How do I get off the therapy treadmill?
Yes, this is a question that clients have asked me. How do I get off the therapy treadmill? One client said that he found it more depressing to go to yet another therapist and re-live all the past traumas and problems, than it was to experience the traumas in the first place.
Let’s say we can measure our mood or state of mind. We can of course.
Let’s start at minus 10 for curled up on the floor totally unable to function, and progress right up to plus 10 for being so energised and full of beans NOTHING can stop us.
And let’s say being at zero is the null point. We aren’t sad, we aren’t happy, we are just OK. Or ‘Meh!’ as some may say.
(This scale exists, it is called the SUE Scale).
So a client comes in to see yet another therapist.
They are probably minus 5 already.
Then they have to go back to all those traumas again. Probably down to minus 8 now. Then they talk, get a bit of a pick-up from the therapist and go home maybe minus 4. Knowing that next week they are going to do it all again.
They learn to anticipate the dreaded question from the therapist ‘How did that make you feel?’ Because inside they are screaming ‘How the fuck did you think that made me feel you dick!’
It is a rarely challenged Belief (not Fact) that we have to churn up all our unresolved traumas, inspect them minutely, re-live them, and accept them before we can move on.
Why?
Was this available to all the Holocaust survivors? No.
Did a lot of them go on to live good lives? Yes.
So how about a therapy that takes you into the future.
How about a therapy that looks forwards.
How about a way of thinking that focuses on all the wonderful things that are coming and that we can have in our life?
Do we look backwards now?
No.
Does the past matter if the future is so bloody exciting and marvellous and full of joy and splendour?
Hell no.