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Section
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1 found at the bottom of this page Introduction The purpose of the course is to assist you in increasing your knowledge regarding how to treat patients, clients, etc., dealing with the "I'm Unlovable" Lifetrap. What I'll call lifetraps, I define as persistent negative patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that are often created during childhood. As each case study is given, if the concepts seem to be applicable to your situation, I encourage you to pause this track and make a few notes regarding the application of the principle to your setting. However, these notes are for your purposes only and are not to be sent to the Healthcare Training Institute. Regarding completion of the Answer Booklet: at the end of each CD track, a question is asked. This question corresponds with a question in your Answer Booklet. Merely write the correct letter on the blank line that precedes each question. Keep in mind there is nothing tricky or hard about these questions, they are merely intended to verify the playing of this CD. These questions are sequential and deal with the section of content that preceded it. For this reason, to facilitate answering of each question, you might read the question from the Answer Booklet prior to listening to that CD Track. By knowing what the question is ahead of time you'll then know the content to listen for that contains the answer. So just a hint, after you answer a question, read on to the next question in order to give youself a "heads up" to listen for the content that contains the answer. For the purpose of brevity most generally I'll use the term "therapist" or "mental health professional." However, don't let these terms deter you from applying the concepts to your situations. When you hear the word "therapists," if your job title is social worker, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, professional counselor, resident director, program assistant, etc., merely substitute the appropriate term that is the most meaningful to you. In short don't let my use of the term "therapist" cognitively set you off-track from hearing the content because your job title is school counselor, for example. I'll also use the term "client" for the purposes of brevity. However, if you deal with patients, residents, students, consumers, etc., transpose "client" to the term that is the most meaningful to you in your work setting. So let's get started... This CD's exploration of "I'm Unlovable: Changing Client's Lifetraps" includes such topics as: Internal vs. External Controls, Four Step Depersonalization, Deliberately Opposing and RET, Three-Tiered Affirmations, Power-Imbalance Questions, Closure Metaphors, Four R's of Regaining Self-Esteem, and Emotional Roller-coasters As stated earlier, Lifetraps are negative patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving which are often formed in childhood and adolescence. These negative thought patterns are often self-defeating and result in the client thinking, feeling and saying to themselves and perhaps to others, "I'm unlovable." Thus, these patterns make it difficult for clients to accomplish their life goals, meet their needs, and grow. On the remainder of this track we will discuss how to increase your client awareness of what I'll call, the Cost-Benefits of their Lifetraps. Think for a moment: Do your clients who state, "I'm unlovable..." or "I am a failure?"”...in their mind are they conducting a cost benefits analysis? Have you found, like I have, that clients who create these Lifetraps or negative patterns spend a lot of time assessing and evaluating themselves? In your clients assessing and evaluating are they actually conducting, a "Cost-Benefit Analysis?" By a Cost-Benefit Analysis, I mean measuring what they gain against what it costs your client to keep living the same way. Let me repeat that...By a Cost-Benefit Analysis, I mean your client is measuring what is gained against what it costs to keep living in the same limited "I'm Unlovable" way. Do you agree that the reason a client comes into therapy is the costs increase to the point where the cost outweighs the benefits? I've found that clients have developed many different ways of dealing with their "I'm Unlovable" Lifetraps. I've found there are basically three ways clients cope. These often cause clients to create situations in which costs outweigh benefits, and thus, the "I'm Unlovable" Lifetrap is created. Here they are. See what you think....three ways costs outweigh benefits are: #1. The Cost of Giving-In, #2. The Cost of Avoiding, and #3. The Cost of Deliberately Opposing. #1.
The Cost of Giving-In Karl,
a 29 year old mortgage broker, found himself always "Giving-In" to co-workers.
Karl stated, In Karl's situation, I felt that it was important for him to recognize the difference between emotions that were internal as opposed to emotions that were external. As you know, internally controlled emotions are described as originating from and centered on the thinker. Externally controlled emotions are described as originating outside of the thinker. Externally controlled emotions remove the thinker from being in control of the emotions. Karl stated, "Norton my co-worker, uses me." As you can see this is an externally controlled state. I told Karl he couldn't change the way Norton, his co-worker, treated him, but he could change the way he acted and felt about the way Norton treated him. I asked Karl if he could think of a way to express the same thought, but would allow him to be the subject of the sentence. Karl stated, "I allow Norton to upset me." This is an internally controlled emotional state, thus giving Karl a sense of control over the situation. A reproducible client worksheet entitled "Emotional States and the Dimensions of Internal and External Control" can be found in the manual that accompanies this course. In this chart clients are encouraged to identify external causes of emotional states in one column and internal causes of emotional states in another. In summary, only when Karl felt the cost of Giving-In exceeded the benefit of getting along did he feel motivated to examine the difference between internal feelings and external referencing. Do you have a client who feels they're unlovable and gives in? In your next session with "your Karl," would increasing his or her awareness of the difference between saying, "They made me feel" and "I feel," be beneficial? On the next track, Zachary and the cost of Avoiding will be discussed. QUESTION
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