Health Anxiety

“A certain level of anxiety about our health is normal and helpful, keeping us alert to the possibility that all is not well, and enabling us to take early action if necessary. Taken to an extreme, however, as will all anxiety problems, to much anxiety and preoccupation with health matters is counterproductive, particularly in the absence of tangible evidence that there are problems that merit a large amount of anxiety. Health anxiety can seriously affect people’s relationships with others, with their bodies and with the medical profession on whom they can rely for help.”

Diana Sanders and Frank Wills

Cultural Wealth

“The notion of cultural wealth refers to the life-enhancing skills and knowledge that exists within what may be perceived as deprived communities … This perspective can inform therapy in many ways, such as through the therapeutic use  of [various cultural artefacts] as well as creative engagement with many other resources, support networks, and collective memories within the social networks within which a client might reside.”

John McLeod

Person-Centred Counselling

“The person-centred counsellor must always remember that she is a guest with the client’s world of experience …[this] presents a somewhat quieter image [than other approaches].”

Dave Mearns

Authenticity

“When you are being authentic, you are in fact more in touch with and true to your own essence - an essence that is by definition imperfect, vulnerable and reflects a sense of existential guilt in failing to live to your sense of unique and full potential.”

Wendy Lichtenthal and William Breitbart

Emotional Hurt

“[Emotional] Hurt has been characterised as the neglected emotion … we believe this is because feelings of hurt are often subsumed within depression … we find this too inelegant …”

Peter Trower, Jason Jones and Windy Dryden, 

The Benefits of Rewarding Relationships

“Positive, rewarding relationships that feel secure have also been found to influence a wide range of daily psychological processes, such as tolerance of ambiguity, emotion and attention regulation, empathy and compassion, and suppression of unwanted thoughts.”

M. Katherine Shear

The narrative approach to therapy

“The idea of re-authoring invites the person to be the authority on his or her life, through ‘authoring’ or telling alternative narratives of who they are and what they stand for. By encouraging the person to consider both the landscape of action (what they have done) and the landscape of identity (what do these actions suggest about who the client is as a person), the conversation ‘thickens’ the new story that he person is able to tell about himself or herself.”

p152

Rolf Sundet and John McLeod in Cooper, M. And Dryden, W. (2016). The Handbook of Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage

How does this sit within the Islamic framework?

Mick Cooper and Windy Dryden

Cooper and Dryden (2016)

(Cooper and Dryden, 2016)

Cooper, M. And Dryden, W. (2016). The Handbook of Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage

The narrative approach to therapy

“The idea of re-authoring invites the person to be the authority on his or her life, through ‘authoring’ or telling alternative narratives of who they are and what they stand for. By encouraging the person to consider both the landscape of action (what they have done) and the landscape of identity (what do these actions suggest about who the client is as a person), the conversation ‘thickens’ the new story that he person is able to tell about himself or herself.”

Rolf Sundet and John McLeod in Cooper, M. And Dryden, W. (2016). The Handbook of Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy edited by Cooper and Dryden

Boredom

“Boredom is inversely related to experience.”

Yalom & Leszcz

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Young Anger

“I believe that anger is often a serious problem because people let it build up to high levels and then they are unable to express it. The release of so much anger would feel like a volcano exploding.  It’s frightening both to you and others.  It’s much more useful in the group to work with young anger, before it turns into red anger - for example, impatience, frustration, or very minor feelings of annoyance.  Would you be willing to express in the group any minor flickerings of impatience or annoyance when they first occur - for example, irritation at the way I lead the group today?”

Yalom & Leszcz

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Validation

One aspect of the importance of validation is that, it’s not that I am agreeing with what you are saying, but simply that I listened and heard you. 

That you actually got some idea or feeling of yours heard by me. 

That whatever words I used, my underlying message was: “I see you”.  

And so this releases me from needing to be some wishy-washy agree-with-everyone person and allows me to be myself, to find my voice with which to say, “I see you”. Because the “I” in “I see you” needs to be present.  

And the more I am authentically me, the more I can see you.

Advice Giving -v- Connection

“…advice-giving may reflect resistance to more intimate engagement … in an attempt to manage relationships rather than to connect.”

Irvin Yalom and Molyn Leszcz, “The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy”

The Growth Model

“In the growth model, the therapist sets the example of an active, learning, fallible human being who is willing to cope honestly and responsibly with whatever confronts [them], including [their] own vulnerabilities.”

Virginia Satir, “Conjoint Family Therapy”

Four Parts to All Messages

There are always ever only four parts to a message:

I (the sender) am saying something (the message) to you (the receiver) in this situation (the context)

All messages are always requests by the sender for the receiver to do or say something or to not do or say something.

Silence is a message.

Virginia Satir, “Conjoint Family Therapy”

The urge to fix

“The urge to fix, or deny, or to avoid a problem can be very intense, particularly when anxiety is high.”

Kerr and Bowen, “Family Evaluation”

Subjective Distortion of Reality

“A person who feels rejected and blames it on others, usually is underemphasizing his own subjective distortion of reality.”

Kerr and Bowen, “Famlly Evaluation”

Autonomous Functioning

“The phrase ‘processing at the highest levels of mental functioning’ does not mean that people with high intelligence quotients (IQ) have more capacity for autonomous functioning. Objectivity and the associated autonomy from one’s environment derive from the capacity to recognise the difference between emotional, feeling, subjective, and objective responses and to act on that recognition.”

Kerr and Bowen, “Family Evaluation”

Viewpoints

“Despite the limits of our objective understanding of human behaviour, we have not been especially constrained in terms of our willingness to passionately adhere to certain viewpoints about the nature of human problems. We demonstrate against war as if we undertand the cause of war. We could just as easily demonstrate against schizophrenia.

Our understanding of that phenomenon is about as limited as our understanding of war. We continually admonish ourselves for what we do or do not do and continually implore each other to be different. There appears to be an infinite supply of people available to tell us the “right” way to think and the “right” way to act.

The vast majority of the admonitions and directives that swirl around us are hopelessly entangled in subjectivity.

Depending on the phenomenon under consideration, we blame some thing, some person, some group, some whatever for its presence. We blame genes, chemicals, parents, schools, a variety of “bad” influences, and certain politicians for what goes wrong.”

Kerr & Bowen, “Family Evaluation”