When a new patient comes for their first appointment with me, they usually are at rock bottom. They’ve been dealing with trauma, feeling anxious and depressed daily, and gone over the edge of sanity with some kind of precipitating event. Got fired. Spouse asked for a divorce, Favorite parent died. Just had a car wreck. Just pulled over and charged with a DUI. Whatever the precipitant, they feel like their life is forever changed. A variety of bad things predominate their thoughts.
     “Okay, Joe. It sounds like your life has been a total mess for a while.” I then summarized his stuckness.
          “You got that right, Doc,” he breathed and then sighed, leaned forward, and put his head in his hands.
          “So, let me challenge you for a moment.”
          “Okaaay,” Joe agreed hesitantly.
          “With all that you’ve shared with me today, all the things that have gone wrong in your life recently, with all of that, can you give me just one, however large or small, one thing that has gone right for you recently?”
          “What? How’s that gonna help me?” People tole me you were the best, Doc. C’mon.” Joe stood up and looked like he was going to leave my office.
          “I know that what I’m asking from you is a challenge,” I gestured for him to calm down and breathe. “You’ve tried to get these bad things behind you, but you’re still stuck in their web. So, I’m challenging you to find a different tack, change your direction, see if that helps.”
          Joe sat down again, slumping back into his chair. He took a deep breath and then blew it out. “Okay. Let’s see,” he paused to rack his brain.
          “Anything big or small that lightened your burden if even for just a moment,” I prompted.
          “Well, my college-aged daughter called me out of the blue the other day. Said she didn’t need anything, didn’t ask for money. Said she just was thinking of me and wanted to ask how I was doing. That felt good.”
          “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that, in the midst of all you’ve had to go through, you’ve also raised a terrific kid? That’s not by-the-way. That’s huge. Good for you.” Joe smiled briefly and agreed with me.
          So, what you focus on grows. Focus on the bad and it grows. Focus on the good and it grows. The mindful perspective, positive psychology, and cognitive restructuring of mentalligent psychotherapy (MPT) waters the seeds of growing good things.
One perspective I share with patients is imagining your day has 100 parts, some good, some bad. The number stays constant at 100, but the parts increase or decrease according to what you pay attention to. If you have 80 bad parts, then you have 20 good parts. The difference in your perspective comes from what you focus on. Focus on the 20 good parts and they become 25. However, when you focus on the good parts, not only to they grow, but the bad parts diminish. If the good goes up to 25, then the bad goes down to 75, given that the total must equal 100 parts.
My new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life helps you focus on the good parts. Go to amazonbooks.com at https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ to buy your copy today. Begin you healing journey from stuck-ness to spiraling upward and soaring.
Blessings,
Dr. Jon

       Have you ever written notes to yourself? I do it all the time. Keeps me on my toes and takes things off my mind that I want to remember. Grocery lists are ongoing. As I think of something, I add it to the list on the refrigerator. Post-It reminders abound all over my house. Prompts me about what’s next on my list. If I have something I need to take with me the next day, I sometimes put it on the floor in front of my door. Yeah, I write notes to self.
          The kind of notes to self that will benefit you on your healing journey are called Therapeutic Journaling. When folks are struggling with anxiety, stress, or depression, I frequently suggest this strategy to patients.
          “So, Jan,” I began to sum up, and then suggest journaling. “Do you remember journaling as a young teen, when you were smitten by that cute guy who sat next to you in math class?”
          “Well, yeah,” she stuttered. “Who told you about that guy? How’d you know about him?”
          “Really, just a lucky guess. Lots of young teens write down events that are important to them.”
               “I was being foolish back then. Nothing came of it.”
              “But now, you’re struggling with stress and depression, and you’ve hired me to be your guide on your healing journey.”
              “Okaaay,” Jan left her uncertainty in the air.
             “So here’s a thought. We could modify your teenage silliness to help you on your journey back from stuck-ness to soaring. Let me tell you about therapeutic journaling.”
             Thereafter, I explained that this type of journaling was a note to self, written daily, mostly as part of your nighttime routine, that captures the day’s significant events and your feelings about them. To keep the task from being too burdensome, I encourage you to limit your journal entry to one single-space page. I also want you to rank your day on how much stress you have. Rank each day from 1 to 10, the higher the rank, the more stress. To help you get unstuck, try to be creative with the wide variety of feelings you might have on a given day. Use a bound notebook and bring it with you each time I see you.
          Therapeutic journaling has several positive functions. It promotes mindful thinking, staying in the moment of the day. It focuses on how well you handled the stress (or depression or anxiety), looking for the positive. Finally, it makes the healing process of therapy a daily activity. How well your patient buys into therapeutic journaling also speaks to their commitment to the healing process.
        More on therapeutic journaling in my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Buy your copy at amazonbooks.com. Go to https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ.
Blessings,
Dr. Jon

     Your mind is minding your own business all of the time. Like computers, there are plenty of moving parts. Mentalligence, a New Psychology of Thinking (Lee, 2017) provides the foundation for my strategic practice of mentalligent psychotherapy (MPT). Mental is the software of our brains. How we size up situations and respond. Intelligence is the hardware of our brains. The capacity we bring to the table that defines our ability to respond to our environment. Focus on the interaction of the two and we have “mentalligence.”
          The substance of our brains are neurological pathways. How we receive and respond to stimuli. Conventional wisdom back in the day told us that our brains mature to full function at around age 25. We grow and learn until then and that’s the hand we are dealt. Thankfully research over the past 20 years tells us that the brain’s capacity for neurogenesis extends throughout our lifetime.
          With counseling and psychotherapy, neurogenesis is the source of hope and change. You can identify hope and change on your healing journey by noticing how you are thinking. We’ve identified four stages of healing on the journey.
          We are living our lives, doing what we always do, and thinking little about the impact of our words and actions on others. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but this is just who I am. What you see is what you get. This first stage is one of Unconscious Ignorance. We don’t know that there’s a problem and we don’t know that we don’t know. During this stage, your neurological pathways are unchallenged and continue to fire from habit without question.
          The second stage of our healing journey begins with a precipitating event. Something happens that gets our attention and we know we need to do something about it, but don’t know what to do. This stage is defined as Conscious Ignorance. With this stage, you decide (or are forced) to begin psychotherapy. Too often your motivation is to get someone off your back. While it takes time and commitment for change to last, you are challenging your habitual neural pathways. You resist change, relapse to old habits, distance yourself from well-intentioned family and friends. Nonetheless, you become more aware of your conscious ignorance and choose to invoke new neuropathways.
                With time and practice, trying on new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, your brain begins to challenge your conscious ignorance. As new neuropathways emerge and grow stronger, the old, habitual neuropathways wither and die. As you continue your new journey, the stage of conscious ignorance transforms into one of Conscious Awareness.
                 You notice the differences between old and new habits and choose new habits. This is scary because your brain follows the old adage, “This is how we’ve always done things.” Yet, friends and family notice and reinforce your changes. You understand what used to be and fumble a bit with being awkward, because the new you is very different. Yet, as you persist, the new becomes more familiar. New neuropathways, formed from neurogenesis, become stronger and more reliable.
            Finally, as your new normal becomes habitual, your healing journey enters the final stage, that of Unconscious Awareness. Your new, healing neuropathways firm up. Your downward spiral of stuckness is becoming distant history. You continue upward spiraling and soaring, even when encountering adversity. With new neuropathways secured, your healing journey continues.
              For more, go to amazonbooks.com and buy my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life at https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ.
Blessings,
Dr. Jon

        All of us go through times that feel just awful to us. Why is this happening to me? How can I get through this? Is my life ever gonna get back on track? Variations of what I call the Eeyore Syndrome.
          Mentalligent psychotherapy (MPT) gives you, the therapist and the patient, tools with which to answer these questions. Being mindful helps you clear your mind and bring resources to bear on your hardship. Positive psychology helps you find the positive in the negative. Practicing gratitude even through hardship clarifies your perspective. Cognitive behavioral restructuring is the third tool in your MPT toolbox.
                   “Wow, Travis, that’s a lot to take in,” I responded after my patient took me on his journey of travail that led him to my office.
                  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he concurred. “I’ve been living this Hell for 17 years now. I’ve tried everything. Nothing works.”
                      “Everything, huh?”
                    “Yep. Nothing has worked to fix this mess. But I’m told that you’re the best at this therapy thing, so do your stuff.”
               “Okay. No pressure, huh?” I paused to gather my thoughts. “So, I have two questions for you. Are you ready?”
                  Travis sat back in his chair and folded his arms, not exactly a ready profile. “Give them to me, Doc.”
                    Question number one let’s take some time to sift through all the junk you’ve shared with me today and figure out those items over which you realistically have control. I’m not saying right now. Just think about it, and we can do this together over time. So, what part of this mess can you control?”
                   “Okay. And question number 2?”
                  “Given all that you’ve been through and the seeming stuck-ness you feel today, what can you learn from all of this about yourself and your interaction with others? And is it possible to view all this trauma and drama as a blessing in disguise?” 
                  “That’s three questions.”
                  “Okay, wise guy. You got me. Three questions.
              As Travis’ therapist, if I had started by denigrating his response pattern and calling him out on his self-pity, the first session would have been his last. Instead, I am artfully raising the same issues by asking these questions, setting the stage for Travis to learn from his errors and adjust his interactions. We learn far more from our failures than from our successes, turning a downward spiral into soaring.
             Follow Travis on his healing journey in my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Your copy is available on amazonbooks.com at https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ.
Blessings,
Dr. Jon

        Well, that’s an odd question for a therapist to ask. Most folks come to see us to unload all their “stuff.” What’s wrong with their life. How so-and-so screwed them over. How they can’t stop thinking about all the bad stuff. What a mess!
          When a patient comes into my office, I tell them I’m not their guy if all they want is to re-hash, blame, or plot their vengeance. However, if they want to work on stuff over which they have control, get off their downward spiral, and begin to soar, then I can be their guide on a healing journey. The mentalligent psychotherapist uses mindfulness, positive psychology, and cognitive behavioral strategies seamlessly woven together to gently nudge their patients away from loss and toward life.
          One of the recurring stops on your healing journey is to find ways to practice gratitude. There are four benefits to a daily practice of gratitude. First, being grateful gets you out of your head, expanding your thought process. Second, gratitude improves relationships around you, helping you move more quickly through difficult situations. Third, being grateful slows down life, giving you moments where you notice the joy, however it presents. Finally, gratitude helps you let go of attachments or goals and brings more openness to life. Daily gratitude practice helps you embrace the creative process of soaring, rather than being stuck in the downward spiral of outcomes.
          Heather had been under my clinical care for several weeks. She had made progress, picking up the MPT lingo, having moments of soaring. But today she looked glum. My goal was to help her avoid a setback.
             As she settled across from me in “her chair,” I challenged her, “Okay, Heather. What’s going on?”
               She sighed deeply before beginning. “Well, here it is Monday morning and I just had the weekend from Hell.”
          “Wow! That’s radical. You’ve usually been upbeat in our sessions. Unpack your weekend for me.”
              It was clear that Heather needed to unload, so I gave her the opportunity. “Well, to begin with, Garret is being is more than his usual jerk. He complained about my not keeping the house up, like that was solely my responsibility, didn’t offer to help, and just vegged out watching football the whole weekend. Eventually I gave it to him. After the shouting match, get this, he wanted make-up sex. I told him no and stormed off.”
             I coached her through deeper breathing exercises to help her release the anger and settle back down. Then I suggested that she find the gratitude in her weekend with Garret, even though he was being a jerk.
             “How about this,” I offered. “Give me three sentences that describe your gratitude for this weekend with Garret. Start each sentence with the phrase, At least…”
          “Okay…,” Heather began. “At least Garret didn’t hit me like he has in the past. At least we began talking it out. At least we’re still together, even though he can be clueless at times.” Heather calmed and chuckled after her add-on.
          We agreed to a couples therapy appointment the next time, to try and help Garret get onboard with Heather’s healing journey.
          To find out more about practicing gratitude on your healing journey through mentalligent psychotherapy (MPT), buy my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life at https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ on amazonbooks.com. or go to my author website at https://www.authorjonrobinson.com.
Blessings,
Jon