It’s all a bit passive, a bit ‘meh’ isn’t it?
Most counselling doesn’t exactly grab the bull by the horns get right to the point, acting on the very things that are going to help. Not least because it has to establish what is going to help, because it doesn’t have a definitive “do this”.
What most people with depression who don’t feel counselling works seem to say, is that the counsellor talks with you, and identifies with you a type of situation you tend to say you find difficult, then the magic bean comes out: “So the next time you feel X, why don’t you try thinking of it like Y instead?”.
How wishy washy does that sound, it’s all a bit limp sounding isn’t it? Well, yes, it is, and that’s why in the next moment you feel crushed by your emotions and the weight of depression, the chances you will (or it would ever occur to you to) “think Y instead” are very small indeed. Why? Well, what chance has a rational little exploratory thought got against the tidal wave of irrational thoughts that are collapsing over you? Exactly, not a lot.
In the 1980s there was a band called Wet Wet Wet, now I don’t think they got their name from being counsellors but it’s almost as if they could have done.
There are some interesting underlying concepts going on in counselling though, informing some of the principles of counselling techniques. Let’s actually look at one of those concepts here for a moment, rather than a specific counselling technique.
So, an important underpinning observation of CBT is the following triangle…
Now, it may just look like a boring and overly simple diagram, but it actually is extremely valuable for sufferers of depression to grasp.
It is quite obvious what THOUGHTS represent, and in this diagram it represents what you are consciously thinking or what you could be thinking as the result of something else.
FEELINGS is just that, how you are feeling, think of it in terms of ‘ok’, ‘bad’, ‘awful’.
The more complex one here is ENVIRONMENT, it represents more, it could be the room you are in, the job you have, your bank account, the clutter you haven’t cleaned up, the jobs you haven’t done, the state of a personal relationship. Think of it more like the things that other people could easily understand, as we all have a lay of the land of our life in any one moment.
The trick in the triangle is to look at the interconnecting lines, because they represent which things can AFFECT something else.
Some examples would be, if you FEEL really down, then you might have THOUGHTS that something in life is not worth it. Going the other way on that very same line, you might be thinking of something that is a bit overwhelming or daunting, and as a result your FEELINGS are affected.
Your ENVIRONMENT might be affected by you FEELING down as you might not clean your house for months. The other way on that line could simply be that a personal relationship breaks down (ENVIRONMENT) and of course your FEELINGS are affected. In fact, that’s a really good example of something that would affect down two of the lines as your THOUGHTS will change too.
You should be able to think of loads of examples of AFFECTS happening within this diagram.
Now, why this diagram is so valuable is that it makes perfect logical sense, and not just for those who suffer from depression, it works for everyone. That, is important as it is can help to rationalise some of the ways you feel if you do suffer from depression, it shows triggers and effects.
If you refer to this diagram, simply by remembering it, you will have a tool that can help you often in concluding “ah, I can see why I feel like this”. If that helps you rationalise just one bad spot and it eases it, or nips it in the bud, it’s been worth you absorbing this.
Of course, a depressed person who is affected by their feelings and thoughts, much of the time is amplifying to the extreme the very things that a person who doesn’t suffer from depression simply doesn’t amplify.
In the next post we’re going to look at this amplification, and it’s going to involve the one and only Usain Bolt !! 🙂