Written by Ranjit Bhagwat Ph.D.
a licensed clinical psychologist and clinical supervisor
[Click here to read more about him]
As a trauma and addiction psychologist, I talk to many people who feel overwhelmed by messy lives, difficult relationships, and inner pain. This is a common feeling, especially in 2021 as we continue to face a global pandemic accompanied by major changes to our ways of being and thinking.
I get overwhelmed by this, too. Therapists are, after all, humans. When I began the journey to becoming a practicing psychologist, I felt flooded with facts to learn for my classes, diagnoses and symptoms to remember, evidence-based treatments to understand, ethical rules, legal obligations. These things still occupy my energy and time as I enter the middle phase of my career. However, experience has taught me that the work of healing does not emanate from my esoteric knowledge of human psychology. In fact, I believe that this crucial work is driven by a few very simple core ideas. These principles are not complicated. They are simple -- and really hard to do.
Here are three simple, difficult things you can expect to do on your healing journey.
1. Tell your story.
The story – the narrative – is a critical component of the trauma and addiction therapies on which my own practice focuses. How? For example, narratives of addiction and trauma are often unaddressed, unspoken, or unspeakable to the people who’ve lived through them. An unnamed experience has its own power. It can chase and haunt us, animating our decisions without our awareness and profoundly affecting our lives. There are also things we’ve named, then immediately disavowed or forgotten. Recovery can contain such moments of shame and guilt, disavowed but critically important to excavate, aerate, and integrate into the broader tapestry of our life story. And no matter how alive these stories may feel in our minds, the act of speaking or writing them out transforms them, often in surprising and unexpected ways. When we tell our stories, we also learn from them. The act of narrating is also an act of discovery, not just for the listener but for the narrator. Whatever your story is, it’s likely that you need to tell it. And when you tell it, you very well might find something new and necessary for your healing.
2. Remain in the present.
There are volumes upon volumes of books, podcasts, videos, trainings, and articles about the idea of staying in the present. It’s the kind of thing that we, as therapists, need to actively practice as we guide others to it. What’s remarkable to me is that being present isn’t actually complicated. You know how to do it. And you’ve experienced it, somewhere, sometime in your life. However it works for you, the challenge is to make the conscious decision to inhabit your body and your life fully, to experience the moment for all of its pain, joy and anything in between.
3. Act “as if” and your beliefs will follow.
Although it is valuable to understand yourself and your reasons for doing things, insight alone is often not enough. For example, what good is it knowing the reasons I drink alcohol every day if I just can’t stop drinking? We tend to think that our beliefs need to change before we can act differently – that we need to feel better about ourselves first before we can take action and live a better life. I find that the opposite is more often true: feelings and thoughts are the last to change. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves, “What would I do in this situation if I felt the way I want to feel?” The question is a simple and powerful one, even if the answer sometimes is not. When our actions don’t match our beliefs, we may experience something called cognitive dissonance. Classic psychological research on cognitive dissonance suggests that when pressured or compelled to behave in ways that contradict our beliefs, we are likely to adjust those beliefs to accommodate our new behavior. While most of the original scholarship on cognitive dissonance dispalyed the human capacity to justify harmful or unethical behavior to others, we also know that the inverse is true. By changing our behaviors, we can create a healthy cognitive dissonance that challenges unhelpful beliefs like being undeserving of love or unable to take care of ourselves. We can harness this feature of human psychology to better ourselves and live fuller, healthier lives. Often, the challenge of behavior change is simply to believe that we can try – that we are allowed and deserve to feel better.
These three ideas aren’t the only important ones in psychotherapy. They’re also not exclusive to psychotherapy. We all have stories we need to tell. We all need to work on being present. And we all can make changes in our actions that better reflect the ways we want to feel. I suggest to you that these concepts – whatever language you use to describe them – are universal to the journey toward better mental health and healing. I wish you well on that journey.