Change is Hard, But You Can Learn to Embrace it

Image by Chris Lawton

How are you with change? Do you love it, hate it, or somewhere in between? I must be honest – I’m not the biggest fan. My friends and family often tease me about my strong liking for things that are comfortable and familiar. Change can be unsettling for me – or rather, parts of me.

And I’m going through a somewhat turbulent period of change at the moment. Having decided to move out of my office and take my therapy practice online, I am having to negotiate a lot of logistical and other changes around that. We are also using the opportunity to do some much-needed work on our flat, so the builders arrived today – cue huge amounts of dust, noise and general chaos for a while!

As if to rub salt into the wound, my beloved gym did a big refurb last week – not very well, in my opinion – and has become a much less inviting space for me. So I’m looking to change gym too – which may not sound like much, but that place has been my haven for years. It’s a key resource for self-care and stress relief, so it’s a bit of a wrench to find somewhere else.

Although parts of me are excited about all of this, other parts are freaking out! And that’s how it is for most of us, no? I am always intrigued by the fact that lists of top-10 stressors feature a number of apparently positive events, like moving house, retiring or getting married. Although in many ways we enjoy change, finding it exciting, stimulating or rejuvenating, it can also be disorientating, uncomfortable and downright stressful.

The Buddha’s great insight

One of the Buddha’s profound insights was that humans naturally resist change. We don’t like it, fight against it and want things to stay the same. And we cling on to the idea that things can be permanent, unchanging and settled, especially if that helps us feel comfortable – like my gym. But the Buddha taught us that this idea of permanence is an illusion. In fact, everything is impermanent – constantly changing, evolving, breaking down and being reconfigured.

Take my body, for example. It’s made up of atoms, up to half of which were formed when giant stars reached the end of their lifetime and exploded in unimaginably vast supernovae, millions of light years from Earth. When I die, those atoms will become parts of other life forms, like a tree or snail shell. This is the way of life, constantly shifting, changing, evolving – because everything is impermanent, as the Buddha so brilliantly understood, over 2,000 years before modern science proved his theory to be true.

So I may not love change, or find it entirely comfortable, but I cannot resist it. That is futile – and a bit silly, really, because the Buddha also taught that this is how we create much of our suffering. We want things to be different, all the time. We’re all getting older, but want to stay young. We don’t like our job, but think we will be happy with that job, or this much money, or that pretty/handsome new partner.

Instead of this constant yearning for something else, the key to happiness lies in accepting that all we really have is this moment of existence. Everything else is like trying to grab smoke with our fingers, because the future is unknowable.

Learning to embrace change

So your challenge is to help the (young, anxious) parts of you that struggle with change. They need understanding and validation, as well as teaching that change can be tough, but it’s a core part of life. Change will happen whether we want it to or not, so we need to accept and embrace it, as much as possible. If you would like some concrete help with this, try this practice I developed for Insight Timer, Calming Your Parts: IFS Meditation.

It gives you a step-by-step guide to understanding and gently speaking to any parts of you that might be anxious, stressed or worried about change (or anything else you might be struggling with). I hope you find it helpful – and that you, like me, can learn to embrace change, bit by bit.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

How to Manage Your Emotions in the Heat

Image by Clark Douglas

As I write this, I am sitting in my office in north London, struggling with the heat. It’s like an oven in here! The temperature is due to hit 33C in London today, which is crazy. Saturday will be 36C. These temperatures are not normal for a Northern European country with a temperate, maritime climate. But with climate change starting to hit us hard, sadly this is the new normal, so we all need to find ways to adapt to it.

As well as all the sweaty discomfort – especially in a country that is not geared up for hot weather – I have noticed my emotions being all over the place on these hot days. As my poor, patient wife will attest, I am definitely more irritable. I normally have a very long fuse and almost never raise my voice in anger. Most people who meet me describe me as a very calm person. But I’m not calm when it’s 33C outside!

And in many ways, this is not my fault. The human body is designed to exist in a narrow range of temperature, known as homeostasis. I just Googled a definition, which is: ‘A self-regulating process by which biological systems maintain stability while adjusting to changing external conditions’.

Translated into English, this means that we, like other animals, struggle when temperatures go above or below a fairly narrow range. We sweat. We mop our brows. We crave ice cream. And as we struggle to regulate our bodily temperature, we also struggle to regulate our emotions.

Heat makes us angry

Ever wondered why riots always happen in summer? It’s because everybody’s too damn hot. It’s also why domestic violence, air/trolley/road rage all spike on hot days and why everyone seems so impatient and irritable in London right now. Heat makes us angry, it’s that simple.

If you are struggling with your temper at the moment, start by naming what you are feeling, with as much specificity as possible. So for low-level anger you might be irritable, frustrated, annoyed, impatient or tetchy. Moving up the anger scale we hit angry, hostile or outraged. And when we hit the top of that scale we are into rage, fury, wrath and aggression.

It’s helpful to name your emotions like this, because research has shown that just doing that can help calm and reduce them.

Anger-management: some pro tips

Did you know that standard anger-management techniques often suggest cooling down physically, even on mild days? I use techniques drawn from dialectical-behaviour therapy (DBT) with my clients, because DBT is superb for emotional-regulation strategies. If you are losing your cool at the moment, here are some pro tips to help you calm down, quickly:

• If you’re getting into a heated discussion with your partner, family member or colleague, say to them, ‘I’m getting annoyed with you, and don’t want to say something I will regret, so need to take a moment to calm down.’ Leave the room. You can’t calm down if someone is still there, niggling at you. Try to cool your body down, even a little: splash cold water on your face and neck; take off any extra layers of clothing; press your face and forearms against an outside wall, which will be cool even on a hot day

• Do some deep breathing, to calm and soothe your overheated/dysregulated nervous system. I have recorded three different breathing techniques for Insight Timer, but you could try my 4-7-8 Breathing Technique first, which is incredibly effective

• Finally, here’s a weird-but-effective one: try going floppy. When we get angry we are in fight mode (the angry response in fight-flight-freeze). That means our muscles get tense and we focus on/move towards the threat, ready to fight. Do the opposite of that. Sit in a chair and let all your limbs, head and neck be floppy. Dangle over the arms of the chair. Be like a relaxed, sleepy cat

• Now try to be angry. Impossible, isn’t it? That’s because your brain has picked up on your body posture and thinks, ‘Oh, that’s fine then. We’re calm and safe. No need to fight right now.’

• When you feel cooler and calmer, rejoin the discussion, trying to listen, not interrupt, and be as assertive (not aggressive) as possible. You will probably find that the discussion goes a whole lot better than it would have done if you hadn’t calmed down first

I very much hope those techniques help. Wishing you a calm and peaceful day, wherever you are in the world right now.

Cool wishes,

Dan

Watch Dan's Interview About Trauma Healing for AntiLoneliness

Image by Jonathan Velasquez

I was recently honoured to be invited for an interview with Vassia Sarantopoulou, Founder and Head Psychologist of AntiLoneliness (antiloneliness.com).

In the course of our highly engaging, one-hour interview we discussed many issues related to trauma, including:

• Can we heal from trauma?

• What is the difference between trauma and complex trauma?

• How has this pandemic been a traumatic experience for many?

• What's a holistic approach to healing?

• How do our everyday habits add to trauma?

• Breathing and meditation: how they help with healing

Do watch the interview below, or by visiting the AntiLoneliness YouTube channel – if you have a trauma history, I very much hope you find it helpful.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Try This Imagery Technique to Feel Calmer and More Peaceful

Image by Jailam Rashad

If you have a trauma history, you may struggle to feel calm and safe in the world. You might find that you only feel safe in your home – or that even there you often feel anxious, or a sense of dread, as if something bad is always about to happen.

Although, of course, this is horrible, it’s not unusual. In fact, if you have grown up in an environment that was not safe, or where bad things often did happen, it makes total sense to feel this way as an adult – the little boy or girl inside you still feels unsafe, even when the traumatic experiences happened many years ago.

As part of the long, slow process of helping my clients feel safer, I always include the Safe Place imagery. This simple but powerful imagery technique was developed by Paul Gilbert, the founder of compassion-focused therapy. It is often incorporated into schema therapy as it is so helpful for people struggling with anxiety or trauma-related feelings of threat, or for those struggling to feel safe, even in apparently safe environments.

I have recorded this imagery for Insight Timer (listen to that recording here), but here is a step-by-step guide you can either read and record for yourself, or get a trusted friend, family member or therapist to record for you so that you can play it whenever you need to.

Safe Place Imagery

• Start by imagining a safe place. This might be somewhere you have visited, such as a beautiful beach, forest or mountain meadow. It could also be somewhere that feels safe and comfortable for you, such as a cosy room in your house, or a place in Nature where you walk your dog. Sometimes, especially if you are a trauma survivor, you might not be able to think of anywhere that feels safe – in that case, create an imaginary place that feels as safe as possible.

• Ideally, you should be alone in your safe place, with no potentially triggering people visiting; although feel free to take pets or calm, supportive people with you. And it should be warm, as warmth is soothing and comforting for your brain. Close your eyes and ‘be there’ as vividly as possible. Explore your safe place, using all of your senses – what can you see, hear, feel, smell, taste and touch? If it’s a beach you could visualise the beautiful turquoise sea, golden sands and blue skies, hear the gulls and breeze rustling palm fronds, feel the sand between your toes… The more sensory information the better, as this convinces your brain that you are actually on that beach, or in the beautiful meadow.

• Keep reminding yourself that this is your safe place, using words like ‘calm’ and ‘peaceful’. Mindfully focus on the somatic sensations of calmness, peacefulness and safety in your body. Also, remember that this place itself takes pleasure in you being there (many trauma survivors were never cherished or shown love, so this often feels very good).

• End the imagery by reminding yourself that this place is always here for you, just waiting for you to visit. If you’re feeling stressed or anxious, you can just close your eyes and visit for a minute or two (like having a mini-holiday) before re-engaging with the world. Then let the image fade away until it’s gone, take a deep breath and open your eyes.

I hope you find this imagery helpful – and that, over time, it helps you feel a little calmer, safer and more at peace in your day-to-day life.

Warm wishes,

Dan

What Are Core Needs in Schema Therapy?

Image by Eka P Amdela

One of the most important ideas in schema therapy is that all children have core developmental needs. These needs are the same whether you grow up in Tottenham or Tanzania, whether you’re male or female, raised in the 18th or 21st century. All human children have the same needs.

Think of these needs as nutrients that we all require to grow up strong, resilient and healthy. It’s like a plant – every plant needs certain nutrients to thrive. They need water, sunlight, minerals in the soil, carbon dioxide in the air, the right temperature and growing conditions. If plants get these nutrients, they thrive. If not, they fail to grow properly and can be small or spindly.

So what are these core needs? There are five, listed in order of importance:

1. Love and a secure attachment

Attachment theory is one of the best-researched fields in psychology. Pioneered by John Bowlby, a British psychologist and psychoanalyst, attachment theory tells us that all babies are born hard-wired to attach, first to their mother, then father, siblings, grandparents, and so on. Ideally, babies form a secure attachment, meaning they feel strongly bonded, comfortable and deeply loved by mum.

Sadly, many babies don’t experience this, for all sorts of reasons, so they develop an insecure attachment style – either anxious or avoidant attachment. If this is true of you, you might struggle to form close bonds or romantic relationships as an adult. This attachment style stays with us for life, unless we do something (like therapy, or finding a loving partner) to change it.

2. Safety and protection

This one is self-explanatory. We all need to feel safe and protected, from infancy onwards. If your family environment either was or just felt unsafe, you might have problems with anxiety, or be a worrier. You may develop a Mistrust/Abuse schema and find it hard to trust people. Or you might cling to others, especially if they seem stronger than you.

3. Being valued as a unique human being

As I always tell my clients, this is not about being special, getting all As at school or being the smartest/prettiest/most popular kid. It’s just about being loved for who you are. Just you, with all your strengths and weaknesses, likeable and less likeable bits, imperfectly perfect, like every other child. If this need is not met, you might develop a Defectiveness schema, feeling you are not good enough, dislikable or unworthy in some way.

4. The ability to be spontaneous and play

All children (and other young animals) learn through play. But some parents are not comfortable with their kids being playful, spontaneous or silly. They might shout at or critcise their kids if they are being ‘too rambunctious’ or ‘foolish’. And the kids quickly learn to stifle their natural – and hugely important – instincts to run and laugh and play.

In adulthood, this can mean being overly serious, struggling to be playful or have fun. And this can cause problems in relationships, especially if your partner is healthily playful and silly. You may need to develop your Happy Child – one of the key modes in schema therapy.

5. Boundaries and being taught right from wrong

All kids need to learn to respect other people. That they are not the centre of the universe. That their parents, not them, are in charge and get to make the big decisions. This does not mean smacking, yelling, shaming or hurting kids in any way. It just means helping them grow up to be thoughtful, respectful, decent human beings.

If this need is not met, you may develop an Entitlement schema and feel you are special, better than other people and deserve to have exactly what you want whenever you want it. That will clearly cause problems for you and everyone close to you, so needs work in therapy if true.

I hope that’s useful to understand. Remember that if any of your needs were not met as a child, and you formed painful schemas as a result, none of that is fixed or set in stone. Reading blogs like this one (or the fantastic blog/schema therapy resources at Secure Nest), or self-help books, getting therapy, forming loving relationships – these will all help you get those needs met as an adult. Wishing you all the best with that journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Manage Your Inner Critic – and Quieten Self-Critical Thoughts

Image by Mike Burke

I recently wrote a post about the Inner Critic, arguing that this part of us is much maligned and misunderstood. A quick refresher: in schema therapy, it has long been argued that this critical part, especially in its more punitive form, was a very bad thing.

Traditional schema-therapy theory argues that this harsh, mean part of us is the internalised voice of a critical adult from childhood and so needs to be shut down, silenced, or even banished from your internal system (which essentially means silencing the stream of self-critical thoughts).

I get the logic of this, but the theory doesn’t seem to stand up in my consulting room. I have spent years working with my clients’ various parts (known as modes in schema therapy) and even tried fighting back against the Punitive Critic, as I was taught, using chair work and other techniques to help protect people from this inner bully.

And you know what? It didn’t work. Sometimes that Punitive Critic went silent for a bit, but it always came roaring back, especially at times when people felt vulnerable or threatened. And I also grew increasingly uncomfortable about confronting part of the person.

It goes against everything I believe and have learned in other models of therapy, such as Internal Family Systems, which argues that every part of us has a positive intention, however counterintuitive that may be.

Collaboration, not confrontation

Think of your Critical Part, as I call it, as being a bit like a barking dog. At first, it might seem scary (like that pitbull in the photo, if it suddenly became aggressive), because it can be loud, harsh and say really mean things to you, calling you names like pathetic, a loser or failure. It’s only natural to want to fight back, or get rid of that horrible voice in your head.

But, thinking again of that pitbull, if it’s barking loudly, it’s usually because it is scared. My theory is that your Critical Part gets loud when you are vulnerable, or threatened in some way, because it is anxious and so warning you about bad things that might happen.

For example, if you’re about to go on a first date with a girl you really like, you might think self-critical thoughts like, ‘I’m bound to screw this up – I bet I say something stupid and she never wants to see me again!’

So that’s your Critical Part piping up, warning you not to say the wrong thing, because you might get hurt or rejected by your date. It might not seem like it, but that part is trying to protect you. And in my experience of working with hundreds of Critical Parts in my consulting room, their intention is almost always either protective or motivational (and sometimes both).

They might bark loudly, but that’s just because they are scared and don’t want you/them to be hurt, rejected, abandoned, criticised or attacked.

Compassion for the Critic

So, if it’s not helpful to fight the Critical Part, or try and banish it from your mind, what should you do? I think you need to have compassion for this part of you, which is trying desperately to protect you – and may have been doing that since you were a small child. It doesn’t mean you should just let the self-critical thoughts flow, because I’m sure they do make you feel stressed, anxious, depressed or upset.

Here’s a rough guide to the approach I use – and teach my clients to try themselves as homework, between sessions:

1. First you have to notice the self-critical thoughts and realise that these harsh messages are coming from the Critical Part. This requires taking a ‘mindful observer’ perspective, where you can step back from the thoughts, observe and respond to them, rather than thinking, ‘That’s just me.’

2. Let’s say the Critical Part is bashing you about an upcoming presentation, saying things like ‘You are terrible at public speaking! You are bound to look really anxious and tense, so everyone will think you are unprofessional and generally just an idiot.’ Notice that the Critical Part is trying to motivate you (make sure you prepare well, do your absolute best and nail the presentation) and protect you (if you mess this up people will judge and criticise you; then you might even lose your job, which would be awful).

3. So, roll your shoulders back and lengthen your spine, take a few deep breaths and respond calmly but firmly: ‘Critical Part, I know you’re trying to help. I also think you are freaking out about this presentation. But this isn’t helping – you are making me more anxious and stressed, which will actually make my performance worse.’

4. Then let that part know that you, Healthy Adult, grownup, strong, professional you, can handle the presentation. ‘I’ve got this. I will prepare thoroughly, do lots of deep breathing to calm myself down, then I’m sure it will be fine. So please step back and let me deal with this.’

5. The Critical Part then feels reassured and should, as requested, take a step back and be quiet. If not – and even if so – you may have to repeat this again, again and again. This part of you is deeply ingrained and is also very anxious, so needs lots of reassurance, negotiation, persuasion and compassion to calm down.

I really hope this helps, but I must emphasise that it’s not easy and takes consistent, repeated effort. But then everything important in life does, no?

Warm wishes,

Dan

Your Inner Critic: Friend or Foe?

Photo by Mwabonje from Pexels

We all have an inner critic – the part of us that gives us self-critical messages. This critic (which I call the Critical Part) is on a spectrum of harshness, from mild at one end (‘Come on Dan, that wasn’t a great blog post, was it?’) to harsh and aggressive at the other (‘Why do you always screw everything up Dan? You’re such a pathetic loser!’). The view in mainstream psychology is that this self-criticism is harmful, bad and must be silenced to stop us getting stressed, anxious or depressed.

Of course, if your Critical Part is at the harsher end of that spectrum, the messages it gives you will make you feel some kind of bad – sad, hurt, anxious, stressed, unconfident or ashamed. But having tried many different approaches to help people with this hurtful inner dialogue, I now believe that trying to silence the Critical Part just doesn’t work. And getting angry with it, or trying to get rid of that part of you doesn’t work either.

The critic is part of you

As I often say to my clients, it’s like really hating your left hand. You might not like it. You may even want to get rid of it. But it’s part of you! So whether you like it or not, it’s not going anywhere. Same goes for your Critical Part – like it or loathe it, this is a part of your inner world. You can’t get rid of it, any more than you can your hand. So it’s better to understand, even have compassion for this part.

So how do we do that? First, let’s try and understand its origin and function in your inner system. I believe most Critical Parts come online when you are around five years old. That’s the age when you start to get cognitive, when your brain has developed enough that you can start asking big questions, like ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Why does mummy love my sister more than me?’. You not only wonder about who you are as a person, what you’re good or bad at, what you like and dislike, but also start comparing yourself to your siblings and friends.

Protecting you from HARM

At this age you also figure out what makes your parents treat you well or badly. For example, if your dad gets drunk and screams at you for tiny mistakes, you learn to avoid making any mistake (like spilling your drink, or leaving toys scattered about the floor) that will trigger a scary, hurtful attack. I think that Critical Part is the hypervigilant inner guard dog, that barks at you when you make a mistake that might get you hurt.

Throughout your life, this part becomes more entrenched until, as an adult, it just seems like you. But it’s not – it’s just a part of you, that is barking at you when it thinks you have done or are about to do something that will get you hurt in some way (usually attacked or rejected). If we think about the Critical Part this way – that it’s actually protective – it seems a lot less like some big, scary monster.

And we can have compassion for it too, because in my consulting room I often see these parts freaking out. Your Critical Part is usually anxious, scared, hypervigilant for danger. Because of course it’s just part of you, so if you get hurt, it gets hurt.

Love every part of yourself

I wrote in a recent post that we need to develop love and compassion for every part of us, even the parts we dislike or hate. And that absolutely includes the Critical Part, because the only way to turn the volume down on that hurtful inner criticism is to reassure this part that it’s OK, we hear it, and we’re perfectly capable of handling whatever it thinks we can’t handle – scary boss, angry partner, presentation at work, or whatever the threatening person or situation may be. I will guide you in exactly how to do this in an upcoming post.

I am dedicated to helping people be kinder and more compassionate to themselves, so I hope this helps you, a little, with that hard and lifelong work.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Protect Your Mental Health in a Pandemic

Photo by Matt Duncan on Unsplash

As the pandemic nears a deeply unwelcome anniversary, many people are struggling. In the UK, it’s nearly a year since the first lockdown – a year like no other in most of our lifetimes. And that year has, of course, taken its toll on us, both physically and mentally.

When I speak to my clients about how to cope right now, I always start with this idea – it’s just a really hard time. It’s OK to be struggling. That doesn’t make you weak, or lacking in resilience, or whatever self-critical thoughts you might have. It just makes you human, like everyone else – and it’s a really hard time to be human right now.

Reasons for hope

That said, of course it’s crucial that we all do everything we can to look after our mental health at the moment. It seems to me that, having run a 12-month marathon, we are on the home straight. As I write this, 15 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

This is a wonderful, miraculous thing. We should all be deeply grateful for the brilliant, unbelievably hard-working scientists who produced a vaccine in record-breaking time (as well as the tens of thousands of volunteers around the world who made successful vaccine trials possible). And to the heroes of our NHS – the doctors, nurses, physios, cleaners, receptionists and every other person who has risked their lives to save ours.

The vaccine, bit by bit, will give us all hope and eventually help us end this long, incredibly difficult time. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do to help ourselves, right now, to make daily life easier.

Try these three things

As a therapist, I would like to share the three most important things I think you can do, today, to stay well as we tough out the final stretch of this hard year:

1. Remember that you have been through tough times before. Very few among us have never had to cope with tough times in our lives. Most of us have had our hearts broken, been divorced, or otherwise suffered for love. Many of us have dealt with bereavement (and all of us will, at some point in our lives). Maybe we have had tough times financially, lost a beloved home, or friend, or even a pet.

   To be human is to suffer sometimes. But we humans are also remarkably strong and resilient. Usually, we find a way through, bounce back, even emerge from tough times feeling stronger. If any of that’s true of you, then you can cope with this too – you are way stronger than you think.

2. Find beauty in small things. There have been times this year, I must confess, when I found it hard to feel positive or hopeful about anything. Especially on cold, grey days in January, when every day was like Groundhog Day (wake up, breakfast, shower, dress, work, eat, Netflix, sleep, repeat), my mood was hovering somewhere down there with the temperature.

   But even on those days, thanks to a long love affair with mindfulness meditation, I remembered to find beauty and meaning in small, beautiful things. A hug from my wife. A warm text from an old friend, or a grateful client. A goldfinch guzzling away on my bird feeder. Children laughing in the playground.

   Even when things seem bleak, there is always beauty, always meaning, always reasons to be grateful for this one precious life, if we just stop, breathe and look for them.

3. Do something for others. There is a Pali word, Dana, which is roughly translated as generosity, or giving from the heart. And in every major religion – Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity – there is a similar word or guidance to give selflessly to help others.

   This could be volunteering at a foodbank, or training to be a volunteer vaccinator, or just checking in on an elderly neighbour from time to time. Not only does this help those who are struggling right now, there is good evidence that practicing altruistic giving is highly beneficial for your mental health. The very definition of a win-win situation, I would say.

Finally, please remember that just making it through the day is as much as some of us can do right now – and that’s perfectly fine. Just try to take care of yourself, be self-compassionate (I wrote about this in my last post) if you can. And remember that one day, this will all be over. We all just need to hang in there until it is.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why Every Part of You Deserves Love and Compassion

Image by Jude Beck

One of the key discoveries in neuroscience over the past 20 years has been that we are not one, homogenous self – we are not just ‘Sally’ or ‘Jim’, even though it very much feels that way. Instead, this new theory argues for a ‘multiplicity of self’, which basically means we have lots of different parts of our personality. And in some ways, this is just common sense.

You might have a part that wants to diet and lose weight, but another part that really wants that extra bowl of ice cream, or slice of cake. You may have a part that hates all the boring, humdrum stuff of daily life (vacuuming, washing up, doing your tax return) but another part that helps you get all that stuff done, however much you don’t want to.

Disliking parts of yourself

In schema therapy, we call these different parts ‘modes’. In other models of therapy, they are called parts, sub-personalities or self-states, but it’s essentially the same thing. And something I often see in my therapy practice is that people might dislike or even hate some of their modes, while liking others. For example, we might get really frustrated with the mode that has us reaching for the ice cream, even though we’re desperate to lose weight and know we will feel guilty and ashamed after wolfing another bowl.

We may also hate the part of us that makes us feel vulnerable, or overwhelmed with emotions when we’re at work and want to appear cool, calm and professional. In schema therapy, we call this mode the Vulnerable Child; and we then name it ‘Little Sally’ or ‘Little Jim’. We all have this part – I have a Little Dan inside me – and it is the emotional, vulnerable part of us, that gets triggered by stressful or threatening people or events.

This part of you also holds a lot of upsetting memories from your childhood, as well as images, body sensations, emotions and beliefs. For example, your little self might believe ‘I am worthless’ or ‘I am unlovable’, because that’s how you felt as a child. Nobody wants to think that way, or feel painful emotions like sadness, anxiety or shame that these beliefs might trigger in you. So you may try to ignore this part, or detach from it and all those upsetting feelings, shutting it away in a part of your brain you try hard to avoid.

Self-compassion is a superpower

But here’s the thing – whether you love, hate or ignore this part of you, it’s always there. As I often tell my clients, it’s like disliking your left hand. How ever much you might hate it, find it annoying, want to get rid of it, your hand is still there! So it’s much better to develop compassion for this part (and all other parts) of you. There is a huge amount of research now showing that self-compassion is a superpower when it comes to healing past hurts (if you’re interested in that, check out Kristin Neff’s work at self-compassion.org – she is the world’s leading researcher/expert on self-compassion).

Sadly though, it’s not easy to be compassionate to yourself. You may have been taught as a child that this was weak or self-indulgent. If you experienced trauma when you were young, this may be especially hard, as you learned to cope by shutting that little part of you away in a room somewhere, so the last thing you want is to think about him or her, let alone be kind to that part of you.

But here’s a technique to help you along the path to greater self-compassion. As ever with techniques I will teach you, there is no right or wrong, no doing it well or badly – just have a go and see what happens.

1. Change posture. Let your shoulders roll back so your chest is open. Then lengthen your spine – sit upright but relaxed, with your head, neck and spine in alignment.

2. Breathe. Take deep, slow breaths in and out — roughly four seconds in, four seconds out, but find a number that works for you (two in, two out; three in, three out…). We want nice diaphragmatic breathing, so let your stomach rise and fall with each breath. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn activates the ‘rest-and-digest’ response, the opposite to fight-flight-freeze.

3. Use supportive touch. Gently place a hand over your heart, touching yourself the way you would a friend who was upset — in a friendly, supportive manner. Feel the warmth under your hand and imagine it trickling down until it reaches your little self inside. Imagine that’s a warm, kind, healing energy that soothes this frightened or upset part of you.

4. Add compassionate self-talk. Now talk to your little self the way you would to that troubled friend. Try to use a voice tone that’s warm, slow and reassuring. Say things like ‘Oh, Little Sally/Jim, I know you’re struggling right now – I really see how scared/upset/angry you are. But I want you to know that you’re not alone. I’m here with you. I care about you. I’ve got you. And we will get through this together...’

Try using this technique every time you feel hurt, sad, upset, anxious or otherwise ‘triggered’ by life events. As with any technique, remember that it may take time to be helpful. It’s like yoga or meditation – there’s a reason they call those having a ‘practice’. So practice every day until it starts to help you feel kinder to and more accepting of yourself.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Helping You Heal Your Trauma

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I am passionate about helping people heal their trauma. It’s a big part of what I do all day, in my consulting room in north London. As a Cognitive Therapist and Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor, I draw from a variety of proven, trauma-informed models, but my main model is schema therapy.

This warm, compassionate, powerful approach was developed by Dr Jeffrey Young in the late 1980s to help trauma survivors and other people struggling with complex mental health problems.

And it really works, helping people overcome even the most painful experiences in childhood – I see this every day in my practice and it’s a wonderful, magical thing to behold. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s easy – healing from serious problems like trauma can be a long, challenging, arduous process.

And people are on a spectrum both in terms of the trauma, abuse or neglect they experienced as children; and the impact of those painful experiences on their adult selves. Some people heal more slowly, some find change more difficult, but I strongly believe that however bad it was for you, there is always hope – every kind of painful childhood experience can be healed.

trauma recovery

If you are a truma survivor, I would strongly advise you to find a skilled therapist offering one of the trauma-informed models, such as schema therapy, trauma-focused CBT, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, internal family systems therapy or somatic experiencing therapy.

If you experienced trauma, abuse or neglect as a child, it’s imperative that you get some good therapy to enable your healing process to begin. Sadly, self-help books and other personal-development tools – although helpful – will not be enough for you. Instead, you need a warm, kind, patient human being to help you overcome the wounds of your past.

Choose your therapist with care

If you are struggling with the impact of trauma, please do not get help from a counsellor or therapist who can’t explain to you, in simple terms, how their model is designed to work with trauma. We now know that just ‘talking about’ traumatic experiences is not only unhelpful, it can be retraumatising.

Instead, trauma work should help you to regulate your nervous system, teach you vital mindfulness skills, reframe negative self-beliefs and – if it’s necessary – process traumatic memories in a structured way, which is not the same as just talking about them in great detail. Please believe me that this will make you worse, not better.

Knowledge is power

That is why I have created my Heal Your Trauma project, including this blog. It will guide, support and inform you as you attempt the challenging journey towards a happier, more peaceful and meaningful life. I will teach you all about the effect of trauma on your mind, brain, nervous system and body.

I will provide techniques that you can use right away, to help you feel calmer and to regulate your nervous system – a key first step in trauma work. And I will try to be a voice of hope, another precious resource, as you attempt to put the dark days behind you and let the sun shine into your life.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Rewrite the Story of Your Life

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What is the story of your life? What do you tell yourself about your successes and failures, key life events, those you love and those who have hurt you in some way? In my therapy practice, I find that people often tell themselves a story about their life that is distorted, highly critical, focusing heavily on perceived mistakes and failings. This is especially common among trauma survivors, who are often made to feel bad, wrong or unlovable as children.

Over the course of therapy, I always try to help people write a new life story. One that is realistic, not pessimistic. Compassionate, not critical. Based on the understanding that we all suffer, we all make mistakes, we all have problems. That is the nature of living a human life.

Your life story

So, you were born. And you landed in a family, with (probably) two parents, maybe some siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and assorted other relatives. And if, as so often happens, that family was not a happy one, your childhood was difficult, which caused you suffering and may have led to lifelong psychological problems.

A key concept in schema therapy is that of ‘core needs’. These are core developmental needs that all children have, whatever culture or family structure they grow up in. There are five needs, which I will explain in detail in a future post, but the two most important needs are for love and a secure attachment; and safety and protection. If these were not met for you in your family (where the vast majority of our development occurs), you would have developed unhelpful ‘schemas’.

And these schemas – neural networks that fire up when you feel threatened or stressed – have a profound effect on how you feel, your sensitivities and vulnerabilities, your thoughts, behaviour and most of what makes you, you on a daily basis. Well, as I always tell my clients: you didn’t choose to land in that family, did you? You didn’t choose to have the painful schemas that make life so difficult. You certainly didn’t choose to be anxious, stressed, depressed, to have an eating disorder or low self-esteem. Nobody would choose those things.

The Compassionate Version

So instead of telling yourself a harsh, critical, self-blaming story, why not choose a more compassionate version? One in which you found a way to cope with the painful wounds inflicted by a childhood that let you down in some way. That coping may involve some unhelpful behaviours, like over-eating, drinking too much or even taking drugs, but – although of course it would be helpful to free yourself from these ways of coping – they are definitely not your fault.

You are just coping, the best way you know how, like the rest of us. No blame. No shame. No beating yourself up. Just understanding what went wrong in your childhood, the effect that has had on your mind, brain, nervous system and body, and how to heal yourself. And while we’re at it, why don’t we change that horrible ending and replace it with a positive, hopeful, happy (or at least happier) version?

One in which you can be healed, with hard work and – if your wounds are deep – with expert help. An ending in which you are loving and loved. Having lived a rich, meaningful life. Because, as far as we know, this life is the only one we get. So it seems crucial to me that we make the most of it, however hard or hurtful its beginning.

And I will do my best to help with that, so please keep reading these posts and I will guide you along the path to a new, improved version of your unique life story.

Warm wishes,

Dan

What is the Angry Protector Mode in Schema Therapy?

In schema therapy, we have a number of modes that feel, express or help us deal with anger. If you are in Angry Child mode, the anger will be felt and expressed like a child feels and expresses anger. It will feel intense and stormy, leading to shouting, swearing, breaking things or slamming doors. This is the mode people are in when they act out their aggression in road rage, air rage, etc – the anger is uncontrollable and often lands them in big trouble. Not so helpful, clearly.

The Angry Protector mode is a bit more subtle. As the name suggests, this is a protective part of you, which is always triggered in relationship to others. It can be a bit passive-aggressive, involving you looking grumpy, making snide or snippy comments, or generally showing people you are angry without necessarily telling them how you’re feeling.

Telltale signs

If you want to know how the Angry Protector appears in real life, look at this guy in the photo. Telltale signs that he’s in this mode include: grumpy expression; frowning; mouth firmly set; arms crossed; and generally giving off non-verbal signals that say, ‘I am not happy with you right now!’

But remember that underneath this angry exterior is another part, the Vulnerable Child. This is the part of him that is hurting, feeling criticised, attacked, rejected or abandoned. His Little Self feels overwhelming pain, so this protector mode gets triggered to push you away. You back off, either figuratively or literally, which makes him feel safe and in control. But of course that’s not a great way to manage relationships, because if this keeps happening he will end up isolated and lonely, because he has pushed everyone who loves him away.

Healthy Adult anger

There is a final option for feeling and expressing anger, which is your Healthy Adult. This is the part of you that feels anger in a healthy, proportionate way – not feeling uncontrollable rage if someone is a bit rude, say. In that situation, your Healthy Adult would feel, maybe 20% angry, then express that anger clearly and assertively. You might say, ‘I don’t agree with what you’ve said – and I actually think it’s quite rude, so please don’t speak to me that way.’

Now this is not easy – many of us must spend years learning how to be more assertive – but it is doable (here’s a post I wrote about assertive communication). I have taught many, many people how to be more assertive over the years (and learned those skills for myself!). Schema therapy doesn’t have the monopoly on those skills – cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) or dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) are two approaches that teach assertiveness very effectively.

So if you find yourself – or someone close to you – being grumpy, irritable and generally embodying the Angry Protector on a regular basis, you might need some help from a skilled therapist. I very much hope you get the help you need.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why is Your Attachment Style so Important?

Image by Ekaterina Shakharova

Humans, like all mammals, are hard-wired to attach to their parents from the moment they are born. When you are a tiny baby, the first person you usually attach to is your mother, followed by your father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, friends, teachers, colleagues, romantic partners, and so on, throughout your life.

This ‘attachment system’ in your brain is very powerful, because when you are small and helpless it is literally a matter of life and death whether your parents – usually starting with your mother – love, feed and keep you safe. So attaching to them is absolutely vital.

The first person to really understand this was John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst who argued that all babies have this attachment system and, depending on their relationship with their mother, form either a secure on insecure attachment.

A secure attachment means your mother has looked after you well enough, given you lots of love and hugs, changed you when you were wet, fed you when you were hungry, made plenty of eye contact, sung to you – and all the other things babies need to feel safe and secure.

Attachment and relationships

If your attachment was insecure, your mother – for all sorts of reasons, often because her own attachment with her mother was not secure – couldn't meet your needs as a baby, so you didn't feel 100% loved by or safe with her.

One of Bowlby's  groundbreaking ideas was that the kind of attachment style you developed as a baby would stay with you into adult life. Why is this so important? Because people with an insecure attachment will struggle to form strong, lasting, happy relationships with friends, colleagues and especially romantic partners.

In schema therapy terms, these people may have an Abandonment schema, so constantly worry about being left or rejected by their partner. Understandably, this causes all sorts of problems and makes it very hard to have a stable, happy relationship with anyone.

The good news is that, as Bowlby and later attachment researchers found, you can learn to have stronger attachments – and therefore better relationships – throughout your life. Schema therapy is one of the approaches that is very good at making these changes. If you do have an Abandonment schema, for example, we would work together on healing it so you felt happier, more confident, more trusting and relaxed in relationships.

As I always tell my clients, however difficult things were in your childhood, and however much you are still affected by those experiences as an adult, it's never too late to change. Heal your schemas and you heal the most painful and vulnerable parts of you – this really can be life-changing, as I have seen time after time with the people I work with.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How do Online Sessions Work for Schema Therapy?

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During this stressful time, many of us will be struggling with anxiety or low mood, especially if you are self-isolating or on lockdown, with few chances to leave the house. If you are finding it hard to cope during the coronavirus outbreak, first and foremost connect with your friends and loved ones.

Social distancing is, in my opinion, not the most helpful term right now. Instead, we should all be physically distancing but socially connecting – by phone, social media, Skype, Zoom or any other way that lets us stay in touch with those we love, while keeping them and ourselves safe.

If you need more help than that, do reach out to me or another mental-health professional, who can offer guidance and support during this hard time. I have long worked with clients online via Zoom. It also means I can help people all over the world, which is wonderful. I am offering both short-term and long-term therapy during the current crisis.

Here are a few guidelines about how online therapy works:

1. I use Zoom for online sessions – it has revamped its privacy/security recently, so I am confident it’s a secure and confidential platform for therapy. Using Zoom is very simple. Before your session, I will send you a link via email, which you click on to join an online ‘waiting room’. At the start of the session, I click on your name to begin our session, then lock the meeting to ensure complete confidentiality.

2. I will create a shared folder on Dropbox, so that we can share important documents like an intake form, or notes I want you to read after a session. This means that all communication is confidential (Dropbox also has strict security measures in place).

3. You may feel uneasy about having therapy online. But, having provided hundreds of online sessions over the years, I find it works very well for schema therapy. We get to see each other and hear each other’s voice. And clients tell me they feel safe and connected to me.

4. That said, we need to be flexible to make it work. Exercises like chair work are obviously a bit trickier online! But I do them, regularly, and will explain how to make them work. After the session I will send you an iZettle invoice, so you can pay quickly and securely. And that’s it!

If you have any questions about online session with me, email dan@danroberts.com or use the contact form to get in touch.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Manage Your Coronavirus-Related Health Anxiety

Image from CDC

Do you struggle with health anxiety? If so, you’re not alone. Millions of people around the world face a daily battle with this anxiety disorder. I often tell my clients that, if you’re prone to anxiety, your health is one of the easiest things to obsess about, because of course humans are vulnerable to health problems.

We all struggle with our health, dealing with everything from mild problems like the common cold to serious illnesses like diabetes and cancer. And we are all mortal, so have to accept that one day, our life will end. It’s natural — in some ways even logical — to worry about your health.

Now, of course, we are facing an unprecedented public health crisis. In the UK, as I write this over-70s are encouraged to self-isolate, many businesses have shut down and all schools are closing from tomorrow, we are all being encouraged to adopt social distancing and stay home as much as possible. And I’m sure the restrictions will get more and more severe.

The reality is that Covid-19 is a scary, unpredictable and long-term problem that we are struggling to understand and contain across the globe.

Kryptonite for the health-anxious

So I am anxious. My friends, family, colleagues and neighbours are anxious. Anxiety is a normal, healthy, proportionate response to a global crisis like this. It’s hard for everyone right now.

But I think — as well as the high-risk groups of people who are especially vulnerable to a serious reaction to the virus — this crisis is extremely tough on people with two types of mental-health problem: contamination-focused OCD and those with health anxiety (formerly known as hypochondria). I am going to focus on the latter problem in this story, but there is a huge amount of information about, and help with OCD on the MIND website, if you need it (mind.org.uk).

Health anxiety is one of the anxiety disorders, in which people develop an unhelpful preoccupation with their health. A useful definition I once read is: ‘The catastrophic misinterpretation of benign physical symptoms’.

That means that, if you have health anxiety, you will catastrophise — one of the common forms of unhelpful thinking styles treated with cognitive therapy — about benign physical symptoms. This means that, if you get a tension headache, you start Googling symptoms (always a bad idea!) and become convinced you have a brain tumour.

If your heart rate speeds up, because you’re stressed, anxious or engaging in physical exercise, you are 100 per cent sure you have a heart problem. You notice a tiny mole on your forearm and worry obsessively that it’s skin cancer.

Coronavirus-related anxiety

If this sounds familiar, I feel deeply compassionate for you right now. It must be hell. Every time you look at a newspaper, Twitter or your Facebook feed, you are confronted with frightening, doom-laden headlines about this awful virus that is sweeping through the global population. You, like so many of my clients right now, must be overwhelmed with anxiety.

But you can’t let anxiety dominate your life. This crisis is likely to go on for months, so you need to take swift and decisive action to help yourself. Here are three pieces of advice to get you through this:

1. Engage your rational brain

Because this all feels so threatening, the ancient, emotional parts of your brain have taken over — primarily your ‘threat system’, which is on red alert right now. This system triggers the fight-flight-freeze response to danger. If you’re super-anxious, you are in flight mode much of the time.

One answer to this is to use your rational brain — the frontal cortex — to calm down the parts that are freaking out. This virus is truly awful, but the vast majority of those who contract it will only develop cold- or flu-like symptoms, then make a complete recovery. Many health-anxious clients I have worked with are young, fit, healthy, often vegan and teetotal — some of the healthiest people I have ever met!

If that’s you, remember that it is overwhelmingly likely you will be fine, even if you get it. So stop catastrophising and take sensible precautions to minimise your risk of contracting the virus: social distancing, mask-wearing, regular hand-washing, and so on.

2. Breathe

When the fight-flight-freeze response has kicked in, your breathing goes haywire. Basically, you start breathing like a hot dog panting — rapid, shallow breaths that will make you feel dizzy, tight-chested and breathless. Not good, if you’re already worrying about a virus that targets your lungs.

So you need to slow your breathing right down, breathe abdominally, for roughly four seconds in and four seconds out. Do that for at least a minute, more if possible. I call this ‘compassionate breathing’, but it’s just deep breathing, so you can do it anywhere, any time if you need to calm yourself down.

Trust me: it’s awesome and it really works.

3. Get some help

Please don’t suffer alone. We are all struggling right now and need all the help we can get. There are plenty of charities set up to help with health anxiety and other anxiety disorders. Here are just a few for those living in the UK:

• Young Minds (youngminds.org.uk)

• Anxiety UK (anxietyuk.org.uk)

• OCD Action (ocdaction.org.uk)

If you need more help than this, I would recommend either cognitive or schema therapy. I have helped dozens of health-anxious people with both approaches and they are proven to be the most effective forms of psychotherapy for anxiety disorders. In the UK, you can get cognitive therapy on the NHS, but it will probably be a long wait. If you’re looking for a qualified private cognitive therapist, visit BABCP’s site (babcp.com).

If you would like schema therapy from me, use my contact form to get in touch.

So if you are having a tough time right now, know that help is out there for you. We will get through this. Humans are remarkably resilient. We will develop a vaccine and treatments for Covid-19 are already being trialled.

Wherever you are in the world, sending you love and warm thoughts from London,

Dan

Online Therapy Available During the Pandemic

Image by Jud Mackrill

As we all find a way to manage the coronavirus pandemic as well as possible, I have moved all of my therapy sessions online. I now offer sessions via Zoom. This means I can offer help to people all over the UK, as well as those living anywhere in the world. I am offering both short-term therapy, to help people through the current crisis, as well as my usual long-term schema therapy.

This is an anxiety-provoking and stressful time for everyone. But it can be especially hard for people who already struggle with day-to-day anxiety, or have an anxiety disorder like health anxiety or OCD. If you have experienced trauma in your life, it may also be triggering unpleasant memories for you, or you may be struggling to cope with the flood of scary headlines about the outbreak.

Please take all sensible precautions to keep yourself and others safe and well, especially older people or those in high-risk groups.

If you would like to know more about how online sessions with me work, I explain all the details in this post. And if you would like help getting through this difficult time, email dan@danroberts.com or use the contact form to get in touch.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Stop Fearing Abandonment in Relationships

Image by Tamara Bellis

Many of my clients show up with deep-rooted fears and sensitivities around being rejected or abandoned. In some ways, that’s a normal aspect of being a human being – fear of rejection is hard-wired into our brain, because for most of human history being rejected from the group was, literally, a matter of survival. Finding yourself alone, outside the village stockade, surrounded by hungry animals and hostile tribes, was not a good place to be.

So we are all sensitive to signs of rejection by friends/colleagues/family, or worries about our partner being unfaithful or leaving us. But for some people, this sensitivity dominates their lives. These people probably have an Abandonment/Instability schema – one of the most painful schemas we can have, which can start to imprint in our brain from birth onwards.

And this makes it especially overwhelming when it gets triggered in later life – because the emotions and bodily sensations we feel might be pre-verbal, pre-cognitive and those of an infant; hugely powerful and utterly overwhelming.

Problems start in childhood

For example, Sonya comes to see me because she is having problems in her relationship. ‘Every time I think my boyfriend is going off me – even a tiny bit – I just freak out and start bombarding him with texts because I feel so anxious. I can’t bear it.’

When we start to explore her history, Sonya tells me that her mother was an alcoholic, so even though she did not physically abandon the family, she was often drunk and emotionally unavailable for Sonya and her siblings.

This speaks to part two of the schema: Instability. Even though Sonya was not actually abandoned, the attachment to her mother was not stable or secure, so she felt abandoned on a daily basis.

Stephen’s case is easier to understand. When he was five his father – who he adored – suddenly left his mother and started a new family. Virtually overnight his dad went from an attachment figure that Stephen loved and relied on to being completely absent from his life.

This clearly was an abandonment, so Stephen’s schema developed then. He now gets fiercely jealous if his wife even speaks to other men – because his schema gets triggered and he is overwhelmed by a wave of jealousy, fear and insecurity.

Healing the core wound

In schema therapy, we work on the Abandonment schema like every other – with a combination of experiential techniques (especially imagery and chair work) and ‘limited reparenting’, where we try to meet Sonya and Stephen’s core needs that did not get met in childhood.

For both people, the biggest need I would be striving to meet would be love and a secure attachment – to me, primarily, but later to other friends, partners and family members. This takes time, but magically we can heal even the deepest, most painful schemas – and help you feel calmer, happier and more secure.

Warm wishes,

Dan

What is the Detached Self-Soother Mode in Schema Therapy?

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One of the key aspects of schema therapy is working with people’s ‘modes’, which are different sides of their personality that may serve a particular purpose for them. Some of these are known as ‘coping modes’, because they help us cope with difficult thoughts and feelings, interpersonal problems, or stressful events or situations.

And a common coping mode is the Detached Self-Soother, which helps us detach from our painful feelings or cope with a tough situation using a substance or behaviour that is numbing or soothing.

In the UK, our go-to strategy for self-soothing is with alcohol. And, of course, the odd beer or glass of wine with dinner is not a problem at all – I like a nice glass of red myself at the weekend. It’s just when that glass turns into a bottle, or the occasional pint with friends becomes four or five pints, then a daily habit, or in the worst case we find ourselves sliding into addiction.

We can also use behaviours or activities to self-soothe, such as spending hours on Facebook or Instagram; compulsively shopping; gambling; computer games; or endlessly surfing the Web or slumping in front of the TV. Again, none of these activities are bad per se – it’s all about how much we do them and why.

Escaping painful feelings

When we detach with this mode, one of the main problems is that we are avoiding our feelings – and in schema therapy we see that as ignoring/silencing our Vulnerable Child mode. This psychologically young, vulnerable part of us needs attending to, not ignoring. For example, if you feel sad or lonely because you don’t have a partner, it’s important to acknowledge the loneliness of your Vulnerable Child and help him/her feel better by trying to meet someone you can connect to.

Or if you feel really anxious about leaving the house, because you’re agoraphobic, it’s helpful to listen to and try to soothe/reassure your Vulnerable Child, then seek professional help if you need it to overcome your problem.

In neither case would it be helpful to compulsively avoid or ignore your feelings, numbing yourself with alcohol or distracting yourself with a Facebook binge. It’s important to remember that you don’t need to feel bad or guilty for self-soothing in this way. We all have to find ways of coping with painful feelings – and many of us do so using some form of this mode.

At the same time, just because we have done something habitually for a long time doesn’t make it a good idea, or mean we can’t seek to change.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Healthy Ways to Release Your Anger

Everybody gets angry – it’s a normal human emotion, like sadness, fear or joy. And there is nothing wrong with anger, despite its bad reputation and the damage it can cause. Like all emotions, the problem is not the anger, but the ways we either try to suppress and swallow it, or let it come spilling out, harming ourselves and those around us.

One of the main lessons I teach my clients in schema therapy is how to feel, express and so release their anger. And that’s not easy, because most of us have a problematic relationship with this most volatile of emotions – we may have grown up in a family where anger was never permitted expression, so we learned that anger was scary and shameful, to be kept inside at all costs. This means we now swallow our anger, which is not good for our health, physical or mental.

Or we might have grown up in a family that expressed anger too freely or even violently, with lots of screaming, breaking things or hitting. So again we are now probably afraid of anger, seeing it as threatening and unsafe, because we associate bad things with it. We may either have learned to hold it in, or followed our family’s example and now explode all over the place (using attack as the best form of defence against other people’s threatening behaviour), raging at other drivers or screaming at our partners/kids. This too is not good.

Healthy anger-release

I only have two rules for anger expression with my clients:

1. When expressing anger, they don’t hurt themselves.

2. When expressing anger, they don’t hurt anyone else.

Bearing these rules in mind, here are two ways to let your anger out safely and healthily (releasing all the energy from your Angry Child mode, which is the part of you that is so furious). First, try writing an angry letter to the person that has hurt or upset you. This may be your boss, partner, friend, colleague – or a person from the past, such as a critical parent. Write it on a blank Word document, allowing yourself to say whatever you need – swear as much as you like, use capitals and exclamation marks. Don’t censor in any way. When you’re done, print the letter and tear it into tiny pieces or burn it, imagining all that hostility and frustration leaving your body as you do. (And remember this letter never gets sent! It’s just for you and to release all that bottled up anger energy).

Second, get a towel and twist it until it’s really tight. Then keep twisting, saying ‘I am so angry with you!’, ‘I am so *!**!** angry with you!’ over and over, twisting the towel util your arms get tired (this should be hard work!). Make sure you stick with ‘I’ statements and the way they have hurt or upset you, rather than just blaming or attacking. You will eventually find that all the anger drains out of your body and you feel tired. And other feelings might bubble up too, like hurt or sadness. Let them be there and have a cry if you need to. This will help you feel better (and be soothing for your Vulnerable Child, which is the part of you that feels all the hurt, pain or fear that lies beneath the anger).

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why Humans Need Connection

Image by Chermiti Mohamed

Humans are born wired for connection – it's in our DNA, as strong a need as food, water and warmth. And if you look at a newborn baby, that makes sense.

Unless babies successfully attach to their mother, they won't be able to survive – human infants are born completely helpless, so we are entirely reliant on our caregivers. A loving, secure relationship is literally a matter of life and death for babies.

So in our brains is an 'attachment system', which gives us a magnetic attraction to others – (usually) first mum, then dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, school friends, teachers, adult friends, colleagues, mentors and later romantic partners and our own family, when the whole cycle starts over again.

Jeffrey Young, the founder of schema therapy, understood this need for attachment – that's why it is one of the core developmental needs he identified in all children (along with the need for safety and protection; to be able to express our feelings and emotions; spontaneity and play; and boundaries/being taught right from wrong).

Another psychotherapy pioneer to understand this fundamental need was psychoanalyst John Bowlby, often called the 'father' of attachment theory. Bowlby realised that all children (and adults) need a secure attachment to their caregivers, especially mum. If we are lucky enough to develop this secure attachment in infancy, this 'attachment style' will remain constant throughout our lifetime and help us form strong, stable, loving relationships with friends, romantic partners and then our own children.

Strengthening your connections

Most of the people I see for schema therapy were not so lucky. For various reasons, their attachments were not secure as children, so they have all sorts of problems in relationships now. Perhaps they struggle to commit, or dive in too quickly and deeply (especially if they are a Highly Sensitive Person - read about them here). They may avoid relationships altogether, because they are just too painful.

But, as I always tell my clients, although these patterns are firmly established in our brains, they are not set or fixed in any way. Our brains are always changing, throughout our lifetime (because of neuroplasticity). This remarkable discovery means that we can learn to attach more securely and so learn to love, to trust, to allow others into our lives.

This is one of the most moving and beautiful aspects of therapy – seeing people learn to deepen and strengthen their connections, first with me, then family, friends and later a romantic partner, even if this seems like an Everest-sized obstacle at the beginning of our work! However daunting it seems, remember that you are never too old and it is never too late to let love blossom.

We are born ready to love – it's just the painful experiences we have when young that throw us off the path toward fulfilling relationships. All you have to do – with help, guidance and support – is step back on to the path... 

Warm wishes,

Dan