Therapy grounded in real inner work and genuine human connection.
There are a ton of resources going around and it is wonderful how many people want to offer support during this “Safer at Home” time as we do our part to flatten the curve. AND, all the resources are overwhelming. I don’t know about you, …
There is a lot going on right now as everyone is adjusting to this evolving situation with the Coronavirus.
It’s a good idea to maintain sessions with your therapist as much as possible as I’ve been seeing a trend where the impact of what is happening showing up in indirect ways. The emotional stress can show up as anxiety, fears, preoccupations and hopelessness about seemingly unrelated situations in people’s lives.
Your therapist may be still offering in person sessions or may have moved things online completely as they adjust to the guidelines mandated and what they feel is in the highest good for all involved.
First, I know it might be a little more difficult with everyone home, but it is a good idea to make sure you have a private space for your session. If that means going out to your car and you can get your wifi signal there, do that. Not the most comfortable, but definitely a private and contained space.
Second, make sure you are not doing anything else but being in session. Close the other browsers on your computer. If you are on your phone, it’s important not to be cooking, cleaning, driving or doing other projects unless it is part of your therapy session.
Finally, if this is your first online session, let your therapist know so your therapist can spend a couple minutes in the beginning of the session going over some basics like the following:
•What is the contingency plan if the connection is dropped or gets glitchy?
•If you are conducting the session via phone or have to switch to phone, who is calling whom back?
•What would you like to do if a child or someone else comes into the room? Do you want to take a minute to attend to the other person’s request? Your therapist will most likely stay silent until you have privacy again for confidentiality reasons.
You also want to make sure you test the platform you and your therapist are using if it is new to you. Your therapist would be happy to do a short test with you to make sure it is working before your appointment.
At One Heart Counseling Center, we are all Registered or Board Certified Art Therapists and art therapy can still happen in online sessions. It just takes a little more planning. There are all kinds of digital art therapy and, if you have access to materials, your therapist can facilitate art therapy while you use the materials in your own space.
It does take some getting used to. The cadence of the conversation is a little slower because you want to allow time to make sure everyone hears everything. As you get used to it, that will normalize. I have done therapy online for years and sometimes people end up preferring it!
If you are not a current client at One Heart, but are thinking this might be a good time to be proactive, we are running a Quarantine Special, which a 3 pack of online sessions at a discounted rate. See details here. And contact us. We can work with any client living in the state of California, however, not outside of California.
There are a few basic emotional intelligence concepts coming up that can be helpful as we navigate this territory of the Coronavirus. Let’s lay the groundwork with those. Then, we can talk about 5 helpful thoughts that we can incorporate to how we are thinking …
Aside from “how long does therapy take?”, which was discussed last week, another common question is “how often should I be seeing my therapist?” Again, it depends. So let’s talk about that. What follows applies to those who are coming in for individual, family, couples, …
So I wanted to take a minute to answer them in case you have that question too.
Like most things, the answer is “it depends”. But, I can tell you what factors come into play so you can get an idea for yourself and your own situation.
If you are coming to therapy because you are being proactive, you are probably not as concerned with this question.
One of the reasons you might start therapy proactively is to establish a working relationship with a therapist so you can get some support in looking at and improving some important aspects of your life. The other goal here is to have that relationship established and ready for when challenges do arise. You know this could be a long term relationship and it is an investment.
You might or might not go to therapy as frequently (I’ll talk about that next week), but it is an ongoing process to support your emotional and mental well being.
This is the same for children or adolescents. Sometimes parents will initiate therapy just to start a therapeutic relationship and get in some basic learning around emotional fluency and coping skills for their child or teen. Then their child or teen has a relationship with a therapist so they can access that relationship when developmental challenges come up around friend issues, academic stress, transition to adolescence or launching into adult life.
If you are starting therapy because there is a challenge coming up that you know really needs attention, I would expect at least six months.
The first part of therapy (4-6 weeks of weekly sessions), you are building trust with your therapist and your therapist is getting as full a picture as possible of what is going on. This cannot be skipped. Your therapist needs to know as much as possible to know how to best help you. AND you need to know that you trust your therapist. You are paying for their skill set that will support you in getting where you want to go. If you don’t have that trust, you will not be utilizing all they have to offer you.
From there, you are working on de-programming old beliefs, healing, developing insight into yourself, learning communication and coping skills and developing new habits and ways of dealing with things in your life that will support your growth so you can get through the challenge and be a better, healthier person.
I’ve seen people make it through challenges in as little as six months. Here’s the thing: these are people that are ready to take action on recommendations, who take notes either during session or right after to make sure they get as much as they can out of the time, who are willing to be open to reflections and humble to hard questions. They do the work in and outside of session. It’s the willingness that makes their sessions super effective (read more about that here).
Sometimes, when people make it through a challenge, they like to stay in therapy because they see how much they are able to get out of that support. The frequency of sessions might change over time depending on what is going on. Sometimes people will stop sessions due to the main goal for therapy being met and then they will just come back the next time something comes up. But the effort they put in not only helps them grow through their challenge, it builds their confidence in knowing that they can take on challenges successfully.
The same goes for older school age kids and adolescent clients: being open to and wanting to go to therapy makes a big difference in the process. See these posts here and here about kids and teens who are resistant to therapy.
If you are dealing with a crisis, meaning you are concerned about your own safety and daily functioning or your child’s, there are two distinct parts of your treatment. The first is stabilizing, the second is addressing the underlying dynamics and issues that brought things to a head.
People cannot sustain a crisis level situation for very long, but the work to address what created the crisis can take some time to unravel. There is a lot of variability in situations like this. Especially given that people can go in and out of a crisis state until they stabilize. The best thing to do is buckle up and be receptive to your therapist’s and your team’s (you might have a psychiatrist or multiple therapists working with different members of your family or school therapists working together) recommendations. That will be your fastest way through.
How much stress you have going on in your life does factor in to how long it will take to reach your goals in therapy.
If you have a number of stressors that take away from you being able to dedicate attention to your work in therapy, it might mean that you will need a little bit more time in therapy. That is not a bad thing.
If you have a high level of stress, therapy will address that so you can work to bring things to a more manageable level. This is a good thing for your overall health and well being.
If it is your child or teen who is in therapy, you want to take life circumstances into consideration: do they have a school transition (going to middle school or high school) or family transition (divorce, remarriage, move) going on? Is there a person in the family who is ill? Are there some difficult sibling dynamics? These things may add to the time it takes to make progress toward goals.
Do people in your life support you going to therapy? Are there people in your life you can share with about your experiences in therapy who can reinforce the work you are doing?
This can just be someone who asks “what did your therapist say about that” to help you bring back the perspective and guidance you received. Or this person might just be a great listener and someone who is safe to talk to in between sessions while you are working through your stuff. That kind of support helps your progress in therapy.
If your child is in therapy, if you are participating in sessions and help implement the skills your child is learning in daily life, that makes a HUGE difference.
Even if you are not a parent, this is helpful information because it helps you reflect on your experiences growing up, how it impacts your current lived experience and how you engage in your current relationships. Dan Seigel and Tine Payne Bryson’s new book The …
Not everyone is convinced that feelings are important. I get that. If you are one of those people who is not totally convinced that feelings are that big a deal, this is for you. I explain it this way often to my clients… How hard …
Julie Simon, MFT is an Los Angeles based therapist who works with people and their relationship with food. She has written When Food is Comfort and The Emotional Eaters Repair Manual. She also runs Overeating Recovery groups and has a 12 week program that can be done in person or remotely.
While you may not be anywhere near food addiction or struggling with overeating, this is interesting information.
I’m always looking out for ways to know what our internal signals mean and this falls right in line with kind of information.
Sometimes you might not realize you are feeling depleted in a certain kind of way, but you might notice a food craving you can’t resist. It’s just more concrete. And you might find yourself acting on it.
To find out more about how you naturally best recognize your internal signals, go here. There’s some great information in that post on how to manage stress according to your personal way of operating.
Eating to balance mood-related chemicals would definitely fall under the category of behavioral cues that indicate you are feeling stress or depletion.
Knowing this information means that it comes into your conscious awareness, where you have the power to work with it. When a behavior or craving is operating outside your conscious awareness, you have little ability to change or work with it. This is one of the reasons knowledge is power!
We all know there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to productivity. But do you act on the signals your body is giving you to take a break? It’s hard to do that, isn’t it? While we all might ignore hunger, thirst …