Posted by Meri-Tuuli on April 5, 2006, at 12:58:20
In reply to Re: criticism » Meri-Tuuli, posted by pseudoname on April 5, 2006, at 12:13:39
Hi again!!
Thanks for the advice - I'm actually struggling to even open David Burn's ' ten days to self esteem'. I haven't ever seen a therapist and er, I find the whole thing quite daunting to be honest. Here in the UK we don't have such a 'therapy' culture and I wouldn't even know where to begin to find a decent one. Plus we would have to pay for it, something I'm not used to, I mean we get healthcare here in the UK completely free. So..... but I would love to give it a go! But then, I'm afraid I would find it too painful.......... argh!
> Right now I'm trying the most to apply principles from "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy", which now has a self-help book out called "Get Out of Your Mind". It's similar to CBT and DBT, but with sorta lower expectations, in a way. They advocate not-fighting against the bad thoughts and feelings that automatically arise in us. So I try to accept that I feel rotten about the criticisms everyone could (or will) make about me. That's different from either accepting the criticisms or challenging the criticisms: I'm just trying to live with my own emotional reactions, not even trying to change them.Acceptance techniques sound quite useful actually, I mean everyone must at some stage, for example, compare themselves with others, its just that we somehow don't make allowances or excuses for ourselves. I know some of my other friends from my low level admin job were just as frustrated by it as me - the difference was they just brushed it off with 'excuses' ("its only for a short while", its not so bad here") but with me, for some reason, these things stick. Its like I use it to reinforce my negetive ideas about myself. Hmm.... And if anything good actually happened to me, I would do kind of brush it off with excuses like the 'happy' people do with negative things. Its like I don't think I *deserve* good things to happen to me or that I believe that i am capable of things. So its sort of a negetive downward spiral....I think I am rubbish -> don't apply for good jobs/have good experiences/don't bother to attend interviews because I think I won't be any good, and I'm completely scared of failure -> I stay unemployed/low level admin -> get more depressed, think I'm rubbish blah blah. oh dear, thats a scary thought!!!!!!!!!! EEEK!
Meri
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> But a lot of these feelings are just below the surface, not quite obvious. So I'm not sure what thoughts or feelings I'm struggling against, because I'm so good at immediately avoiding them!
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> This sort of work is a lot easier and more effective for me on the bupe, but it's far from a slam-dunk, and progress is slow. The gains I've made so far seem secure, but I don't know if I can make any more. So I'm still considering other options, like maybe APs. — Although I just remembered that Solian isn't available in the U.S. Oh well. :-(
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> I should add that the Acceptance and Commitment people are preachy and messianic and have some tiresome linguistic ideas that confuse their overall case. Their leader is consummately arrogant and doesn't realize his own sometimes embarrassing intellectual limitations. And he (therefore they) are somewhat anti-med, an attitude that is ALWAYS a problem for patients. But the acceptance techniques, I think, are very promising and otherwise overlooked in therapy.
poster:Meri-Tuuli
thread:628681
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060403/msgs/629225.html