Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's Therapy Natters time. The podcast series, where two psychotherapists turn on their mics and try to answer your questions about all things therapy, whether you ask them or not. I'm Richard Nicholls. And as usual I'm joined by my co-host Fiona Biddle. How you doing Fiona?
Oh, I'm, I'm doing fine a bit hot here, but it's interesting. You said whether if you've asked or not, we, we did say right at the beginning, we, might have to make up some questions, but we haven't actually had to do so have we they've all been completely genuine so far.
Yeah, we probably don't need to. I mean if we've got a topic that we want to talk about, we'll just talk about it. It's fine. But actually that every time that happens, if maybe we haven't had a question about it, all I've done is I've put it to my listeners on my Patreon podcast and said, Hey, me and Fiona on Friday, we're gonna record an episode about existentialism or what was the other one defense mechanisms I think. And if you've got any questions, let me know.
And we did if there's something on our mind, we could just turn the mic on and just start talking anyway. It'll be fine.
Absolutely. I mean, there have been those couple of times when we've sort of thought that the episode led into the next one, so we've set it up in advance and yeah, we've had the, had the input,
Yeah.
Thank you listeners.
Yes. I was quite pleased when I saw this question come in and I know some of our questions that we've had. A lot of them have been quite similar. But this one really did sum up a lot of what clients bring into therapy. , shall I read it out? Shall I read it out? It was from Carla, from Richmond. And she says, Dear Richard and Fiona, I wonder if you could offer some advice on how to grapple with some very deep rooted beliefs about self.
I'm, a 36 year old woman currently single and very insecure. I've seen many C B T therapists over the years. But only when my depression has been particularly bad. I can't say that CBT has helped me very much though, as each time the therapist and I seem to go round in circles and go over the same things each time. The crux of it being that I feel broken and unlovable.
It doesn't matter how many times my therapist has reminded me that my feelings are not reality and encouraged me to look for evidence that I am lovable. It doesn't change the way I feel. I still expect to be rejected by people. I still put everyone else's needs before my own. And I continue to hate myself. If you have some wisdom and insight to offer, I would love to hear it. Thanks for everything, Carla. Oh, Carla. I'm so sorry, you feel the way that you feel.
And all these times you've gone to therapy and people have tried to convince you that your beliefs are wrong and they're right in that your beliefs are wrong. And I think there's a part of you that knows that. But like you say, deep, deep down, you just don't believe it if somebody says, but you do deserve love, you are lovable. It's it's really sad. Isn't it?
I suspect that there's probably layer upon layer of a, I know I am lovable. No, I know. No, I know that I'm not lovable. I am. No, I'm not. It feels like there's probably layers and something just struck me then, when you read it out, Richard, that hadn't, hit me when I first read it, which was the bit of I'm broken. . I feel broken and unlovable. is it the breakage that's caused the unlovable-ness? I'm just finding that really a, an interesting one.
If Carla was sitting here in the room with me, I'd be saying right let's pull that one apart. What's first chicken and egg and so on.
What we wouldn't be doing in those situations, I think is C B T.
Yeah, absolutely. We would not be doing, I mean, there can be little bits of CBT that come in all over the place, but fundamentally CBT is about now and the future. Whereas what Carla is saying. Is about the past and about how she's set up her belief systems. Now that broken unlovable, suggests that there's some sort of process that's gone on that could be accessible. this has got to be a, a look at what has caused these feelings. I start from a belief system. It's very simple.
I don't do complex in anything really in life. I do simple. The simple belief system is that everybody is born pure and okay. And it's what happens that leads to the development of belief system. So I would say nobody is unlovable. But there can be things that have caused them to feel unlovable. And of course, some people do adopt behaviors that make them unlovable you know, you can be a mass murderer. And so you're probably not that lovable, but I don't think that's Carla.
I mean, could be, but we,
It's unlikely, isn't it? Yeah,
I don't think that's going to be the case, but the essence is lovable.
Yeah, it's really hard to tease out what is nature and what is nurture. We know that two twins separated at birth, identical twins as close you can get to a clone. There are gonna be similarities and there are gonna be differences. But the thing is it's really complicated. You could be born and you've got a headache. You've got ear ache, you've got belly ache. You've got a slight more intolerance to lactose. There's just something that makes you slightly grumpy, for example.
And that makes you whinge a bit more, which makes parents roll their eyes a little bit more or go, oh, for goodness sake. Just a bit more often. Just those tiny little tweaks can send people down a, a path that turns into eventually a feeling about the way they fit in, in the world. And actually their parents could have been, or caregivers could have been fine, quite nurturing and quite, quite loving, but eventually.
Given enough evidence that, eh, you might be, you might be loved, but there's still something wrong with you. You're still an annoyance for example. and that can be exaggerated as the, as every friendship relationship interaction you have with the outside will continues until you're 36 years old. And all you've got in your memory banks is just evidence that you've been rejected, disliked, forgotten. Inferior for example. And it's it, it is, it does need, I think therapy.
It, we can do our own therapy to a degree, but there's a lot of reading and thinking and journaling that needs to be done. It is easier with a therapist, of course, just to sit in a room and go, right. Let me tell you about myself. That is gonna take a little bit more than just let's fill in a form and do a CBT exercise about thought stopping. Don't get me wrong.
Like you saying, there are some elements of CBT really, really useful for in the moment dealing with, with stuff to go, oh, is this real? Or is this just my imagination. Let's see if I can challenge this, but it does get to a point where it becomes really hard.
this is beyond that. Isn't it. It was just something that struck me. Then when you said about nature versus nurture the word nurture, suggests something good.
does doesn't it?
You're nurtured. if you've got a plant that you just leave to its own devices, and I've got a sunflower in my garden at the moment I'm not a very good plant mother. If it was down to me that sunflower would just die it never comes into my head.
sounds like, you need a cactus.
I can do cacti. Especially the ones that look real, but aren't like my mother, when she had dementia, she bought loads of cacti from all sorts of different places and had them all over the house. And it wasn't until after she died that we realized they weren't real,
Wow.
good. And we didn't pay any attention. We were just, oh, she's just bought another cactus, but she would water them, but they weren't real.
her.
But she was happy doing it. It was fine. It doesn't matter. You can water a fake cactus. I don't know what that says about life, but anyway, my sunflower would not live without other people doing it, but this is nurture.
Yeah. One of the origins of humanistic therapy, Carl Rogers. Isn't that how he, unless he's just made up a story about the potatoes in the cellar. That had not seen light, they'd been forgotten. They'd been ignored. They hadn't been nurtured. And yet they were trying to sprout. And planted that seed in his mind that says even if something has been neglected, it still wants to live. It still wants to thrive.
And he saw humans in that process that says, doesn't matter how neglected and forgotten you are. You still have a will to live and try and let's build upon that. And I love
then watered the seed in his head.
Yep. That changed therapy. It really did. It went from being that sort of very authoritative I'm the expert. I'm here to, just to boss and lord over you for an hour and you go away with some, with something I'm sure Freud did more than that. But it changed forever Once Carl Rogers put that idea out there that says, no, just be kind, do that first and see what builds. Listen to them, be there for them. Reparent them. And I think sometimes we do do that as therapists.
Do you know, that was one of the things that I was thinking, before we started talking the reparent, as in, I was thinking that it it could be really good for Carla to find a therapist who will go back and almost sort of well reparent but recreate some of the childhood processes now, I think it was in episode three. Where we discussed Eric Ericsson's first stage in his psychosocial stages, which was about trust versus mistrust.
This one could fit with the second of Eric Erickson's psychosocial stages. Which is autonomy versus shame and doubt. So this stage is, from about 18 months to three years, where Erickson's idea was that the child was focusing on developing a sense of personal control over physical skills and gaining a sense of independence. And success in this stage leads to the virtue of will.
So if children in this stage are encouraged and supported in their increased independence, they become more confident and secure in their ability to survive in the world. If children are criticized overly controlled or not given the opportunity to assert themselves, they begin to feel inadequate in their ability to survive. And may then become overly dependent on others, lack self-esteem and feel a sense of shame or doubt in their abilities.
So what I'm thinking is if Carla finds a therapist who was willing to go back that far. you know, she's not gonna be able to remember in any detail whatsoever this, this stage, but she might be able to get a feel for it,
Mm.
which I think is probably what we said about the first one, because you can't remember nought to 18 months She might be able to get a feel though of, well, she sort of feel in inside that she wasn't encouraged that she was criticized and she would that, that potty, training's a key part of this, this one, if, if that's handled in a confrontational, critical antagonistic way, these sorts of things can result
And give us this, this message that there are terms and conditions to love and acceptance that we're not acceptable, unless. Unless we behave in a particular way. And to have that so young, which, which happens, I mean, which is one of the reasons why Freud came up with the, the idea that there was that fixation period, we start off being fixated with everything that goes into our mouth.
And then we are fixated on everything that comes out of our backside and there's, there's probably some truth in that I dunno, has that a sort of anal retentive attitude stood the test at times, do you think?
It does seem to, to fit. Any parents will know that children do go through a phase where everything's about the mouth. And then there is the potty training part, which can be easy or difficult. I had one of each with my two, but I tried not to put any pressure on think they probably don't want me to go into any more detail than
Agreed. I'm sure cause they do listen. hello there.
hello. But no, we won't go into any more detail. but, and then of course the next stage is the genital stage, which, Again, parents will know that children become aware of that part of their anatomy. And the sensations that that can bring. But it's a mix of the, the parents' approach and any other care caregivers, cuz there could be things going on at nurseries. And what have you, So the caregiver's approach and each individual child's response to it.
And I do think it's important to say that this doesn't mean in any way that we're saying that Carla's parents did anything wrong.
exactly. Yeah,
They will have done the best that they could with what they knew at the time. And it could be that it's just a mix that didn't quite work.
And that I'm sure my parents are doing the best they can, they love me. We don't have that capacity to understand that when we're 18 months old. We've only got the extremes. This sort of dichotomy with no gray area. They either love me or they hate me. I'm either lovable or I'm not. And if we become fixated on the I'm not, for some reason , and we don't have that adult perspective that says. Oh, my parents had three other children to look after they were very, very busy. They had full-time jobs.
it makes a lot of sense that I was, left offend for myself at times, for example, this isn't just Carla, this is for anybody going through similar sort of approaches. We don't have that language. That vernacular when we are three, four, even five, probably even 10, maybe at 10, but certainly at seven I'm sure we probably don't. It's just,
some people never get it.
True.
I know you wanted to talk about schema theory.
Yeah. And I, so I think that ties in quite, quite well with that because we don't have the schema for My parents are doing the best they can. They love me dearly. We don't have that. We're gonna have the extremes. And schema therapy or sort of sort of schema theory. Schemas are core beliefs about the way we see ourselves and the world.
It's an offshoot of cognitive therapy came about in the 1980s to try and help people who weren't finding as much success with CBT as they'd like, which is exactly what Carla was saying in the message wasn't it? That she just wasn't getting anywhere with just going around in circles and, like we say, CBTS is, it's got its place.
For those that haven't heard someone say this enough, C B T is about noticing how your thoughts influence your emotions, how your emotions influence your behavior, and then how your behavior influences your thoughts. The idea, being that in taking some control over those things, the thinking, the feeling, the behaving you can have a positive effect on the whole system.
But what Young found this is Jeffrey Young, the, the doctor that came up with all of this, not Carl Jung, but Jeffrey Young, what he found was that some people had such deep beliefs that it was almost impossible to challenge their thoughts. It was like trying to tell an underweight anorexia patient that they're dangerously slim and that they are allowed to have a milkshake without feeling guilty and fat.
In a similar way he found that some of his patients had certain beliefs that were so pervasive that they needed more investigations. So, schema therapy is more psychodynamic than CBT would be psycho psychodynamic meaning the way that we see ourselves in the present is because of the way that we were shown how to see ourselves in the past, usually by those caregivers. But what, what is called maladaptive schemas can come about.
Well, because of that, and later in life as well, but it's more common that they come around because someone's had problems growing up because the basics of most theories, not just schema theory is that every child has basic needs for safety, love attention, acceptance, playfulness. And Jeffrey Young wanted to make sure we also recognized the importance of autonomy and adequate boundaries, limit setting, in order to get a healthy personality development going.
And if those things weren't present in our childhood than our schemas, the way we see ourselves, they could become maladaptive. And like we say, not just because of neglect, but temperament as well, inborn personality traits that exaggerate the little rejections that we all get through in, in life until they become so deeply ingrained and unconscious that they go lower, deeper than those simple core beliefs, they become schemas like a phrase that might be, I am unlovable.
People are untrustworthy, I'm broken, I'm defective. There's a defective schema in schema theory, that sort of thing. And the, the problem is because our brain likes familiarity. It seeks out the information in our world that matches these schemas proving itself right, all the time and filtering out anything that contradicts it, even drawing people towards the situations that prove it right. Like repetition compulsion, and it's.
It, it really does need not just a scratching of the surface, but a good dig through it with a massive spade. It really does. It really, really does. So I like it. I, I think, I think these, these theories are great.
There's another theory, from TA transactional analysis that I think we talked about last time, we've mentioned before, as well, previous to that. but it's a particular schema or set of schemas that the idea is that anybody puts themselves into one of four life positions, and there's a book by Thomas Harris, not the same one who wrote Hannibal
Silence of The lambs.
Not that, guy. And it's called I'm okay, you're okay. Because it's sort of, it's the idea that we all have a basic position of either. I'm okay. You are okay. I'm okay. You are not okay. I'm not okay. You are okay. Or I'm not okay. You are not okay. So basic Cartesian logic positions. I think from what she said, Carla is in the, I'm not okay. You are okay position. Which is a one down position that everybody else is alright and I'm not.
I raise this because having a little think about it for yourself, anybody who's listening can be quite insightful. You just get, oh, right. Yes. I view the world in that way. So anybody who is in the I'm okay, you are not okay. Position is going to be insulted by what I'm about to say, because that's the sort of narcissistic, egotistic position of I'm better than everybody else. Now it depends on the circumstances a few weeks ago, we talked about persona. And the positive use of a persona.
If you are going into an audition for a play and you presumably want to get the role then going in with the I'm okay, you are not okay persona can be quite useful, but living your life with it. Mm. If you've got that going on, might be something to look at. The I'm not okay. You are not okay is the depressive position, which is everything's, everything's hopeless, everything's rubbish. That's a horrible place to be in. And a lot of the media deliberately or not try to put us in that place.
Certainly the British media, a lot
Well, I think capitalism really plays a part in this. we live in, we live in a world, mostly where it's funded through the things that we buy. and the taxes that are on it, then go into the government and that pays for everything. And we all live happily ever after, but in order to get us to buy things, they've gotta make us want it. They've gotta make us need it. And one of the ways to do that, I think is to make it so that we are not okay if we don't have it.
And that's not a good place to try and keep people, but that's, that's where we've got to over the last 50 years. Certainly the last generation or so we really have, and it is it's definitely definitely needs challenging.
reminds me. I forgot to buy my new milk pan this morning, cuz my old one burnt. Oh, I do need it. You see, I don't, I don't need a new milk pan. But yeah, I mean, I don't go into complexity with politics either, but any political system you can, you can fit to, to these, these models, but that's , the everything is a horrible place. And. Gosh, that must be an unpleasant place to live.
But of course, the fourth one, which I started from and I've ended up at is the I'm okay, you are okay place, which doesn't necessarily, I mean, it doesn't mean everything's okay. It's not you know, life is a bowl of cherries and over the rainbow and flowers and hearts. Lovely lovely stuff. It's not saying that it's saying that basically. It's okay. I am okay being me and you are okay being you. So it's a very positive place to be.
And along with the other things we've talked about today, I'd like to encourage Carla to see if she could get some, some help to get her to the place where she can see that she's okay. By going back by looking at the, the, the things that have happened, her interpretations of the things that have happened
And get an adult's perspective on it.
and get an adults' perspective. Yeah.
Then we can change those, those deep core beliefs gently, slowly. We can't just reinvent ourselves overnight. That's a persona. And putting that on as long as you've got, well, you can put on a persona and as if you are lovable, but you've gotta do it with the right mindset I think. If you do it with the mindset of, I'm just pretending I'm lovable, but I know deep down, I'm not,
And that's not gonna work.
it's not gonna help, but if you practice anything with a, with the background knowledge that I'm just practicing this, I'm learning how to love myself. I'm learning to be lovable. Then that's the right to me. That seems like a, the right sort of mindset. I'm learning to be lovable. So I'm practicing acting as if someone as if I am lovable. And I know I don't quite feel it yet, but I'm getting there that sort
And I bet that I would bet. I don't bet very often, but I would bet that if Carla was to act as if she was lovable, she would be doing nothing different from what she's doing now.
Well, who knows what people do. It might be things would be exactly the same, but there might be the added saying no to somebody else and saying yes to herself
Yes, that's
with things.
Yeah, cuz she did say about putting other people first all the time.
Yes, yes, she did. Yes. And that's exactly what people with that defective schema do in order to try and compensate for it. Love me. Love, please love me. Please love me. Please love me. I've got to do everything for you. And then all it does is just reinforce this belief that I'm no good, and that's not what we want. We wanna be able to say. No, this is, this is what I want to do. I'm not gonna babysit again while you go out sister , for example.
And I remember having that experience, not with my sister, but with being taken advantage of when I was, when I was very young, I was like 19, 18 something like that. And the friend said, cuz they'd had a baby. Well, could you look after the, could, could you look after her while I uh, well, no, actually got a phone call. What are you doing on Saturday? Oh Saturday, I'm not doing anything. Oh, that's good. Could you babysit? I was like, damn no, but I said, yes because I wanted to be loved.
I wanted to be liked. And I wanted to be part of that unit where everybody seemed to like each other and be happy. Yeah. And I was at one o'clock in the morning when they all came back, I thought. and somebody said, look, she's taking the mick mate. Yeah, she isn't, she she's never gonna sleep with me is she. No, okay. I'll get my coat. it's what we do, but we have to challenge it when we have those experiences.
But the other side of that is I I've seen too many examples of people who say no, because their schema is that they feel they're going to be taken advantage of. Whereas if they've got nothing else to do on a Saturday evening and a friend needs a babysitter. Well, that's okay. It doesn't mean you're being manipulated. If you don't take it as such, you're choosing to do something that's nice for people and that's okay as well.
I suppose it's all about being clear in your own mind as to what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Yeah, it is. And as long as we've got those more positive schemas to use that word again, that say, I am lovable. We're gonna be able to handle those experiences and, and filter it for that. If somebody's asking us to do something and we feel lovable, then why not do it for example. Because that's what, that's how we are filtering our world.
Mm,
We just
it's about the filtering. Isn't it.
Yeah. It really, really is. Well Carla. I hope we came close to scratching the surface of what to do and what to explore and how to explore it. I genuinely do think that it's best done with a psychotherapist or a counselor, but there are things we can do. On our own, but it, it does mean a lot of thinking, a lot of journaling and maybe a little bit of research, maybe a lot of reading about these theories and listening to other people's stories.
And believe me, there are plenty out there whether it's podcasts like ours or it's books from authors that have had similar experiences and how they got through it all, it's all really, really good. Explore it all and challenge that you have and recognize is this because of my reality. Or is this, is this because of me filtering for something? Chances are you're filtering and do we just need to be aware of it. That's how it starts.
with that awareness comes some understanding and some acceptance of ourselves that, oh, I see why I do that. Okay. That makes sense. And then you can forgive yourself for screaming at somebody and sort of exaggerating everything. When all they did is just took a bit of time to reply to a text message. For example. It doesn't mean you're not lovable. Just means they were slow Croy. I tend, I spend ages to reply, reply to text messages sometimes. Cuz I get so distracted with other stuff.
Today, I wanted to research scheme of therapy. I went onto YouTube just to have a look at a refresher of some of the names ended up looking at MacBook pro reviews because that's what popped up then closed the window down and went right. Where was I? Oh,
because because the capitalist society says you need a MacBook pro
Yeah, and I, and I don't, I just wanted to, oh, damn it. Capitalism. Oh, any hoo! Let's love you and leave you all. Cuz time is ticking on. Have a super week. And if you have any further questions about this or anything else at all, the link is in the show notes to a little form where you fill in that sends us an email and we get to read all your thoughts and insights. So please do that and we'll speak to you next time. See
Yeah. thank you Thank you, Carla. And thank you everybody. Talk to you soon.
Bye.
Bye.