Tag: depression

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Maintaining Healthy Relationships Psychology in practice

Do you consider yourself good relationship material?

And why this matters!

Perhaps you have been in a happy and fulfilling relationship for a long time! If so, to what do you attribute this success?

(Do you see this as predominantly due to mutual hard work, your partner’s positive attributes or perhaps are own? Perhaps you see it as a combination of all three)?

I find it fascinating to ask this question of happy as well as unhappy couples.

I wonder if you can predict how the answers of these two groups differ from each other?

It goes without saying really. On average happy couples are generous with their praise of their partners’ positive attributes, such as patience, respect and appreciation for their “other half” whilst troubled couples tend to play the “blame game” and often battle to recall their partner’s positive aspects. Sometimes troubled couples even fail to recall what attracted them to their partner in the first place!

Each of us could do with reflecting regularly on what we personally bring into our most significant relationship, in areas such as:

Our unique personality make-up and attitude to life:

Are you an optimist or a pessimist, for example?

Are you even- tempered or moody? If you tend to be depressed or if your emotions tend to be volatile, your partner may be at the receiving end of your unhappiness. I find that unhappy couples tend to blame their bad relationship for their unhappiness, when there is often more of a circular causal relationship at play.

How do you manage your anger?

When you have a major disagreement with your partner how do you go about finding a resolution?

Do you initiate a discussion with your partner by asking when would it be convenient to talk about the issue on your mind or do you loose your cool and insist on dealing with it immediately? Individuals who lack control over their anger run the risk of seriously damaging their relationship in the long-term should he or she say and 0r doing things that can’t ever be retracted.

Perhaps you are someone who withdraws from your partner when you feel angry or hurt? You may go quiet for hours or days and when communication resumes perhaps the issue in question is never discussed or resolved. The danger here is that partners fail to communicate adequately and constructively with one another and their intimate connection becomes lost along the way.

Are you an anxious person?

It is often difficult not to let heightened levels of anxiety affect your relationship. Anxious individuals tend to crave certainty and predictability. How does this impact on a relationship? Of course every anxious individual will be different in this regard. However, it is common for there to be a strong need for control and an aversion to taking any type of risk. 

How can you do to ensure that you are doing all that you can to prevent your “dark side” from damaging your relationships?

I would suggest that the first step could involve becoming mindful of how you feel during each day and the way in which you are interacting with others. If you believe that you may be suffering from depression, anger issues or high levels of anxiety I would suggest that you speak with someone about it as soon as possible. You owe it to yourself, your partner, family and your friends!

 

 

Categories
Psychology in practice

Depression and anxiety. When questioning thoughts become problematic.

Are you a deep thinker? Do you often ponder over the meaning and purpose of your life or on the impermanence of Life? And why and when can this type of thinking become a threat to your mental health?

In my practice I have found that depression and anxiety are two of the three major problems that bring individuals to see me (the third one being relationship problems).

I have found that low mood and anxiety are inevitably fueled by recursive, negative thought patterns or ruminations.

In the case of depressed thinking, clients will often ask themselves questions such as:

“Why do I feel this way?” or “How did I get to feel like this?” and/or existential questions such as “What is the purpose of my life?” and “Why is this happening to me?”.

Anxiety based questions usually begin with “what if” such as “What if I never feel any better than I feel now”. The words “always” and “never” feature prominently in ruminating thoughts.

Are these types of thoughts always a bad thing?

Of course the answer to this question is “no”. We all need to ask ourselves “deep” questions from time to time to ensure that we are living authentic and meaningful lives and that our behaviour is in line with our values and goals.

However, when we ask ourselves these questions when we are not in a good space (psychologically speaking) we run the risk of intensifying the negative emotions that are being experienced.

So the take home message is as follows: debate the big issues when you are feeling upbeat about life!

 

In a following post I will make some suggestions regarding how to stop negative thoughts and ruminations.

 

 

Categories
Life in General Psychology in practice

Do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about the year ahead and about the future in general?

If your thoughts are somewhat bleak when you think about the future, this can lead to depression!

Some very interesting research has recently been published on the subject of the link between how we think about the future (known as prospection) and our mood states (Roepke and Seligman, 2015). Up to now there has been a generally accepted view that a pessimistic view of the future is a pointer for someone who is depressed – that depression causes a person to have negative expectations about the future.

However, it seems that it may also be the other way around – that if we harbour overly pessimistic views and expectations of our future, this could cause us to become (more) depressed!

So why is this new finding important?

Well, the good news is that if our thoughts influence our moods (and they do, according to Cognitive-Behavioural theory and Therapy (CBT), we can change these moods by altering our thinking! The implication of this is that our emotions are under our own control (to a certain degree).

How can prospection affect our emotions and possibly lead to depression?

These researchers have identified three ways this happens:

  1. Telling ourselves different scenarios about possible futures. If you think about your future, do you foresee good or bad things occurring? Are there more positive predictions than negative ones, or vice versa?
  2. Judging your possible future life in either a positive or a negative way. You might say, for example, that you predict that you either have a number of positive options which could enable you to have a bright future or you believe that you have few options for the future and that you will inevitably have nothing much to look forward to.
  3. Harbouring either positive or negative beliefs about the future. These would include beliefs or thoughts about a personal future, but also about the future of the country and the planet as a whole).

 

In my next post I will discuss ways in which our patterns of prospective thinking can be altered to become more positive and optimistic.

 

Categories
Health and Happiness Life in General

Do you have mental health goals for 2015?

When considering New Year’s resolutions, most people think about their physical health or career goals. I contend though that without sound mental health it will be very difficult to achieve one’s other goals!

I therefore suggest that you consider your mental health for a moment….

If you had to rate your current happiness and contentment with life on a ten point scale, with ten being total contentment, where would you place yourself at the moment? Perhaps for a moment you could think about why you have placed yourself where you have on this scale. Some interesting, and revealing questions that you may pose to yourself might include the following existential questions:

What makes me happy in life? What matters most to me and what do I want to achieve in the areas that count, such as in my relationships and my quality of life? What stands in my way of making the necessary changes so that I can live a truly authentic life? (Here I am referring mainly to internal, psychological barriers, such as depression, anxiety and procrastination).

Often, as you know,  we tend to spend our time grappling with immediate concerns and short-term deadlines, with the result that these important questions often get ignored until some huge crisis such a death or a divorce forces a reappraisal of one’s life. I suggest that it is a good idea to do some psychological housekeeping on a regular basis in order to make sure that you have the psychological resources and resilience to tackle all the challenges that will come your way in 2015.

 

In my next post I will expand further on this topic!

 

 

Categories
Life in General Managing stress New Research and Ideas

When it comes to anxiety, stress and depression: Are you unwittingly making things worse?

anxiety and depression

Our thinking patterns are crucial in determining how we feel!

In my psychology practice, anxiety, depression and stress are the three major problems that cause many of my clients acute distress so I am always interested to read about research in these areas.

A recent article in Psyblog mentioned three behavioural styles that are common in individuals who suffer from depression. These include rumination (preoccupation with cycles of negative throughts), a lack of adaptive coping ( failing to seek support and also not using positive approaches such as exercising and seeking out positive experiences) and self-blame.

On the subject of stress – a large proportion of the stress we experience is as a result of daily hassles – recurrent, annoying things that happen on a daily basis such as hold-ups in the traffic, appliance malfunctions and call-centre queries. Our stress levels are dependent on the way in which we interpret and respond to these stressors and our health is directly affected by our characteristic way of responding to these hassles.

The postive implication of this research is, of course, that it is possible to alter these patterns of behaviour. This is frequently the focus of my counselling and psychotherapy with my clients.

Source

Categories
Life in General Psychology in practice

Do you expect too much (or too little) in life? Don’t underestimate the importance of your expectations!

Time and time again in my psychology practice I am told by my clients that one of the most useful things they have got out of coming for psychotherapy or counselling is my highlighting the role that our expectations play in our lives.

Why are our expectations so important?

I have found that faulty and unrealistic expectations underlie many of the issues that bring clients into therapy. Anger, frustration, depression and anxiety often a result of expectations that are out of sync with reality. For example, clients with anger and frustration problems will invariably think  ” X should or shouldn’t act in a certain way” or in the case of road rage “that type of behaviour should not be allowed on the road” If you commonly use the words “Should”, “must”, “always” and “never” in your internal dialogue this is a sign that you are setting yourself up for frustration and anger, which is of course ultimately self-defeating and also potentially damaging to your health in the long-term!

Anxiety, on the other hand, is caused when we predict some dire event occuring at some time in the future – the “what …if” scenarios. When we get depressed we expect that nothing is going to improve and that we will always feel the same way as we do in the moment, which is, of course, also highly unlikely and unrealistic.

And then there are the cases of self-fulfilling prophecies when we predict some dire outcome and then unconsciously act in a way that brings these into being!

As most of the expectations that we harbour operate on a totally unconscious level, these tend to influence our behaviour and our moods largely outside our awareness. This dynamic forms the basis of cognitive-behavoural therapy, or CBT, which has been found to be extremely effective in enabling individuals to improve their moods and thus also their general wellbeing.

So I suggest that you do some self-reflection – get in touch with your expectations and think about how they influence your life and your relationships!

 

 

Categories
Health and Happiness Managing stress Mindfulness Psychology in practice

Why is it easier to be anxious and depressed rather than happy and relaxed?

It appears that we can blame it on evolution!

 

Why is it so difficult to stop our minds drifting to unpleasant and anxiety-provoking topics? Often this happens in the middle of the night, especially to insomniacs who often find that their thoughts prevent them from getting back to sleep.

Well, evolutionary psychologists put it down to the way in which our brains are wired, says Ronald Siegel in his article entitled “West meets East” in the September/October edition of Psychotherapy Networker (in which he discussed the link between psychotherapy and Eastern spiritual practices, such as mindfulness).

The arguement goes that the human beings of today have survived through natural selection only because, through thousands of years, they are the ones who were constantly on the lookout for danger and needed to be extremely adept at anticipating possible risks and life-threatening situations. So anxiety and fear kept you alive whilst happiness and complacency got you killed.

So, although the world has changed a great deal since the days of our cavemen ancestors, our physiology and the wiring of our brains have remained more or less the same, causing us to react to (usually) benign life events, such as traffic snarl-ups and work pressure, asif they were of the magnitude of a tiger hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce.

So if we are wired for anxiety and stress, what can be done about it?

First it is necessary to develop an awareness of the problem. Then with the help of cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBT), relaxation training and mindfulness techniques it is possible to gain control of one’s thoughts and to calm down the mind. It is important to take on board that one’s thoughts are merely a product of one’s mind and are not necessarily accurate. It is quite possible to substitute more balanced thoughts for thoughts that lead to anxiety, stress and depression. This will help to calm the mind, paving the way for a more measured, focused and appreciative approach to life, including one’s relationships.

And this can only lead to an inhanced feeling of happiness and contentment!

Categories
Health and Happiness Life in General Managing stress Talking Points in Psychology and Psychotherapy

Two Cape Town psychologists talk about: coping and resilience when the going gets tough.

Every week a psychologist colleague and I get together for peer supervision (we have been having these meetings for more than two years). We both work from a health psychology and positive psychology orientation and also practice clinical hypnotherapy ( including ego-state  therapy and Eriksonian approaches) with our respective clients.

This week one of the subjects under discussion was psychological resilience and effective coping. My colleague works a great deal in a medical setting, where she is called in to counsel patients who are undergoing radical surgery, such as amputations.  She mentioned that she is struck by how some patients manage to bounce back psychologically from this type of traumatic experience whilst others seem to lapse into a state of hopeless depression. (This is an important issue as research has consistently shown how crucial a person’s mental outlook is to their speed or recovery and general prognosis)

We went on to talk about the concept of resilience and whether positive coping and resilience is a given in the personality or if it can be acquired or strengthened through psychotherapy. One’s coping style is so so much part of who we are and on our outlook on life!  If we have meaning in our lives and feel needed and fulfilled, we will have more a stronger motivation to fight for our health and for our life when the going gets tough!

We spoke about how it is only when we are faced with a trauma or a crisis that our coping skills and our resilience are tested.

How do you respond in a crisis? Do you need to develop your own coping ability and your resources?

Categories
Managing stress New Research and Ideas Talking Points in Psychology and Psychotherapy

Are you serious about improving your psychological well-being and your happiness in 2011?Find out what Positive Psychology and Health Psychology have to offer!

When I ask clients who visit my psychology practice for the first time what their goals are, many of them say that they want to be happy!
We all know that happiness is often an elusive emotion and difficult if not impossible to achieve when we are not in a good space psychologically and we are experiencing anxiety and/or depression.

 

What is Positive Psychology?
The psychologist and researcher, Dr. Martin Seligman, is well-known for his work in Positive Psychology, see:
www. reflectivehappiness.com and www.authentichappiness.org.
Positive Psychology concentrates on personal strengths, positive emotions, happiness, optimism and hope and how we can work on these to improve our sense of well-being.

What is Health Psychology?
Psychologists and researchers who are interested in this field study the link between psychological and physical health. In our practice in Wynberg, Cape Town, we psychologists always emphasise with each client the importance of eating healthy, balanced meals, getting enough rest, relaxation and in exercising regularly if they are serious about improving their psychological well-being!     
 
Over the next few posts I will be speaking about the mental-health benefits of changing one’s mind-set to embrace the principles and practices of both Positive Psychology and Health Psychology.

 

Categories
Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Relationship Building

How to have a successful long-term relationship – don’t ignore red flags when choosing a potential partner

Most of us are aware that all committed relationships, including marriage, require hard work to keep them vibrant and fulfilling.

However, as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – you need to choose your prospestive long-term partner wisely and with care!

In the book “Everybody marries the wrong person”, psychologist Dr. Christine Meinecke talks about two types of scenarios – the first involving a choice of a partner who does not gel with you on all levels but with whom you can still have a good, happy life and the second, more devastating situation, where a partner turns out to be a complete disaster.

She identifies six “red flags”  – if any of these characteristics are present in a your potential partner, you would be wise to nip the relationship in the bud to avoid long-term heartache and misery! 

1. Substance abuse/dependence

Many partners of substance abusers are themselves in denial about the seriousness of the problem. Unless your partner has been “clean” for at least a year, you can’t rely on them to be suffciently emotionally mature to pull their weight in the relationship.   

2. Mental cruelty

If someone is mean, critical and tends to humiliate you he/she is not the partner for you!

3. Abuse

Of course this goes without saying – any type of physical, sexual, mental or financial abuse should be a deal-breaker in a relationship. If any of these are present in your relationship, it is imperative that you get some help – either from a trusted friend, a counsellor or a psychotherapist

4. Inappropriate venting of anger.

Don’t make any excuses for a partner who cannot control his/her temper. This situation will not improve in the future unless the person with the anger problem acknowledges it,d takes responsibility for changing the pattern of behaviour and agreed to attend anger management counselling or psychotherapy.

5. Controlling behaviour/jealousy/paranoia

This type of behaviour is a sign of a seriously dysfunctional individual who has the capacity to cause psychological harm to their partner and to their children.  This pattern that is usually hard-wired into the psyche and is incredibly difficult to change So, if the signs are there it is a good idea to end the relationship before more harm is done to your self-esteem. 

6. Under functioning/under-responsibility

Does your partner pull his/her weight when it comes to finances, tasks, roles and other responsibilities?  You need to ask yourself whether you want to spend your life with someone who tends to be thoughtless, careless and even reckless. The partners of these type of people often find themselves in a “parent” rather than a “partner” role.

So if your partner exhibits any of the above to any great degree, perhaps it might be prudent to do some serious thinking about what you really want and deserve from a prospective life partner!