Online Therapy – Are there any Benefits?

Online Therapy – Are there any Benefits?

 

Online therapy is shown in research to be just as effective as in-person therapy. (Ref 1) But it gets a bad rap, as it is still quite a new modality compared to traditional counselling sessions, usually face-to-face. However, technology influences every aspect of life in this modern age, and online therapy is now easily accessible. It is not just for use during a pandemic or lockdowns; it is here to stay, so it is worth giving it a go, no matter your bias. How can you say you don’t like it if you don’t try it? 

Online therapy comes in various shapes and sizes, and it can be done via video, audio or text, making it easily accessible and more affordable. Technology has revolutionised our ability to get therapy no matter the geography or the time of day. If you just want to chat with someone or work on trauma and more profound issues, there will be a therapist available at the tip of your fingers. The benefits are many:

  • Accessible and comfortable, it can be done from your home
  • Time convenient for your schedule
  • Private
  • Cost-effective
  • Allows for social distancing if needed.

However, most important of all, the question has to be asked. Is it as good as face to face therapy? YES! It seems it is. Several studies have found that online CBT results in very effective treatment and even that doing CBT online is more effective than in-person therapy. (Ref 2). Online therapy enables you to have a wider choice of therapists. As the therapeutic alliance (how well you and your therapist ‘click’) is an essential part of a good therapy session, online therapy lets you check out therapists and find someone you trust. 

But it is a personal choice that only you can make. But, significantly, so much modern research proves that online therapy is ‘just what the doctor ordered’ for a healthier, happier you. 

AMindset offers online low-cost affordable therapy – if you want to know more about how we can support you go Here

Liz McCaughey

Find out more about Liz Here

Other Articles:

Online Psychotherapy vs Traditional

(Ref 1)

Meredith S. Pescatello, Tyler R. Pedersen & Scott A. Baldwin (2021) Treatment engagement and effectiveness of an internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy program at a university counseling center, Psychotherapy Research, 31:5, 656-667, DOI:

  1. 10.1080/10503307.2020.1822559

 

(Ref 2)

Luo, Sanger, N., Singhal, N., Pattrick, K., Shams, I., Shahid, H., Hoang, P., Schmidt, J., Lee, J., Haber, S., Puckering, M., Buchanan, N., Lee, P., Ng, K., Sun, S., Kheyson, S., Chung, D. C.-Y., Sanger, S., Thabane, L., & Samaan, Z. (2020). A comparison of electronically-delivered and face to face cognitive behavioural therapies in depressive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. EClinicalMedicine, 24, 100442–100442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100442

How To Fight Your Fear and the Inner Demon

How To Fight Your Fear and the Inner Demon

 How To Fight Your Fear

There is good in every human being, no matter how bad the nightly news reports demonstrate.  There is good in you and me. Although at times we may doubt that to be true. We should stop thinking about how to fight your fear and inner demons, but detach ourselves from any vulnerabilities.

If we were so good:

  • Why don’t we do more for charity?
  • How could we have acted the way we did with a friend or partner?
  • Why don’t we give more time and money to help people?
  • How could we have been so cruel to another person?
  • Why do we always act like a coward and run away from discomfort?
  • Why do we justify our vicious actions or words?
  • How can we live with so much self-deception?
  • Why aren’t we crusading for betterment for the world instead of shying away from anything that we might find unsettling.

Our inner demon (sometimes referred to as ‘the lower ego’ or ‘ego’) tells us we are not a good person, We are constantly exposed to this inner chatter and it makes us afraid that maybe we really are a bad person.  Perhaps the Catholics have it right: “We are guilty until proven more guilty”. We cannot escape our badness so forget about forgiving yourself and anyone else, just work hard to free yourself from your own guilt. And the best way to stop feeling guilty, outside of the confessional, is to detach yourself from the feelings that might make you vulnerable.

 

How to fight your fear: Understanding Yourself

It seems that to get by we try and harden ourselves against compassion or those soft spots that put us at risk of feeling bad. We try to stop ourselves feeling too much, so we put up barriers that generate prejudices, judgements and selfishness. These barriers hide the genuine caring part of our natures, we can all pretend to be kind, but sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly,  we are doing the opposite. The barriers we put up are entirely false and out of place. Fortunately, they only hide the real, caring person, they do not destroy the compassionate part of our persona. Our genuine nature is always there, just veiled by delusion and our own lower ego which promotes separation, selfishness and survival of itself (the false you) above all else.

It’s a simple fact that whenever something happens that we don’t like, we rush to mentally escape it. This can take the form of a drink, exercise, verbal criticism, housework,  justifying our actions or thoughts, writing or even some simple shopping therapy.  Like most of humanity, we have developed a myriad of distractions to stop ourselves from feeling uncomfortable.

Simple feelings of mild anxiety, restlessness, guilt are immediately pushed aside as we find a distraction to make us think in another direction. And the emotionally painful ‘biggies’ of betrayal, unworthiness, loneliness have us sprinting in the opposite direction, or buying shares in a brewery.

How to fight your fear by dealing with it directly something that we willingly do, as that might result in us coming face to face with ‘Despicable Me’.

Although we may try to believe we are a good person, the way we constantly display our ‘horrible’ personal traits has us, backed-up by the ego impulses, thinking the opposite. We harden ourselves to ourselves and everyone else which results in barriers being put in place that attempt to keep everyone at a distance.

The person that stares back at you each day in the mirror becomes a survivor who will not be afraid. This means hiding the vulnerable and caring nature which could potentially expose you, thus leaving your emotions defenceless. And if this thoughtful, kind-hearted you does escape, there is a momentary lapse of defences as you lose control and have a break-down.

This loss of control feels uncomfortable, during the emotional wailing and for some time afterwards. The ego sends the signal, ‘this is something to be avoided at all costs.’ And in an attempt to constantly avoid a repeat of the discomfort or pain you become even more frightened. The classic double-bind of a Catch 22 situation. The more you try and stop the pain or fear, the worse it gets.

As a result, we try to think ‘tough’ and put a hard shell or barrier around our emotions. This is particularly prevalent when you have opened up to someone who then causes hurt. Despite your best endeavours, this person is unconsciously on your ‘revenge’ to-do list. Until you are honest and face up to what you are really thinking, you will not know if this is true. Unfortunately the barriers not only block people from getting to you, they block you from being honest with yourself.

Defending ourselves against any possible discomfort but especially against pain which can be physical or emotional, is a natural defence mechanism of the psyche. Rather than face whatever makes us frightened, we fear it and the defensive barriers are erected.

But these false barriers as ways of defending the psyche only work in the short term, they are not sustainable. The fear will return, because even with the defensive barriers in position, we remain afraid. We want to have certainty in our life and try to do everything right in the vain hope we will find that safe place to hide and be happy for the remainder of our lives. But life isn’t that kind, the uncertainties and sorrows of it are a reality we all have to face, which results in our being afraid of living.

Eventually many people, paralysed by their own fears, which are fears that are often just a part of their imagination, stop living. Life to them becomes just an existence with no joy or hope.

There is no-one alive who can avoid sorrow, pain or fear. If you don’t believe me, have a think about dying, does it worry you at all? The reason I mention death is because it is the one thing that will happen to every living thing on this planet.

Fear is a part of life and has to be faced, erecting defensive barriers will not work in the long term so why not try to do things differently?

This, of course is easier said than done. Our habitual way of thinking and doing is hard to break especially as your lower ego is not interested in you changing at all. Indeed it is the great deceiver and although you may believe you are in control of your life, you are being duped by your ego.

The ego wants to avoid pain at all cost. As most of you have lived with the ego in charge of your thinking and doing, it takes effort, pain and hard work to wrestle back the control.  You will only be able to take back that control when you choose to find a long-term more permanent solution to your fears. This involves choosing to face and experience the fears and the pain, instead of running away.

It may seem a bad idea to choose to feel the pain and the intensity of that fearful feeling, but once you have done it, you have a chance of softening or moulding the emotion, even letting it go. If you do not allow yourself to do this and instead suppress the feelings, you are more likely to break, make rash decisions even cause pain to someone you love, under the weight of these repressed emotions.

Thinking tough to the extent that you suppress the feelings of pain, anxiety or discomfort makes you a more brittle and delusional person.  This type of thinking feeds the lower ego who in an attempt to protect itself wants you to think you are separate from other people, correct in your thinking and invulnerable. This ego part of you likes you to be isolated and it feeds you with delusional thoughts.

I am sure you have all experienced this in your life when looking back you have thought:

  • What the hell was I thinking?
  • How did I allow that to happen?

Those past moments where when the ego was firmly in charge. You were its puppet acting out its selfish, delusional madness.  If you want to live a balanced, truthful, less fearful and guilty life, you have to face your fears and in so doing, challenge the ego.  You have to go to those places that make you frightened or uncomfortable. You have to accept that there is suffering in the world and although you cannot fix it all, you can attempt to change yourself so you can be a better, stronger and more balanced person.

We all want to be happy, we all want to be free from fear and pain but that will only happen when we accept that they are a part of a normal life. Life will always have its ups and down and every day we are subject to new and unexpected experiences. Life’s situations, people you meet and your own reactions will be unpredictable. It’s time to accept the feeling of fear and life’s unforeseeable adventures as just a part of living. Stop trying to control the impossible.

There is no certainty in life and being uncertain makes us more afraid. Accept this makes you feel uncertain and insecure and then look at the bigger picture of each incident and see if you can see the lesson that is being presented to you. Usually there is a  valuable lesson that you need to learn contained within each scenario. This may cause you more fear and pain in the beginning but as you face it, you fix it. Every time you face up to a fear and overcome it, you become emotionally stronger. A coward remains a coward by running away instead of facing the music. Eventually, when you are able to handle the good and the bad days with equal assurance you can proclaim yourself a warrior.

When you stand up to the bully, he tends to run away, but if you run away he tends to run after you. The emotion of fear is like a bully, when you face it, it loses its strength and potency. That is the time you are firmly taking back control of your life from your internal bully (the ego) and a more balanced and happier ‘you’ will emerge.

Once you are able to do that for yourself, you can look to the bigger picture and see what you can do for others. Even that person who has caused you the most pain and you wished to repay tenfold.   You can genuinely help others once you stop feeling the need to defend yourself. in this instance, helping others is not a distraction but an act of kindness coming from a person who has experienced pain and fear but who has learnt how to manage it through bravery, truthfulness, wisdom and strength.

As you help others you learn more and help yourself and over time you will notice that something is missing from your life.  Something you have carried around with you for aeons.  And that something is the emotion of fear.

You may think that allowing vulnerability and compassion into your life will be dangerous and fearful, but the opposite happens. Externally showing the real inner you, as opposed to the false ego, will bring you more peace because compassion is what makes you human. This is the best way on how to fight your fear and inner demons in life.

We all have fear and it comes in different forms and at the most unexpected times. Facing each fear, one at a time, with no barriers is the way forward. Instead, allow truth and vulnerability to be present plus compassion towards ourselves and others. This  will bring about a liberating and positive change in how we experience life.

It is what you do in the present that will shape the remainder of your life.

So look to yourself and see how you are thinking and reacting:

  • In fear or in peace
  • Defended or vulnerable
  • Harmful or Harmless

How to fight your fear by facing your fears and being truthful to yourself is a process that will have to be repeated throughout your life. It is a mental process that will become second nature after a while.

“If you want to know what will happen to you in the future, look at what your mind is doing now.”

The Dalai Lama

Psychotherapy and Living Without Fear

Psychotherapy and Living Without Fear

This 20 minute TEDx video Living Without Fear by Dr Kim discusses the effects of early memories and how these memories affect everything we do in life. Dr Jee Hyun Kim currently leads a research team working on memory aspects of early-onset anxiety disorders and drug addiction in the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne. Her research suggests cognitive-behavioural therapies have different effectiveness depending on one’s age, and advocates treatment of mental disorders during childhood. The treatment of Psychotherapy focuses very much on early childhood memories and the unconscious way these memories affect the behaviour patterns of adults. Psychotherapy & Living Without Fear work together to help a person live a better life through releasing these early childhood memories in therapy.

Her research in memory across development began when she received Bachelor of Psychology with 1st Class Honours and the University Medal in 2004 from the University of New South Wales, Australia. She then received a Ph.D. in 2008 for research in memory retrieval, forgetting, inhibition and erasure from UNSW. While she was at Michigan University for her postdoctoral training, UNSW gave her U-committee Award for Research Excellence in Science in 2010. Dr Kim has recently been honoured with the Australian Psychological Society’s Early Career Research Award in 2012. She has featured regularly on ABC radio, including ‘Radio Australia’, and has recently featured on Channel Ten’s ‘The Project’.

TEDx Talks

 

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations).

Increasing Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

Increasing Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

How To Increase Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

It is not the easiest of tasks to keep a client in therapy and psychotherapy is no different when it comes to client retention. Barry Duncan PhD and Scott Miller PhD the co-founders of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change have conducted a thorough investigation into how practitioners may be able to increase their effectiveness by recognising and identifying those clients that are not responding to therapy. Using case study examples within a clinical practice they demonstrate the practical application of Outcome-Informed and Client-Directed approaches. Increasing Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

As they mention in their article below most therapists want to help people. If a therapist can be guided how to do that in a practical and long-term way then the chances of patient response and recovery would be increased. As is said at the end of the article:

“Monitoring the outcome and the fit of our services helps us know that when we are good, we are very good, and when we are bad, we can be even better.”

Increasing Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

“When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better” –A New Mantra for Psychotherapists by Barry Duncan, PhD and Scott Miller, PhD

Introduction

At first blush, Mae West’s famous words ‘When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better’ hardly seem like a guide for therapists to live by—but, as it turns out, they could be. Research demonstrates consistently that who the therapist is accounts for far more of the variance of change (6 to 9 percent) than the model or technique administered (1 percent). In fact, therapist effectiveness ranges from a paltry 20 percent to an impressive 70 percent. A small group of clinicians—sometimes called ‘supershrinks’—obtain demonstrably superior outcomes in most of their cases, while others fall predictably on the less-exalted sections of the bell-shaped curve. However, most practitioners can join the ranks of supershrinks, or at least increase their therapeutic effectiveness substantially.

Consider Matt, a twenty-something software whiz who was on the road frequently to trouble-shoot customer problems. Matt loved his job but travelling was an ordeal—not because of flying but because of another, far more embarrassing problem. Matt was long past feeling frustrated about standing and standing in public restrooms trying to ‘go.’ What started as a mild discomfort and inconvenience easily solved by repeated restroom visits had progressed to full-blown anxiety attacks, an excruciating pressure, and an intense dread before each trip. Feeling hopeless and demoralized, Matt considered changing jobs but as a last resort decided instead to see a therapist.

Matt liked the therapist and it felt good finally to tell someone about the problem. The therapist worked with Matt to implement relaxation and self-talk strategies. Matt practiced in session and tried to use the ideas on his next trip, but still no ‘go.’ The problem continued to get worse. Now three sessions in, Matt was at significant risk for a negative outcome—either dropping out or continuing in therapy without benefit.

We have all encountered clients unmoved by treatment. Therapists often blame themselves. The overwhelming majority of psychotherapists, as cliched as it sounds, want to be helpful. Many of us answered “I want to help people” on graduate school applications as the reason we chose to be therapists. Often, some well-meaning person dissuaded us from that answer because it didn’t sound sophisticated or appeared too ‘co-dependent.’ Such aspirations, we now believe, are not only noble but can provide just what is needed to improve clinical effectiveness. After all, there is not much financial incentive for doing better therapy—we don’t do this work because we thought we would acquire the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Unfortunately, the altruistic desire to be helpful sometimes leads us to believe that if we were just smart enough or trained correctly, clients would not remain inured to our best efforts—if we found the Holy Grail, that special model or technique, we could once and for all defeat the psychic dragons that terrorize clients. Amid explanations and remedies aplenty, therapists search courageously for designer explanations and brand-name miracles, but continue to observe that clients drop out, or even worse, continue without benefit.Amid explanations and remedies aplenty, therapists search courageously for designer explanations and brand-name miracles, but continue to observe that clients drop out, or even worse, continue without benefit. Current estimates suggest that nearly 50 percent of our clients drop out and at least one third, and up to two thirds, do not benefit from our usual strategies.

So what can we do to channel our healthy desire to be helpful? If we listen to the lessons of the top performers, the first thing we should do is step outside of our comfort zones and push the limits of our current performance—to identify accurately those clients not responding to our therapeutic business as usual, and address the lack of change in a way that keeps clients engaged in treatment and forges new directions.

To recapture those clients who slip through the cracks, we need to embrace what is known about change: Many studies reveal that the majority of clients experience change in the first six visits—clients reporting little or no change early on tend to show no improvement over the entire course of therapy, or wind up dropping out. Early change, in other words, predicts engagement in therapy and ongoing benefit. This doesn’t mean that a client is ‘cured’ or the problem is totally resolved, but rather that the client has a subjective sense that things are getting better. And second, a mountain of studies have long demonstrated another robust predictor—that reliable, tried-and-true but taken-for-granted old friend—the therapeutic alliance. Clients who highly rate the relationship with their therapist tend to be those clients who stick around in therapy and benefit from it.

Next we need to measure those known predictors in a systematic way with reliable and valid instruments. So instead of regarding the first few therapy sessions as a ‘warm-up’ period or a chance to try out the latest technique, we engage the client in helping us judge whether therapy is providing benefit. Obtaining feedback on standardized measures about success or failure during those initial meetings provides invaluable information about the match between ourselves, our approach, and the client—enabling us to know when we are bad, so we can be even better. The only way we can improve our outcomes is to know, very early on, when the client is not benefiting—we need something akin to an early warning signal.

Using standardized measures to monitor outcome may make your skin crawl and bring to mind torture devices like the Rorschach or MMPI. But the forms for these measures are not used to pass judgment, diagnose or unravel the mysteries of the human psyche. Rather, these measures invite clients into the inner circle of mental health and substance abuse services—they involve clients collaboratively in monitoring progress toward their goals and the fit of the services they are receiving, and amplify their voices in any decisions about their care.

The Outcome Rating Scale (ORS)

You might also think that the last thing you need is to add more paperwork to your practice. But finding out who is and isn’t responding to therapy need not be cumbersome. In fact, it only takes a minute. Dissatisfied with the complexity, length, and user- unfriendliness of existing outcome measures, we developed the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) as a brief clinical alternative. The ORS (child measures also available) and all the measures discussed here are available for free download at talkingcure.com. The ORS assesses three dimensions:

  • Personal or symptomatic distress (measuring individual well-being)
  • Interpersonal well-being (measuring how well the client is getting along in intimate relationships)
  • Social role (measuring satisfaction with work/school and relationships outside of the home)

Changes in these three areas are considered widely to be valid indicators of successful outcome. The ORS simply translates these three areas and an overall rating into a visual analog format of four 10-cm lines, with instructions to place a mark on each line with low estimates to the left and high to the right. The four 10-cm lines add to a total score of 40. The score is simply the summation of the marks made by the client to the nearest millimeter on each of the four lines, measured by a centimeter ruler or available template. A score of 25, the clinical cutoff, differentiates those who are experiencing enough distress to be in a helping relationship from those who are not. Because of its simplicity, ORS feedback is available immediately for use at the time the service is delivered. Rated at an eighth-grade reading level, the ORS is understood easily and clients have little difficulty connecting it their day-to-day lived experience.

Matt completed the ORS before each session. He entered therapy with a score of 18, about average for those attending outpatient settings, but continued to hover at that score. At the third session, when the ORS reflected no change, it was not front-page news to Matt. But a different process ensued. In the same spirit of collaboration as the assessment process, Matt and his therapist brainstormed ideas, a free-for-all of unedited speculations and suggestions of alternatives, from changing nothing about the therapy to taking medication to shifting treatment approaches. During this open exchange Matt intimated that he was beginning to feel angry about the whole thing—real angry. The therapist noticed that when Matt worked himself up to a good anger—about how his problem interfered with his work and added a huge hassle in any extended situation away from his own bathroom—that he became quite animated, a stark contrast to the passively resigned person that had characterized their previous sessions. One of them, which one remains a mystery, mentioned the words ‘pissed off’ and both broke into a raucous laughter. Subsequently, the therapist suggested that instead of responding with hopelessness when the problem occurred, that Matt work himself up to a good anger—about how this problem made his life miserable. Matt added (he was a rock-and-roll buff) that he could also sing the Tom Petty song “Won’t Back Down” during his tirade at the toilet. Matt allowed himself, when standing in front of the urinal to become incensed—downright ‘pissed off,’ and amused. And he started to go.

This process, the delightful creative energy that emerges from the wonderful interpersonal event we call therapy, could have happened to any therapist working with Matt. The difference is that the use of the outcome measure spotlighted the lack of change and made it impossible to ignore. The ORS brought the risk of a negative outcome front and center and allowed the therapist to enact the second characteristic of supershrinks, to be exceptionally alert to the risk of dropout and treatment failure. In the past, we might have continued with the same treatment for several more sessions, unaware of its ineffectiveness or believing (hoping, even praying) that our usual strategies would eventually take hold, but the reliable outcome data pushed us to explore different treatment options by the end of the third visit.

Pushing the limits of one’s performance requires monitoring the fit of your service with the client’s expectations about the alliance. The ongoing assessment of the alliance enables therapists to identify and correct areas of weakness in the delivery of services before they exert a negative effect on outcome.

The Session Rating Scale (SRS)

Research shows repeatedly that clients’ ratings of the alliance are far more predictive of improvement than the type of intervention or the therapist’s ratings of the alliance. Recognizing these much-replicated findings, we developed the Session Rating Scale (SRS) as a brief clinical alternative to longer research-based alliance measures to encourage routine conversations with clients about the alliance. The SRS also contains four items. First, a relationship scale rates the meeting on a continuum from “I did not feel heard, understood, and respected” to “I felt heard, understood, and respected.” Second is a goals and topics scale that rates the conversation on a continuum from “We did not work on or talk about what I wanted to work on or talk about” to “We worked on or talked about what I wanted to work on or talk about.” Third is an approach or method scale (an indication of a match with the client’s theory of change) requiring the client to rate the meeting on a continuum from “The approach is not a good fit for me” to “The approach is a good fit for me.” Finally, the fourth scale looks at how the client perceives the encounter in total along the continuum: “There was something missing in the session today” to “Overall, today’s session was right for me.”

The SRS simply translates what is known about the alliance into four visual analog scales, with instructions to place a mark on a line with negative responses depicted on the left and positive responses indicated on the right. The SRS allows alliance feedback in real time so that problems may be addressed. Like the ORS, the instrument takes less than a minute to administer and score. The SRS is scored similarly to the ORS, by adding the total of the client’s marks on the four 10-cm lines. The total score falls into three categories:

  • SRS score between 0–34 reflects a poor alliance,
  • SRS Score between 35–38 reflects a fair alliance,
  • SRS Score between 39–40 reflects a good alliance.

The SRS allows the implementation of the final lesson of the supershrinks—seek, obtain, and maintain more consumer engagement. Clients drop out of therapy for two reasons: one is that therapy is not helping (hence monitoring outcome) and the other is alliance problems—they are not engaged or turned on by the process. The most direct way to improve your effectiveness is simply to keep people engaged in therapy.

An alliance problem that occurs frequently emerges when client’s goals do not fit our own sensibilities about what they need. This may be particularly true if clients carry certain diagnoses or problem scenarios. Consider 19-year-old Sarah, who lived in a group home and received social security disability for mental illness. Sarah was referred for counselling because others were concerned that she was socially withdrawn. Everyone was also worried about Sarah’s health because she was overweight and spent much of her time watching TV and eating snack foods.

In therapy Sarah agreed that she was lonely, but expressed a desire to be a Miami Heat cheerleader. Perhaps understandably, that goal was not taken seriously. After all, Sarah had never been a cheerleader, was ‘schizophrenic,’ and was not exactly in the best of shape. So no one listened, or even knew why Sarah had such an interesting goal. And the work with Sarah floundered. She spoke rarely and gave minimal answers to questions. In short, Sarah was not engaged and was at risk for dropout or a negative outcome.

The therapist routinely gave Sarah the SRS and she had reported that everything was going swimmingly, although the goals scale was an 8.7 out of 10, instead of a 9 or above out of 10 like the rest.

Sometimes it takes a bit more work to create the conditions that allow clients to be forthright with us, to develop a culture of feedback in the room. The power disparity combined with any socioeconomic, ethnic, or racial differences make it difficult to tell authority figures that they are on the wrong track. Think about the last time you told your doctor that he or she was not performing well. Clients, however, will let us know subtly on alliance measures far before they will confront us directly.

At the end of the third session, the therapist and Sarah reviewed her responses on the SRS. Did she truly feel understood? Was the therapy focused on her goals? Did the approach make sense to her? Such reviews are helpful in fine-tuning the therapy or addressing problems in the therapeutic relationship that have been missed or gone unreported. Sarah, when asked the question about goals, all the while avoiding eye contact and nearly whispering, repeated her desire to be a Miami Heat cheerleader.

The therapist looked at the SRS and the lights came on. The slight difference on the goals scale told the tale. When the therapist finally asked Sarah about her goal, she told the story of growing up watching Miami Heat basketball with her dad who delighted in Sarah’s performance of the cheers. Sarah sparkled when she talked of her father, who passed away several years previously, and the therapist noted that it was the most he had ever heard her speak. He took this experience to heart and often asked Sarah about her father. The therapist also put the brakes on his efforts to get Sarah to socialize or exercise (his goals), and instead leaned more toward Sarah’s interest in cheerleading. Sarah watched cheerleading contests regularly on ESPN and enjoyed sharing her expertise. She also knew a lot about basketball.

Sarah’s SRS score improved on the goal scale and her ORS score increased dramatically. After a while, Sarah organized a cheerleading squad for her agency’s basketball team who played local civic organizations to raise money for the group home. Sarah’s involvement with the team ultimately addressed the referral concerns about her social withdrawal and lack of activity. The SRS helps us take clients and their engagement more seriously, like the supershrinks do. Walking the path cut by client goals often reveals alternative routes that would have never been discovered otherwise.

Providing feedback to clinicians on the clients’ experience of the alliance and progress has been shown to result in significant improvements in both client retention and outcome. We found that clients of therapists who opted out of completing the SRS were twice as likely to drop out and three times more likely to have a negative outcome.We found that clients of therapists who opted out of completing the SRS were twice as likely to drop out and three times more likely to have a negative outcome. In the same study of over 6000 clients, effectiveness rates doubled. As incredible as the results appear, they are consistent with findings from other researchers.

In a 2003 meta-analysis of three studies, Michael Lambert, a pioneer of using client feedback, reported that those helping relationships at risk for a negative outcome which received formal feedback were, at the conclusion of therapy, better off than 65 percent of those without information regarding progress. Think about this for a minute. Even if you are one of the most effective therapists, for every cycle of 10 clients you see, three will go home without benefit. Over the course of a year, for a therapist with a full caseload, this amounts to a lot of unhappy clients. This research shows that you can recover a substantial portion of those who don’t benefit by first identifying who they are, keeping them engaged, and tailoring your services accordingly.

The Nuts and Bolts

Collecting data on standardized measures and using what we call ‘practice-based evidence’ can improve your effectiveness substantially. “Wait a minute,” you say, “this sounds a lot like research!” Given the legionary schism between research and practice, sometimes getting therapists to do the measures is indeed a tall order because it does sound a lot like the ‘R’ word.

A story illustrates the sentiments that many practitioners feel about research. Two researchers were attending an annual conference. Although enjoying the proceedings, they decided to find some diversion to combat the tedium of sitting all day and absorbing vast amounts of information. They settled on a hot air balloon ride and were quite enjoying themselves until a mysterious fog rolled in. Hopelessly lost, they drifted for hours until a clearing in the fog appeared finally and they saw a man standing in an open field. Joyfully, they yelled down at the man, “Where are we?” The man looked at them, and then down at the ground, before turning a full 360 degrees to survey his surroundings. Finally, after scratching his beard and what seemed to be several moments of facial contortions reflecting deep concentration, the man looked up and said, “You are above my farm.”

The first researcher looked at the second researcher and said, “That man is a researcher—he is a scientist!” To which the second researcher replied, “Are you crazy, man? He is a simple farmer!” “No,” answered the first researcher emphatically, “that man is a researcher and there are three facts that support my assertion: First, what he said was absolutely 100% accurate; second, he addressed our question systematically through an examination of all of the empirical evidence at his disposal, and then deliberated carefully on the data before delivering his conclusion; and finally, the third reason I know he is a researcher is that what he told us is absolutely useless to our predicament.”

But unlike much of what is passed off as research, the systematic collection of outcome data in your practice is not worthless to your predicament. It allows you the luxury of being useful to clients who would otherwise not be helped. And it helps you to get out of the way of those clients you are not helping, and connecting them to more likely opportunities for change.

First, collaboration with clients to monitor outcome and fit actually starts before formal therapy. This means that they are informed when scheduling the first contact about the nature of the partnership and the creation of a ‘culture of feedback’ in which their voice is essential.

“I want to help you reach your goals. I have found it important to monitor progress from meeting to meeting using two very short forms. Your ongoing feedback will tell us if we are on track, or need to change something about our approach, or include other resources or referrals to help you get what you want. I want to know this sooner rather than later, because if I am not the person for you, I want to move you on quickly and not be an obstacle to you getting what you want. Is that something you can help me with?”

We have never had anyone tell us that keeping track of progress is a bad idea. There are five steps to using practice based evidence to improve your effectiveness.

Step One: Introducing the ORS in the First Session

The ORS is administered prior to each meeting and the SRS toward the end. In the first meeting, the culture of feedback is continually reinforced. It is important to avoid technical jargon, and instead explain the purpose of the measures and their rationale in a natural commonsense way. Just make it part of a relaxed and ordinary way of having conversations and working. The specific words are not important—there is no protocol that must be followed. This is a clinical tool! Your interest in the client’s desired outcome speaks volumes about your commitment to the client and the quality of service you provide.

“Remember our earlier conversation? During the course of our work together, I will be giving you two very short forms that ask how you think things are going and whether you think things are on track. To make the most of our time together and get the best outcome, it is important to make sure we are on the same page with one another about how you are doing, how we are doing, and where we are going. We will be using your answers to keep us on track. Will that be okay with you?”

Step Two: Incorporating the ORS in the first session

The ORS pinpoints where the client is and allows a comparison for later sessions. Incorporating the ORS entails simply bringing the client’s initial and subsequent results into the conversation for discussion, clarification and problem solving. The client’s initial score on the ORS is either above or below the clinical cutoff. You need only to mention the client scores as it relates to the cutoff. Keep in mind that the use of the measures is 100-percent transparent. There is nothing that they tell you that you cannot share with the client. It is their interpretation that ultimately counts.

“From your ORS it looks like you’re experiencing some real problems.” Or: “From your score, it looks like you’re feeling okay.” “What brings you here today?” Or: “Your total score is 15—that’s pretty low. A score under 25 indicates people who are in enough distress to seek help. Things must be pretty tough for you. Does that fit your experience? What’s going on?”

“The way this ORS works is that scores under 25 indicate that things are hard for you now or you are hurting enough to bring you to see me. Your score on the individual scale indicates that you are really having a hard time. Would you like to tell me about it?”

Or if the ORS is above 25: “Generally when people score above 25, it is an indication that things are going pretty well for them. Does that fit your experience? It would be really helpful for me to get an understanding of what it is that brought you here now.”

Because the ORS has face validity, clients usually mark the scale the lowest that represents the reason they are seeking therapy, and often connect that reason to the mark they’ve made without prompting from the therapist. For example, Matt marked the Individual scale the lowest with the Social scale coming in a close second. As he was describing his problem in public restrooms, he pointed to the ORS and explained that this problem accounted for his mark. Other times, the therapist needs to clarify the connection between the client’s descriptions of the reasons for services and the client’s scores. The ORS makes no sense unless it is connected to the described experience of the client’s life. This is a critical point because clinician and client must know what the mark on the line represents to the client and what will need to happen for the client to both realize a change and indicate that change on the ORS.

At some point in the meeting, the therapist needs only to pick up on the client’s comments and connect them to the ORS:

“Oh, okay, it sounds like dealing with the loss of your brother (or relationship with wife, sister’s drinking, or anxiety attacks, etc.) is an important part of what we are doing here. Does the distress from that situation account for your mark here on the individual (or other) scale on the ORS? Okay, so what do you think will need to happen for that mark to move just one centimeter to the right?”

The ORS, by design, is a general outcome instrument and provides no specific content other than the three domains. The ORS offers only a bare skeleton to which clients must add the flesh and blood of their experiences, into which they breathe life with their ideas and perceptions. At the moment in which clients connect the marks on the ORS with the situations that are distressing, the ORS becomes a meaningful measure of their progress and potent clinical tool.

Step Three: Introducing the SRS

The SRS, like the ORS, is best presented in a relaxed way that is integrated seamlessly into your typical way of working. The use of the SRS continues the culture of client privilege and feedback, and opens space for the client’s voice about the alliance. The SRS is given at the end of the meeting, but leaving enough time to discuss the client’s responses.

“Let’s take a minute and have you fill out the form that asks for your opinion about our work together. It’s like taking the temperature of our relationship today. Are we too hot or too cold? Do I need to adjust the thermostat? This information helps me stay on track. The ultimate purpose of using these forms is to make every possible effort to make our work together beneficial. Is that okay with you?”

Step Four: Incorporating the SRS

Because the SRS is easy to score and interpret, you can do a quick visual check and integrate it into the conversation. If the SRS looks good (score more than 9 cm on any scale), you need only comment on that fact and invite any other comments or suggestions. If the client marks any scales lower than 9 cm, you should definitely follow up. Clients tend to score all alliance measures highly, so the practitioner should address any hint of a problem. Anything less than a total score of 36 might signal a concern, and therefore it is prudent to invite clients to comment. Keep in mind that a high rating is a good thing, but it doesn’t tell you very much. Always thank the client for the feedback and continue to encourage their open feedback. Remember that unless you convey you really want it, you are unlikely to get it.

And know for sure that there is no ‘bad news’ on these forms. Your appreciation of any negative feedback is a powerful alliance builder. In fact, alliances that start off negatively but result in your flexibility to client input tend to be very predictive of a positive outcome. When you are bad, you are even better! In general, a score:

  • that is poor and remains poor predicts a negative outcome,
  • that is good and remains good predicts a positive outcome,
  • that is poor or fair and improves predicts a positive outcome even more,
  • that is good and decreases is predictive of a negative outcome.

The SRS allows the opportunity to fix any alliance problems that are developing and shows that you do more than give lip service to honoring the client’s perspectives.

“Let me just take a look at this SRS—it’s like a thermometer that takes the temperature of our meeting here today. Great, looks like we are on the same page, that we are talking about what you think is important and you believe today’s meeting was right for you. Please let me know if I get off track, because letting me know would be the biggest favor you could do for me.”

“Let me quickly look at this other form here that lets me know how you think we are doing. Okay, seems like I am missing the boat here. Thanks very much for your honesty and giving me a chance to address what I can do differently. Was there something else I should have asked you about or should have done to make this meeting work better for you? What was missing here?”

Graceful acceptance of any problems and responding with flexibility usually turns things around. Again, clients reporting alliance problems that are addressed are far more likely to achieve a successful outcome—up to seven times more likely! Negative scores on the SRS, therefore, are good news and should be celebrated. Practitioners who elicit negative feedback tend to be those with the best effectiveness rates. Think about it—it makes sense that if clients are comfortable enough with you to express that something isn’t right, then you are doing something very right in creating the conditions for therapeutic change.

Step Five: Checking for change in subsequent sessions

With the feedback culture set, the business of practice-based evidence can begin, with the client’s view of progress and fit really influencing what happens. Each subsequent meeting compares the current ORS with the previous one and looks for any changes. The ORS can be made available in the waiting room or via electronic software (ASIST) and web systems (MyOutcomes.com). Many clients will complete the ORS (some will even plot their scores on provided graphs) and greet the therapist already discussing the implications. Using a scale that is simple to score and interpret increases client engagement in the evaluation of the services. Anything that increases participation is likely to have a beneficial impact on outcome.

The therapist discusses if there is an improvement (an increase in score), a slide (a decrease in score), or no change at all. The scores are used to engage the client in a discussion about progress, and more importantly, what should be done differently if there isn’t any.

“Your marks on the personal well-being and overall lines really moved—about 4 cm to the right each! Your total increased by 8 points to 29 points. That’s quite a jump! What happened? How did you pull that off? Where do you think we should go from here?”

If no change has occurred, the scores invite an even more important conversation.

“Okay, so things haven’t changed since the last time we talked. How do you make sense of that? Should we be doing something different here, or should we continue on course steady as we go? If we are going to stay on the same track, how long should we go before getting worried? When will we know when to say ‘when?’ “

The idea is to involve the client in monitoring progress and the decision about what to do next. The discussion prompted by the ORS is repeated in all meetings, but later ones gain increasing significance and warrant additional action. We call these later interactions either checkpoint conversations or last-chance discussions. In a typical outpatient setting, checkpoint conversations are conducted usually at the third meeting and last-chance discussions are initiated in the sixth session. This is simply saying that based on over 300,000 administrations of the measures, by the third encounter most clients who do receive benefit from services usually show some benefit on the ORS; and if change is not noted by meeting three, then the client is at a risk for a negative outcome. Ditto for session six except that everything just mentioned has an exclamation mark. Different settings could have different checkpoints and last-chance numbers. Determining these highlighted points of conversation requires only that you collect the data. The calculations are simple and directions can be found in our book, The Heroic Client. Establishing these two points helps evaluate whether a client needs a referral or other change based on a typical successful client in your specific setting. The same thing can be accomplished more precisely by available software or web-based systems that calculate the expected trajectory or pattern of change based on our data base of ORS administrations. These programs compare a graph of the client’s session-by-session ORS results to the expected amount of change for clients in the data base with the same intake score, serving as a catalyst for conversation about the next step in therapy.

If change has not occurred by the checkpoint conversation, the therapist responds by going through the SRS item by item. Alliance problems are a significant contributor to a lack of progress. Sometimes it is useful to say something like, “It doesn’t seem like we are getting anywhere. Let me go over the items on this SRS to make sure you are getting exactly what you are looking for from me and our time together.” Going through the SRS and eliciting client responses in detail can help the practitioner and client get a better sense of what may not be working. Sarah, the woman who aspired to be a Miami Heat cheerleader, exemplifies this process.

Next, a lack of progress at this stage may indicate that the therapist needs to try something different. This can take as many forms as there are clients: inviting others from the client’s support system, using a team or another professional, a different approach; referring to another therapist, religious advisor, or self-help group—whatever seems to be of value to the client. Any ideas that surface are then implemented, and progress is monitored via the ORS. Matt and the idea of encouraging his anger illustrate this kind of discussion.

The Importance of Referrals – Psychotherapy

If the therapist and client have implemented different possibilities and the client is still without benefit, it is time for the last-chance discussion. As the name implies, there is some urgency for something different because most clients who benefit have already achieved change by this point, and the client is at significant risk for a negative conclusion. A metaphor we like is that of the therapist and client driving into a vast desert and running on empty, when a sign appears on the road that says ‘last chance for gas.’ The metaphor depicts the necessity of stopping and discussing the implications of continuing without the client reaching a desired change.

This is the time for a frank discussion about referral and other available resources. If the therapist has created a feedback culture from the beginning, then this conversation will not be a surprise to the client. There is rarely justification for continuing work with clients who have not achieved change in a period typical for the majority of clients seen by a particular practitioner or setting.

Why? Because research shows no correlation between a therapy with a poor outcome and the likelihood of success in the next encounter. Although we’ve found that talking about a lack of progress turns most cases around, we are not always able to find a helpful alternative.

Where in the past we might have felt like failures when we weren’t being effective with a client, we now view such times as opportunities to stop being an impediment to the client and their change process.Where in the past we might have felt like failures when we weren’t being effective with a client, we now view such times as opportunities to stop being an impediment to the client and their change process. Now our work is successful when the client achieves change and when, in the absence of change, we get out of their way. We reiterate our commitment to help them achieve the outcome they desire, whether by us or by someone else. When we discuss the lack of progress with clients, we stress that failure says nothing about them personally or their potential for change. Some clients terminate and others ask for a referral to another therapist or treatment setting. If the client chooses, we will meet with her or him in a supportive fashion until other arrangements are made. Rarely do we continue with clients whose ORS scores show little or no improvement by the sixth or seventh visit.

Ending with clients who are not making progress does not mean that all therapy should be brief. On the contrary, our research and the findings of virtually every study of change in therapy over the last 40 years provide substantial evidence that more therapy is better than less therapy for those clients who make progress early in treatmentfindings of virtually every study of change in therapy over the last 40 years provide substantial evidence that more therapy is better than less therapy for those clients who make progress early in treatment and are interested in continuing. When little or no improvement is forth coming, however, this same data indicates that therapy should, indeed, be as brief as possible. Over time, we have learned that explaining our way of working and our beliefs about therapy outcomes to clients avoids problems if therapy is unsuccessful and needs to be terminated.

Barry Duncan writes: But it can be hard to believe that stopping a great relationship is the right thing to do.

Alina sought services because she was devastated and felt like everything important to her had been savagely ripped apart—because it had. She worked her whole life for but one goal, to earn a scholarship to a prestigious Ivy-league university. She was captain of the volleyball team, commanded the first position on the debating team, and was valedictorian of her class. Alina was the pride of her Guatemalan community—proof positive of the possibilities her parents always envisioned in the land of opportunity. Alina was awarded a full ride in minority studies at Yale University. But this Hollywood caliber story hit a glitch. Attending her first semester away from home and the insulated environment in which she excelled, Alina began hearing voices.

She told a therapist at the university counseling center and before she knew it she was whisked away to a psychiatric unit and given antipsychotic medications. Despondent about the implications of this turn of events, Alina threw herself down a stairwell, prompting her parents to bring her home. Alina returned home in utter confusion, still hearing voices, and with a belief that she was an unequivocal failure to herself, her family, and everyone else in her tightly knit community whose aspirations rode on her shoulders.

Serendipity landed Alina in my office. I was the twentieth therapist the family called and the first who agreed to see Alina without medication. Alina’s parents were committed to honor her preference to not take medication. We were made for each other and hit it off famously. I loved this kid. I admired her intelligence and spunk in standing up to psychiatric discourse and the broken record of medication. I couldn’t wait to be useful to Alina and get her back on track. When I administered the ORS, Alina scored a 4, the lowest score I’d ever had.

We discussed her total demoralization and how her episodes of hearing voices and confusion led to the events that took everything she had always dreamed of from her—the life she had worked so hard to prepare for. I did what I usually did that is helpful—I listened, I commiserated, I validated, and I worked hard to recruit Alina’s resilience to begin anew. But nothing happened.

By session three, Alina remained unchanged in the face of my best efforts. Therapy was going nowhere and I knew it because the ORS makes it hard to ignore—that score of 4 was a rude reminder of just how badly things were going.

At the checkpoint session, I went over the SRS with her, and unlike many clients, Alina was specific about what was missing and revealed that she wanted me to be more active, so I was. She wanted ideas about what to do about the voices, so I provided them—thought stopping, guided imagery, content analysis. But, no change ensued and she was increasingly at risk for a negative outcome. Alina told me she had read about hypnosis on the internet and thought that might help. Since I had been around in the ’80s and couldn’t escape that time without hypnosis training, I approached Alina from a couple of different hypnotic angles—offering both embedded suggestions as well as stories intended to build her immunity to the voices. She responded with deep trances and gave high ratings on the SRS. But the ORS remained a paltry 4.

At the last-chance conversation, I brought up the topic of referral but we settled instead on a consult from a team (led by Jacqueline Sparks). Alina, again, responded well, and seemed more engaged than I had noticed with me—she rated the session the highest possible on the SRS. The team addressed topics I hadn’t, including differentiation from her family, as well as gender and ethnic issues. Alina and I pursued the ideas from the team for a couple more sessions. But her ORS score was still a 4.

Now what? We were in session nine, well beyond how clients typically change in my practice. After collecting data for several years, I know that 75 percent of clients who benefit from their work with me show it by the third session; a full 98 per cent of my clients who benefit do it by the sixth session. So is it right that I continue with Alina? Is it even ethical?

Despite our mutual admiration society, it wasn’t right to continue. A good relationship in the absence of benefit is a good definition of dependence. So I shared my concern that her dream would be in jeopardy if she continued seeing me. I emphasized that the lack of change had nothing to do with either of us, that we had both tried our best, and for whatever reason, it just wasn’t the right mix for change. We discussed the possibility that Alina see someone else. If you watch the video, you would be struck, as many are, by the decided lack of fun Alina and I have during this discussion.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, including Alina’s assertion that she wanted to keep seeing me, we started to talk about who she might see. She mentioned she liked someone from the team, and began seeing our colleague Jacqueline Sparks.

By session four, Alina had an ORS score of 19 and enrolled to take a class at a local university. Moreover, she continued those changes and re-enrolled at Yale the following year with her scholarship intact! When I wrote a required recommendation letter for the Dean, I administered the ORS to Alina and she scored a 29. By my getting out of her way and allowing her and myself to ‘fail successfully,’ Alina was given another opportunity to get her life back on track—and she did. Alina and Jacqueline, for reasons that escape us even after pouring over the video, just had the right chemistry for change.

This was a watershed client for me. Although I believed in practice-based evidence, especially how it puts clients center stage and pushes me to do something different when clients don’t benefit, I always struggled with those clients who did not benefit, but who wanted to continue with me nevertheless. This was more difficult when I really liked the client and had become personally invested in them benefiting. Alina awakened me to the pitfalls of such situations and showed a true value-added dimension to monitoring outcome—namely the ability to fail successfully with our clients. Alina was the kind of client I would have seen forever. I cared deeply about her and believed that surely I could figure out something eventually.

But such is the thinking that makes ‘chronic’ clients—an inattention to the iatrogenic effects of the continuation of therapy in the absence of benefit. Therapists, no matter how competent or trained or experienced, cannot be effective with everyone, and other relational fits may work out better for the client. Although some clients want to continue in the absence of change, far more do not want to continue when given a graceful way to exit. The ORS allows us to ask ourselves the hard questions when clients are not, by their own ratings, seeing benefit from services. The benefits of increased effectiveness of my work, and feeling better about the clients that I am not helping, have allowed me to leave any squeamishness about forms far behind.

Practice-based evidence will not help you with the clients you are already effective with; rather, it will help you with those who are not benefiting by enabling an open discussion of other options and, in the absence of change, the ability to honorably end and move the client on to a more productive relationship. The basic principle behind this way of working is that our day-to-day clinical actions are guided by reliable, valid feedback about the factors that account for how people change in therapy. These factors are the client’s engagement and view of the therapeutic relationship, and—the gold standard—the client’s report of whether change occurs. Monitoring the outcome and the fit of our services helps us know that when we are good, we are very good, and when we are bad, we can be even better.

References:

Psychotherapy Net

Psychotherapy in Australia.

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Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE.

What Is Your Purpose in Life?

What Is Your Purpose in Life?

Have You Found Your Purpose in Life?

There is no doubt that having a purpose gives us the motivation to get out of bed and get on with life. That purpose may mean you need to earn money, you have a specific task you want to do or you are simply bored with lying around. Whatever the reason the strength of that purpose will determine your willingness to get up. Have You Found Your Purpose in Life?

Many people ask what is their purpose in life. Indeed if we knew the answer to that question we would definitely be a lot more motivated to get up each morning. However not many people know their life’s purpose but there are ways to find it out. Paula Maritnez recently wrote an article on EWAO that may help you determine if you are on the right track to finding out your purpose or even better it may help you find out if you are doing what destiny has set out for you within your earth incarnation blueprint.

10 Signs You’ve Found Your Calling

How can you tell if you’ve found your calling? Many have asked themselves this question a lot. Life has its ups and downs and usually within certain experiences, one is able to decipher their true calling. Despite one’s questions, here are 10 sings that can help one determine if they have found their calling.

1. You’ll realize you’ve been training for your calling since the moment you were born.

Indeed, even the biggest disappointments, the mistakes, the second thoughts, and the screw ups, they were all preparing for your calling. You’ll soon begin to understand that the so many bad events are lessons learned to be who you’re called to be. Usually at the end of any obstacle comes great recompense whether it be physically or just mentally.

2. Mystical things will start happening.

Another sign that lets you know you have found your calling is if you notice mystical things but let them pass as coincidences. Its not the fact that they’re excessively perfect or too precise in time that will make you just note it as a coincidence. These coincidences will eventually fill you will wonder due to their constant appearances. This too exemplifies positive confirmation that youre being guided and that you’re not alone.

3. When you get off course, you’ll get redirected.

Pathways you have desired to stroll through will literally not be an option anymore. In the event that you accidentally take the wrong path, you will be certainly redirected. Not by coincidence but by fate. Many hints will come your way to let you know that you have been directing yourself the wrong way. Just as you are, you will be magically directed in the correct path.

4. You’ll be guided by ease, even in the face of obstacles.

When you end up attempting to get through an obstruction, it can be difficult to decipher. Is your dedication simply being tried, or have you literally gone the wrong way? Tribulations can allow you to grow in your development process. The development of your true self and the vital piece you need in order to pursue your hero’s trip. Obstacles like any case can be signs that you have taken a wrong turn and usually the guidepost you can trust is somewhat of an intuitive feeling that can help you feel at ease. Once you you’re back on track, then this will continue to flow once more.

5. Magical mentors will appear just in the nick of time.

Exactly when you need it most, the right individuals will appear, with simply the tools you’ll need to support you and your trip in a practically magical way.

6. Your health is likely to improve.

One of the most interesting reactions in finding out your calling is that your health is likely to improve. You may begin to notice that you no longer crave those greasy and crunchy snacks. Your energy levels will begin to rise giving you sufficient courage to finally get up and get some exercise. Those pains that tormented you for so long will soon vanish and you will deliberately feel less drained throughout your day. Even better, those chronic illnesses that you may have been competing for some time now, might begin to improve. Awesome right?

Lets take Andy Mackie, for instance. At 59 years of age, Andy Mackie had experienced nine heart surgeries and was taking fifteen medications to keep himself alive, yet the medicines left him feeling loathsome, so one day, he insisted his specialists that he needed to stop the medications. They let him know that if he did, he would pass away in a year, so, Andy chose that if he was going to pass away, he needed to accomplish something he wanted to do for a long time. Mackie took the cash he would have spent on his drugs and utilized it to purchase 300 harmonicas, and he gave them away to kids, complete with harmonica lessons. The next month, he was still alive, so he purchased another 300 harmonicas. Thirteen years and 20,000 harmonicas later, Andy Mackie passed away.

7. You may find that money flows in just as you’re ready to throw in the towel.

In the event that you’re on the right way, money may show up mysteriously without no trace of where it came from. Once this occurs occasionally without you blaming it as a coincidence then you’re truly right in the perfect momentum in order to focus on your life’s motivation to find yourself.

8. You may feel strangely peaceful, even when you have every reason to be anxious.

Even at the most ridiculous times for you to feel scared, anxious, and confused you will begin to feel strangely peaceful. The funny thing is that what used to make you anxious and scared before won’t really affect you much when you have found your true calling. You will be so comforted by the way that you’re on the way to your purpose that you might feel abnormally serene until your normal personality kicks in. Even though stress happens and anxiety takes place often in our daily lives, you will notice a feeling of peace which will be a huge help. It will help you to comprehend what you’re called to do.

9. The Universe will roll out the red carpet.

At the point when what you’re being called to do is what is required for the great of all creatures, the Universe will twist around in reverse to give you whatever you require on a silver platter. No solicitation is too little. A marketing specialist might volunteer to help you on exactly with something you need help with. Somebody will give you a printer when it’s time to print a flyer. You’ll feel so supported, so fortunate, that you’ll know you’re on track, regardless of the fact that you’re not exactly clear what you’re on track to do.

10. Your people will find you.

Only few can satisfy a calling alone. The greater part of us need a group of people to help lift us up as we do courageous, frightening, world-evolving things. In any case, don’t stress. When you’re truly intentionally trying to find yourself, your people will help find you, if only you’re sufficiently courageous to be vulnerable about what you’re being called to do.

Sources: wakeup-world.com

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Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE.

Halo Effect and Social Psychology

Halo Effect and Social Psychology

What is Halo Effect and Social Psychology

The Halo effect & social psychology within psychological processes is an interesting phenomena. It is based on the fact that the global evaluation about a person is interlinked with judgment about specific traits that the person displays. We all succumb to the halo effect in that we often see a person who is very friendly and pleasant to look at so we will judge them as being trustworthy and kind.

Below is an article about the Halo Effect which was written by Dr Jeremy Dean for PsyBlog. PsyBlog was created by Dr Jeremy Dean to help bring psychological issues to the general public. The articles are written simply and clearly for the understanding of al. The original article was called ‘Antibiotic-associated encephalopathy’ but thanks to the website PsyBlog the original article has been written in more easy to understand language. Halo Effect & Social Psychology

The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery

The idea that global evaluations about a person bleed over into judgements about their specific traits.

The ‘halo effect’ is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent). Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary.

In the same way politicians use the ‘halo effect’ to their advantage by trying to appear warm and friendly, while saying little of any substance. People tend to believe their policies are good, because the person appears good. It’s that simple.

But you would think we could pick up these sorts of mistaken judgements by simply introspecting and, in a manner of speaking, retrace our thought processes back to the original mistake. In the 1970s, well-known social psychologist Richard Nisbett set out to demonstrate how little access we actually have to our thought processes in general and to the halo effect in particular.

Likeability of lecturers

Nisbett and Wilson wanted to examine the way student participants made judgement about a lecturer (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Students were told the research was investigating teacher evaluations. Specifically, they were told, the experimenters were interested in whether judgement varied depending on the amount of exposure students had to a particular lecturer. This was a total lie.

In fact the students had been divided into two groups who were going to watch two different videos of the same lecturer, who happened to have a strong Belgian accent (this is relevant!). One group watched the lecturer answer a series of questions in an extremely warm and friendly manner. The second group saw exactly the same person answer exactly the questions in a cold and distant manner. Experimenters made sure it was obvious which of the lecturers alter-egos was more likeable. In one he appeared to like teaching and students and in the other he came across as a much more authoritarian figure who didn’t like teach at all.

After each group of students watched the videos they were asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and even his accent (mannerisms were kept the same across both videos). Consistent with the halo effect, students who saw the ‘warm’ incarnation of the lecturer rated him more attractive, his mannerisms more likeable and even is accent as more appealing. This was unsurprising as it backed up previous work on the halo effect.

Unconscious judgements

The surprise is that students had no clue whatsoever why they gave one lecturer higher ratings, even after they were given every chance. After the study it was suggested to them that how much they liked the lecturer might have affected their evaluations. Despite this, most said that how much they liked the lecturer from what he said had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

For those who had seen the badass lecturer the results were even worse – students got it the wrong way around. Some thought their ratings of his individual characteristics had actually affected their global evaluation of his likeability.

Even after this, the experimenters were not satisfied. They interviewed students again to ask them whether it was possible their global evaluation of the lecturer had affected their ratings of the lecturer’s attributes. Still, the students told them it hadn’t. They were convinced they had made their judgement about the lecturer’s physical appearance, mannerisms and accent without considering how likeable he was.

Common uses of the halo effect

The halo effect in itself is fascinating and now well-known in the business world. According to ‘Reputation Marketing‘ by John Marconi, books that have ‘Harvard Classics’ written on the front can demand twice the price of the exact same book without the Harvard endorsement. The same is true in the fashion industry. The addition of a well-known fashion designer’s name to a simple pair of jeans can inflate their price tremendously.

But what this experiment demonstrates is that although we can understand the halo effect intellectually, we often have no idea when it is actually happening. This is what makes it such a useful effect for marketers and politicians. We quite naturally make the kinds of adjustments demonstrated in this experiment without even realising it. And then, even when it’s pointed out to us, we may well still deny it.

So, the next time you vote for a politician, consider buying a pair of designer jeans or decide whether you like someone, ask yourself whether the halo effect is operating. Are you really evaluating the traits of the person or product you thought you were? Alternatively is some global aspect bleeding over into your specific judgement? This simple check could save you voting for the wrong person, wasting your money or rejecting someone who would be a loyal friend.

Or perhaps, even if you do check, you’ll still never know…Gulp.

Article Source: PsyBlog

Curated by Liz McCaughey©Copyright 2018 aMindset.HK

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How To Do Psychotherapy Through Meditation

How To Do Psychotherapy Through Meditation

Psychotherapy Through Meditation

Sigmund Freud, in the early 1900’s founded what was known as psychoanalysis and today its water-downed version is called psychotherapy. Freud believed that a person could develop the ability to choose his or her behaviour patterns rather than be governed by an unconscious, rigid defence process that stops a person thinking clearly. With the help of psychotherapy through meditation this unconscious suppression, with its chaotic mechanisms, would give way to rational and more conscious behavioural patterns.

As well as using psychotherapy a person can also learn how to focus the mind through Meditation. Being able to still the mind through meditation is another way of accessing these uncompromising unconscious defence mechanism which often makes people live their life as if they are on ‘auto-pilot’. A life that is lived on ‘auto-pilot’ tends to be careless, unthinking, reactive and oscillates between one perceived crisis and another.  If a person has no control over their Thoughts, whether conscious and unconscious, then they have no control over their life. A life that is out of control can be emotionally draining and frightening.

The first step in correcting this emotional unbalance to take back control of the mind and to gain access to the hidden unconscious thoughts. This is done using psychotherapy and can also be helped by learning to meditate.  The combined practice of psychotherapy and meditation is a very potent mix. However, if at first  a person is reluctant to enagge in psychotherapy then they can at least start with meditation.

It is not hard to meditate, and a great way to start is to set aside a few minutes each day to focus on one thing and gradually with consistent practise anyone can take back control of their thoughts and have peace of mind.

“All that we are is a result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon.

All that we are is a result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him”.

Dhammapada – Text from the Theravada canon

Being able to to consciously control the mind causes a shift in thoughts and helps to change the unconscious thinking. As a person becomes more aware of every thought they start to recognise what thoughts are positive and feel good and what ones are negative and feel bad.  They switch off the auto-pilot and start to recognise the negative habitual behaviour patterns and the thoughts that are no longer welcome.

This brings about a deepening awareness of thoughts and behaviours. Whether it is Psychotherapy through meditation, psychotherapy or a combination of both this deepening awareness enables a person to choose how they want to behave. as a result, they stop following the rigid defended way they have lived in the past with all its judgment and negative habits. Instead, they change their life for the better as the unconscious thoughts adjust to how they are living and thinking and their life truly changes for the better on the inside as well as on the outside.

Thinking is an Addiction

Thinking is an Addiction

Why Thinking is an Addiction?

Thinking is an Addiction and during Psychotherapy not thinking gives away the best clues to what is wrong. If you have ever tried to give up an addiction it would not have taken you long to appreciate that addictions are hard to overcome.  In this short video Eckhart Tolle discusses the phenomena of excessive thinking and he says quite clearly that thinking is an addiction.  A thinking addiction is a lot harder to break than smoking or drinking according to Tolle.  One of the reasons he believes this is so; thinking is part of our pseudo self. As a result many of us do not want to let go of our thoughts. During a Psychotherapy Session it is often when the client goes blank and stops thinking that the truth emerges through their unconscious or unthinking actions and words.  Thinking is an Addiction-Psychotherapy

Being in the present moment is one way to prevent the thinking addiction and Tolle discusses other ways you can stop those excessive thoughts. A short but very informative video presentation by Eckhart Tolle.

How to break the habit of excessive thinking?

How To Stop Time From Disappearing

How To Stop Time From Disappearing

How to Stop Time from Disappearing

How to stop time from disappearing is a very common most people wonder about. It is not just older people that say time is going past too fast and wonder how to stop it.  Everyone seems to think that “There is not enough time’ and most people feel the pressure at work, home or at play. Time seems to be disappearing! As time is an ever present factor in each of our lives the fact we believe it is disappearing, without our noticing it, can be quite alarming. How to Stop

How can we change this way of living so that we can be in harmony with this elusive element called time. Is there a way we can live that will help us develop a more positive attitude to time thus alleviating ourselves of stress and anxiety.  The anxiety can be as mundane as not completing a menial task or the thought that we are going to die and there is not enough time to do everything that we want to do.

Why Do We Worry about How To Stop Time From Disappearing?

The first thing is to understand that yes – you – are eventually going to die. No-one can escape the death phenomena, so accept you are going to die and appreciate that life is temporary. Don’t ponder on this in fear just accept it as a fact. And if you want to achieve your full potential prior to making that journey to heaven or hell – get off your back-side and get on with doing the things you want to do. Use time disappearing and knowing you are going to die in a positive, motivational way.

When you are lazing around knowing you are meant to be doing something else – maybe remind yourself that the Grim Reaper may be just around the corner. If you want to get that book written or a job done – do it now.  Use this attitude about dying to help you use time wisely.  Use it to motivate you to use your time to achieve what you want to achieve.

However be careful you don’t create too much pressure – always be realistic with the goals you set and the time you can spend on them.  Use your internal clock to ascertain how you want to spend your time.  Use your inner feelings to determine what is good for you and a productive way for you to use your time.  Don’t look at the clock on the wall – that is just an external distraction.  Look inside and use your time with ease.

How to stop time from disappearing? You may not make time go any slower but at least you will be aware of what you are doing with your time.  And in that awareness you will be living consciously and in control of the clock. Time will cease to disappear it will just go by.

Tick tock.

The Malady of Active Laziness

The Malady of Active Laziness

The Malady of Active Laziness

There is a wonderful term that Sogyal Rinpoche uses in his book: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. The term is ‘Active Laziness’ and the malady of active laziness is something which we all suffer. The story to illustrate this in the book is about a very poor man who manages to accumulate a sack of grain and he had had to work very hard to achieve this:

“He was proud of himself, and when he got home he strung the bag up with a rope from one of the rafters of his house to keep it safe from rats and thieves. He left it hanging there, and settled down underneath it for the night as an added precaution. Lying there his mind began to wander “If I can sell of this grain off in small quantities, that will make the biggest profit. ………..  I’ll become rich …….Plenty of girls will be after me…….we’ll have a child …what on earth are we going to call him?  Looking round the room, his gaze fell upon the little window, through which he could see the moon rising.

What a sign….I’ll call him ‘As Famous as the Moon.’ Now while he had been carried away in his speculation, a rat had found its way up the rope……”

Extract from:  The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

In the story the rat gnawed through the rope which resulted in the bag of grain falling on the man killing him. As his mind distracted him with all sorts of thoughts about this and that he was not paying attention to the present which resulted with him not noticing the rat nor the bag falling onto him. And as a result of this he died with none of his distracting thoughts coming to fruition.

The story illustrates a form of active laziness that we all suffer from.  We fill our minds with so many thoughts about improving our levels of comfort or wealth that we actually forget to be present and live in the moment.  We talk about all the important responsibilities we have without actually taking responsibly for one of them or taking action in the present to make them happen.  In the western world we cram our lives with constant activity to achieve wealth and comfort that we forget to look at the wealth and comfort of our soul. Our mind distracts us to the level that we lose sight of the real meaning of life.

We are constantly active amounting more material possessions not realising that when we die not one material item will follow us into the after-life.  We are lazy about improving our spiritual attributes as they don’t seem so important in this material world.  But when we die, all that will follow us to the after-life and the next reincarnation are the spiritual attributes. The activity we do in the material plane of existence with our thoughts and ambitions for more wealth and bodily comfort is a waste of time when we die.  The improvement of our inner-life that we are so lazy about is the most important part of each incarnation. It is our spiritual growth that will matter when we leave the earth and rest before the next life-time.

Our time on earth during this life-time is but a tiny dot on the landscape of the time that we will spend in the after-life and subsequent reincarnations.  Maybe it is time to stop the Active Laziness and instead focus on what is important.  The physical body or new home is not as important as the spiritual soul and the development of compassion towards others rather than just ‘Me, me, me’.

Replace the Active Laziness with Active Living and wake up to what is important in life.

Books written by Sogyal Rinpoche can be bought using the link below:

The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying            Living Well Dying Well

                                       

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE