Tony White

Thought management exercises are useful when a person is troubled by ongoing or recurring distressing thoughts. There is a range of thought management techniques.

Distraction: using pleasant thoughts can help take attention away from unpleasant thoughts.
Mindfulness techniques to redirect attention from negative thinking.
Thought replacement or coping statements. Develop a set of statements that will counteract worrying thoughts (e.g., "This is difficult but I have been through it before and have got through it okay", "Hang in there, this will not last much longer"). Substitute one of the reassuring or coping statements for the troubling thought.
Thought stopping: The person states the word “Stop!” in response to troubling thoughts.



These are most useful when the individual has problems that are not too ‘deep’. They can be quite effective and useful for the person who has trouble with a big internal critic and so forth. For those where there is more serious maladjustment such as with the personality disorders or character problems then such thought management is much less useful. Someone who hates and loathes self is not going to be able to change that attitude around by altering specific thoughts they have. This requires the use of other treatment methods as well.

However such strategies do have their use but one can add to those above with other thought management methods. For instance regressive techniques of thought management can be used.

Rather than creating new thought patterns as described above one can often find that they already have such alternative thinking styles. Some of these can already be ingrained in the personality and thus will tend to be much more impactful than learning a new thought style from scratch.



One can use regressive techniques to almost “hunt” around on the personality. One way of doing this is with the parent interview technique.

So it is better if you already have someone there
1. Identify who is in your Parent ego state tapes
2. Do a parent interview to elicit what they think, feel, do and say. One is accessing the Parent, Adult and Child ego states of mother and father.


The parent interview allows the client to define and experience mother's and father's own Parent, Adult and Child ego states.




Quite often there already are some good messages in those that the person is unaware of. Some times in counselling so much focus is on the damage that the parents may have done that there can be other ‘good’ stuff that is forgotten or pushed to the side. If some is there and can be found then they can be quite impactful as they are already deeply ingrained in the personality. They have been there since childhood.

If there is none then one better way to create new thinking styles is to make editions to the Parent ego state. The thought management techniques cited above are primarily an Adult ego state function. To have them ‘implanted’ in the Parent or Child ego state is going to make them much more potent.



How does a young child get Parent ego state tapes? It simply surveys its environment and copies other parental type figures around them. It then behaves, thinks and feels like that person. It copies them and practices being like that. If this persists then it will become part of their Parent ego state.

This happens at times naturally in the therapy setting. Clients will report things such as, “The other day I was dealing with my mother and I found myself saying things like you (the therapist) would say”. This means the client has introjected the therapist partly into their Parent ego state. So taking on new thoughts and behaviours via introjection is going to be much more powerful than by simple Adult ego state based thought management techniques.

In addition to this. In doing a more overall approach to thought management one needs to address the client’s reinforcing memories and script based fantasies.

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Despair is commonly misdiagnosed as depression which leads to incorrect treatment such as with anti depressants.




If you want to see the proper version of this go to my Face Book.
You tube are Mother f**kers



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In the newspaper today there was this article about a snake oil salesman. This story has been running for some time now and he is accused of running a cult and being this charismatic person who gets followers and abuses or uses them in various ways. Apparently one of his techniques of control is that he is said to give counselling to his followers and apparently he uses this as a way of keeping them ‘obedient’.


Obedience.



Well the journalist Colleen Egan calls for more regulation on ‘counsellors’ to make them accountable to some form of professional body. Whilst I am sure her intentions are well meaning the last thing we need is more regulation of this kind. It simply is ineffective.

All this does is stop people using the word, in this case ‘counsellor’. Counselling is not a word but is a style of relating and you simply cannot regulate that. Everyday mothers counsel children, bosses counsel employees, teachers counsel students, wives counsel husbands and so forth.

If such regulation came in then the charismatic figures would simply change the title of what they do to such things as therapy, coaching, life coaching, facilitating human development and so on. It is not going to stop this man relating to his followers in a counselling type of way which the problem is, and it can lead to exploitation.



But that is life and it goes on day in and day out. In the work place it is called office politics. That is people are setting about changing office relationship so one gains some dominance or ‘power’ over the others. In the counselling relationship that can happen as well and it can be used for good or evil.

One also needs to be careful of the corollary. If one sees regulation of the title as the solution then many will automatically assume that because a person has such a title then they are competent and ethical. Unfortunately that is not always true. I know some highly qualified and titled counsellors who I would not refer my dog to.

To get a qualification or title means you have passed an exam, it does not mean you are competent as a counsellor. It can help a little bit, but as I said counselling is about a style of relating and I am not aware of how one can examine such a thing effectively. I am yet to see an examination system for counsellors that can do such a thing and I have been involved with credentialling counsellors for the past 25 years.



It does however raise another interesting point. Can a husband and wife counsel each other? My answer to that is, “No”. What they can do is listen empathetically and compassionately and give some bits and pieces of advice perhaps. But it must be kept to a moderate level. The quickest way to destroy a marriage is for the wife to stop being a wife to her husband and become her husband’s counsellor. If that happens its, good-bye marriage.

Counselling is not only listening and passing on wise counsel but it is a way of relating as I mentioned before. The power structure in the relationship is not equal and thus if the wife counsels her husband then she is moving into the powerful, psychologically dominant position. Sooner of later that is going to incense his Child ego state and then the shit hits the fan and the relationship is on the rocks.



If the husband is struggling emotionally then there is nothing wrong with the wife helping empathetically. But it cannot go on too long or get too intense because then the marriage changes into a counselling relationship.

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There is often conjecture over the relationship between self harm behaviour and attention seeking. It gets all mixed up with how people want it to be, politics and how it actually is. I have mentioned before that there are 8 alternative reasons why people can self harm:

1. Gang behaviour tattooing type of self harm
2. To make self feel real. Dissociation, detached from reality. Cutting closes the gap.
3. To make self feel something. No feelings at all just numb
4. Tension relief and pressure stress build up
5. Physical expression of emotional pain. Cutting provides concrete evidence of pain
6. Cutting as self nurturing. Allows caring of self. Munchausen Syndrome
7. Self punishment and self hate
8. Manipulation and to get attention

Of course these are not all mutually exclusive. People can be driven by varying combinations of the different motivations. But as mentioned before attention seeking behaviour (ASB) is a particularly difficult one.



So what is the problem? It is well stated by Kahless who says:

I think people react to self harm being called ASB when it is presented as the sole reason and given that most people associate the term ASB as being selfish, self asorbed, etc etc.
(End quote)

I think she has identified one of the problems well. I understand that politically the self harm support groups want to deny people self harm as an ASB because it can reflect badly on all self harmers for reasons like Kahless says.

My view is that some people do self harm as an ASB. I have worked with self harmers and when you build up a good relationship some have told me to my face that they do self harm to get attention or to manipulate circumstances. Clearly some do not and keep their cutting well hidden for long periods of time.

This picture below took me three minutes to find on the net.



I went to my Flickr, went to search all photostreams, typed in “self harm” and then hit search. I was then given thousands of hits of photographs titled - “self harm”. I simply clicked on one of these and went into that person’s pohotostream. There were other photographs with her face displayed for all the world to see along with her cuts. In her profile there is the name of the city she lives in, a bit about what she does and who she is. There are thousands and thousands of people doing the same and this was only in Flickr, imagine how many there are on the entire web. Why would a person do such a thing and display their cuts and their face on the web? ASB?

When a loved one dies at some point many of those left behind will at times reflect on their own mortality. As I have mentioned before people are very good at lying to themselves. Whilst we all know intellectually that we are going to die sometimes our Child ego states manage to some how trick us into believing that it kind of, really wont, somehow happen to me.

At the funeral we are slapped in the face with a reminder of our own mortality. So some do things like thinking about their priorities in life and for a while some stop the pursuit of the almighty dollar in favour of spending more time with family. However it usually is only temporary as the Child ego state sets about getting the person to lie to them self again. The point is, that when a close loved one dies were are slapped in the face with a reminder of our own finiteness.



Consider a hypothetical client. A nurse who works in a local hospital comes to a session with me and reports how two days ago she had to deal with a teenage girl who had ‘slashed up’ on her arms. The client reports that when she saw this girl she felt a surge of anger and treated her with disdain. One of the first things I would do is search for her own self destructive and self injurious urges. It is quite possible that seeing the girl had slapped the nurse in the face with a reminder of her own self injurious feelings.

So back to the reason given by Kahless as to why those who do ASB are viewed poorly - because they are seen as self absorbed and selfish. With self harm there maybe another reason why some react particularly negatively to them - they are reminded of their own self destructive urges. The teenage self harmer scared the nurse and she dealt with that scare by getting angry at the source of the scare.

Finally, assuming I am correct and there are some people who self harm as an ASB, at least in part, then these people have a very big problem. Not only does some of society view them negatively the self harm support groups further damage them.

Its like going to the doctor and saying I have a pain in my back to which the doctor replies no you don’t really its just that your hungry. Such a patient would leave feeling confused.

If a self harmer discloses to her support group that sometimes she slashes up to get attention only to be told that she does not really do it for that reason then she is also going to be left confused. She will walk out thinking that she does not cut self to get attention but in the back of her mind she knows she does, because she in fact does. She is now worse off because of the political agenda of the self harm support group.


Self harm

In addition to this she is also left untreated. The treatment goal of some one who cuts self to get attention is clear. For the Child ego state to learn how to get attention by others means than damaging self. Much easier said than done but the gaol of treatment is defined. If one is told they do not self harm for attention then of course it can never be treated.

Like all self harmers those who do it as an ASB are struggling in life and doing the best they can with the psychological resources they currently have. No different than the person who reports depression or panic attacks. No more or less valid and human. They just need to be treated for a different condition.

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I am writing a part for a book and need to include a piece about the Parent ego state. A section of which I have enclosed below. As you can see it is about how the Parent ego state is a collection of tapes. I was wanting to include some examples. Is there anyone out there who can give me some of their own experiences or even back channel them to me.

What attitudes or behaviors or things you say and do that are similar to what your parents did when you were a child. You may find your self parenting in the same way you were parented, or if you had a critical father you tend to be critical yourself. You may be critical of others your you may express that criticism to yourself. What behaviors, values, thoughts and feelings have you imitated or copied from your parents? They may possibly be included in what I am writing.



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The Parent ego state is where we have modelled on parent type figures in our life. So it is where we have our values and morals about life. When we have our own children we sometimes find that we are doing and saying things to our own children that were said to us. These are all in our Parent ego state.

The Parent ego state can be seen as a collection of tapes one has in their head that one has copied or learned from parent type figures in his life. This could be mother and father or an older sibling or some other person like a grandparent or an uncle who has had an impact on the young child as he was growing up.



This can be drawn as in diagram 2. This shows how the Parent ego state is a collection of audio and video tapes that are slotted into the person’s head. These are copied by the young child and in this case ther are four major ones. This process is inevitable due to the imitative instinct. Each of us will insticntually copy others around us and in childhood that will particularly include parent figures as they are of extra importance to us. As a result as one grows up and becomes a parent themself one can find self saying things to the children that are the same as was said to them.


Diagram 2
This copying process continues through out ones entire life so the Parent ego state is constantly being updated. However usually the strongest and loudest tapes come from early childhood and it is therefore these ones that mainly influence the individuals behaviour. Often they are quite critical tapes and one ends up with a large ‘internal critic’ that sits in the back of their head and judges what they do each day. They can be changed in adulthood with the inclusion of new noncritical tapes that will counter the highly critical ones from years ago.

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Humans have what is known as an attachment hunger . That is we all have a biological, psychological and social hunger for an attachment to a mother [father] figure. Without it in infancy there is a swift decline in our mental and physical health eventually leading to a state of marasmus or 'hospitalism'. This hunger persists throughout our entire lives.



However from adolescence onwards, peer attachments allow the childhood need for a parental attachment to decrease. Thus there is more variety in the type of attachments in adolescence and adulthood. However without at least one firm and secure attachment in adulthood there is also mental and physical decline. This is primarily exhibited by withdrawal behaviour and the various problems associated with that. Most notably the schizoid personality type demonstrates these difficulties. In addition, it is noted that the psychopathic personality is also typified by the lack of the formation of social bonds.
Attachment hunger comes into play at about 5 to 7 months of age. Prior to that time there are indiscriminant attachments. The infant does not discriminate between who is feeding her, changing her or holding her. As a result some call this phase the stage of primary narcissism. At about 6 to 8 months the child develops specific attachments - the object period. The child will develop an attachment to one primary person, most often mother. At this time the child shows a fear of strangers and of being left by the primary object.


With narcissism one does not realize others are missing



If the specific attachment phase proceeds well, after a few more months the child will show a broadening of attachments. First to one other person and then to several others. By 18 months most children have an attachment to several people, with some research showing that only 13 percent of 18 month old children are still exclusively attached to one figure.

It should be noted that these two phases: of the attachment to one figure only, followed by the broadening of attachments to a variety of others may be culture specific. In monomatric families there is a tendency for the child to initially form a single all exclusive attachment to one figure. However in polymatric families, where the care of the child is shared around, this initial single all exclusive attachment is less observable. Whatever the specifics are the child will begin forming attachments around 5 to 8 months of age and there will be a broadening of them over time.


Supermario wallpaper



This is not meant to discard the notion of stimulation hunger or the craving for strokes, recognition and sensory stimulation. The research clearly the human need for stimulation. Stimulation and attachment are in many respects necessary for each others existence. For example it seems impossible that two people could become attached without any stimulation. That is physical and/or non-physical strokes, occurring between them.
Stimulation hunger in part allows the attachment hunger to be satisfied. For attachment to occur there must be stimulation or strokes occurring between the two parties. However that is not enough in itself for attachment to occur. There needs to be other conditions met. First there needs to be a consistency of the person providing the strokes. The few primary parent figures need to be there consistently and stimulating consistently. Second the person providing the strokes needs to be giving something of their own Child ego state to the relationship. A parent who mechanically and disinterestedly gave physical strokes to a child would of course hamper the attachment process. Attachment is a two way process.



The literature notes that one of the most important features for attachment to occur is the, "...readiness with which an individual is prepared to respond to the infant's signals and his general willingness to engage in playful interaction". In transactional analysis terms the parenting figure must be willing to invest his own Child ego state into the interactions with the infant. Both sides need to attach.

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