![]() I know. Getting started is the hardest part of therapy. You’ve been struggling, it seems like, forever. You keep bumping into the same obstacles day in and day out. Each day feels like a struggle just to finish, and even then, you toss and turn trying to get to sleep. Will this downward cycle ever end? Yes. With your dedication, hard work, and the right fit for a therapist, you can turn your downward cycle into an upward one. Also, while it feels like you are nuts, you are not. You are not even alone. In the United States, 20% of the adult population is walking around with diagnosable behavioral health issues. With the advent of the pandemic several years ago, that number went to 30%. For children and teens, that total exceeds 40%. What to do? What to do? Not surprisingly, the internet is a great place to start. You have options. A blessing from the pandemic has been health professionals opening up to work with patient by telephone, on-line, and by zoom, in addition to coming to their office. And yet, research shows that 75% of the healing process comes from the doctor/patient relationship. Only 25% comes from any particular treatment strategies or interventions your therapist might bring to the table. Of course you can google behavioral health practitioners located in your area. Size up their pitch and pick one. However, that does sound a bit radical. More folks open up, begrudgingly, to a friend, family, or confidante. Some don’t open up at all, but rather, are gently (or not so gently) confronted by a loved one to “get help or else!” When starting therapy, remember. You’ve hired a health professional to care for you. If you are feeling unhelped, not getting what you want, you can fire your therapist. Goodness of fit, a sense of feeling heard, working with someone the “gets me,” are essential for healing. In my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, my goals are to help you get a good start, understand the context of effective therapy, and embrace the healing process. Toward those goals, I identify a new treatment strategy, mentalligent psychotherapy. My colleague, Dr. Kristen Lee, LICSW, coined the term, mentelligence™, to identify the mental and intelligence functions of the brain in creating lasting change and healing. Where intelligence is the hardware of the brain, mental is the software. Both interact consistently to generate neuroplasticity, which creates new neural pathways that secure behavioral change. I share with my readers the four stages of healing in therapy. First, all patients begin therapy with Unconscious Ignorance. That is, you don’t know that there is a problem, and you don’t know that you don’t know. In this case, ignorance is not bliss. It’s just how you are used to being. In the second stage of healing, you become aware of issues, either by epiphany or by someone busting your chops. With this awareness, you enter the stage of Conscious Ignorance. Here, you are informed, you want to change your thinking, feeling, and circumstances, but you don’t know how to do it. It is your therapist’s job in this stage to give you options, help you understand the impact of your words and actions on yourself and others, and equip you to make wanted changes and to heal. The bulk of your therapy involves a dance between the stage of conscious ignorance and the next stage, that of Conscious Awareness. Your therapist gives you tools for healing and you practice using them. Your appointments become your safe place to try out new words and actions, appreciating their positive impact on your mood and circumstances. You also risk sharing your new self with your significant others and friend group to experience benefits in your real world. It may feel awkward and foreign at first, but you begin to get the hang of it. Toward the end of your therapy, you will notice a significant uptick in your use of healing tools in your day-to-day lifestyle. This marks your transition from the stage of conscious awareness to the last stage of the healing process, that of Unconscious Awareness. Here, you appreciate that your hard work in therapy has transformed your life and your relationships. You embrace the new you. Your new neural pathways are secured and your old, unhelpful neural pathways have withered. As adversity happens, in any kind, you overcome it, find the blessing in it, and continue on your path to the good life, with good stress management and strong resilience. If I’ve piqued your interest and you want to find out more about mentalligent psychotherapy and the four stages of healing, go to amazonbooks.com. Put my name, Jonathan C. Robinson, Ph.D., or my book title, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, in the search box, and order your copy today. Blessings, Dr. Jon
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![]() I’m 15 years old, having competed for and made my high school baseball team as a 9th grader. I’ve had a good year playing center field and leading off in the batting order. We’re playing our arch rival and there’s no score, 2 out, in the last inning. The outfield is playing somewhat shallow, as I’m known as a singles hitter. I then hit the pitcher’s fastball straight over the middle. It goes over the centerfielder’s head and just keeps on rolling. We have no outfield fence on our high school field. I circle the bases to a wild celebration with my teammates as I touch home base and we win the game, 1-0. This is how I define my success. What??? Maggie and I have been married now for 54 years. I retired 8 years ago from a very accomplished career treating patients as a licensed clinical psychologist. In our retirement, I’ve authored 2 books, with the hope of their being helpful to others, passing on to others what wisdom I’ve gathered in life. We are travelling and enjoying our retirement. My now adult children have carved for themselves very positive, fulfilling lives. We now have 7 grandchildren, and another on the way. So how does a single moment of high school baseball hold the top spot in my experiencing success? My “moment” in high school baseball was both very special and unique for me. My only home run in 46 years of playing baseball. I was immediately acknowledged by my teammates, as we all celebrated our win. My other accomplishments in life all happened over time, all with greater impact on me and the world than my successful high school baseball game. But, in the end, I soaked it up as “my moment.” One of my heroes in general success stories is Thomas Edison. Of course, you know that it was he who invented the electric lightbulb. What you may not know is that he failed 999 times in his experiments to find a metal that would burn strong enough to emit light for long periods of time. In his 1000th experiment, Edison succeeded with tungsten, and our electric lightbulb was invented. A wise man once said that there is no such thing as failure. When someone fails, it is because what he tried didn’t work. Rather, failure is merely the arbitrary limitations of options. That is, as long as you keep going, expanding your options, you are never failing. Success happens with commitment to the task and practice, practice, practice. Success comes from endurance, resilience, and never-ending curiosity. Success involves creatively trying things in different ways until one way works for you. Success doesn’t always generate public acclaim, celebration, or fame. That may happen, but your quiet acknowledgement of a job well done matters more. Many parents fall into the trap of believing they have all the answers for their children. You don’t. In fact, believing so may define your failures more than your successes in parenting. “I hate algebra,” Toby slammed his textbook closed and threw his pencil across the room. “Who puts letters in math problems?” Toby’s dad heard his 15-year-old son grousing in his bedroom. He made his way to Toby’s bedroom door, knocked, and asked, “Are you okay, son?” “No. I’m not okay,” Toby spit out. “And I’m never gonna be okay again, as long as I have to do this stupid algebra.” At that point, Dad had some options. He could scold Toby for his attitude. He could make a joke about not getting algebra. He could simply do the algebra homework for Toby, so he would stop being so upset. All of these options, although well-intentioned, would actually make matters worse for Toby. Instead, Dad chose a path to success. He started by comforting his son. Maybe a side hug or pat on the shoulder. Putting the algebra aside for the moment, he active listened Toby’s feelings, soothing the emotional fever Toby generated by his frustration. Once his son had settled down, maybe taking a break to get a snack and drink, he asked Toby’s permission to help by saying, “You know, son, I have some ideas on how you could get this homework behind you. Do you want to hear them? This permission question keeps his son involved in the solution process. It helps him own his problem, thereby making him more open to possibilities. If there is a formula or algebraic principle that Toby is missing, Dad could reinforce that piece and then redirect Toby’s working out the problems. Toby’s success is not just getting the homework completed. It is moreso helping him change his attitude toward the task in the first place. With Dad’s help, Toby learns he can do hard things. Positive attitude and endurance help. He is not alone on task. He’s better on task than he thought he was. These are the lessons of successful parenting. Each of our successes are personal, regardless of broader impact. Define your success by expanding your options until one works to reach your goal. Parental success always starts with being there fully for your child. Blessings, Dr. Jon ![]() What happens in our families when trouble comes our way? How are we there for our kids? What role do rewards and consequences play in righting the ship? Your answers to these questions indicate whether you are succeeding or failing as a parent. Little 8-year-old Abby comes home from school, puts her backpack down on the floor inside the kitchen door, and then turns to go back outside to play with her awaiting friends. “Hi, Sweetheart. How was your d…wait, what?” puzzles her mom. She follows her daughter with her gaze, as Abby meets up with her friends. She goes to the door and calls after her. “Abby. Stop. What’s your hurry? Come here.” Abby sighs and frowns. “Moooom,” she draws out with frustration, “Can’t I just go and play?” “After we talk,” mom decides as she holds the door open for her daughter to come back inside. Abby then plops down on a chair at the kitchen table. “Jeeez!” She huffs, as she sees her mom reaching for her backpack. “So,” as she rummages through her daughter’s backpack, “anything in here that I need to know about?” Abby huffs loudly, “Okay, I failed a spelling test and my teacher wants you to sign that you saw it.” “Failed spelling? Well, that’s a big deal.” At this juncture, Abby’s mom steers a parenting path toward success or failure by her reaction. Parenting success comes if she starts with, “Gosh, honey. This isn’t like you. What else was going on here?” This is a subliminal compliment. Mom’s really saying that she knows her daughter usually gives her best effort and does well on tests at school. However, if mom chose to belittle, diminish, chastise, or go straight to punishment, she could be adding to Abby’s pain and embarrassment, blocking any future trust or emotional intimacy. Dad receives a phone call from the police department in their hometown. He accepts the collect call from the jail. “Hey, Dad. I’m in trouble.” This is every parent’s worst nightmare. What to do? Your choices impact your success or failure as a parent. You could moan and groan about where you and his mom went wrong, that your son turned out this way, and how could he do this to you? You could blame the group of kids he hangs with. You could blame each other, as to who coddled him and who was too strict on him. You could refuse to bail him out and just let him sit with the consequences of his actions. All of these options add to the emotional distance between you and your son, shut down communication, and set up a power differential, where winning the moment is more important than loving your child. Parents who succeed at parenting have a mindset of loving their children through any adversity that comes their way and never giving up on them. When trouble knocks at your family door, invite it in to talk about what happened, and in a nonjudgmental way. Get all the details. Use your active listening skills to hear how the trouble affects your child. Only when he’s talked out and all of his feelings are heard can you ask permission to share your thoughts and ideas. Parents who succeed at parenting embrace their child’s trouble as a “we problem.” Your child needs to know he is not alone, that you’ve got his back, that we’ll get through this together. With all of these things, transparency, accountability, boundaries, and consequences all apply. Being there for your child doesn’t mean he gets off scott-free. Ultimately, as a parent, you are successful when your child makes positive changes that keeps the trouble from happening again. This happens when you help him turn the trouble into a blessing in disguise. How we all handle trouble defines our character. Trouble will happen, coming both in small and big ways. It’s not what happens, but how we handle what happens that promotes healthy stress management and resilience. Here’s to your being a success in your parenting. Blessings, Dr. Jon |
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