I'll get out of you, bloody champs. Welcome to another installment the You Project. One of my favorite humans is back. The very clever, the very beautifully voiced, the very dulcet toned doctor Lillian is back.
Heank you, Craig.
Yeah, I do what I can. I do what I can.
You know, I have to thank your listeners because last time I was on the show, which was a few months ago, now it feels like forever ago. I asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to listen to some of my new relaxation mindfulness exercises, and several of your listeners, probably maybe six, said that they would love a couple and I gave them a couple according to like what they were interested in listening to. And yeah, it was
really good. It was really good to have people listen to them for the first time and give me feedback and so, you know, and you know, the voice thing, it's nice to hear feedback about the fact that your voice is relaxing. So that's nice.
You know, when you do your own you know, like whatever you create a program, you write a book, or you do a presentation or any of the things that you and I do a little bit of it's hard to like you have an idea of what it's like or what it you know, how the presentation went, or you know, you write something and you think, I think this is not bad, and then you give it to somebody else and they're like, that's that's inspirational or I don't get it.
Or yeah, but that that's that.
Like I just finished one of my one of my papers, and I had to then, well, I finished the first draft.
But this is an eighteen month paper, right, this is a.
Mega, mega systematic literature review, which you understand what started with eleven hundred and fifty odd papers ended up with about one hundred and twenty that I reviewed, one hundred and twenty different lots of research to create this table, to create this paper out of that, right, Yeah, then you just got to go and email to all of these people like my team, yea, my supervisor, to go, well, here's the final or not, here's the first completed like
totally completed draft of my paper, and then you press you know, refresh on your three months seventy two times a day or more. More critically, I sent off you know, one of my first papers or my first paper for publication and what I guess a lot of people don't know this or need to know this. But so when you do a you know, like me, a doctorate in
psychology or neuropsychology, it's all research based. And I'm doing mine by publication, which means I have to write papers and then send them off to journals, scientific journals and they will assess it and I'll go, we might publish it, but you need to address these issues or no, we're
not publishing it, or yeah, we are publishing it. And what you don't know when you're me, which is not a real academic or definitely wasn't an academic slightly becoming one, is so you can send it off and they don't even respond for six months before they go no, I know, Well, could you've told me that a week in You would have saved me six months.
And yeah, it's so frustrating the whole process really, I mean, whether it's by paper, whether it's to do the whole thing. And like when I was doing my PhD, you didn't have the option of doing it via publication in journals, which would have been great actually, but we didn't have that.
I've still got a hand in a thesis. Don't worry, No, I.
Know you still have to do that, but like we didn't get that opportunity to have people review it in that way and even and have the chance to publish articles before. What we did is like do the whole thing whatever, you three hundred and fifty page you know, book basically, and then you're expected afterwards to publish from that, and you're like, no, I've just I've just written this
thing and I'm so over it. Like the last thing I want to do is now edit it in five different ways to create you know, articles that I can actually publish for the rest of everyone else to see. But you know, of course you should because you've just done all this research and you want people to see it and know about it. So yeah, it wasn't the best,
but yeah, the waiting game. And when whenever you create anything, whether it's like an academic report or project, or whether it's just you know, a relaxation exercise or a program or whatever, it is hard to put it out there, you know, like it is your work. You are you are actually being judged for it.
And that's that's part of the vulnerability of even doing a podcast, where yeah, I mean, every every single person who listens to viewing me today, completely understandably because we're all human, has an opinion about you know, is this good?
Is this crap? Should I listen? Should I lean in? Should I turn it off? Should I? Is this valuable? Do they know what they're talking about? Does he? Does she?
You know, it's like we're constantly judging, not necessarily in a judgmental way, but just as in we're trying to figure out what that is that we're listening to and whether or not it's worth investing forty five minutes or fifty minutes of.
My life into this thing.
Yeah, totally.
I did a very brave thing with my last book, which was called Listen to Me bragging very brave.
I was so brave.
I wrote a book called Twenty Questions for Humans, which was really just not answering but really exploring twenty really common questions that I get asked and a lot of people get asked, right just about the human experience where we just, you know, we just leaned in everything from what's it like being around me? That Craig Harper Chestnut through too, you know, what's the meaning of life?
Right? How do I find my purpose.
All that just like interesting stuff to have a conversation about. And so I finished it and I reached out to my I think it was Facebook community, and I said, I need twenty five people to come to my Then I had a commercial office at this time, so it was only a few years ago I got rid of the office in COVID, but I had had a forty seat lecture theater, so a little lecture theater.
And some offices and a whole bunch of space.
And so I said, I want twenty five people to come to my office next Saturday to read.
My book, the book that's not yet published.
It's I wrote it formulaically, right, and by that I mean the average person reads I think it's two hundred and fifty words a minute.
Something like that.
Anyway, I figured out that i'd written I'd written a book that could be read by the average person in about sixty to ninety minutes. So really sure, like fifteen thousand words. Yeah, And I thought, well, it's easy to read. It's not like people have got to spend eight hours, Like even if they really amble through it, it's going to take them two hours. So everybody came in. I got twenty five people in like an hour. They all showed up in person, which was very nice of them.
I gave them all a draft, you know, basically one hundred pages or whatever it was, in a big alligator clip, just you know, so like literally photo copied book hadn't yet been sent for printing.
And publication, et cetera.
I gave them all two red pens and said, I don't even want to tell you what you're looking for. I just want you to read it. If you find any mistakes, obviously you know, any grammar or any typos or that'd be handy, but I just.
Want you to read it.
And you could write a whole lot, not much, nothing, you could write on every page, no pages, but knock yourself out. And so imagine how long that took me to get through twenty five manuscripts. It took me about
two weeks. But it was really a worthwhile effort because you get a real insight into twenty five other human beings who are interpreting something that you share with a certain intention and a certain kind of story in your head about what it is you're giving them, and then when you read what it is they're actually getting or reading, it's like, oh.
Oh, now it's so interesting, isn't it. Like you don't expect some of the comments that you get. You're like, oh, I have this, yeah exactly, like I think it's so important what you just said. I love how you did it in person, live, and you just gave them like two hours to do it. I've never done it that way. I've always just emailed it out and then you never know when you're getting it back. Your way is so much better, you know. So that's a really good idea
next time. But no, I remember when I cause I was I had done my an audio program kind of like a podcast, but it was really about coping with anxiety and challenging times. And I had written it during the COVID period as well, and so I sent that out to a bunch of people like is this, you know, helpful? And yeah, basically what you just did, like just read it,
what do you think is this whatever? And I remember getting a comment about how because at the beginning I talk about you talk about this a lot too, like to to manage anxiety or to make any change of any kind, there is effort involved. So it's not you know, it's not just you're going to read it and everything's going to be fine. It's like the do the things that are suggested. And one of the comments was you're
making this sound too hard. It's like, oh jeez, that was and I wasn't expecting that comment, and I was like, yeah, I can totally understand what she's saying. Yes it, And I want to be truthful about the fact that you have to put effort in order to get the outcomes that you want, but that I also want people to do it. So what's the balance between making sure people know that they have to do work but also making
sure they they they actually do it. They're not at the very beginning saying no, this is going to be too hard, so I'm not even going to try to do it.
So I think one of the challenges for you and and May like we we've got different jobs, but we're in bulltok.
You know, will ask like we're trying to help people. Sure, Yeah, is that.
Like what's going to resonate with Sally, won't with Jane?
What's going to confuse Peter?
Will be complete like profound wisdom to John And so it's like, fuck, I don't even know how to say this, because whatever I say, it's going to confuse one person, enlighten another person, make one person angry, and another person think I'm a genius. Right, So it's like, how do I share this thought or this idea or this strategy or even this story in a way which will have the greatest chance of resonating with the most people, you know?
And that's an ever present challenge on this show, Like how we talk about human behavior and psychology and the brain and neuropsychology.
And you know whatever, without sounding.
Like aliens and without disenfranchising people or confusing people and still being relevant, but also giving people actual things that they can you know, I was going to say operationalized, like even that way, don't say that, craz don't say operationalized, right exactly giving people ideas or strategies or tools that they can go Oh Like, I'm like, look, this might not be for you, but a thing that I do
when that happens is I do this. So you know, maybe this is not a prescription, but you might want to try it. You might want to see what happens when you try it, and then maybe if you think that's not a bad idea for you, then you kind of weave that into your protocol or not see what happens.
Right, But that's the thing is trying to share.
You know, insight and psychology and wisdom and science with people in a way that's not about me or you stroking our ego going look at how clever we are.
Actually actually you know where people go.
I get that, I'm going to do that boom, Like Lilian said something, I try to something do something worked, Thanks Lilian the end.
Yeah, Yeah, you want to make it as accessible as possible. But also like I think sometimes for me, I'll I don't have I usually can explain what, but I forget sometimes to explain how Yes, And I think that that's the part that people really want and need, is like you know, I can, we can talk about skills, but like break it down, how do I actually do this? Yeah?
And I think, you know, like that's what I would get frustrated with if I was trying to learn something like I'm trying to learn the whole range of things to do with running a business and like sales and marketing and all this crap. But I did I was never educated on so and so if people are like, yeah, this is what you do, and it's like, yeah, I know what to do, but like tell me, like what's step one, step two, step three? And then within that, within step one, how in detail do you do step one?
You know, like there's all this assumed knowledge I think, and I definitely have, like I know, like from being in psychology for so long, like for twenty five years, you start to think that what you know is common sense, and so you don't have to explain, and you don't want to be an over explainer and you know, patronize people.
That's obviously not what we want to do. But at the same time, we we have to understand that, you know, like explaining it in a way so that people can actually action it so that it's helpful for them is what's the important thing. And not to assume that everyone knows what you think seems like common sense. It's only common sense because you've been doing it for twenty five years, not because it's common sense. So yeah, so that's been tricky for me too.
It's I think it's ironic how many people who are in.
The human behavior space don't understand how other humans think. It's like they, you know, the false consensus affect people think that other people think like them.
Yeah, so they erroneously listen to me, fuck.
Wrongly, wrongly, Greig.
Sorry, So they wrongly assume that their intention, their intended meaning, will be the other person's experience.
You know.
It's like, yeah, you know when someone goes, oh, you did this and that new I felt this and that, and the person goes, oh, well, that definitely was my wasn't my intention, and you go, it doesn't matter what your intention was. It's nice, but your intention isn't necessarily
my experience. So trying to even I mean, this is it my will has very much theory of mine and met a perception and all that stuff, right, But to try to actually understand how another person thinks, because how I think may or may not have anything in common with how they think. So and I think one of the mistakes that people make is that they think that, you know, understanding how someone else thinks is analogous to listen to me is the same as agreeing with what
they think. It's like right, right, Like, I've worked with our colleagues and addicts for a long time, but I've never been drunk or high, and I don't you know,
I while I love addicts. I don't like addiction. But the reason that I know now, after doing a bad job for a while, I now know how to have really good, meaningful, healthy, helpful conversations with people battling with addiction is because I've done it a lot, and I have some in site into their version of right now because I've been in a lot of conversations with alcoholics
and people struggling with different kinds of addiction. Definitely not an expert, but for someone who's never had booze and never had a drug, I have some pretty good insight. But it took a long time, and it took me realizing Craig, they do not think anything like you, So don't assume anything. Just shut the fuck up and be present and listen and try to get away from your
reality and have a look through their window. And then if you can see through their window a bit, which is understanding, not agreeing, not aligning, just understanding, then you can build a level of connection and rapport where now you can help them. But if I'm standing on my judgmental I don't smoke, I don't drink, I train every day, be more like me, Well, you're going to create more problems and solutions.
Yeah. Actually, that was one of the things that I was always interested in. I didn't know I was going to go into psychology WHI I was like nineteen or
twenty probably, but from very young I was. I became interested in why I've noticed that people made choices like, for instance, using drugs or alcohol, you know, at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, Yeah, And I noticed that their willingness to do that was different to my willingness, right, And so I was really interested in why is it that I think differently about this, Like why is it that they make choices that I wouldn't make and vice versa? And
I did. That ended up being what I wanted to do as my PhD, right, because I my first job out of out of UNI was working with young people who had alcohol and drug problems, so age twelve to seventeen wow, who yeah? Who were Yeah? And they were remanded by the courts, usually to a residential substance rehabilitation program and a lot of the people who worked there were in AA or NA, and then they had some counselors like you know, junior MBI. I was just out
of school to do work with this group. Of children basically, and like you said, it's well, I mean it was a it was a really good introduction to trauma, yeah, and the impact of that on children, and and like what you said, like what's the important thing is to connect to understand We had children who would come men who were very racist, for instance, and had to be with other kids from other races and nationalities, and it was and it was the process of being able to
connect with someone like that and love them and care about them and see them change their mindset over time was like really powerful. So when I went to do my PhD, I really was interested in again like why what are the what are the things that influence decisions to use drugs and alcohol and make these kind of risky choices in life. But what happened was the person who could have been my supervisor for that was not available, and the person who was in the eating disorder space
was available. So I had to change my So I wanted to study the same thing, but I changed my question away from substance abuse and towards unhealthy and risky eating and weight loss behavior choices basically, So it was kind of like, yeah, it was still about decision making and risk taking, but with the different behavior or different behaviors.
I didn't know that that was.
So I started my PhD started, or where I started, was looking at the role of motivation, so nothing about metaproceptional metaaccuracy. Looking at the role of motivation what we call, you know, colloquially motivation as in that emotional state, that level of arousal excitement.
So not motivation as in the.
Reason for doing something, but more about the psychological and emotional state that people get in.
And so I was looking at that.
Kind of emotion, that kind of motivation, and how that correlated with success and what role motivation played in helping people change. And it was just super messy. It was just like, oh, there was no like even even there's no unified definition of motivation. Really there are a lot of kind of different thoughts around it, and it was just and I just it was just it was going to be a bit of a.
Research minefield, and not in a good way, in a good way.
So I had another idea, obviously, and I just leaned into that. But I think back to your thing about the kids, you know, and what predisposes somebody to be more or less inclined to choose to pick up booze or pick up a drug or you know, and there's a viron mental factors and you know, cultural sociological variables, factors, blah blah blah. Then there's like, yeah, you know, biochemical and genetic where some people seem to be more genetically
predisposed to addiction. I mean David Gillespie who is on a lot with us, he talks a lot about how some brains just don't produce as much dopamine and naturally, so the only time that people actually feel normal and inverted commas is when they pick up booze and then
so they're at a genetic disadvantage before they start. And yeah, I just think it's people, don't Some people do, I'm sure, but I think a lot of people see being an addict or being an alcoholic is almost a sign of weakness or like, oh wow, that's so not so not the case.
Yeah, well, I mean any like mental health issues can be seen as a sign of weakness.
Yeah yeah, yeah, And I.
Truly like, I think the stigma has lessened over the years, for sure, but it has not gotten to a level that's where it needs to be, because those are still words that people would use to describe people with mental health issues.
Well, see it's the line, doc where.
Like, we want to help people, and of course, you know, we want to be compassionate and empathetic and kind and aware and all of those things. But like, I wouldn't treat virtually anybody the way that I treat myself, Like I'm I'm brutal with me, like I'm hard on me. I don't give myself much credit for many things, you know, And I'm not saying this is a good idea everyone, but like I'm quite like I have a pretty strict
operating system that works for me. And in the middle of that, like I'm pretty like far from perfect, but pretty functional, pretty okay, right, yeah, but the stuff that I make me do and the I wouldn't make most people do. But at the same time, I think, how do we how do we be both empathetic and kind but also realistic and practical, because I mean, if you're holding someone's hand for fifteen years and going there, there, it'll be okay. And of course I'm being a little
bit tongue in cheek. At some stage, people have also got to help themselves, like yes, support, yes, perhaps medication. Yes, you know, kindest love, compassion.
All of it. I'm all for it.
But also I don't want my thirty five year old friend who's struggling to wake up and be a fifty year old friend who's made no progress. Yeah, because everybody's trying to nerf the world.
Yeah, well that I mean that is the the main I guess I'm trying to think of the right word. The main role of a like a therapist or like what I try to do with my in my client work, whether it's individual or in groups, is what's the balance. What's the balance between yah supporting someone and challenging them? And Uh, there's a there's some research that's been done that I always think about when I think about that, and I can't I don't know who wrote it and
where it's from. I just remember what it is. But there was some research done on group therapy and what they found was, so they had three different groups. One was like just supportive, yes, one was just very change focused, and one was a combination of both. Right, And so what they found was with the supportive group, huh, they had great reliable attendance, Like people came to that group, right, it felt good. People felt supported and so they came
every week. But there was little change with the change group. There was a lot of dropouts, yes, because there was they didn't have that other side, right, but with but with the group that where they were they focused on both of those things obviously, you mean, you know the results are going to be you know, they they they
stayed and they changed. So I think when you come to when you're in therapy, it really is about supporting them, like supporting them and pushing them forward at the same time, but not always at the same level, Like you're constantly tie trading that depending on what's going on for the person in the moment.
You look at you Todd Triting, you did it? You did?
Did I did? Sorry? Yeah?
So yeah, but how do you know, like how do you know and I mean I know there's no three step plan, right, but how do you doctor Lilly? And how do you know when to push someone a little?
Yeah? Well, I think I think this is an interesting thing. I think over time, what I've learned is trust your client to tell you as well. Sometimes well what I often tell my clients is, you know exactly what I just said, Like, like, therapy is about you know, getting support and also making changes, and that sometimes I might I tell them that I might do one or the
other more than what you think is helpful. Yeah, And so I want you to tell me if I'm off in one direction when you need more of the other, or vice versa. So part of it is being really clear that I'm not always going to know exactly what you need and want, and I'm going to need you to tell me what you need and want as well. But then there are times where you know, like based
on what's going on for the person. So if someone is presenting overwhelmed and really burnt out and they've got a lot of external stressors and there's so much distress,
you know, like then what they need is support. Right, You're not like, you know, going to put more on their plate yes to do like whereas others who might just be if you're like not seeing any change and you just hear like a lot of stuckness, then you're you know, you're going to be pushing them forward and getting them to start to do things, even if it's
in a slow, graded way. That's often how the best way of going little behavioral we call them behavioral experiments, which is essentially just like doing things as an experiment. So you're not like saying you have to change this behavior and do this behavior forever. You're saying, well, you have these kind of ideas about what this behavior may
or may not do. Let's see and let's set up an experiment, and like, you tell me what you think is going to happen, and then we're going to set it up so that you do it, and then you're going to come back and you're gonna tell me what happened.
Okay, what about Yeah? What about somebody who I think quite often what people want is not what they need. Right, So what people want is the couch and Cheetos and a cornetto and Netflix.
What they need is to get the fuck up and go for a walk.
Yeah, it's like I'm going to tell you, oh, you know what I need, But I'm not really telling you what I need. I'm telling you what I want because what I actually need from you is to go No, that's not real, Craig. That's an excuse. That's not a reason, that's a that's an excuse wearing a pretty dress. Right, Yeah, so but what I you know, I'll go, oh, look,
I can't. I can't work out because I've got a sore ankle, and you go, well, Craig, I'm pretty sure there's nine hundred things you can do that won't involve your ankle, right, So, I mean, I'm not trying to be a hard ass, but I just think, you know, I had so many conversations with people who I look at them and I'm like, you could do so much.
There's so many things that you could do. You're so talented, you've got such good genetics, you're so smart, but you're so fucking soft, Like any reason to give up, you find it, any reason to stop, you stop.
And this has been decades.
Yeah, and no, we're not all We're not all going to be you know, fucking worry and I get all of that, but at some stage it's like, my mum is the toughest person I know her and John, my friend that got blown up, but Mum, Mum's been at death's door three times, just the most resilient, most tough, best attitude, and she's an eighty five year old, forty two kilo woman who's fucking terrifying. That's all I mean is like, we don't have to be big and physically strong.
But you know, if we really want to be capable and resilient and be able to be the calm and the chaos and create good results and change and learn and grow and evolve, which everyone kind of says they want to, Well, you need to go and do hard things.
Sometimes not all the time, not all day every day.
And by the way, you can't always be right, you know, when do we open that door where we go no, I call bullshit or we don't because you you know, and I know, but you're nicer than me that some people are full of shit.
I feel like that's I mean, of course that's true. Like I think we're all full of shit sometimes. Yeah, I think for the most part, by time people get to me, Yeah, they know what they need and they know what they want, and they know when those things are clashing against each other, right, and they can say it openly and if I and if they can't say it, and I say it for them, it is it is more often than not acknowledged.
Is yeah true?
Okay, But I do think you're right. There is a place for challenging people in that way like that, the way that you're saying, I think that you know, there are real obstacles two people changing, and some of them are not obvious. Yes, And so the way that I look at it with my clients is, let's look at
what could be getting in the way. And I think I might have mentioned this before on the previous show, but I just divide it up into like thoughts, feelings, relationships, behaviors, and circumstances and just get them to I have like a worksheet that you know, I give to them to like work through all of that so that we know from the beginning what's going to get in the way of change, and so that we can start dealing with
that first. There's and you know, I think that maybe part of the reason I thought to do that was because of my training in dialectical behavior therapy, because that's a therapy that has a pre commitment part of it built in, so before you are accepted into the treatment, you do this thing called a pre commitment face, which is really two well, one orient them to the treatment, orient people to the treatment, but also to say like whoa, what you know what's going to get in the way?
Like are you are you actually sure you want to do this? Because this is actually really hard it's very time consuming. It's going to be super uncomfortable. You're going to have to come for three hours a week, You're going to have to talk in front of people you don't know, like this might not be the right thing for you, Like what's going to get and if you do want to be part of it, what's going to get in the way and how are you going to
deal with that? Yeah, and so when you do all of that upfront, then when things start getting hard and motivation lags and discipline lags, and you know, people stop, you know they're not attending or they're not doing the home work, or they're not you know, doing what they said they were going to do. You're like, well, we've we've already we already knew that this might happen, and we've already problem solved it. Here's what you said you know would work or that you would commit to should
this occur. So I think even just having that being very clear from the beginning, like what the what the purpose of you know, if it's therapy or if it's you know, coaching or whatever, it is a group program, this is what it is. Be very clear about what it is and what what part you play in this process. And if you're not ready for it, that's okay, Just
there's other things you can do. You don't have to do this, But if you are ready for it, this is what it involves, and this is what the expectations are.
Yeah, how flexible or adaptable or varied?
I guess is the programming or the prescription with what you do? Like when I just compare to say, you know, being a trainer or an exercise physiologist or whatever, and people come in and you know, some people have got them training like a powerlift. To some people they're doing a whole lot of flexibility and balance. Some people are really just trying to get better posture. Yeah, some people are doing heaps of pinloaded shits. Some people don't touch pinloaded.
Some people are doing really functional kettlebell training. Some people are doing deadlifts and squads. Some people are running, some people are working on like it's some people like it's really varied. It's it's not on any level, cookie cutter.
Yeah, what about?
And I guess psychologically, mentally, emotionally, cognitively, people are just as diverse as they are biologically and physical as in you know, body, sure mine brain like how do you figure out other than in a assessment.
I guess that's a big part of it.
Figure out how do you figure out where you're going to go because what you'll do with Craig would be optimal, but it won't be with Dive.
Yeah. I mean what you said is you do start with an assessment. So you start with getting to know the person. Yeah, and you start with well what are they here for? And well, when you're a clinical psychologist, it's often a mental health issue or disorder that they're coming in for. And then you start then you start thinking, Okay, what are the most effective evidence based treatments for that? Yeah?
And so what we would normally do with a client, or I should speak for a mist what I would normally do with a client is I usually present them with like a brief on like my formulation of the problem based on what they have told me. Yeah, this is all by the way, I always say in draft form, like because because it's collaborative. So I'm like, you've said this stuff and I've formulated it, and now I want your feedback on is this correct or is it what's missing?
Like you know, all of that sort of stuff. So I give them like a little brief and then I and that includes the what they've come in for, but also what their strengths are and what's making what's kind of perpetuating or making the issue worse. And then I have like a chart with three columns and one is like what they said their goals were in the left column, and then in the middle like the strategies that I think would assist them with these issues. And then the
last column the expected outcomes. So if we implemented these treatments or strategies, what we would expect the outcomes to be at the end, so they have like a very clear and then also I often will give them a couple of questionnaires to see where they are objectively kind of at a baseline, so that we can measure change over time, so that it's not just based on my subjective view that they're better or worse, that we actually
have some data that supports it as well. And then yeah, then I give it to them to have a look at and make changes and decide what their priorities are. And then we go So I mean we usually start with an evidence based treatment, for instance, with anxiety problems and disorders cognitive behavioral therapy is generally the go to for that. Does that suit everybody? No, it suits seventy percent. So I work eclectically in the sense that I'm not
married to CBT. I know that one formula doesn't work for everybody, but we'll start with the one that usually works yes, and if it doesn't, then we can move to another evidence based treatment that does it slightly differently. Sometimes I'll do it like that. Sometimes I'll present them like the different options up front and say what do you think it would work best for you? And we
can start with that option. Yeah. So I definitely have like there's a structure and models there, but it's not rigid. It's definitely flexible and adaptable to the person.
I was going to ask you a question that's quite philosophical. It's down the old conversational rabbit hole, but I'm gonna I'm going to tell you the question I was going to ask, but then I'm going to change it. So the question I was going to ask you is how well do you.
Think people understand themselves?
But my actual question, my modified question is I don't know the answer to this, So it's not like I know the answer. I'm waiting to hear if you agree with me, Yeah, my question is how can we understand ourselves better? I'm not even sure what that question means totally,
but what comes to mind for you? Like to me, it's in the space of you know, self awareness, and I think soccer he said to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom, right, So I feel like knowing yourself and understanding yourself kind of same.
Same.
What comes to mind for you when I say like getting to understand ourselves or know ourselves?
Well, the first thing that pops into my mind is such a CBT thing to say. It's very It's called self monitoring. So what all that means is like, if you're like, pick, what are you actually trying to work out about yourself and then create some awareness about that in your life? And often that involves writing writing stuff down. So if we and this is like a very common what we would say homework, Yeah, that we would give
our clients. So that might be, for instance, if people are having trouble with a particular emotion like anxiety, depression, anger, even, then we would give them a worksheet where they would note down whenever they felt that feeling at it at a level that was dysfunctional. They'd write the feeling down, and then they'd write down what thoughts are going through their head at that moment, right, And then then they would write down the situation that it occurred within, right,
and then they would write down what they did. Yeah, right, And that's like the very beginning. And then you, if you have what I would say, you know, give them the worksheet, explain why the rationale were doing it, Send them away for a week or two, say, write as many of these instances as you can, and then when you bring it back in, we'll look at all of this data basically about your life and how anger shows up for you, for instance, and find the patterns. And
you might find patterns in the situations. You might find patterns in the thoughts, you might find patterns in the behaviors. Like you probably find patterns in all of these things, and that whole process then helps you understand why you might flare up, for instance. So that's like one aspect that's like a very present tense way of doing it, right, there's also like past tense, like what's gone on in your life before that may be leading to these kinds
of responses. Now, so that might be you know, that would be involved taking a history connecting the dots for people. There are some really good questionnaires that can help people understand where their core beliefs and schemas have come from and why they might have developed that way because of their early attachments or their early you know, experiences with their caregivers and things like that. So there's a whole range of ways that people can get to know themselves better.
But I think sometimes it's just like put pen to
paper and write about what's going on. And then that actually is in and of itself therapeutic, Like when people come in with panic disorder, for instance, and they're like, I don't know, they're just coming out of the blue and I don't know what's happening and what's going on, and then you send them home to write about what happens, Yeah, you know, when it happened, for how long, what were the symptoms, what was a situation, what was happened before,
what happened after. Hannah can reduce just through the act of monitoring panic. Yeah, yeah, So it's therapeutic just as a tool in and of itself.
And I think.
Like realizing that I've had this happened before and I didn't die.
You know.
Yeah.
One of my friends used to have panic attacks.
And mostly not around me, but then one day he had one around me.
And I said this recently on the podcast, so apologies everyone, but.
You know, I just I was with him, and you know, I said, what's going on? And he told me what's going on? And I said, how many times do you?
So?
I didn't go, oh God, are you all right? What can I do? I went, oh, wow, I go, how many times do you reckon? This has happened to you?
And he goes hundreds and hundreds hundreds, I go, and I go, and you didn't die any of those times, right, And it's like, well, obviously not. You're probably not going to die this time, right. He's like, well no, I go. So, you know, and I think almost getting comfortable in the discomfort.
You know, oh, I recognize this, and just like there's of course, there's the feeling, there's the anxiety, there's everything that's going on in the body, but also there's this awareness and knowing that oh, this this is not terminal. It's horrible, but it's not going to but it's not going to kill me. And then all of a sudden recognition kind of brings things down a tiny bit.
Oh well, I mean that's the treatment. That's literally basically what it is. I mean, for panic attacks to become a panic disorder, it really is, because it's like the criteria for that is worry about having another panic attack. Yeah, yes, so you're the treatment is to help people not worry about it because and not catastrophize the experience, and when they're in the experience, to be able to say to themselves,
this will be over in ten minutes. You know, it's really uncomfortable, but I cope with it before, you know, like just changing the way that they talk to themselves through it, because normally what people will be thinking is I'm having a hard attack, I'm going crazy, I'm out
of control this, you know, because this is horrible. I'm going to like all those all those kind of catastrophizing thoughts, which of course make it worse, lasts longer, and make it very anxiety provoking for you know, anticipating the next one. So and you know, I think part of the thing with self monitoring, going back to that is one of the reasons why it's so powerful is because it's essentially mindfulness. It's essentially like stopping and being more aware of what
you're experiencing in an objective, non judgmental way. You know, it's like doing a science, scientific study on yourself. Yeah, I think that that's why it actually helps so much.
Well, I had to do this, but it's six minutes to three and I'm meant to meet my training partner at three, so he's going to be very sad when I'm not there.
But I can't believe it's gone by so quickly.
I know it went quick, didn't it. Hey tell people how to connect with you, please.
Doc Doctorliliannija dot com is my website and also contain your Brain dot com if you want to have a look into managing your worry. Got an app for that that's free. So if you want more information about that, you can go there.
You need to learn how to promote yourself a little bit more enthusiastically. Please, do you sound like you're apologizing.
I'm sorry. I have a website. I'm sorry, I'm here. Go and check it out. She's amazing. Go and check it out. She's bloody life changing. There you go, I'll say it's Craig. We'll say goodbye. I fair doc, but tom as always thank you, appreciate.
You great being here. Thanks Craig,