you have some ideas of specifically what you're doing that you'd like to change? And maybe how you could apply some of the practice with non-authoritative people in your life or how you can practice opposite action?

It's tough, but we can do it. I hope I helped.

Thanks rainboots!

I guess for me, my inclination is towards avoiding even minor socializing--chit chat at the water cooler is torture for me. Stuck in an elevator trying to make small talk with the guy in accounting. Even calling my own friends. If I feel like I'm not "successful" enough at the moment, they won't want anything to do with me (this is all coming from me, I realize.)

Sometimes just getting out of the house on weekends is a challenge. I guess the key is to recognize the small things. I am getting better at "forcing" myself to get out there but so far the results are too incremental to notice.

I was wondering how others dealt with this, I'm glad that you gave examples.

Thanks for posting this growlycat. I struggle with this too. I am great at thinking about how I would apply something from t in RL, but actually doing it is something else.

Its a matter of catching myself and reminding myself that I am no longer who I use to be and I have options now which may include not partaking in chit chat and not feeling a failure for that because basically chit chat can be shallow and others who make chit chat maybe feeling just as I once did, ie feel so awkward that they feel they "should" say something. Now I don't have to say anything if I don't want too. I don't say this is a straight line event, it takes work and sometimes I revert back felt disappointed. Its like flexing a muscle, a social muscle.

Sometimes I surprise myself and find myself having a conversation without any effort.

I still prefer my own company much of the time, but I within that have a much better relationship with myself, that to me is and has been a much more desired outcome. I am like a bone china plate that was once dropped and now am back together albeit with a thin fracture line that for me will always be there. I can't say consciously using therapy has been the answer, more how therapy has helped me change internally that brings about change in how I am socially now.

I took my real life issues to therapy and worked on them with my therapist. Actually, all of my issues were discovered because I took my real life issues to therapy to work through. I would choose my issue, talk about it in therapy, receive excellent feedback from the therapist, go back out into life and try something different with the situation and viola, issue was eventually solved.

I think the insights only make the concrete actions possible, they don't make them happen. You have to know where and what the problem is, define it, etc. before you can fix it but just defining it (getting the insight) does not guarantee that you make a list of new things to try and then try the things on the list.

I'd join a "team" at work (sports or work project) and make sure I was not the coach or boss and be reading all the "Team Playing for Dummies" books I could find: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/conten...am-player.html to practice non-competition.

I was having trouble getting myself to "clean"/do chores so made a "game" of it; bought a couple game dice with 8 sides :-) and made a huge collage of areas I wanted to work on: Kitchen, bathrooms, cat cleaning/care, filing, trash, Dollar store (where I'd go buy a single item and then bring it home and have to immediately use it :-) Free Day (could skip) home maintenance, general cleaning, vacuuming, etc. and "numbered" each of the things and then each morning I threw the dice and whatever number came up, I had to work on that for 15 minutes. It worked great for a couple weeks but then I realized that I knew what I had to do and could just do it/something for 15 minutes every morning? LOL

So is therapy like atoms or is it like the emperor's new clothes?

Neither, it's like the old concept of ether - or the new ether!

this is very good Perna

I haven't learnt anything new from my T. She just tells you the textbook stuff that everyone knows, such as eat well, sleep well, exercise, deep breathing etc. I learnt all that in high school. Some at university. I think thats why I get frustrated with her - she has a very smaaaaallll toolbox so to speak, and I keep thinking to myself "is that it???".

The psychotherapist that I used to see in the past had a wayyy larger toolbox. But the insights I learnt there weren't the type of things you could go home and utilize in your life - more just tangental abstract things that had nothing to do with my everyday life. But it was interesting at least. Awareness type stuff.

Atoms. There is plenty of evidence but it's all technical and indirect.

For a while, this concept of 'tools' didn't somehow make a lot of sense to me; I couldn't seem to figure out what tools insight gave me.
I was having trouble thinking of just insight was supposed to lead to change. Shoot, I've been told often in my life how insightful/perceptive I am .... well, it sure didn't lead to a lot of change! Because the insight is one thing ..... knowing what to do with it is another. Or maybe it is that there is the insight into the nature of the problem ..... and then there is the insight into the nature of the solution. I had plenty of insight into the nature of my problems (yet not enough either) but very little insight into what a solution could be.
Just knowing how I reacted, say when my H got all critical, was one thing; understanding WHY I reacted that way, the history behind the coping mechanism was another thing; then learning about a different, better way to think about, react, respond to it was quite another; applying it, well.....that's been the hardest for me.....it's too easy to fall into old patterns, so it takes active, intense effort for me.
Actually, though, I think I am finally learning to reframe my thinking, recognize and reframe cognitive distortions ..... instead of only analyzing something about myself to death, looking at it from every angle so I can define it better, thinking about the problem only, I am figuring out how to think about the solution(s), too. And not just think about them, but get up and carry them out ..... keep being a thinker, but become more of a doer, too.
Anyway, now I understand better what tools actually are, in the coping skills sense, and I also have some better tools to use that I actually have an idea how to use (not that I won't accidentally hammer my thumb, so to speak, sometimes.....)