It's almost impossible to feel comfortable talking openly to someone at an initial meeting, however my psychologist, who I will call Maureen showed a non possessive warmth throughout our session making it easy to open up. The fact that I WANT to change my cognitive behaviour is half the battle!
It has already helped me to identify things about myself, that perhaps I already knew but wasn't willing to admit. Let's face it, once you acknowledge your problem areas..you have to start the journey to change your life if that's what you want. Maybe to some that may seem an easy task but not to me.
I have recognised the following about my personality :
- I strive for achievement, perfection, nothing less.
- I have an aggressiveness, sometimes repressed.
- I am impatient.
- I feel under pressure most of the time.
- I'm unfulfilled in life.
- I'm restless most of the time.
- I lack self confidence.
- I require approval of others. ( something that I didn't believe. I didn't think that I needed others approval of my actions but I do!!)
- I abstract only the negative comments out of a conversation about me.
There are probably others that I will later think of but for now that seems to be enough to try and work through. Phew!!!!
During the course of meetings and with the homework I'm giving myself, I feel that I need to explore the following :
- My personal responsibility for my cognitive behaviour.
- Blame and self- blame.
- Attributions.
- Alternatives.
- Am I responsible for my behaviour?
- Am I in control or am I controlled?
- If I am controlled, by whom?
The biggest challenge I have to face is ' to change or not to change?' I identify that I need help to replace my 'tunnel thinking' with 'lateral, flexible thinking'.
Cognitive therapy was developed by Aaron Beck, who I really enjoyed researching and learning about during my studies. I believe in this theory. he put forward the view that behaviour is primarily determined by what the person thinks. It works really well in treating depression, where thoughts of low self-worth and low self-esteem are a common feature so I'm positive that it will help me. It is believed that Cognitive Therapy works on the statement that thoughts of low self-worth are incorrect and are due to faulty learning. Therefore the learned behaviour has to change!
Some of my thoughts often centre around...
- I haven't achieved anything good.
- I have nothing to offer.
- I'm such a failure.
- I deserve to be criticized.
- Why should I bother?
As a result I self destruct, which is certainly not the right answer. At least i already identify that.....
1 comment:
Hi - my name is Mary, and your blog popped up in a sarcoma google alert, so I thought I'd come say hi.
You sound a lot like me! I walked into a counselors office a few years back and told her I wanted to do cognitive behavioral therapy. I knew that I needed to work on my thoughts, but I also felt that they were so tied with my behaviors that I wanted to work on both.
That was before my sarcoma diagnosis. Counseling definitely helped me a lot. I guess today I still find that changing my behaviors tends to change my thoughts. Don't get me wrong. I deal with the negative thoughts you mentioned a lot..."I'm not achieving enough. I don't have anything to offer." Having these thoughts for most of my life makes it really hard, and sometimes they overtake me, or the worries do, and I go down in a blaze of defeatism for a while.
But for the most part, feeling a strong sense of responsibility for my feelings and my actions has helped me a ton. These days, if I am feeling worthless, I do something that I find to be worthy. Over time, those efforts add up, so that I can honestly say I have a lot to contribute and I have accomplished a lot. It's nice to be able to drown out worthless feelings with some objective reality. :)
There are some things that I have had no control over, and they are harder. Sarcoma is just one of the things that has changed the course of my life, and I miss what it would have been. So there is a sadness that I wrestle with, but I am trying not to allow it to keep me from enjoying life as it is.
Good luck with therapy! When I get to the point where I need therapy, I am usually willing to just lay it all out there and hope for the best. There isn't much to lose, you know? And there is so much to gain. :-)
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