Which Part of You is Driving Your Bus?

Image by David Henderson

When my clients tell me, ‘I really hate myself today!’ or ‘I need him to call me, even though I know he will just hurt me again,’ I often ask them, ‘Which I?’. So, which I hates and which feels hated? And which I is so attached to this guy that she doesn’t care if she’s hurt – or perhaps finds that hurt familiar, because it reminds her of her painful relationship with mum or dad.

And people often look at me with a bewildered expression on their face, because we are all used to thinking of ourselves as just me. So of course, I feel like I am Dan all the time. I think Dan thoughts and have Dan experiences and everyone who speaks to me calls me Dan. Just me. Just one, homogeneous self.

We all have many parts

But we now know that this is not how the human brain works. Your brain creates many selves, which fulfill different roles in your internal system. For example, you may have a self that goes to work every day, even when you would rather stay in bed, and can be assertive and deal with your prickly, critical boss. But you have another self that is much less confident and secure when you are in romantic relationships (which is, of course, deeply frustrating and mystifying! ‘Why am I so confident at work but crumble when my boyfriend’s mean to me?’).

You find yourself feeling and behaving differently when you go back to your family home, when you are with this (kind, supportive) or that (abrasive, critical) friend, and so on. You have many selves, or parts (and in schema therapy we call these modes). This is just how the brain works, even if we are fairly healthy and high-functioning.

But if you have experienced trauma, your brain will have created many more parts to help you cope. One part may hold particular traumatic memories, enabling you to get on with school, or work, without being flooded by painful memories and feelings all the time. Another part makes you drink to numb painful emotions. Another might push you to self-harm, or restrict food, or whatever it is you need to get through the day.

We know that trauma survivors have many parts and that these parts might be more separate and distinct than for those lucky enough not to have experienced trauma. At its most extreme, this separation of parts leads to a dissociative disorder, where people frequently move between their parts, with little awareness of this change or the other parts in their system, which clearly makes life very difficult. This can lead to ‘dissociative amnesia’, where people lose parts of their day, not remembering where they have been or what they were doing.

One bus, many passengers

Whether you are a trauma survivor or not, it’s helpful to know the bus metaphor, which my clients really like. It goes like this… There you are, driving along, with all of your parts on board a bus. There may be one or more child parts, some happy, some sad, some running around and causing all sorts of trouble. There might be a Critical Part, giving you a hard time about something or other.

Maybe there is an avoidant part, who doesn’t want to be on the bus at all – too many people! Too much noise! Or even an entitled part, who thinks he’s pretty great (certainly better than all the other loser parts on the bus). The point is, all of these parts are on your bus. And you need to make them all welcome, whether you like them or not, because they’re not getting off any time soon!

But there is only one part you want driving the bus – and that’s your Healthy Adult. He or she is the strong, resilient, mature, wise part that knows what’s best for you. And loves you – even those parts of you that are a bit hard to love. And your Healthy Adult is, or should be, in charge of all the other noisy, opinionated, impulsive parts – like the teacher in a nursery, or parent of a large family. The kids can have their say, but mum or dad should be the one making all the big decisions.

Don’t let these guys drive

Because if the angry part if driving, you might find yourself letting your irritation bubble up and snapping at your kids, which feels horrible. Or if the part who wants you to drink is at the wheel, you find yourself in the pub, alone, on a sunny Saturday morning, drowning your sorrows. And if the Critical Part is driving, it will park up, turn around and berate you about your latest ‘failing’ for an hour.

You get the idea. All of your parts are welcome to be passengers on your bus. They can all shout out ideas, opinions, suggestions. And your Healthy Adult listens, takes note, then he or she makes the decisions. Wisely. Calmly. Sensibly. And so you drive off down a road that leads to a happier, more fulfilling life – not the familiar roads that end up in dead ends or dark alleys.

If you want to know more about how to help your Healthy Adult take charge, do keep reading my blog (for example, here’s a post about using mindfulness to quiet a noisy mind), see a good schema therapist; or check out Internal Family Systems therapy, another great model which is all about getting to know, integrate and have compassion for every part in your system.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Healing the Wounds of Childhood Emotional Neglect

Image by Kelly Sikkema

Sometimes, when I’m working with people struggling with problems like chronic anxiety, depression or disordered eating, it’s hard to figure out where these problems came from. They describe reasonably happy families, with loving parents who did their best to raise happy, confident children. And sometimes what we figure out together is that there were ‘small misses’ – subtle issues with their parents’ attunement to that little boy or girl that led to lifelong problems.

Of course, sometimes these misses were not small and there was a deep lack of love, care, support, safety or any of the other things children need to meet their core developmental needs. And whether this lack of what you needed in childhood was small or large, what we are talking about is emotional neglect – an incredibly common problem that’s a key factor in many mental-health difficulties.

What is emotional neglect?

In schema therapy, we see this neglect showing up as an Emotional Deprivation schema. This means that, as a child, you were deprived of some of the key emotional nutrients you needed in order to thrive. And of all the schemas, this can be one of the hardest to detect in people, because it’s primarily about the absence of good things, rather than the presence of bad things. Let me give you an example.

*Jean comes to see me and in her first session, explains that she has a lifelong history of depression. She also recognises that she has low self-esteem, feeling bad about herself across the board and lacking confidence at work, as a mum, in her friendships and in terms of her body image.

When I ask about Jean’s childhood, she paints a rosy picture. ‘Oh, family life was great,’ she tells me. ‘I had such a happy childhood. Mum and dad were good to us, we had a nice house and everything we needed.’

But as our sessions unfold, it becomes clear that things were not quite so great for Jean. She was a shy, sensitive child who needed lots of love, warmth, support and encouragement from her parents. Although her dad was a kind man, he was also a workaholic, spending long hours at the office. Jean recalls barely seeing him throughout her childhood. ‘He was always at work,’ she says. ‘But I understood, because he paid for our house and all the lovely things we had as kids.’

Sadly, these ‘things’ were how her mother showed love to her children. She was quite a cold person, who was not good with emotion, so showed her kids love in practical ways – cooking meals, making sure school uniforms were pressed and clean, giving them toys for birthdays and Christmas.

She never told her kids that she loved them, never hugged them and scolded them when they were scared or hurt. She just couldn’t handle what she called ‘weak’ emotions like fear or sadness. So Jean didn’t get any of the love and hugs that she needed – an absence of good things, which didn’t help build her self-esteem and left her vulnerable to the depression that has plagued Jean throughout her life.

Healing the wounds of childhood

If Jean’s story resonates with you, it’s possible that you might have experienced emotional neglect as a child. And if so, what can you do to make sure this neglect doesn’t cast a shadow over the rest of your life? First, as I often say in these posts, knowledge is power. Start by reading up on neglect, in my blog and others like it.

You may also like Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, by Jonice Webb. It’s an excellent self-help book that explains exactly what this form of neglect is, the different styles of parenting that can cause it (from the well-meaning but unattuned to the destructive and traumatising), and offers lots of helpful techniques and strategies to help build your sense of self-worth, confidence and resilience as an adult.

Second, if your wounds are really deep, you might need some help from a mental-health professional like me. Schema therapy is really effective for problems like neglect, but lots of other approaches will also help, like CBT, internal family systems or compassion-focused therapy. All of these approaches will help you identify painful, self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that maintain the sense of being unlikable, unlovable or not enough in some way.

Finally, remember that experiencing neglect as a child was categorically not your fault. You didn’t choose your family, or whatever issues they had that didn’t allow them to give you all the love, support and affection that you needed. So whatever problems that neglect caused in later life are not your fault either. You were just unlucky, got dealt a bad hand as a child, so you’re now struggling with the consequences.

But enough is enough. Don’t let the neglect you experienced define you as a person. Don’t let it define your life. You deserve to be loved, valued and cherished as much as any other human on this planet. Make today the day that you commit to healing and happiness. I very much hope that you find both.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies on this blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.

Is Your Romantic Relationship Harming or Healing You?

Image by Hutomo Abrianto

Do you have a partner? If so, does your relationship make you happy? This is a crucial question, especially if you experienced trauma or other painful events in your life, as the quality of your romantic relationship can either help you heal those old wounds, or make them deeper.

In some ways, this is common sense – we all know that bad relationships make us unhappy. But it’s helpful to think about the different systems which impact your mental health, both internal and external. The internal systems are, generally, what we work on in therapy. These comprise your internal parts, such as (in schema therapy language) your Vulnerable Child or Inner Critic. We could also see all of the internal systems of your mind, brain and body as key drivers of either health or ill-health – for example, your nervous, hormonal and cardiovascular systems.

Why relationships are key

In therapy, less attention may be paid to your external systems. These would include your family (both the one your were born into and the one you made for yourself as an adult), friends, colleagues, neighbours, community and society. All of these systems, to a greater or lesser extent, have a big part to play in your mental and physical health.

But, as an adult, no external system is more important than the family you have created. And within this system, the quality of your romantic relationship has the greatest power to make you happy or not. And sadly, something I see time and again with trauma survivors, is that they don’t make good choices for their partners.

It can be baffling, both for the people involved and those who love them, so let’s think about why this can happen. Perhaps the biggest reason is that, if you experienced trauma, abuse or neglect as a child – and if the person hurting you was a family member – that’s what love feels like to you. Especially if the person doing the damage was your mother or father, they were a key attachment figure for you as a child. So you loved, needed and wanted to be close to them, even when they hurt you.

So your poor, developing little brain learned that love = hurt. That was your experience, day after day, so you became conditioned to feel love in this way. As an adult, this conditioning will lead you to (unconsciously, of course) choose partners who will also love and hurt you. It just feels normal and, on some unconscious level, right.

Schema chemistry

Another important concept to understand is that of ‘schema chemistry’. This means that the schemas in your brain make you, again unconsciously, highly attracted to people with whom those schemas fit. This is why we feel that intense, lightning bolt of attraction to someone, it’s like the schemas in both brains are powerful magnets, pulling us together.

For example, if you have an Abandonment schema, you might be dangerously attracted to people who are clearly unreliable and always leave their partner, usually involving an affair. They are clearly not a great choice as partner material, but you just can’t help yourself. Or, if you have a Defectiveness schema, you might find yourself dating someone who is constantly critical and putting you down – this makes you feel defective and not good enough, deep down, feeding your schema and keeping it alive.

Enough is enough

If this sounds like you, it might all seem a bit depressing. And it can be really painful, especially when we play out these patterns over and over again. But if that’s the case, maybe now is the time to clench your fists, grit your teeth, summon up all your courage and determination and say to yourself, ‘Enough!’ Enough hurt. Enough crying. Enough endless talks with friends, telling you to leave over and over.

Time to choose a relationship that heals. How? Well, you might need some therapy to help you recognise these patterns and learn how to break them. Or a stack of self-help books and loving friends/family members might be enough. Either way, you need to accept that your choices thus far have not been the best. You may also have to take a long, hard look at your current partner and decide whether they are good for you or not.

• Are they abusive – verbally, emotionally or physically? Then leave.

• Do they make you feel bad about yourself on a regular basis? Leave.

• Do they gaslight you, or take zero responsibility for any problems that arise in your relationship? Do they blame you for absolutely everything? Time to leave.

• Do all your friends and family keep telling you this person is bad for you, or untrustworthy, or just a not-very-nice, destructive person? Time to go.

Kindness above all else

Once you are out of that horrible situation, take some time to heal and regroup, spend time alone until you feel ready to date again, then write a list of qualities you are looking for in your new partner. And top of that list should be kindness. Far more important than how they look, or how charming they are, or how much money they have – certainly than that crazy chemistry that most people mistake for love, but is actually just a hormonal fever dream that always burns off after a few months, at best.

Choose somebody kind. Choose someone you think could be a friend – because long-term relationships are all about friendship, not lust. Choose someone with whom you are compatible, who you could live with, who has similar values and politics to you. Choose someone your friends like and approve of (they often know what’s best for you).

And if you do all those things, and find a nice, loving, supportive partner, it will be one of the most healing experiences of your life. Even if you are a trauma survivor. Even if you have been hurt by other partners, or in early relationships. A loving boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife is powerful, healing medicine.

I hope that helps and that you find someone good for you – because, especially if you have been through tough times in your life, you thoroughly deserve it.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Do You Struggle With Self-Compassion? If So, You Are Not Alone

Image by Külli Kittus

As a psychotherapist, I know there are all sorts of things that will help improve my clients’ mental health. Some of these are just common sense, like not taking recreational drugs or drinking too much; going easy on the caffeine if they are stressed or anxious; eating healthily; engaging in daily exercise; and getting enough sleep (one of the most important things you can do for both your mental and physical health).

Others are not so obvious, but still things they will have read about in self-help books, or heard mentioned in their favourite podcasts. Practising yoga is one – there is a growing body of evidence to support yoga’s healing capacities for body, mind, nervous and hormonal systems. Mindfulness meditation is another – you would have to have been living on the Moon for the past 10 years to have missed the mindfulness revolution! Most of us now know that mindfulness is highly beneficial, in all sorts of ways.

The age of self-compassion

Now mindfulness programmes have blossomed in meditation centres, schools, corporations and even prisons, another revolution is quietly brewing: the self-compassion movement. Spearheaded by Dr Kristin Neff – the world’s leading academic researcher into self-compassion – this builds on the skills and theory embedded in mindfulness programmes like mindfulness-based stress reduction. Kristin Neff’s mindful self-compassion programme, developed with her colleague Dr Christopher Germer, adds a powerful and structured method for relieving human suffering (if you want to find out more, check out centerformsc.org).

Full disclosure: I love self-compassion. I have long enjoyed Kristin Neff’s guided meditations (they are wonderful – and you can find them, for free, on the Insight Timer app at insighttimer.com), read her books and attended her workshops. I also use many of her techniques with my clients, who find them hugely powerful and beneficial.

And self-compassion is a key part of the schema therapy model, as we teach our clients’ Healthy Adult mode to offer kindness, soothing, reassurance and compassion to their Vulnerable Child. It’s a beautiful thing to teach people self-compassion and watch as, step by step, they incorporate it into their daily lives. Where once they were harsh and mean to themselves, now they are (mostly) kind, supportive, encouraging and understanding.

What gets in the way

But here’s the thing: self-compassion is hard. Even the kindest and most compassionate people often struggle to treat themselves as they would a friend, colleague or family member who was struggling. Being more compassionate, to yourself and others, is one of those things that is easy to talk about, and get intellectually, but can be incredibly tough to do on a daily basis (‘I know, rationally, that self-compassion is a good idea, but I forget to do it/don’t feel the impact of it/don’t think I deserve it,’ many of my clients tell me).

Here is an example:

*Trevor is a middle-aged business owner. He is comfortably off, with a lovely home, supportive wife and two young children. On paper, Trevor has it all. But he has struggled with cyclical periods of depression his whole adult life. In our first session, Trevor tells me that his depression seems to come out of the blue. ‘One day I’m fine, then it starts creeping up on me. I feel more and more depressed, everything starts to seem miserable and bleak, then I end up staying in bed for days,’ he explains.

One of the first things I explain to Trevor is that depression never comes out of the blue – there is always a reason. When we start exploring his life in detail, he tells me that he works incredibly long hours – at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And in the build-up to a depressive episode, he works even harder, until he crashes.

I hypothesise that a part of Trevor makes him depressed to give him a break from the grinding schedule of his working life. This makes sense to Trevor. I also notice that he has an especially vicious Critical Part, which tells Trevor he is ‘worthless’ and ‘pathetic’ unless he works like a dog.

I teach him my four-part self-compassion practice (you can read all about that in this post), so we can quieten the critical voice in his head and allow him to treat himself more kindly. But he really struggles with the compassionate self-talk step, in which I coach him in speaking to himself with kindness and understanding. ‘Something in me just says it’s bullshit,’ he says. ‘It tells me I don’t deserve kindness because I am worthless and deserve to be miserable.’

Breaking the cycle

So where did these painful, self-negating beliefs come from? As so often, from Trevor’s parents, who taught him that he was stupid and a failure, unless he excelled at school. Then he got some (grudging) praise and affection. This taught Trevor that his intrinsic self had no worth or value – the only thing to be liked, valued or respected was his work and achievements. So as an adult, he worked himself into the ground until he got depressed, recovered, then the cycle started all over again.

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, please remember that you are not alone. Learning to treat yourself with kindness, care and compassion is not easy – far from it. Many of us have negative beliefs like Trevor’s, often learned in childhood. We don’t feel like we deserve to be happy. We are taught that we’re only lovable when we achieve highly. We may even see self-compassion as self-indulgent, weak, or a waste of time.

None of this is true. As the Dalai Lama teaches us, you are worthy of love, compassion and freedom from suffering – as much as any other living being on this planet. So keep reading my posts and any other blogs/articles/self-help books that teach you how to develop greater self-compassion. Check out my video, below, for a step-by-step self-compassion practice. And if necessary, see a skilled mental-health professional to help you with that – you deserve it.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies in my blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.

Is Worry Driving You to Distraction?

Image by Priscilla Du Preez

My clients often tell me that they feel worried. And, while I understand what they mean, I always tell them that worry is not a feeling – it’s a thinking process linked to the feeling of anxiety. So, really, what they are telling me is that they feel anxious about something and have gone into worry mode to try and think their way out of the anxiety.

In schema therapy, the part that feels anxious is your Vulnerable Child mode – Little Jane or James. This is the emotional part of you, which gets triggered whenever you feel sad, anxious, stressed, hurt, upset, down… It’s also the part of you that holds all your painful memories from childhood and can get triggered when you feel threatened by something – especially if that reminds you of a stressful event from childhood.

Worry is a symptom

Let me give you an example. *Helen comes to see me because she can’t stop worrying. It’s driving her crazy, because she worries about every little thing. ‘If I have a meeting at work, I worry beforehand, about what I’ll say, whether my boss is annoyed with me, whether my colleagues like me, what I’m wearing, what I say in the meeting… You name it, I’m worrying about it,’ she tells me.

And this worry is exhausting for Helen. It makes her feel stressed before, during and after the meeting. She just can’t stop thinking about these problems. It’s like her mind is a vice – it grips on to the problems and won’t let go. ‘The other problem is that it’s driving my husband crazy,’ she adds. ‘He tries to reassure me but it doesn’t work, so I go on and on about these petty things until we’re both ratty and exhausted.’

Of course I feel for Helen – her worry is causing huge problems in her life. It maintains her low self-esteem, because she doesn’t believe she will ever do anything well enough, and that people think she’s rubbish at her job, even that she will get fired because her boss doesn’t rate her. But in our first session, I tell her something surprising and counterintuitive – even though it’s driving her nuts, worry is not the problem. It’s a symptom. And the root cause of her worry is anxious Little Helen.

Anxiety warns us about threats

I ask her to tell me more about her boss, to see if he reminds her of anyone from her past. She thinks about it, then has one of those lightbulb moments. ‘Ohhh,’ she says, ‘He is just like my dad!’ Helen goes on to tell me that her dad was highly critical when she as a child, telling her that nothing was ever good enough. If she got a B on a test, he would ask impatiently why it wasn’t an A. If she came second in a cross-country race, he would berate her for not being first. And so on.

So when she goes for a meeting with her boss, Little Helen feels highly anxious – just like she did around her dad as a child. And that’s what anxiety is for – it’s an alarm-bell emotion that warns us about potential threats. Her Worrier part then kicks in, with lots of ‘what if…’ thoughts to try and problem-solve the threats. ‘What if you say the wrong thing?’ ‘What if your boss criticises you?’ ‘What if you get fired?’

Trying to help. Trying to protect her from this nit-picking, critical, perfectionistic boss who is just like her dad. Not mean, or horrible, but trying to help Helen deal with the anxiety-provoking situation.

Comforting your little self

In order to help Helen, in schema therapy we do a few things. First, we work with the Worrier, helping Helen see where it came from, what its function is, the pros and cons of worrying, and so on until we can help it calm down a bit. Second, we help Little Helen feel safe, comforted and genuinely, deep-down reassured (not the temporary fix of reassurance that worry provides). There are many ways to do this – plenty of which are provided in this blog – but a simple first step is to use this self-compassion practice to help your little self feel calmer and more at peace.

Third, we build up Helen’s Healthy Adult, so she feels stronger, more rational, having better perspective – seeing the big picture rather than obsessing about the details. If you are a worrier by nature, you need to do all three things, rather than just focusing on the worry. Otherwise, you’re treating the symptom, not the cause, so the worry will just keep coming back.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies on this blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.

What Are Core Needs in Schema Therapy?

Image by Eka P Amdela

One of the most important ideas in schema therapy is that all children have core developmental needs. These needs are the same whether you grow up in Tottenham or Tanzania, whether you’re male or female, raised in the 18th or 21st century. All human children have the same needs.

Think of these needs as nutrients that we all require to grow up strong, resilient and healthy. It’s like a plant – every plant needs certain nutrients to thrive. They need water, sunlight, minerals in the soil, carbon dioxide in the air, the right temperature and growing conditions. If plants get these nutrients, they thrive. If not, they fail to grow properly and can be small or spindly.

So what are these core needs? There are five, listed in order of importance:

1. Love and a secure attachment

Attachment theory is one of the best-researched fields in psychology. Pioneered by John Bowlby, a British psychologist and psychoanalyst, attachment theory tells us that all babies are born hard-wired to attach, first to their mother, then father, siblings, grandparents, and so on. Ideally, babies form a secure attachment, meaning they feel strongly bonded, comfortable and deeply loved by mum.

Sadly, many babies don’t experience this, for all sorts of reasons, so they develop an insecure attachment style – either anxious or avoidant attachment. If this is true of you, you might struggle to form close bonds or romantic relationships as an adult. This attachment style stays with us for life, unless we do something (like therapy, or finding a loving partner) to change it.

2. Safety and protection

This one is self-explanatory. We all need to feel safe and protected, from infancy onwards. If your family environment either was or just felt unsafe, you might have problems with anxiety, or be a worrier. You may develop a Mistrust/Abuse schema and find it hard to trust people. Or you might cling to others, especially if they seem stronger than you.

3. Being valued as a unique human being

As I always tell my clients, this is not about being special, getting all As at school or being the smartest/prettiest/most popular kid. It’s just about being loved for who you are. Just you, with all your strengths and weaknesses, likeable and less likeable bits, imperfectly perfect, like every other child. If this need is not met, you might develop a Defectiveness schema, feeling you are not good enough, dislikable or unworthy in some way.

4. The ability to be spontaneous and play

All children (and other young animals) learn through play. But some parents are not comfortable with their kids being playful, spontaneous or silly. They might shout at or critcise their kids if they are being ‘too rambunctious’ or ‘foolish’. And the kids quickly learn to stifle their natural – and hugely important – instincts to run and laugh and play.

In adulthood, this can mean being overly serious, struggling to be playful or have fun. And this can cause problems in relationships, especially if your partner is healthily playful and silly. You may need to develop your Happy Child – one of the key modes in schema therapy.

5. Boundaries and being taught right from wrong

All kids need to learn to respect other people. That they are not the centre of the universe. That their parents, not them, are in charge and get to make the big decisions. This does not mean smacking, yelling, shaming or hurting kids in any way. It just means helping them grow up to be thoughtful, respectful, decent human beings.

If this need is not met, you may develop an Entitlement schema and feel you are special, better than other people and deserve to have exactly what you want whenever you want it. That will clearly cause problems for you and everyone close to you, so needs work in therapy if true.

I hope that’s useful to understand. Remember that if any of your needs were not met as a child, and you formed painful schemas as a result, none of that is fixed or set in stone. Reading blogs like this one (or the fantastic blog/schema therapy resources at Secure Nest), or self-help books, getting therapy, forming loving relationships – these will all help you get those needs met as an adult. Wishing you all the best with that journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Try this Simple Grounding Technique to Help with Dissociation

Image by David Pisnoy

Dissociation is one of the most confusing, disturbing and often frightening experiences we can have. It is also extremely common – especially, but not only, if you are a trauma survivor. When explaining dissociation to my clients, I often use the analogy of a circuit breaker.

So think about a circuit breaker, which is designed to deal with sudden surges of electricity. When there is a surge, the switches get tripped, shutting down the electrical circuit and protecting all of your devices (kettle, toaster, computer, etc) from burning out.

That’s how dissociation works in your brain. If you experience something completely overwhelming, like any kind of trauma, your brain flips a few switches (metaphorically) and shuts down various circuits, to protect you from lasting damage. At the time of the trauma, this is a helpful, adaptive and potentially lifesaving strategy.

Imagine you are in a bad car crash. If you are injured, your brain flips those switches to, for example, disconnect you from the physical pain in your body. This might help you survive, by allowing you to escape the crash site. Or just to cope with the experience, by protecting you from the pain until you’re in hospital and can get treatment. As with so many of the coping strategies we use for any kind of traumatic experience, this is a good, healthy, protective thing to do.

When dissociation is not helpful

The problem with dissociation is that, over time, it becomes an unconscious and habitual response. Especially if you are a trauma survivor, with a heightened sensitivity to anything that feels scary or threatening, you might dissociate on a daily, or even hourly basis. And it’s clearly not helpful to find parts of your brain shutting down if you are driving a car, in a meeting or speaking to your child’s teacher at school.

A common dissociative experience is when your prefrontal cortex (PFC), or ‘thinking brain’, shuts down. That’s why your mind goes blank when you feel anxious, because anxiety signals threat, so your brain triggers the fight-flight-freeze response to help you survive, and shuts down your (relatively slow, overthinking) PFC so you can act, fast. This is a dissociative response, which can be scary and confusing when the only threat is that teacher telling you that your daughter is a bit naughty in class.

Try this grounding technique

Mindfulness is a wonderful skill, for many reasons, but it’s especially helpful if you’re prone to dissociation. It will help you bring the PFC online; realise that you are here, now and not there, then; and bring you back to the present, to your body, to the safe place you currently inhabit – not the scary memories you might be stuck in when you experience trauma-related dissociation.

1. You can use any of your five senses to help ground you in the present moment, but this technique involves sight. Look around the room and pick three objects (for example, a painting, plant and book). Focus all of your attention on each one in turn, describing them in as much detail as you can.

2. With the painting, that might be something like, ‘I see a large painting in a silver frame. It’s a rectangle, about two feet wide by four feet long. The painting is of a woman with a small dog on her lap. I can see strong greens and reds in the woman’s dress; and the dog is a small pug, with a shiny, dark-grey coat.’

3. Keep going, finding as much detail as possible (for this exercise, it’s never too much) and then do the same for the plant and the book.

4. After you have described all three objects, notice whether you feel more mindful and present – in your body, mind and moment-to-moment experience. I’m confident that you will be at least a bit more present, but if you still feel a bit spacey or weird pick another three objects and repeat the exercise. Again, check on your phyiscal and mental state – this should help you feel calmer, more grounded and in your body.

I really hope this helps. As ever, when offering you these techniques as part of my Heal Your Trauma project, I want to stress that if you are a trauma survivor, you will need the help of a skilled, trauma-informed professional. And if so, use these techniques alongside, rather than instead of, your treatment.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Listen to this grounding technique on Insight Timer

Why Your Anger Can Be a Force for Good

Image by Sushil Nash

I have always thought that anger gets a bad rap. More than any other emotion, anger is seen as dangerous, threatening, something to be avoided or repressed. That is partly because of its portrayal in the media, where we see a parade of angry, destructive, violent or even murderous characters. In most TV programmes and movies, anger is clearly a Bad Thing.

But anger can also be scary for us if we have suffered at the hands of angry parents or other family members when we were kids. If you had a very angry, shouty, hurtful dad, it makes total sense that you would see anger as something scary, to be avoided in others and perhaps even yourself. I see this all the time in my clients, who have often been hurt by destructively angry people as children.

Threat-focused emotion

Another piece of this puzzle is understanding that anger, like anxiety, is a threat-focused emotion. If we feel threatened, by an angry parent, say, our threat system will trigger the fight-flight-freeze response. Feel a jolt of anger? That’s your threat system deciding that fight is the best strategy for dealing with the threat. Or is it a jangle of anxiety? If so, your brain is telling you to either flee (if you can) or freeze (if you can’t).

So anger feels dangerous to us because it’s supposed to – it is literally signalling danger and giving you the fire in your belly to deal with it. Of course, as adults, you generally feel angry (or anxious) about things that won’t do you any physical harm. Plumbers ripping you off. Colleagues being rude. Fellow train passengers delightfully shoving their armpit in your face.

Anger is your power

None of these examples is life-threatening, but they are annoying! And if you want to deal with them, rather than suffer in silence, you need to feel and (healthily) express your anger. That requires assertiveness, which is the healthy expression of anger, especially when someone has treated you badly or crossed a line with you.

This would mean telling that plumber his prices were a ripoff – and that you would get help from a consumer watchdog if he didn’t reduce them pronto. Or calmly but firmly asking your colleague to speak to you respectfully. And definitely telling that guy to get his armpit out of your face!

Healthy anger also helps us protest about injustices, fuelling the Black Lives Matter protests; youth movements across the world, furious about the existential threat of climate change; the Me Too movement or, as I write this, women rightfully expressing their anger about being sexually harassed or worse by men.

If we are not in touch with our anger, or find it so scary that we squash it inside before we even feel it, or allow ourselves to feel it but then keep it inside, so it churns around in a hot, horrible stew, we lose our power. We cannot stand up for ourselves, or fight for what we believe in. And understanding that anger itself is actually neutral – it’s just distorted or destructive anger that is so harmful – is a good place to start.

You are entitled to feel angry. It’s just a normal, healthy emotion – like sadness, fear, love or joy. So don’t let your past rob you of an assertive, empowered present and future. You are worth more than that.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Manage Your Inner Critic – and Quieten Self-Critical Thoughts

Image by Mike Burke

I recently wrote a post about the Inner Critic, arguing that this part of us is much maligned and misunderstood. A quick refresher: in schema therapy, it has long been argued that this critical part, especially in its more punitive form, was a very bad thing.

Traditional schema-therapy theory argues that this harsh, mean part of us is the internalised voice of a critical adult from childhood and so needs to be shut down, silenced, or even banished from your internal system (which essentially means silencing the stream of self-critical thoughts).

I get the logic of this, but the theory doesn’t seem to stand up in my consulting room. I have spent years working with my clients’ various parts (known as modes in schema therapy) and even tried fighting back against the Punitive Critic, as I was taught, using chair work and other techniques to help protect people from this inner bully.

And you know what? It didn’t work. Sometimes that Punitive Critic went silent for a bit, but it always came roaring back, especially at times when people felt vulnerable or threatened. And I also grew increasingly uncomfortable about confronting part of the person.

It goes against everything I believe and have learned in other models of therapy, such as Internal Family Systems, which argues that every part of us has a positive intention, however counterintuitive that may be.

Collaboration, not confrontation

Think of your Critical Part, as I call it, as being a bit like a barking dog. At first, it might seem scary (like that pitbull in the photo, if it suddenly became aggressive), because it can be loud, harsh and say really mean things to you, calling you names like pathetic, a loser or failure. It’s only natural to want to fight back, or get rid of that horrible voice in your head.

But, thinking again of that pitbull, if it’s barking loudly, it’s usually because it is scared. My theory is that your Critical Part gets loud when you are vulnerable, or threatened in some way, because it is anxious and so warning you about bad things that might happen.

For example, if you’re about to go on a first date with a girl you really like, you might think self-critical thoughts like, ‘I’m bound to screw this up – I bet I say something stupid and she never wants to see me again!’

So that’s your Critical Part piping up, warning you not to say the wrong thing, because you might get hurt or rejected by your date. It might not seem like it, but that part is trying to protect you. And in my experience of working with hundreds of Critical Parts in my consulting room, their intention is almost always either protective or motivational (and sometimes both).

They might bark loudly, but that’s just because they are scared and don’t want you/them to be hurt, rejected, abandoned, criticised or attacked.

Compassion for the Critic

So, if it’s not helpful to fight the Critical Part, or try and banish it from your mind, what should you do? I think you need to have compassion for this part of you, which is trying desperately to protect you – and may have been doing that since you were a small child. It doesn’t mean you should just let the self-critical thoughts flow, because I’m sure they do make you feel stressed, anxious, depressed or upset.

Here’s a rough guide to the approach I use – and teach my clients to try themselves as homework, between sessions:

1. First you have to notice the self-critical thoughts and realise that these harsh messages are coming from the Critical Part. This requires taking a ‘mindful observer’ perspective, where you can step back from the thoughts, observe and respond to them, rather than thinking, ‘That’s just me.’

2. Let’s say the Critical Part is bashing you about an upcoming presentation, saying things like ‘You are terrible at public speaking! You are bound to look really anxious and tense, so everyone will think you are unprofessional and generally just an idiot.’ Notice that the Critical Part is trying to motivate you (make sure you prepare well, do your absolute best and nail the presentation) and protect you (if you mess this up people will judge and criticise you; then you might even lose your job, which would be awful).

3. So, roll your shoulders back and lengthen your spine, take a few deep breaths and respond calmly but firmly: ‘Critical Part, I know you’re trying to help. I also think you are freaking out about this presentation. But this isn’t helping – you are making me more anxious and stressed, which will actually make my performance worse.’

4. Then let that part know that you, Healthy Adult, grownup, strong, professional you, can handle the presentation. ‘I’ve got this. I will prepare thoroughly, do lots of deep breathing to calm myself down, then I’m sure it will be fine. So please step back and let me deal with this.’

5. The Critical Part then feels reassured and should, as requested, take a step back and be quiet. If not – and even if so – you may have to repeat this again, again and again. This part of you is deeply ingrained and is also very anxious, so needs lots of reassurance, negotiation, persuasion and compassion to calm down.

I really hope this helps, but I must emphasise that it’s not easy and takes consistent, repeated effort. But then everything important in life does, no?

Warm wishes,

Dan

Try this Mindfulness Technique to Help Quiet Your Mind

Image by Nathan Dumlao

One of the biggest misconceptions about mindfulness meditation is that you should be able to clear your mind of all thoughts – and that, if you can’t do that, you are somehow getting it wrong.

As anyone who has tried meditating knows, not only is it impossible to stop thinking – as if you could turn off some kind of mental tap – but also that the whole point of mindfulness meditation is to become aware of how your mind works.

And a central part of that is to begin noticing the ceaseless whirl of thoughts that accompanies you throughout your every waking moment. When you meditate, perhaps focusing on your breath, thoughts naturally and inevitably arise.

The point of the practice is to notice this, then gently escort your attention back to the breath. That is meditation, not achieving some perfect state of complete mental silence and tranquillity.

That said, there are times when we might want to quiet the mind. With my clients, that might be when their thoughts are racing, making them feel highly stressed, anxious or agitated. Or it could be to help with insomnia – especially those 3am ‘what if…’ worries when everything looks bleak and scary.

I recently tried a superb mindfulness practice designed to quickly and effectively quiet the mind. I loved it, so have tried it with my clients and it really seems to help them too. The practice is offered by meditation teacher Bodhipaksa (you can try it for yourself on Insight Timer – where you can also make a small donation, if you wish, to thank him).

The practice

Here is my version of the practice, for those who like to read and not just listen to instructions:

1. This practice takes around 10 minutes, so find a quiet time in your day when you won’t be disturbed. Switch your phone off, but set a timer for 10 minutes. Sit on a straight-backed chair or cushion, finding a posture that is upright but relaxed.

2. Start by becoming aware of the points of contact between your body and the cushion/chair/floor. Notice the weight of your arms and hands resting in your lap. Then shift your awareness to your breathing. You don’t have to change your breath in any way, just let your body breathe itself.

3. Normally in mindfulness of breathing we focus on one point in the body, like the nostrils, chest or stomach rising and falling. In this practice, we will try something different – start by bringing your attention to your upper back. Notice the muscles expanding on the in-breath and contracting on the out-breath. Keep your focus here for a minute.

4. Now, while still holding the back in your awareness, also focus on your belly rising and falling. Zoom right in to the contact between your skin and clothing. What’s that like? You might notice warmth, coolness, friction, softness, or perhaps nothing much at all, which is perfectly fine.

5. Then add an awareness of the breath entering and leaving your nostrils, flowing down your throat and into the lungs. So you are now holding three distinct parts of the body in your awareness, all at the same time.

6. You might start to notice a sort of dance between these three areas of the body, as the breath flows in and out. Stay with that for a few minutes until your timer goes off. Slowly and gently open your eyes.

When I have tried this practice, holding three separate areas in awareness is effortful. It’s not easy, so it takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. I found there wasn’t much left for thinking, so my mind automatically became quiet and still. I hope you find it helpful too.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Your Inner Critic: Friend or Foe?

Photo by Mwabonje from Pexels

We all have an inner critic – the part of us that gives us self-critical messages. This critic (which I call the Critical Part) is on a spectrum of harshness, from mild at one end (‘Come on Dan, that wasn’t a great blog post, was it?’) to harsh and aggressive at the other (‘Why do you always screw everything up Dan? You’re such a pathetic loser!’). The view in mainstream psychology is that this self-criticism is harmful, bad and must be silenced to stop us getting stressed, anxious or depressed.

Of course, if your Critical Part is at the harsher end of that spectrum, the messages it gives you will make you feel some kind of bad – sad, hurt, anxious, stressed, unconfident or ashamed. But having tried many different approaches to help people with this hurtful inner dialogue, I now believe that trying to silence the Critical Part just doesn’t work. And getting angry with it, or trying to get rid of that part of you doesn’t work either.

The critic is part of you

As I often say to my clients, it’s like really hating your left hand. You might not like it. You may even want to get rid of it. But it’s part of you! So whether you like it or not, it’s not going anywhere. Same goes for your Critical Part – like it or loathe it, this is a part of your inner world. You can’t get rid of it, any more than you can your hand. So it’s better to understand, even have compassion for this part.

So how do we do that? First, let’s try and understand its origin and function in your inner system. I believe most Critical Parts come online when you are around five years old. That’s the age when you start to get cognitive, when your brain has developed enough that you can start asking big questions, like ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Why does mummy love my sister more than me?’. You not only wonder about who you are as a person, what you’re good or bad at, what you like and dislike, but also start comparing yourself to your siblings and friends.

Protecting you from HARM

At this age you also figure out what makes your parents treat you well or badly. For example, if your dad gets drunk and screams at you for tiny mistakes, you learn to avoid making any mistake (like spilling your drink, or leaving toys scattered about the floor) that will trigger a scary, hurtful attack. I think that Critical Part is the hypervigilant inner guard dog, that barks at you when you make a mistake that might get you hurt.

Throughout your life, this part becomes more entrenched until, as an adult, it just seems like you. But it’s not – it’s just a part of you, that is barking at you when it thinks you have done or are about to do something that will get you hurt in some way (usually attacked or rejected). If we think about the Critical Part this way – that it’s actually protective – it seems a lot less like some big, scary monster.

And we can have compassion for it too, because in my consulting room I often see these parts freaking out. Your Critical Part is usually anxious, scared, hypervigilant for danger. Because of course it’s just part of you, so if you get hurt, it gets hurt.

Love every part of yourself

I wrote in a recent post that we need to develop love and compassion for every part of us, even the parts we dislike or hate. And that absolutely includes the Critical Part, because the only way to turn the volume down on that hurtful inner criticism is to reassure this part that it’s OK, we hear it, and we’re perfectly capable of handling whatever it thinks we can’t handle – scary boss, angry partner, presentation at work, or whatever the threatening person or situation may be. I will guide you in exactly how to do this in an upcoming post.

I am dedicated to helping people be kinder and more compassionate to themselves, so I hope this helps you, a little, with that hard and lifelong work.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Protect Your Mental Health in a Pandemic

Photo by Matt Duncan on Unsplash

As the pandemic nears a deeply unwelcome anniversary, many people are struggling. In the UK, it’s nearly a year since the first lockdown – a year like no other in most of our lifetimes. And that year has, of course, taken its toll on us, both physically and mentally.

When I speak to my clients about how to cope right now, I always start with this idea – it’s just a really hard time. It’s OK to be struggling. That doesn’t make you weak, or lacking in resilience, or whatever self-critical thoughts you might have. It just makes you human, like everyone else – and it’s a really hard time to be human right now.

Reasons for hope

That said, of course it’s crucial that we all do everything we can to look after our mental health at the moment. It seems to me that, having run a 12-month marathon, we are on the home straight. As I write this, 15 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

This is a wonderful, miraculous thing. We should all be deeply grateful for the brilliant, unbelievably hard-working scientists who produced a vaccine in record-breaking time (as well as the tens of thousands of volunteers around the world who made successful vaccine trials possible). And to the heroes of our NHS – the doctors, nurses, physios, cleaners, receptionists and every other person who has risked their lives to save ours.

The vaccine, bit by bit, will give us all hope and eventually help us end this long, incredibly difficult time. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do to help ourselves, right now, to make daily life easier.

Try these three things

As a therapist, I would like to share the three most important things I think you can do, today, to stay well as we tough out the final stretch of this hard year:

1. Remember that you have been through tough times before. Very few among us have never had to cope with tough times in our lives. Most of us have had our hearts broken, been divorced, or otherwise suffered for love. Many of us have dealt with bereavement (and all of us will, at some point in our lives). Maybe we have had tough times financially, lost a beloved home, or friend, or even a pet.

   To be human is to suffer sometimes. But we humans are also remarkably strong and resilient. Usually, we find a way through, bounce back, even emerge from tough times feeling stronger. If any of that’s true of you, then you can cope with this too – you are way stronger than you think.

2. Find beauty in small things. There have been times this year, I must confess, when I found it hard to feel positive or hopeful about anything. Especially on cold, grey days in January, when every day was like Groundhog Day (wake up, breakfast, shower, dress, work, eat, Netflix, sleep, repeat), my mood was hovering somewhere down there with the temperature.

   But even on those days, thanks to a long love affair with mindfulness meditation, I remembered to find beauty and meaning in small, beautiful things. A hug from my wife. A warm text from an old friend, or a grateful client. A goldfinch guzzling away on my bird feeder. Children laughing in the playground.

   Even when things seem bleak, there is always beauty, always meaning, always reasons to be grateful for this one precious life, if we just stop, breathe and look for them.

3. Do something for others. There is a Pali word, Dana, which is roughly translated as generosity, or giving from the heart. And in every major religion – Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity – there is a similar word or guidance to give selflessly to help others.

   This could be volunteering at a foodbank, or training to be a volunteer vaccinator, or just checking in on an elderly neighbour from time to time. Not only does this help those who are struggling right now, there is good evidence that practicing altruistic giving is highly beneficial for your mental health. The very definition of a win-win situation, I would say.

Finally, please remember that just making it through the day is as much as some of us can do right now – and that’s perfectly fine. Just try to take care of yourself, be self-compassionate (I wrote about this in my last post) if you can. And remember that one day, this will all be over. We all just need to hang in there until it is.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why Every Part of You Deserves Love and Compassion

Image by Jude Beck

One of the key discoveries in neuroscience over the past 20 years has been that we are not one, homogenous self – we are not just ‘Sally’ or ‘Jim’, even though it very much feels that way. Instead, this new theory argues for a ‘multiplicity of self’, which basically means we have lots of different parts of our personality. And in some ways, this is just common sense.

You might have a part that wants to diet and lose weight, but another part that really wants that extra bowl of ice cream, or slice of cake. You may have a part that hates all the boring, humdrum stuff of daily life (vacuuming, washing up, doing your tax return) but another part that helps you get all that stuff done, however much you don’t want to.

Disliking parts of yourself

In schema therapy, we call these different parts ‘modes’. In other models of therapy, they are called parts, sub-personalities or self-states, but it’s essentially the same thing. And something I often see in my therapy practice is that people might dislike or even hate some of their modes, while liking others. For example, we might get really frustrated with the mode that has us reaching for the ice cream, even though we’re desperate to lose weight and know we will feel guilty and ashamed after wolfing another bowl.

We may also hate the part of us that makes us feel vulnerable, or overwhelmed with emotions when we’re at work and want to appear cool, calm and professional. In schema therapy, we call this mode the Vulnerable Child; and we then name it ‘Little Sally’ or ‘Little Jim’. We all have this part – I have a Little Dan inside me – and it is the emotional, vulnerable part of us, that gets triggered by stressful or threatening people or events.

This part of you also holds a lot of upsetting memories from your childhood, as well as images, body sensations, emotions and beliefs. For example, your little self might believe ‘I am worthless’ or ‘I am unlovable’, because that’s how you felt as a child. Nobody wants to think that way, or feel painful emotions like sadness, anxiety or shame that these beliefs might trigger in you. So you may try to ignore this part, or detach from it and all those upsetting feelings, shutting it away in a part of your brain you try hard to avoid.

Self-compassion is a superpower

But here’s the thing – whether you love, hate or ignore this part of you, it’s always there. As I often tell my clients, it’s like disliking your left hand. How ever much you might hate it, find it annoying, want to get rid of it, your hand is still there! So it’s much better to develop compassion for this part (and all other parts) of you. There is a huge amount of research now showing that self-compassion is a superpower when it comes to healing past hurts (if you’re interested in that, check out Kristin Neff’s work at self-compassion.org – she is the world’s leading researcher/expert on self-compassion).

Sadly though, it’s not easy to be compassionate to yourself. You may have been taught as a child that this was weak or self-indulgent. If you experienced trauma when you were young, this may be especially hard, as you learned to cope by shutting that little part of you away in a room somewhere, so the last thing you want is to think about him or her, let alone be kind to that part of you.

But here’s a technique to help you along the path to greater self-compassion. As ever with techniques I will teach you, there is no right or wrong, no doing it well or badly – just have a go and see what happens.

1. Change posture. Let your shoulders roll back so your chest is open. Then lengthen your spine – sit upright but relaxed, with your head, neck and spine in alignment.

2. Breathe. Take deep, slow breaths in and out — roughly four seconds in, four seconds out, but find a number that works for you (two in, two out; three in, three out…). We want nice diaphragmatic breathing, so let your stomach rise and fall with each breath. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn activates the ‘rest-and-digest’ response, the opposite to fight-flight-freeze.

3. Use supportive touch. Gently place a hand over your heart, touching yourself the way you would a friend who was upset — in a friendly, supportive manner. Feel the warmth under your hand and imagine it trickling down until it reaches your little self inside. Imagine that’s a warm, kind, healing energy that soothes this frightened or upset part of you.

4. Add compassionate self-talk. Now talk to your little self the way you would to that troubled friend. Try to use a voice tone that’s warm, slow and reassuring. Say things like ‘Oh, Little Sally/Jim, I know you’re struggling right now – I really see how scared/upset/angry you are. But I want you to know that you’re not alone. I’m here with you. I care about you. I’ve got you. And we will get through this together...’

Try using this technique every time you feel hurt, sad, upset, anxious or otherwise ‘triggered’ by life events. As with any technique, remember that it may take time to be helpful. It’s like yoga or meditation – there’s a reason they call those having a ‘practice’. So practice every day until it starts to help you feel kinder to and more accepting of yourself.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Helping You Heal Your Trauma

Image by Aaron Blanco Tejedor

I am passionate about helping people heal their trauma. It’s a big part of what I do all day, in my consulting room in north London. As a Cognitive Therapist and Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor, I draw from a variety of proven, trauma-informed models, but my main model is schema therapy.

This warm, compassionate, powerful approach was developed by Dr Jeffrey Young in the late 1980s to help trauma survivors and other people struggling with complex mental health problems.

And it really works, helping people overcome even the most painful experiences in childhood – I see this every day in my practice and it’s a wonderful, magical thing to behold. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s easy – healing from serious problems like trauma can be a long, challenging, arduous process.

And people are on a spectrum both in terms of the trauma, abuse or neglect they experienced as children; and the impact of those painful experiences on their adult selves. Some people heal more slowly, some find change more difficult, but I strongly believe that however bad it was for you, there is always hope – every kind of painful childhood experience can be healed.

trauma recovery

If you are a truma survivor, I would strongly advise you to find a skilled therapist offering one of the trauma-informed models, such as schema therapy, trauma-focused CBT, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, internal family systems therapy or somatic experiencing therapy.

If you experienced trauma, abuse or neglect as a child, it’s imperative that you get some good therapy to enable your healing process to begin. Sadly, self-help books and other personal-development tools – although helpful – will not be enough for you. Instead, you need a warm, kind, patient human being to help you overcome the wounds of your past.

Choose your therapist with care

If you are struggling with the impact of trauma, please do not get help from a counsellor or therapist who can’t explain to you, in simple terms, how their model is designed to work with trauma. We now know that just ‘talking about’ traumatic experiences is not only unhelpful, it can be retraumatising.

Instead, trauma work should help you to regulate your nervous system, teach you vital mindfulness skills, reframe negative self-beliefs and – if it’s necessary – process traumatic memories in a structured way, which is not the same as just talking about them in great detail. Please believe me that this will make you worse, not better.

Knowledge is power

That is why I have created my Heal Your Trauma project, including this blog. It will guide, support and inform you as you attempt the challenging journey towards a happier, more peaceful and meaningful life. I will teach you all about the effect of trauma on your mind, brain, nervous system and body.

I will provide techniques that you can use right away, to help you feel calmer and to regulate your nervous system – a key first step in trauma work. And I will try to be a voice of hope, another precious resource, as you attempt to put the dark days behind you and let the sun shine into your life.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Do You Worry That You're Not Good Enough?

Image by Ayo Ogunseinde

How do you feel about yourself, deep down? Do you like yourself? Feel good about your achievements? Think you are doing OK, day to day?

Or, like so many of us, do you feel that you’re not good enough – unworthy, not likeable, not achieving much with your life, or somehow bad or wrong at your core? If you do feel this way, you will probably lack confidence, perhaps struggling with low self-esteem. You might have a tough time with public speaking, or being assertive when you need to set limits or put your foot down.

You may also externalise this inner dislike, by not liking what you see in the mirror – your appearance, body or weight. This is especially common among my female clients, as are the eating disorders that often go with this way of thinking. So it may lead to restricting food, or even being bulimic, as you desperately try to achieve an – often impossibly demanding – ideal weight or body shape.

You are not alone

If you do feel this way, I want to reassure you that you’re definitely not alone. Most of my clients feel this way. In fact, most of the people in my life feel this way! It is so common, even in people who seem on the outside to be super-confident. Trust me, on the inside many of them feel very differently, but have just learned how to act like a confident person.

In schema therapy, we see this not-good-enough feeling stemming from a Defectiveness schema. This is the most common schema I see in my clients – almost all of them struggle with it (as do most of the therapists I know, including this one!). The schema usually forms when we are children, often as the result of trauma, abuse or neglect. It might be one or a series of big things, like being shouted at or spanked on a regular basis (spanking makes kids feel hurt, humiliated and powerless, which can easily lead to a Defectiveness schema).

Or it may be more subtle. Maybe your sister was really smart and high-achieving at school and you just couldn’t keep up, no matter how hard you tried. Or you had highly demanding, pushy parents, who called you names like ‘lazy’ or ‘bone-idle’, because you could never match their unreasonable expectations for you.

Schemas can be healed

Whatever the cause of your schema, it’s important to understand that it can be healed, because all schemas can. A schema is just a neural network in the brain and, because your brain is plastic (which means mouldable, like clay), with new learning and experience, you can weaken those unhelpful connections and build a new network. (If you’re interested in the science behind this, try reading books like The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge MD).

This is the basis of schema therapy – and all other forms of counselling and psychotherapy, even if they call the healing process something different. Over time, you can learn to think, feel and behave differently. We can help you with that public speaking problem, or get you to realise that your body is actually perfectly healthy and beautiful, just as it is.

It is never too late to do this, so please don’t think you are too old to change. Reading blogs like this one, or self-help books, having some form of therapy, finding a loving, supportive partner – these are all great ways to start healing those painful schemas. So why not start today?

Warm wishes,

Dan

The Link Between Trauma, Stress and Physical Illness

I have long been convinced of the link between traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, and physical ailments such as arthritis, eczema, digestive problems like irritable bowel syndrome and a whole host of other illnesses. So I found Dr Gabor Maté’s book, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, to be intriguing.

Dr Maté (a physician working in palliative care and later with addiction in Canada) makes a strong, evidence-based case for the ways in which traumatic or stressful experiences in childhood and throughout our lives repeatedly trigger the stress response in our brain, which causes a cascade of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, as well as many other changes in the brain and body.

This is meant to be an urgent, life-saving response to threats such as predatory animals or aggressive tribes, which were the life-or-death threats humans faced for much of our evolutionary history (which is when our brains were, to a large extent, formed).

But when, say, you have a highly critical parent, putting you down every day throughout your childhood; you suffer abuse or neglect; or are unlucky enough to be raised in a high-conflict family, where the parents are always at each other’s throats, your stress response is being triggered, repeatedly, which the body is not designed to cope with.

Sadly, when combined with your particular genetic makeup, this can make you more vulnerable to a whole host of physical illnesses, including the big, scary ones like cancer, dementia or heart disease; and autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis (MS) or rheumatoid arthritis.

None of this is your fault

Of course, it’s really important to emphasise that this is not your fault in any way, or that – if you are ill now – you somehow brought this illness upon yourself. Dr Maté goes to great pains to explain that it’s the result of these repeated stressors impacting your growing brain and body, which may cause problems in later life. Nobody chooses to have a harsh, critical parent, or to suffer emotional neglect.

But what it does make crystal-clear to me is that, if you have had a highly stressful childhood, it is so important to get psychological help from someone like me (or any other well-trained therapist practising an effective, evidence-based form of therapy). Because none of this is fixed or irreversible – healing those wounds from childhood, learning to feel and healthily release your emotions, becoming less self-critical, more assertive and kinder/more compassionate to yourself… these are all the magic ingredients which form the medicine that combats the effects of your long-term stress.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why You Can't Always Think Your Way Out of Trouble

Image by Siora Photography

Humans are thinking creatures. More than any other animal on Earth, we have the ability to think, reason, analyse, remember our past and imagine a future that hasn’t even happened yet. That is because of the cortical layer of our brain, especially the prefrontal cortex – the most evolved part of our brain, which is involved in high-level, executive functions like impulse control, rational thought and predicting the consequences of behaviour.

And this miraculous supercomputer in our skulls is what allowed humans to write symphonies, build the Pyramids and fly to the Moon. That uniquely human brain is also what allows me to practice psychotherapy, or write this post. And it helps you problem-solve your way out of difficult situations – a vital and sometimes lifesaving skill.

When thinking is not your friend

But if you are struggling with your mental health, feeling highly stressed, anxious or depressed, thinking may not be your friend. That’s because the kind of thinking we do when we’re experiencing high levels of painful emotion can be deeply unhelpful. Let me give you an example.

Jane is a highly anxious, frequently worried type of person. And when she hits bumps in her life, she tries to think her way out of them. Jane engages that thinking brain and then worries, obsessively, projecting into the future with hundreds of ‘what if’ thoughts (‘What if my boss doesn’t like my work and I get sacked?’, ‘What if I can’t find another job?’, ‘What if I lose my home and end up on the street?’).

These obsessional, catastrophic thoughts are especially bad at night, when Jane lies there for hours worrying, worrying, worrying. This just makes her more anxious, stressed and, of course, exhausted. So the next day her resources are low and she feels ten times worse.

Keep it simple

In schema therapy language we would say Jane has a Perfectionistic Overcontroller mode, which tries to be in control all the time, hates uncertainty or feeling out of control, and believes that there is always a perfect solution if she just thinks long and hard enough! If I were helping Jane I would work with this mode to help it calm down a bit and give her a break from the relentless worrying.

I would then help Jane to develop a range of activities that did not involve thinking. This would first involve drawing up a list of coping skills. Try this yourself – write ‘coping skills’ on top of a blank sheet of paper. Then come up with 10 skills, with different types of activities you can use at different times. The first four skills I teach clients are always my Posture, Compassionate Breathing, Supportive Touch, Compassionate Self-Talk sequence (read all about those in this post).

Use what works for you

The other six are negotiated with my client, depending on what they find helpful, calming or relaxing. Yoga is fantastic, if it works for you. Mindfulness or other forms of meditation often go on the list. We might also add taking a long, luxurious bath; watching a TV show or movie you find comforting; calling a trusted friend; getting a hug from someone you love; stroking your favourite pet; drinking a warm, milky drink; going for a walk, preferably in some green space; reading a blog like this one, which focuses on improving mental health; listening to a song you find moving or joyful…

The list is endless, really. It’s just about finding ten things that will help you feel (depending on the emotion you are struggling with) calmer, more peaceful, more grounded, happier, more energised, or mindfully in touch with the present moment. Try it now – write up a list and then stick it on the wall next to your computer, on in your bedroom, where you will see it every day.

Then practice those skills, on a daily basis, until they become so familiar it’s like muscle memory. Over time, you will find that you are able to take the edge off whatever painful emotion you are feeling – that also gives you a strong foundation to begin therapy, use self-help books, or whatever way you choose to work on the deeper wounds that cause those painful emotions to bubble up.

I hope that helps. In my experience, it really does, so I hope it benefits you as much as it has hundreds of my clients.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Rewrite the Story of Your Life

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What is the story of your life? What do you tell yourself about your successes and failures, key life events, those you love and those who have hurt you in some way? In my therapy practice, I find that people often tell themselves a story about their life that is distorted, highly critical, focusing heavily on perceived mistakes and failings. This is especially common among trauma survivors, who are often made to feel bad, wrong or unlovable as children.

Over the course of therapy, I always try to help people write a new life story. One that is realistic, not pessimistic. Compassionate, not critical. Based on the understanding that we all suffer, we all make mistakes, we all have problems. That is the nature of living a human life.

Your life story

So, you were born. And you landed in a family, with (probably) two parents, maybe some siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and assorted other relatives. And if, as so often happens, that family was not a happy one, your childhood was difficult, which caused you suffering and may have led to lifelong psychological problems.

A key concept in schema therapy is that of ‘core needs’. These are core developmental needs that all children have, whatever culture or family structure they grow up in. There are five needs, which I will explain in detail in a future post, but the two most important needs are for love and a secure attachment; and safety and protection. If these were not met for you in your family (where the vast majority of our development occurs), you would have developed unhelpful ‘schemas’.

And these schemas – neural networks that fire up when you feel threatened or stressed – have a profound effect on how you feel, your sensitivities and vulnerabilities, your thoughts, behaviour and most of what makes you, you on a daily basis. Well, as I always tell my clients: you didn’t choose to land in that family, did you? You didn’t choose to have the painful schemas that make life so difficult. You certainly didn’t choose to be anxious, stressed, depressed, to have an eating disorder or low self-esteem. Nobody would choose those things.

The Compassionate Version

So instead of telling yourself a harsh, critical, self-blaming story, why not choose a more compassionate version? One in which you found a way to cope with the painful wounds inflicted by a childhood that let you down in some way. That coping may involve some unhelpful behaviours, like over-eating, drinking too much or even taking drugs, but – although of course it would be helpful to free yourself from these ways of coping – they are definitely not your fault.

You are just coping, the best way you know how, like the rest of us. No blame. No shame. No beating yourself up. Just understanding what went wrong in your childhood, the effect that has had on your mind, brain, nervous system and body, and how to heal yourself. And while we’re at it, why don’t we change that horrible ending and replace it with a positive, hopeful, happy (or at least happier) version?

One in which you can be healed, with hard work and – if your wounds are deep – with expert help. An ending in which you are loving and loved. Having lived a rich, meaningful life. Because, as far as we know, this life is the only one we get. So it seems crucial to me that we make the most of it, however hard or hurtful its beginning.

And I will do my best to help with that, so please keep reading these posts and I will guide you along the path to a new, improved version of your unique life story.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Hardwiring Positive Experiences and Emotions in Your Brain

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One of my favourite techniques to use with my schema therapy clients is psychologist Rick Hanson’s neuroscience-based approach to ‘hardwiring’ positive experiences and emotions. As he explains in his excellent book, Hardwiring Happiness: the New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence, the human brain is designed with an in-built negativity bias.

This means that our attention is directed towards negative thoughts, feelings and experiences such as failing at an exam, being rejected for a job or left by a partner.

Human brains were built over millions of years of evolution, which were mostly spent in environments of extreme threat – wild animals trying to eat us, other tribes wanting to bash us over the head with clubs, poisonous snakes and spiders underfoot, simple injuries and diseases meaning certain death because we lacked effective medicine.

So our threat system became the dominant system in the brain – and consequently 21st-century humans pay a great deal of attention to anything that could be threatening, hurtful or upsetting.

How schemas affect us

To an extent, this is how schemas work – affecting our information-processing systems, memory, attention, and so on to make us focus excessively on negative or upsetting things. I see this all the time in my practice – and I’m sure you do too.

Someone comes in talking at great length and in fine-grained detail about some incident where they felt someone rejected them; or a time when they messed up at work and felt terrible about it. As well as giving plenty of space for that (which is, after all, what therapy is mostly about!) I always get people to make the most of positive experiences too.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say James tells me about getting a Distinction for an assignment on his Master’s. He then quickly whizzes on to the next thing, an upsetting story about his brother. I get him to pause, slow down, and tell me more about getting the news about his Distinction – I often use imagery to get him to relive the experience, closing his eyes and describing where he is, what he’s thinking when he reads the email and, most importantly, how he feels.

James tells me he feels happy and proud, so I ask him where he feels that in his body. James says in his chest and throat, so I get him to focus on those bodily sensations for one minute (anything from 10 seconds up works, but longer is better).

After he does this, I get him to open his eyes and explain that we just hardwired those positive feelings to the memory – so now every time he thinks about it, he will feel happy and proud again.

Repetition is key

I just love this technique – and so do my clients. It feels great and is a really simple thing to give them for homework – just repeat, as often as possible, any time they have a positive experience. The more they do it, I explain, the more they are rewiring their brain to take more notice of and enjoy good experiences; and to be less sensitive to the bad ones.

Over time, this creates feelings of calm, confidence, satisfaction, pride, self-compassion, and so on.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Learn to Be Kind to Yourself With This Step-By-Step Technique

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I’m guessing, if you’re reading this, that you are a kind person. I bet you’re really good to the people in your life — treating friends, family and even strangers with care and consideration. And, although that may take effort sometimes, you show up for those people, day after day.

But I also bet that the one person you struggle to treat with kindness and compassion is yourself. Somehow, all that warmth and love you radiate outwards rarely goes inside.

At best, you don’t take good care of yourself, working long hours, putting everyone else’s needs before your own, running around until you’re exhausted. At worst, you may be harshly self-critical, beating yourself up for every (real or imagined) transgression, calling yourself stupid or pathetic, attacking yourself as if you were your own worst enemy.

Kindness is like gold dust

But here’s the thing I always tell my clients — kindness is so powerful and produces such deep healing in our mind, brain and body that it’s like gold dust. There is a huge and ever-growing body of research that clearly shows the deeply transformative impact of positive mental states such as kindness and compassion.

So why is it so hard to treat yourself as you treat others, even though you know rationally that it’s a good idea? Primarily because the rational part of your brain (the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, responsible for rational thought, among other things) is not the part that’s mean to you. In schema therapy we call that part the Critic, which lives in the more emotional, evolutionarily older parts of the brain, like your limbic system.

This critical part of yourself may echo the messages given to you by punishing or excessively demanding parents or other caregivers when you were a child. If they told you that you were weak, pathetic, lazy or a failure, sadly that’s what your critical part will tell you now. But it’s crucial to remember that, for the vast majority of the time, these hurtful messages are not true.

Just because an irritable, sharp-tongued mother told you something when you were four years old does not make it a fact. And the hurtful things your hard-drinking, quick-tempered dad yelled when you were ten say more about him than they do about you — as a ten-year-old or an adult. Act as if your life depended on not believing these toxic messages from the past — which, in many ways, it really does.

Another problem is that, if you’re feeling anxious or angry, your PFC literally goes offline. That’s because when you feel these ‘threat-signalling’ emotions, your fight-flight-freeze response has been triggered. And when that happens, your PFC — which is great for solving equations or writing novels, but not so good for quick, life-saving action — powers down until the threat has passed. This is why your mind goes blank when you’re highly anxious — because your ‘thinking brain’ has, temporarily, stopped working.

So, given that it’s such a struggle for so many people, how on earth can you learn to be kinder to yourself? In my 10 years as a therapist, I have tried hundreds of different techniques to help my clients treat themselves with the care and respect they afford to other people. Some work better than others. And this kindness-generating technique— which I use multiple times, every single day — consistently works best…

Want to be kinder? Try this simple technique

Remember how good you are at being kind to others? Well, the good news is that the same brain circuitry involved in external acts of kindness fire up when we’re kind to ourselves. So you have all the neural architecture/skills already, you just need to treat yourself the way you would a good friend. Try these steps, in this order, being sure not to skip a step (they all activate key parts of your neurobiology — skip one and the rest won’t work as well).

1. Change posture. Let your shoulders roll back so your chest is open. Sit upright but relaxed, as if there’s an invisible piece of string coming from the top of your head, pulling you upright.

2. Breathe. Take deep, slow breaths in and out — four seconds in, four seconds out. Let your stomach rise and fall with each breath. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn activates the ‘rest-and-digest’ response, the opposite to fight-flight-freeze.

3. Use supportive touch. Place a hand over your heart, touching yourself the way you would a friend who was upset — with a kind, friendly, supportive touch. Feel the warmth under your hand and imagine it trickling down into your heart, soothing all the hurt, scared parts of you.

4. Add compassionate self-talk. Now talk to yourself the way you would to that troubled friend. Make sure your voice tone is warm, soft and slow (your tone is just as important as the words you use). Say things like ‘Oh, John/Jenny, I know you’re struggling right now. This is so hard, isn’t it — I really see how scared you are. But it’s OK, you’re not alone. I’m here with you. I care about you. And I’m going to help you get through this...’

Feeling better?

When I use this technique with my clients (or myself), every single time they feel calmer, lighter, more at peace. Importantly, it’s not about going from 80% anxious to Zen-like calm. Look to feel a bit calmer, a bit lighter, a bit more peaceful. That is eminently achievable — and the more you do this, the more effective it will become.

So do try this technique when you are feeling anxious, stressed, sad, lonely or upset — it should help with any kind of negative feeling or mood. I really hope it does.

Warm wishes,

Dan