fear of failure | Boundaries of the Soul

Re-parenting your Inner Child

May 23, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

We have seen clearly in my previous set of posts how an inner critic is formed from the defense mechanisms used by the wounded, criticised child and how these can be taken forward into adulthood. Part of the process of dealing with the inner critic and the chaos it causes is to re-parent our inner child, showing it that it no-longer needs those mechanisms and the protection offered by its family of critics.

Try this: Before leaving home one morning, you took an extra effort in getting your living room cleaned, but when you return in the evening, you find it in a mess. What will your response be?
▶ Sigh and clean up again

▶ Shrug your shoulder and leave it as it is Get upset and cry

▶ Shut out the person responsible

▶ Get frustrated but keep quiet

▶ Get angry and yell at the person

▶ Take it in your stride, let it go and maybe clean up later.

Your response to the above situation is a reflection of your inner, self-set pattern of behavior. This behavioral pattern has been formed and reformed over the years, starting from your birth, through reinforcement and suppression, mostly by parents or other significant people, and has now become a part of your personality and self-beliefs. Sometimes, the personality type and self-beliefs of a person may hinder healthy development and lifestyle of the person. How a child is treated affects what he/she thinks and does as an adult. Faulty upbringing need not necessarily be a result of abuse, intentional neglect or wrongdoing of parents. It may be unknowingly done and might not seem of much importance. Yet, certain instances, maybe in the form of discipline, control or conduct of significant adults (especially parents), in a child’s life, greatly influence his/her personality, his/her view of the world and relationships with self and others, as an adult. However, this becomes a very prominent issue when a person has been a victim of child abuse in any form, or has been a part of a dysfunctional family. In most cases though, the way parents treat a child is largely dependent on how they were treated as children. Even in cases where the parenting techniques are wrong, the same parental pattern goes on for generations until someone realizes their mistake. But just knowing the problem is never enough. A solution and remedy has to be found and used. One way of doing this is by reparenting.

What is Reparenting?

Reparenting deals with three aspects of an individual. They are: Adult,Inner Child and Parent.The Adult is the individual, the Inner Child is the childhood stage at which the individual was wronged and the Parent is a therapist (or the individual) who gives the right response the child should have received. Thus, reparenting is nothing but going back to the stage in which the adult was wronged and satisfying or making peace with the inner child hidden inside by giving the response and fulfilling the needs that were required at that time by self counseling or therapy.

Reparenting the Inner Child

The feelings and beliefs that the inner child carries have two different causes. One is the inner critic attacks in the adult’s present life and the second is the things that happened in childhood, usually criticism from parents and care-givers. The pain that the critic causes in the present is bad enough but it also aggravates the inner child and makes that pain worse, ultimately strengthening the inner critic. To start the reparenting process, it is important to access and work with the inner child and treat it with empathy and compassion, feel its pain and witness the situations that caused it pain. Your inner child has been hidden for a long time, so you have to bear in mind that your inner child may not know how to express certain feelings. They may believe that they’re not allowed to express their feelings, or that their feelings are unimportant. They believe that they are unimportant and also believe the lies that they were told. All these things you have to keep in mind, and slowly encourage them to express the way they feel/think.

According to John Bradshaw, author of “Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child,” the process of healing your wounded inner child is one of grief. And it involves these seven steps (in Bradshaw’s words):

1. Trust

For your wounded inner child to come out of hiding, he must be able to trust that you will be there for him. Your inner child also needs a supportive, non-shaming ally to validate his abandonment, neglect, abuse, and enmeshment. Those are the first essential elements in original pain work.

2. Validation

If you’re still inclined to minimize and/or rationalize the ways in which you were shamed, ignored, or used to nurture your parents, you need now to accept the fact that these things truly wounded your soul. Your parents weren’t bad, they were just wounded kids themselves.

3. Shock

If this is all shocking to you, that’s great, because shock is the beginning of grief. After shock comes depression and then denial.

4. Anger.

It’s okay to be angry, even if what was done to you was unintentional. In fact, you HAVE to be angry if you want to heal your wounded inner child. I don’t mean you need to scream and holler (although you might). It’s just okay to be mad about a dirty deal. I know [my parents] did the best that two wounded adult children could do. But I’m also aware that I was deeply wounded spiritually and that it has had life-damaging consequences for me. What that means is that I hold us all responsible to stop what we’re doing to ourselves and to others. I will not tolerate the outright dysfunction and abuse that dominated my family system.

5. Sadness

After anger comes hurt and sadness. If we were victimized, we must grieve that betrayal. We must also grieve what might have been–our dreams and aspirations. We must grieve our unfulfilled developmental needs.

6. Remorse

When we grieve for someone who has died, remorse is sometimes more relevant; for instance, perhaps we wish we had spent more time with the deceased person. But in grieving childhood abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child see that there was nothing he could have done differently. His pain is about what happened to him; it is not about him.

7. Loneliness

The deepest core feelings of grief are toxic shame and loneliness. We were shamed by [our parents'] abandoning us. We feel we are bad, as if we’re contaminated. And that shame leads to loneliness. Since our inner child feels flawed and defective, he has to cover up his true self with his adapted false self. He then comes to identify himself by his false self. His true self remains alone and isolated. Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief process. “The only way out is through,” we say in therapy. It’s hard to stay at that level of shame and loneliness; but as we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the self that’s been in hiding. You see, because we hid it from others, we hid it from ourselves. In embracing our shame and loneliness, we begin to touch our truest self.

Dr. Nicholas Jenner is a Counseling psychologist in private practice working with individuals,couples, groups and companies globally. Online therapy is, in my experience, effective for treating a number of major conditions. Are you having issues that you need to talk through? I have a range of plans that can help you get the help you need. Online Therapy details : Here ……

Your True Self will help with the Inner Critic.

May 11, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

There are a range of books that tell us how to deal with our family of inner critics. Most centre on mantras and progressively aggressive language to deal with them. While this can be useful, we have to remember that by isolating the critic and pushing it away, we are maybe losing an ideal opportunity to work with it. Working on the theory that it is trying to protect the inner child that was wounded and criticised, we can safely say that it is trying to help, albeit in some dysfunctional way. Getting to know and connecting with a critic or critics is a much more effective way of dealing with them and eventually lessening the grip they have.

One of the key aspects in this process is the discovery of the Self. This is the pure part of us that shines through and guides us when we are not being tormented by the host of inner critics that exist within us. It can be said that we are either in Self (curious, open, compassionate) or in torment(taken over by pain and insecurity) at any given time. Finding the Self is the key to healing and seeing the world in a different light. When this can happen, the natural qualities that embody the Self will shine through. For example, the Self promotes connection, helping you to interact socially. You are drawn to meet other people, join groups and be part of the community. The Self also likes to connect with our inner critics, helping to engage with them and aid healing. The Self is interested and inquisitive. It helps you to take natural risks in life, to be interested in people without judging and promotes an understanding of new things. It is also interested in how your inner critics work and why they react the way they do. Finally, the Self is compassionate and helps you to be compassionate towards others and yourself.

To be help the Self shine through, we first have to understand that our inner critics are not aware that the Self exists and feel they need to control to keep us safe. They are fully ignorant of the fact that underneath it all is a part of us that is fully able to deal with life’s issues. They are still in young and scary mode where the inner child is being protected from hurt and rejection. This is the only way they know. They do not trust that the adult can handle situations that the wounded and criticised child couldn’t, so they step in when triggered and take over. They tell us to avoid conflict, not to take risks or act socially..all in the name of protecting the child within us. True healing takes place when we can appreciate and work with the inner critics, rather than pushing them aside to get to the inner child. These critics have been working tirelessly for years helping us to avoid our childhood pain and when we connect with them and appreciate what they tried to do, they can step back and trust us to take over. . To be able to connect with and understand our inner critics, we must be in Self mode and this is done through a process called unblending. When we can accept that the inner critics are protecting our inner child and an attack happens, we can do various things to sooth the inner child. We can comfort it directly with compassion, letting know that you understand the pain and hurt it feels. You can reassure it that the Self will be interacting with the critic and will help it to understand. You can also use imagery to conjure up pictures of comforting your inner child, standing between it and the critic or images of a protective parent soothing the child while your Self talks with the critic. Once your inner critic is isolated, you can speak directly to it, safe in the knowledge that the inner child is being protected. This is where the strength of Self comes in. Rather than scorning and getting angry with the critic, use compassion, curiosity and connection.

Firstly, openly thank them when they appear.

Thank you, I appreciate all you have done for me
I fully understand that you are trying to protect me
I understand the responsibility you carry.
I know you work hard for me
I understand how hard it is to let go

Ask questions (from the stance of curiosity)

I wonder what you are trying to achieve by protecting me this way? (likely answer is to avoid pain, facing change)
What would be the consequences of not calling me lazy, fat or stupid? ( the critic would have less power)
What happened that made it important for you to judge me? (the wounded child was hurt in the same way and it was triggered)

Be compassionate

I accept that you are trying to help but I would like to do this
I accept you fully and as part of me
Please trust me to lead

This process of having a direct relationship with your critics is in stark contrast to most other advice which banishes the critics with images of aggression and violence. By working with the critics, we can promote a healthy, trustful relationship with them that allows our inner child to be healed. This is not a process that happens overnight and can take some time. However, in therapy, a psychologist can promote this process and help the client come through. In my next post, we will be taking the process to the next stage..that is, the healing of the inner, wounded, criticised child.

The Inner Critic comes in all forms

May 7, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

“I am really driven, but my drive doesn’t affect the conversations I have in my head about life, and my worries and fears and insecurities.” Zach Braff .

Following on from my last post about the early influences we experience that can form the inner critic . The concept of an inner critic is well known but most people have to deal with more than one manifestation. There might be one that attacks you for doing too much of something and another who then berates you for being lazy. The advice would be to work with each separately. I will now look at the types of inner critic that can pop up.

We all know it, only too well. It’s that inner voice, that “inner critic,” that seems always present and always keenly prepared to defeat us. When we feel happy, the voice says: “Yeah, this can’t last.” When we’re about to attempt something, it whispers: “Watch out. You’re gonna fail.” And when we do succeed, the voice dismisses: “That was just luck. It won’t happen again.” However, less known is the fact that a number of inner critics can form and work together to keep us in a hole of negativity. Understanding which ones are present and how they combine and appear can help us to counter them and reduce their power. Following are descriptions of the most common ones I have experienced in my day-to-day work.

1. I am a Perfectionist…I need 120%.

I set very high standards for your behavior, your performance and your interaction with others. My demand is that you do these things and everything else perfectly. When you fail, I will attack you and let you know frequently how not good enough you are. Sometimes my demands will mean that you don’t start something or if you do, you won’t be able to finish it for fear of failure and sometimes even success. My message is….. Don’t do anything unless it is 120% perfect. Doing nothing prevents the feelings you will have about failing and keeps my hold over you strong.

2. Trust is good, Control is better…

I will make you feel bad when you want to do something impulsive or addictive. When you are down on yourself and you overeat, use drugs or get angry, I will remind you how disgusting you really are. You see, I am in a constant battle with the impulsive critic who tells you it is ok to do such things.

3. Work, Work, Work…

I will attempt to motivate you by pushing you harder. I will remind you of how lazy, stupid or useless you are . I like to keep you in that hamster wheel for fear of you falling into the clutches of your procrastination critic.

4. Risks are bad…

I know they say that part of life is the taking of risks, the unknown is exciting but not in my book. I will try desperately to undermine your confidence and self-esteem to stop you taking those risks. You see, I am protecting you from hurt and rejection. Who needs success when you can safely do nothing? You will never amount to anything anyway, so why try?

5. Seek and Destroy…..

I am the most dangerous and powerful of your critics. I am the one who attacks your fundamental self-worth, destroying green shoots of recovery before they grow and reminding you that you should not even exist. My sole task is to wipe out your positive energy, creativity and spontaneity.

6. You should feel Guilty….

My job is to remind you of those things you have done or didn’t do or kept secret. I will tell you how guilty you should feel for hurting that person, betraying that value or repeated behavior you should feel ashamed of. I will never forgive you for what I feel you have done and you have to pay. I am only trying to help you avoid the pain by constantly keeping it in the foreground.

7. The Shaper….

I try to get you to adapt to social and family norms by telling you how few friends you have, how socially inept you are and what an outsider you are. I don’t see change as at all positive.

In order to understand the complexity of the inner critic, we must realise that as children, growing up in dysfunction, we absorbed certain things about the world and used survival mechanisms to cope. Part of the mind’s role, the more primal part, is to protect us from danger. In a sense, it is hard-wired to keep us alive and help us survive. As a result, it “records” past incidents that could cause danger and refers to this when similar incidents occur, sometimes years later. It causes us to react to the perceived danger by withdrawing, stopping or pulling back from certain activities, ( of course, this can be useful when walking out in the street in busy traffic). However, it becomes a hinderance when it holds us back from “dangers” that we are meant to “outgrow”. Indeed, the painful experiences our minds record most vividly are from our earliest years: our infancy, our childhood, even our teens. During these early formative years, we were understandably overwhelmed by the world. In our infancy, we were completely dependent; and, as such, we justly interpreted the slightest physical or emotional discomfort as a very threat to our existence. As children, any sense of separation from our parents or other comforting things triggered a sense of panic or fear of abandonment. Any dysfunction around our basic structures such as abuse, divorce, financial ruin, etc had a devastating effect . ny sense of disapproval might be interpreted as complete rejection. Later, in our adolescence, disappointments that would now seem minor felt then like our world was collapsing. Certainly, we know now that we are no longer infants or children. But because these “traumas” occurred during our most basic developmental years – when our minds were literally “looking” for patterns and associations to make sense of ourselves and our world – these fear associations can become almost instinctual and unconscious … and often fixed in time. This is where the critic(s) step in. They are trying to protect that wounded “inner child”as though we were still children and in real danger. We can assume then that the critic is a voice from the past, a voice of a young child and a “wounded” voice. So, when we do – or even consider doing – something that triggers this old association with danger (or disappointment, rejection, loss, etc.), this wounded part awakens, panics, and starts to vocalize. It will “play back” the original trauma to prevent us from re-injury. Containing and limiting the “inner critic” means working in therapy with the adult and the “child”. This is often why being harsh with your inner critic is difficult. It is part of you. A part that needs nurturing and protecting (in the right way), and most of all allowed to develop. In my next post, I will be looking at ways of siding with and befriending the critic.

Origins of an Inner Critic: Early influence

April 29, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

Depression teaches us that we are not deserving of a normal, fruitful life. We go through long periods of believing that there is something inherently wrong with us. One of the major factors in this process is the formation of an inner critic which is a major underlying cause of depression and low self-esteem. In a new series of posts looking at the inner critic, I will be analysing how it is responsible for sending negative messages, causing feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, how it drives us on with perfectionist thoughts and how we can eventually turn our inner critic into our inner champion.The inner critic is often formed when childhood situations and interaction with caregivers lead to our inner child being wounded and replaced by the inner critic values. How does this happen?

Criticism from caregivers:

Criticism or judgement by parents or caregivers, especially when given in a harsh manner can turn an innocent child into one who believes that they are wrong, inadequate and worthless. If this is accompanied by physical or verbal abuse, then the Inner Child becomes traumatized. All parents set behavior standards for their children concerning such as performing a certain level, not showing emotion, behaving “properly” or in their interaction with others. If love and affection are only given when these standards are met, or even worse withdrawn when not, it has a devastating impact on the inner child. Parents often become frustrated when unrealistic tasks and expectations are not met, this is seen by the child as judgment. Criticism is often used as a motivation to do better as is comparison with more successful peers. Sometimes success is not recognised and mistakes emphasised as a “lesson” and praise is not given appropriately. These actions repeatedly used can wound the inner child and promote feelings of low self-esteem.

Internalization

We often find that our inner critic criticises us in the same a parent did . That is how we think that it is perhaps a mirror image of our critical caregiver. It is usually much more complicated than this. If it was that simple, we could just ignore the critic and get on with it. To make it more complicated, the critic often has its own motivation for judging you in the same way as a parent. Take for example, a mother who constantly is critical of a child for untidiness and this was internalized. The critic would also judge the subsequent adult when they are untidy but for a different reason. To understand this, we have to realise that an inner critic’s prime function is to protect us from harm, sometimes dysfunctionally. When the critic judges in the case above, it is modeling the parent but also trying to protect from the parent. This is dysfunctional in the sense that it is trying to protect from something that happened years ago but the fact that it is basically trying to help means that potentially, it can be worked with.

Ridicule

There are caregivers who find it appropriate to shame and ridicule their children for fun or as a punishment measure. This causes the child to carry this embarrassment into their adult life. As noted above, this would then result in the inner critic causing embarrassment to avoid situations where it could happen. This embarrassment can also be transferred via the parents if there was a sense of shame or difficulty concerning religion, financial status or race. The child tends to “feel” with the parents in this case. This can be consolidated by parental attempts to keep children “in a box” of social acceptance.

Discipline

Parents often punitively punish children when they feel they have done something that puts them in danger. Running away from the parents in a busy street, going to close to a fire are examples of this which need to be stopped and lessons learnt from. However, if parents overreact and engage in punitive discipline , they may have stopped the activity but the inner child can be harmed in the process. Additionally, when parents try to stop natural activities and impulses when children play with others in a demeaning and humiliating way, an inner critic could be formed full of guilt and low self-esteem.

Rejection

The slightest indication that a child is being rejected or parental affection is being withdrawn can form a critic that blames the child in an attempt to forge a connection with the parent. The critic reminds the child that is essential that parents are part of their life, that if they fight back, they will lose their parent and they will be abandoned. They subsequently go on to take the blame for the rejection. This often leads to the fact that a child takes the blame for everything such as illness in the parent or dispute in the family. Children then take on the massive responsibility of thinking that they have to change themselves to change the situation. As parents are models early in life, when children see that there are problems, they believe that they are not ok because they seem to be different to the parent or the parent is displeased on a regular basis.

All of the factors highlighted above can be found in adults to a lesser or greater degree depending on how wounded the inner child was. They can range from mild self-esteem issues to crippling feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, right through to intense mental pain. In my next post, I will be looking at types of inner critic and their motives.

Accepting Failure and Learning from it

April 14, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

Failure is something we all must come to terms with. Businesses and relationships fail to make it, targets are missed, and expectations dashed. However, failure and disappointment are part of the human experience and in order to achieve the goals in life we set ourselves, a healthy dose of failure is sure to be part of the process. But we don’t often allow ourselves the luxury of being able to fail in order to succeed. By thinking like this, we lose the chance to learn valuable lessons. There is a lot to be said for the thought that there are no failures in life, just successes and learning experiences. Sometimes we make mistakes and others let us down and it is important to realise that this is possible without damning ourselves. When we do, the danger is that we can revert to negative thinking patterns when we experience failure or disappointment, we attach those feelings to our general view of ourselves and we become cognitively and emotionally unhealthy. I have worked with many clients who feel that failure defines them but I always say that even if you have failed, you are not a failure as a person. However, it is easy to think this at times but understanding that failure is all part of the exciting world we live in can open up a new healthier way of looking at the world.

Accepting that Failure and Disappointment exist

We live in a world of perfectionist thinking. The world’s media bombard us with perfect images of people situations and life in general, giving the general impression that life is easy under most conditions. We are expected to be as perfect as possible in the workplace and juggle this with the perfect relationship. Even in the majority of schools, competitive sports have been pushed out of the curriculum to avoid children “failing”. In all of these scenarios, failure is seen as unacceptable, something to be avoided at all costs or only experienced by “weak” people. However, as we all know, life is difficult, and we will all need to deal with failure at one stage of our lives but there is a positive side to failure and it can hold the key to success. Failure, taken the right way can be an aid to personal development, growth and learning. In Eastern philosophies, good and bad, life and death, success and failure are given equal weight because they are part of the natural cycle of things. The problem is not the event but our reactions to them. This is in total contrast to our western view of things.

What happens when Failure happens?

Failure can trigger many different emotions and they range on a spectrum between healthy and unhealthy. The unhealthy emotions usually tend to be driven by beliefs that will make you feel stuck, hopeless and unable to move. The healthy emotions will make you feel pain and stress and cause you to reflect but will allow you to look at the failure objectively and move on and there is usually a process that needs to be worked through to get to this stage. Firstly, the unhealthy emotions can bring a numbness, denial and a feeling of disbelief, even sometimes feeling no emotion at all. All showing that failure was not factored in. Not showing any reaction to failure is also unhealthy and could show that something deeper is at work. This initial shock should last a few days at most and then the negative emotions can be felt. This is a vital experience and a natural one. It is normal to feel out of sorts and vulnerable during this stage and even at this stage, it is hard to distinguish healthy and unhealthy reactions so it important is allow feelings to come out and seek support from friends, loved ones or a professional. It is also normal to experience a limited period of irrationality as the failure is accepted and worked through. If any part of this process lingers, professional help should be sought.

Deeper feelings after Failure

1. Anxiety : Anxiety is an unhealthy response to threat or danger. After failure, there may be the fear of further failure and this can exaggerate emotions. The opposite of this is concern. Even though both are fear-based emotions, one is immobilizing and the other is realistic. Anxiety can be extremely negative for recovery and can cause feelings of hopelessness, lack of coping skills and feelings that running away is the best option. Anxiety can be tackled by facing the things that caused the anxiety in the first place and changing thinking patterns if needed.

2. Depression : Depression can occur when failure keeps us stuck in negativity and the future seems hopeless. We see the failure in the terms of loss and apply the feelings felt from the failure to ourselves and our abilities. It is easy during this phase to ruminate, dwell on past failures and an imagined future of hopelessness. Depression is the natural consequence of not dealing with anxiety and are often experienced together, maybe in the form of a vicious circle when a sufferer becomes anxious about being depressed. It is safe to say that sadness is a very appropriate feeling after failure and should not be assumed depressive. The difference is that sadness can still allow us to see the future as hopeful.

How to accept Failure

Accepting failure means accepting the very thing that makes us human: our own fallibility. No-one is perfect and despite what we sometimes think, perfection doesn’t exist. Striving for excellence and to be as good as we can exists but perfection means that nothing better is possible. Many who believe that they have reached the level when nothing can be better and on the same level as those who believe that nothing worse can happen. Life teaches us that something better or worse can always happen. Neither of these views are consistent with reality. The process of accepting failure can be looked at from three angles: Failure, failing and the individual’s role in the process. Failure is tangible. It is easy to find evidence to tell us that we have failed. We didn’t reach the target at work, the relationship ended, we still have that weight on. However, we are not so good at recognising when we are failing. We are taught to keep going, everything will be ok as long as we see it through. Only weak people give up. Persistence is a strength. We have heard it all and all heard it. However, being focussed on a goal should not mean that the option of stopping at some point and trying something else should be out of the question. That is where the individual’s role comes in. How far down this line people go is individual and the decision to quit often comes too late. If you feel that the process is failing, it is very important to ask yourself, perhaps with professional help, whether decisions have to be made.

How to deal with Failure

It is only when failure is accepted and attitudes towards it are changed, will it become a catalyst for success. When this happens, fear is reduced and creative ability comes through. Fear of failure can also be reduced by letting go of unhealthy demands concerning success or failure. In doing so, motivation can come for the right reasons, that is to want to do something rather than must do it. Letting go of the demand that you must succeed enables you to look at things in a more constructive, objective way. Look at these tips for overcoming failure and learning from the experience.

1. Be honest with yourself : This is essential if lessons are to be learnt. Blaming others, situations or conditions will not help and will reinforce dysfunctional thinking. Without accepting your role in the failure, no learning can be had.

2. Feel the emotion: It is important to realise that with any setback comes the accompanying emotions. Feeling these is human and natural and should be embraced. A period of time should be taken to feel these emotions but it is also important to keep them realistic and not catastrophise them. Once this process is over, you can move on to learning and planning.

3. Learn : Once you are in the position to do so, the setback can be reviewed and lessons constructively drawn from it. Working on the basis that no-one is perfect, it is important to continue assessing personal responsibility. What could I have done differently? Were my expectations unrealistic?

4, Plan: What do you do with the lessons learnt? What better than to develop a contingency plan to cope next time? Do you need additional skills, more help, a change in thinking? Also learn the signs that tell when action needs to be taken. Am I failing? Are we failing? What can we do? What do I need to make a decision?.

Depression did not define me and the same is true for you.

April 1, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

I once read a very interesting description of depression. It went something like: “I am depression. I am cold like the Arctic mist, I dampen your spirits and your soul. I fill your mind with gloom. When I appear, you are but a withered leaf under wet snow. But I can do much more. I can drive you away from your friends, your family and I can drive laughter into the darkness. I can steal your life and rob you of pleasure and ambition. I can overwhelm you with thoughts of hopelessness and make you helpless. Once you are in my web, I have you and will trap you with all my power”

Depression can affect anyone and it can hit at anytime and have many causes. Puberty can bring on depression as can social factors such as job loss, relationship breakdown and rapid change. There are many factors that correlate with depression:

Depression tends to run in families.
Depression is aggravated by a preoccupation with unrealistic expectations, worry, anxiety and feelings of failure.
Disposition towards perfectionism, lack of assertiveness and withdrawal.
Major life changes such as death of a loved one, moving or marriage or the birth of a child.
Chemical and hormonal imbalances
Traumatic experiences such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse and many more.

Depression has many faces and it is wrong to label a sufferer with a uniform tag. Though some symptoms are common in sufferers, behind the depressed mood is a complex, feeling, doing individual who will have some atypical symptoms from mild to severe. Even when this is highly disruptive and burdensome, it does not define who you are. Once you find out what kind of depression you are facing, you can be sure that depressive thinking, your emotional reaction and depressive behavior habits will usually cut across all categories. Working on the adage that once a problem is known, solutions can be found, these three pillars of depression can be addressed. However, anyone who has gone through the misery of depression will testify, knowing and solving are two very different things.

A Positive Change

Positive is a word that is difficult to comprehend when you are depressed. The world seems a dark, dangerous place and pessimism can cloud your judgment. You may lack the energy to do the very things that could bring about the changes needed to set you on the road to recovery. You may be putting off these changes because you may be afraid of what it could mean if they work. Your inner critic may well be advising you to do nothing..why bother? is the message. Around 25 years ago, I went through a period of moderately severe depression. It hit me like a fast train and I experienced a period of depressive thinking culminating in the inability to get out of bed for ten days. I could not sleep, eat, had difficulty concentrating and was immensely irritable and negative. Even psychologists are not exempt from the full force of depression. I knew deep down that it was important to deal with the issues and get my life back on track. I knew it was not going to be a quick fix but I was lucky enough to have the knowledge of the cognitive aspects of my depression, meaning the distinctive thought patterns that commonly associate themselves with depression. I realised these thoughts were a reflection and not a cause of my depression and I tried to adjust my thinking as they appeared. This was not an easy process and I was not always successful but making this special effort convinced me that I could shorten the length, if not the severity of my depression. Three thoughts helped me keep this process in focus :

1. Depression is time limited….just as you go in, you will come out.

2. Activity is a remedy, even when this activity is forced.

3. Depressive thoughts are a state of mind and not reality.

Additional to this, I found the following steps extremely useful in alleviating symptoms. I use some or all of these with clients today. They all apply in one degree or another to all forms of depression.

Avoid depressive-thinking and fight the inner critic : this was perhaps the most helpful for me, battling the self-talk and fighting against the inner critic. Avoiding those mental traps and combating them takes time and effort but is worth it in the long run.
Exercise and healthy eating: It is amazing how a walk in the fresh air lifts a mood and I did a lot of this while trying to stay mindful and in the present moment. Eating regularly is essential even if appetite is poor.
Adequate rest and sleep : I tried not to beat myself up over interrupted sleep but focussed on trying to get back to sleep using relaxation techniques.
Use spare time constructively : It is very easy to become a couch potato when you are depressed. Finding worthwhile activities during downtime is essential for restorative purposes.
Maintain social contact : extremely difficult to even think about, let alone do. However, I forced myself to do it and it usually went well. I found that if I made a concerted effort not to complain, it encouraged other people to be more open.
Conflict resolution : again difficult but essential otherwise things fester and get worse.
Priority setting: the temptation is to go at it when energy is there but for me, this meant the next low-energy period was around the corner. Setting priorities and dealing with essentials during these periods meant I didn’t overtax myself.
Plan small changes in routine: depression means routine is sometimes important but it can be boring. I decided to make one small change per day which brought on an action initiative. I decided to make that change at a set time of the day and force myself to do it. This meant procrastination was minimised. Even though these were normally low-impact activities, they had a huge effect on my morale.
Write about it: I wrote a journal and tried to look at each day realistically. This helped me to keep a log of my feelings and how I had survived the low times.
Keep going : I found that I had tremendous trust in some of these things and the effect they had on my depression. Just the creative force of finding new ways of alleviating symptoms help my mood.

I am not going to lie and tell you that this was an easy process. I had to push and force myself every day in order to achieve small steps. Some I found more difficult than others but I tried to have a greater goal in mind. My depression lasted about six months but was at its worse for three. These points saw me through.

Depressive Thinking Part 2 : Depression and Perfectionism

March 23, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

In the second of a series of posts about depressive thinking, I am looking today at the role of perfectionism and how perfectionist thinking can create a cycle that can lead to depression.

Perfectionism can mean many things to many people. It can be seen as striving for excellence. It can mean a controlling attitude but more often it means holding on to unattainable standards that demand unyielding compliance from self, others and situations. This is more than just having an eye for details or suffering disappointment due to not reaching a target, it is an attitude that promotes stress and psychological strain, ultimately, depression. When depression is involved, a cycle of negative emotions and states such as high expectations, fear and anxiety, fear of rejection and blame and procrastination come into play. This causes a barrage of self-talk ( I must, should) with blame ( I am awful, terrible) and promotes and maintains depressive thoughts.

Let’s look at how this works. perfectionists often dread the thought of failing to meet their lofty targets with a passion. This causes them to experience anxiety at the thought of performing poorly and having to deal with inevitable missing of goals. The paradox is that this thinking leads to a focus on perceived imperfections that apparently caused the failure. This results in negative self-talk, self-downing and a downward depressive spiral, affecting self-worth and self-esteem. Perfectionists often find it difficult to allow themselves breathing space in their pursuit of perfection and the fact that human fallibility is a normal part of life gets lost on them. The sad truth is that perfectionists judge their self-value on their own idea of success and failure. Some very successful people berate themselves constantly for not achieving more than they have. For many people, perfectionism is total. It is not enough to do as well as others, they have to stand out. It is not enough to perform typically, they MUST be the best. It is not enough to have a tidy home, it MUST be spotless. When perfection becomes a condition for personal worth, it inevitably leads to a slippery slope of predictable emotional consequences and responses.

Perfectionists are often identified by the language they use. Words like “should”, “must”, “have to” “require” “expect” are all part of a perfectionist’s vocabulary. These words can, of course be used without making demands but added them to lofty expectations, trouble is in store. They often provoke guilt and shame because unrealistic rigid demands were not met. In therapy, one of the approaches against this is to replace these demanding words with ones less threatening and emotional. “Expect” becomes “would prefer”, “must” becomes “aspire to”, “should” becomes “hope to” and so on. The use of softer language and taking a more realistic approach to life (and self) is key to lessening the demands of perfectionism.

Realism as a Counter to Perfectionism

As a CBT therapist, I deal in realism. What that means is that in therapy, my clients come to realize that life is not always easy with various ups and downs and things are not going to be great all the time. It is how we deal with the downs that determine how good the ups will be. This is an essential mindset to take if recovery from perfectionism is to take place. If we can be mostly satisfied with who we are, what we are doing and who with are with most of the time, then life is really not so bad. Contrast that with the unreal, perfectionist world where the prize of achievement is never reached.

When I take on a new client with signs of perfectionism, one of the first assignments they get is to fill in Daily Mood Sheets. This is a wonderful instrument that charts reaction to perfectionist thinking, looks at the automatic thoughts and behavior that follows and then gives the client a chance to look at the situation from a different angle. The biggest hurdle to these sheets is the ability to look at things realistically. Once this is learnt, ( and it can take some time) a mindset clicks in that is one of acceptance that things won’t and can’t always go our way. This is the idea behind realistic thinking, that we accept that life will not always be as we want it to be . However, only replacing vocabulary in your mind is not likely to do the trick. Part of this process means moving from being self-absorbant to self-observant, questioning the very things that are driving perfectionist values. If you think that you must have or do something, the question could be “why is this the case? Is there an alternative, can I accept less?”. Perfectionist thoughts can also be logged on a continuum. For example, If you didn’t reach a target, you can use terms such as ” I got 60% of what I aimed for”, much better than “I failed”.

Perfectionism is addressable by using and applying cognitive tools. Positive change can be had when thinking is changed and self worth is separated from the requirement to do things perfectly. If you constantly hear your inner critic berating you for not getting or doing that extra 20%, you have noticed your perfectionist beliefs. Discrediting and disputing these values and finding realistic evidence to prove them wrong is a key part of recovery. As humans, we are inherently imperfect. We have the ability to fail without ever being a failure. We sometimes just need to think it and believe it.

Getting Started with Online Therapy…Easy as 1,2,3

March 14, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

Getting the help you need is easier than you think. Starting online therapy means communication with your therapist….not a secretary…..not a form…..no sitting in a waiting room….no trips into town…. a simple process. Here is how it works:

Make that appointment: You may have been feeling that life is becoming more difficult. Work is getting on top of you or there are problems in the family. You may just have days where nothing seems to function or you may be worried or anxious about aspects of your life. Maybe even going through major life changes. You know you need to talk to someone but making that decision is difficult. However, it is an important first step……Can it be easier than this?

Simply contact me via email or phone and arrange a convenient time for a free, no obligation initial 60 minute session via video conference or phone.

During your first consultation, you will have the opportunity to present your issues in a comfortable, positive but realistic atmosphere. I realise how difficult it might have been for you to come this far.

Your first appointment with me is primarily an information-gathering session . I need to learn a lot about you and your history in a short amount of time in order to properly evaluate your concerns and arrive at a possible diagnosis. Since diagnosis often helps guide treatment, it’s an important part of the process. Your story is indeed your own and a very personal one at that. Despite what you may have read, a person is not simply a diagnosis. Nor do professionals look at people who come to them that way. They look at each and every person as a unique individual who is in pain and needs help. I will place a lot of emphasis on your current issues because they are usually the ones that can have an immediate effect but these usually hide deeper problems which I will also like to find out about. Many people will leave their first session alternately feeling: relieved, horrified, peaceful, even more anxious, and hopeful, or any combination of these feelings and more. However, most who continue find the process of therapy rewarding and enriching.

Where do you go from here? At the end of the initial consultation, we will discuss my diagnosis and your options. This diagnosis might be a tentative one if the issues presented are complicated or information is lacking.Once we’ve completed the free initial consultation, therapy focuses in on your goals and what brings you to counseling. The therapy hour is your space to safely explore themes, issues, and experiences that are important to you. My approach to therapy is collaborative, in that, I do not assume that I know what is best for you or how we should get there. I support you in moving in the direction you want to live. The first session gives me an idea of where we need to go and this continues to evolve as we work together.

I have a range of affordable monthly plans that cover all budgets. This can be done via video, phone or if preferred, via mail.

More details Here

Determining factors in Recovery from Rape and Sexual assault

February 28, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

(Rape Trigger warning)

I was rather disturbed to read a recent newspaper article stating that certain sections of the police force in the UK had been encouraging rape victims to drop cases in order to keep statistics on the good side. READ. This is horrifying and makes a mockery of the “serve and protect” stance taken by law enforcement.

Rape should never be encouraged and certainly not in these times where one cannot pick up a newspaper without reading about some vile act committed in one country or another. Anyone who has been raped,whether male or female will attest to the trauma experienced, the overpowering of will, the helplessness, the violation and the long, hard road to recovery. Some never recover (as I know from my clients) and spend their lives dealing with the ongoing effects of being attacked . So to have the very institution that is responsible for catching the offenders to allow them to walk free (and maybe do it again) is scandalous at best. I can only imagine how the victims are feeling…liked being raped again.

When rape occurs, recovery is difficult even if the victim is treated properly after the assault and how the victim is dealt with by police, hospitals, doctors and family and friends determine how long the recovery process is. Burgess and Holmstrem READ MORE studied 109 women who attended the Boston City Hospital in 1974 complaining of rape. They collected their data at the time of initial presentation at the hospital and again 3 months later. They documented the “rape trauma syndrome”. They found two phases of adjustment following rape or attempted rape. They call these the acute phase and the long-term reorganisation phase, both of which are stress reactions to a life threatening situation.

Immediately following the rape they found that an equal number of women had an “expressed” style where they showed feelings of fear by crying, smiling, sobbing or a “controlled” style where the woman was calm and subdued. The primary emotion expressed by victims is one of fear. Most all say that they felt they were going to be killed or badly injured. They reported that in the reorganisation phase women develop increased motor activity, changing their jobs, home or lifestyle as a defensive reaction to the assault. Nightmares relating to the life threatening nature of the assault and the powerlessness and alienation are common. The development of phobic reactions to situations reminiscent of the rape also occur. Some mistrust of men with subsequent avoidance and hesitation, along with a variety of sexual difficulties may develop. Victims are often concerned about the effects of the rape on their close interpersonal relationships wondering how this will affect them.

Interestingly in the same report, the authors looked at the factors that determine a victim’s ability to cope and readjust after the attack. I quote directly from the report :

The way the woman is treated as a victim may also influence her ability to cope.

This includes treatment by:

1) The police. Of necessity the police are required to question the victim thoroughly. If this is not explained to her she may perceive that she is not believed and this can reinforce feelings of guilt and self blame.

If she is unable to accurately describe her assailant or recall details of the attack, this may reinforce feelings of low self worth and inadequacy.

2) Hospital service. If the victim is treated in an impersonal manner then the feelings of depersonalization are reinforced. If hospital staff offer judgement comments on her behaviour then feelings of guilt can be produced.

3) The courts. The above comments apply here as well. The cross examination can seem like a repeat of the rape experience.

4) The circumstances of the assault can affect the victim’s coping capacity.

Whilst a victim’s response to rape may follow a predictable pattern, each individual’s circumstances provide differences that will affect their coping capacity and reaction. The fact that a victim’s psychological adjustment to rape, is in part determined by the social systems that impinge upon them, indicates a need for a widespread community response to ensure that those systems are both responsive to victim’s needs, and used to their maximum therapeutic capacity and this includes the above mentioned police force.

The Mental Torment of Sexually Abused Children

February 24, 2013 — Dr. Nicholas Jenner

TRIGGER WARNING : If you are uncomfortable reading about sexual abuse, please do not read further.

It is estimated that up to fifty percent of sexual abuse victims who receive medical treatment after episodes of abuse carry no physical scars at all. However, it is also estimated that all of them will carry the mental scars for most, if not all of their lives. This makes perfect sense. Abuse victims often report that the physical touch was not the worst part of the abuse but the burden of carrying the “secret” and knowledge of the abuse which stays with them at all times superseded this many times over. This burden also carries the responsibility of what to do with this information. Revealing it could mean being taken away from loved ones or the break-up of a family as well as legal consequences for the abuser. This can cause great hardship for a young mind.

The mental aspects of abuse are cleverly manipulated by the abuser. While the physical boundaries are being destroyed and violated, so is the mind. A child can be lead to believe that their body and mind are under the control of others. Abusers often try to convince a child that what they might believe is happening is really not or when it is mentioned, the child is blamed and the abuse often denied and ignored. Another method is to rename the abuse as a “special” game that only the child is allowed to play. Statistics tell us that most incidents of abuse take place at night, often leading the child to believe it was a dream and making recollection hazy. The sad fact is that many sexually abused children are denied the right to justice due to the mental manipulation of the abuser and carry these scars for a lifetime, trying to cope with life as best they can. However, mental health issues as a result of the abuse are often played out later in life as the subsequent adult tries to deal with the torment of the past. Let’s look at some of these :

Dissociation

Children who are abused tend to emotionally shut off while the abuse is taking place. However, they often take this defense mechanism into adulthood and dissociate when confronted with anything that reminds them of the abuse. Hence, they find it hard to enjoy close relationships and intimacy. This dissociation can range from the mild, referring to oneself in the third person, to extreme complete depersonalization. Due to the abuse, many victims have been taught (or indeed taught themselves) to ignore feelings and emotions, so they often see this behavior as “normal”. In some cases, when the abused has not been believed, the dissociation acts almost as a “friend” and in a way protecting and validating them as it did at the time of the abuse. Many hold onto this and are afraid to let it go, fearing life without it. Since there is a strong likelihood that the victim was in a dissociative state at the time of the abuse, they often find that large chunks of memory of the abuse and other times in their life are blurred, often returning briefly in dreams and flashbacks.

Multiple Personality Disorder

The most extreme example of dissociation is the formation of two or more distinct personalities that take over control of behavior. Research tells us that most sufferers of MPD had a history of sexual abuse in childhood. Multiple personality disorder typically develops at a young age because of some kind of very traumatic experience, usually long-lasting and severe abuse. The earliest age when MPD can develop has not been clearly established, but seems to coincide with early infancy. Abuse that leads to development of multiple personality can be emotional, physical, or sexual, or combinations thereof. In reality, all abuse is mental. The mind perceives and interprets the harmful acts as abusive. The after effects of childhood sexual abuse seem to be responsible for more than 90% of all MPD cases. By contrast, non-abusive traumatic events do not cause multiplicity. Multiple personality disorder only develops when a person is helpless and unable to escape suffering or the threat of suffering, especially when the abuse is repetitive or lasting weeks, months, and years. A significant factor leading to the development of multiple personality is the dependence of the victim on the abuser and establishment of a personal relationship . The abuser becomes an essential and psychologically inseparable part of existence, but also the torturer in the mental sense. The cognitive substrate of the brain is unable to reconcile these dramatically opposing experiences and is forced to split into pieces. The likely triggers (severe traumas) of permanent dissociation hint that the number of possible personalities could run in the dozens. In extreme cases, when the abuse is lifelong, several hundred personalities might be expected to exist.

Mentality

One of the most crippling aspects of sexual abuse is the development of an unhealthy outlook on life in the form of a set mentality. Unlike the diagnosable disorders above, mentalities are often more subtle but just as destructive in their own way. For example, many abused children take on a victim mentality as the child starts to organise the world around its own wound. The abused child sees the world as unsafe, unpredictable and dangerous. The child has learnt through the abuse that what they feel, want or think make no difference and they feel hopeless, ineffective and lack the ability to contradict this with evidence to the contrary. They are often tormented with the thoughts they they were somehow to blame for the abuse and they asked for it or deserved it. Life is consequently full of “shoulds”, leading the abused to the mistaken belief that they had a choice. The basic assumptions about life that most of us take for granted are challenged in a victim mentality, that is invulnerability, I can’t or won’t get hurt, I have worth and the world is understandable and has meaning. These thoughts often lead to problems in later life by seeing poor treatment by others as “normal”, an acceptance that abilities to change are limited and an exaggerated sense of self-blame. Most adults in these cases are passive people. However, paradoxically, some can become agressive…treating others poorly as defense against being hurt. Some become perfectionists, wrongly believing that one needs to be perfect to be accepted. Other attempt to keep control over others while fearing losing control themselves.

Once again, the attitude of the offender has a lot to do with the formation of a victim mentality in the abused. Many abusers show characteristic of “other”-blame as opposed to the self-blame shown by victims and they fit well together. Often an offender will blame the child for “seducing” them or blame circumstances for the abuse. An person with offender mentality will continue to abuse without being overwhelmed with guilt or remorse so there is no internal motivation to stop. They can always find a justification for it. They often paint themselves as “misunderstood” or “framed” by society and sometimes the victim. There is some feeling that people with the offender mentality are often substance abusers as well. In one recent study, up to 45 % of abusers who “blamed” the victim were either alcoholics or took drugs to some degree. This could suggest that substance abuse causes sexual abuse but more likely, the offenders were looking to find a reason to justify what had happened.

This is just a small portion of the disorders that can arise from abuse..there are many others. However, in therapy, the biggest gift a therapist can give an abuse victim is to believe their story and help them relive it in such a way that they can reconstruct their world and gain new insight. It helps to show abuse victims how to question long held beliefs about themselves and the world and their place in it. This is incredibly important as in some quarters, there is the belief that victims often lie about abuse. In my experience of treating victims (and being one myself), they rather tend to minimise it. It is also vital that the therapist feels the need to show emotion towards the act of abuse and the abuser. Many victims have been met with stonewall faces and attitudes all their lives and it can be refreshing to come across someone who feels outrage when talking about it.

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Boundaries of the Soul

Dr Nicholas Jenner

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Re-parenting your Inner Child

Your True Self will help with the Inner Critic.

The Inner Critic comes in all forms

Origins of an Inner Critic: Early influence

Accepting Failure and Learning from it

Depression did not define me and the same is true for you.

Depressive Thinking Part 2 : Depression and Perfectionism

Getting Started with Online Therapy…Easy as 1,2,3

Determining factors in Recovery from Rape and Sexual assault

The Mental Torment of Sexually Abused Children

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