Counselling Therapy Treatment
PROBLEM SOLVING
Our Three Stages of Change
DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING
(Stage One)
We make decisions every waking minute. Similarly life possesses constant problems that need solving all the time. Because of this we take these processes for granted and rarely bother to look more closely at how we do them. This session is aimed at tuning into these processes.
There are two patterns of decision making that a person should be aware of. These are:
(1) ‘Hot decisions’ which are made when an individual is under pressure. ‘Panic’ decisions made without considering the full range of consequences are when a person’s thinking can be described as ‘blinkered’.
(2) ‘Blaming decisions’ are where the individual decides to shift the ‘responsibility’ to other individuals or situations (external factors).
The programme encourages individuals to adopt a ‘vigilant’ style of decision making that involves the weighing up of short-term and long-term positive and negative consequences of decisions. The best way to adopt such an approach is to write down all the facts associated with a decision. With practice this could be carried out mentally.
Problems in life generally have more than one solution. Some solutions are better than others. Effective problem solving is finding the best solution to a given problem. Research shows that effective problem solving is a skill that can be learnt. The following steps are recommended for effective problem solving.
(1)Have a positive attitude towards dealing with problems and don’t rush into impulsive solution
(2)Define the problem for yourself in clear simple terms and if required break it down into smaller steps. Molehills, not mountains!
(3)Generate as many alternative solutions you can think of and if possible get ideas from others as well.
(4)Decide on the best solution by weighing up the pros and cons of all the alternatives available
(5)Implement the chosen solution, then (Just Do It).
(6)Check the outcome of your actions to see whether it matches up to the desired outcome. If not, start again by going back to defining the problem.
It has been found that people who are good at problem solving go through such a process automatically. Take a problem you are facing at present and set about the task of solving it by using this process … that is if you don’t use such a process already.
Thought, Feelings & Action (Cognitive Behavioural Programme)
Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Stage Two)
PROBLEM RECOGNITION
We will help you to see the problem and then recognise the solution.
Help you to put routines into your life and stay with them to keep you safe.
Encourage you to get some life style balance in your life and a better relationship with friends and family at work or at play.
You will learn how to look after yourself and learn how to like yourself again or for the first time. Learning how to do the mundane things in life i.e. washing up, paying bills, doing your washing, answering the phone etc etc, with that different mind.
You will get help with your life skills i.e. getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, from cleaning your teeth to making your dinner, keeping it simple, which makes life simple.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Stage Three)
PROBLEM SOLVING
The changes you make will put you in control of your own life, for the rest of your life. Being able to make your own decisions, noticing your own needs and the needs of your body and mind i.e. eating properly, getting enough sleep, Rest, Play, Fun, learning to moderate in all things.
You will be conscious of the need to keep yourselves safe, about where to find help and assistance, and if required and sometime as life is, doing things you don't want to do.
You will be able to deal with your anxieties, stress and deal with authority figures and your own self esteem, looking through your negativity to get the best from them and your self, without any fear or anger or beating yourself up emotionally and psychologically.
Motivation is hard for anybody but even harder for a person with mental health problems or alcohol issues, prescribe medication, drugs problems and physical health problems. We will teach you different strategies to motivate yourself and having the energy to deal with day to day living.
Problem Solving is about motivation (Just Doing It) , its about disciplining yourself.
You will learn to have achievable goals, not goals that you cannot reach.
Thought, Feelings & Action (Cognitive Behavioural Programme)
Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guide to do every day
1. Study something new every day-
2. Do at least one new thing different every day and make it part of your life
3. Keep a positive dairy
4. Go for a walk if possible
5. Get out of house at least once a day
6. Be nice to someone else at least once a day
7. Be good/treat yourself at least once a day
8. Phone at least one person everyday
9. Be good to yourself
10. It is ok to feel
11. It is OK to Think
12. Act as if to give the Confidence to achieve
13. Learn to trust yourself
14. Learn to trust others
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LET IT REALLY SINK IN - THEN CHOOSE.
John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood
and
always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he
was
doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"
He was a natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee
how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked
him, "I don't get it!
You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"
He replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two
choices
today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be
in a bad mood.
I choose to be in a good mood."
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can
choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.
Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their
complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose
the positive side of life.
"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.
"Yes, it is," he said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all
the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to
situations. You choose how people affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your
choice how you live your life."
I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Industry to
start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when
I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident,
falling some 60 feet from a tower.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released
from the hospital with rods placed in his back.
I saw him about six months after the accident
When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be
twins' Wanna see my scars?"
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through
his mind as the accident took place.
"The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my
soon-to-be born daughter," he replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I
remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could
choose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.
He continued, "...the paramedics were great.
They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me
into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and
nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I
knew I needed to take action."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said John.
"She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors
and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep
breath and yelled, 'Gravity'."
Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me
as if I am alive, not dead."
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his
amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice
to live fully.
Attitude, after all, is everything. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
You have two choices now:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unhelpful Thoughts
1. Over-generalisation. Making a sweeping statement about oneself following a single incident; “She didn’t want to go out with me – that means no one will.
2. Personalisation. Attributing failures to oneself when other factors may be at least as much to blame: “She didn’t enjoy the cinema this evening because she was with me”.
3. Magnification. Misinterpreting a minor setback as a major disaster, ‘making a mountain out of a mole hill’ “Since she said she couldn’t go out with me that evening it’s pointless asking her out again”.
4. Minimisation. Misinterpreting one’s achievement so that it’s actual worth is underestimated: “She seems to enjoy my company, but that’s only because there’s nobody else available”.
5. Dichotomous reasoning. Categorising oneself as one thing or the other, as a success or a failure with no intermediate position: “She doesn’t like me, that’s because I’m basically unlikeable.
6. Arbitrary inference. Making a negative inference from something without taking into account alternative explanations: “She arrived late which means she didn’t really want to come anyway”.
7. Selective Abstraction. Basing a conclusion on one fact taken out of context while ignoring any conflicting evidence: Although she has kept all our other arrangements the fact that she didn’t come tonight means she is not committed to our relationship”.
It can be seen that some thoughts are examples of more than one mechanism in play; indeed, the example above of over-generalisation might also result from personalisation, magnification or selective abstraction.
Thought, Feelings & Action (Cognitive Behavioural Programme)
Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Handling Criticism
(How to respond to criticism assertively)
1. If it’s fair criticism, ask for specific suggestions, alternatives, from the person. What might you do to handle a situation, or behave differently?
2. No need for long, self-critical, or rationalising excuses.
3. When a person’s criticism is somewhat vague, unclear. For example, ‘You are “cold” with people’, have them clarify or give specific examples.
4. Respond with opinion statements rather than ‘you’ statements, for example, ‘I think you misinterpreted what I said’, instead of, ‘Your interpretation is all wrong.’
It’s ok to share your reactions, feelings, regard the criticism: ‘I feel a little angry about your bringing up this issue again’, or ‘I feel unjustly criticised.’---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Developing Assertive Behaviour
Learning to behave more assertively leads to more fruitful communication and increased self-confidence.
Assertive people:
1. Take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. They do not blame or judge others.
2. Stand up for their own rights, and respect the rights of other people.
3. Act without undue fear or anxiety.
4. Ask for what they want and need openly and honestly, and accept that they may not get exactly what they want. They do not fight to win their corner – unlike the aggressive person.
5. Are willing to compromise or negotiate to settle conflict situations. They do not take flight from difficult situations, or allow themselves to be walked over – Unlike the passive or submissive person.
6. Don’t feel the need to bully or manipulate others (unlike the aggressive person), and don’t feel the need to please others in the hope they will be approved of, (unlike the passive person).
7. Can give and accept praise easily.
8. Can give and accept criticism – they are aware of their particular crumple buttons’ and do not over-react to criticism.
9. Have high levels of self-confidence and self-esteem, and build other people’s self-confidence and self-esteem.
10. Like themselves for who they are, and accept other people as they are.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Price of “Nice”
“Nice” behaviour eventually has a ‘Price’ for both the ‘nice’ person and persons involved With him/her. It is alienating, indirectly hostile, and self destructive because:
1 The ‘nice’ person tends to create an atmosphere such that others avoid giving honest, genuine feedback. This blocks emotional growth.
2 ‘Nice’ behaviour will ultimately be distrusted by others. That is, it generates a Sense of uncertainty and lack of safety in others, who can never be sure if they will be supported by the ‘nice’ person in a crisis situation that requires an aggressive Confrontation with others.
3 ‘Nice’ people stifle the growth of others. They avoid giving others genuine Feedback, and they deprive others of a real person to assert against. This tends to Others can never be certain if the relationship to turn their aggression against themselves. It also tends to generate guilt and depressed feelings in others who are Intimately Involved and dependent on them.
4 Because of chronic ‘niceness’, others can never be certain if the relationship with A ‘nice’ person could endure a conflict or sustain an angry confrontation, if it did Occur spontaneously. This places great limits on the potential extent of intimacy In the relationship by placing others constantly on their guard.
5 ‘Nice’ behaviour is not reliable. Periodically, the ‘nice’ person explodes in unexpected rage and those involved are shocked and unprepared to cope with it.
6 The ‘nice’ person, by holding aggression in, may pay a physiological price in the Form of psychosomatic problems and a psychological price in the form of
Alienation.
7 ‘Nice’ behaviour is emotionally unreal behaviour. It puts severe limitations on
all relationships, and the ultimate victim is the ‘nice’ person him/herself.
Motivation for Life
Program Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Service
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
phone 01376552774