Greetings fellow folks. It's another episode of Therapy Natters for you. This is the podcast series about talk therapy and mental health. I'm Richard Nicholls, and with me as always in the co-hosts chair is fellow hypno psychotherapist, Fiona Biddle. Welcome to another week. Fiona, how have you been?
Hi, Richard. I've been absolutely fine. Yep. Getting into the swing of being in 2023 does somehow feel a bit different.
I haven't written
you don't write checks anymore, do we? That used to be the thing that
I was gonna say, yeah, I've not written a cheque for a long. Do I even have a chequebook? I don't think my, my business doesn't have a chequebook. No, no. I heard somebody say recently. The only people who use checkbooks are H M R C and they'll send you your if you, if you due any money back, they'll send it in a cheque on the off chance you don't cash it. Which actually Yep. I got one here for 12 pound 80. Uh, When was that dated?
That was dated July, 2021, and it's still sitting there in my tray.
So their tactic
God, I'm rubbish, aren't I?
Very clever. Well, they have the right to not accept it. Now,
Yeah, it's too late for that. I should keep that there just to remind me to not leave things. That's there to go. Look, look what You could have won 12 pounds, but I wonder, there must be, a particular figure where the pain of getting off your backside and going to the bank with it is less than the pain of losing the money. There's gotta be, I bet somebody's doing a PhD about it as we speak
I mean, there are lots of studies about that sort of breakeven point aren't there, and how people will do silly things to save a tiny bit of money because they get the buzz of having saved a bit and things like, you know how people will buy something because it's a bargain, even though they didn't particularly want it. So there's an awful lot of psychology around that, isn't there? Since I've been in this house, so I'm about three miles from town.
And I had a cheque and it was, do I really, do I really want to do that? Is it, is it really worth it? And I think I left it too late, but it wasn't for much. I think it was a bit more than your 12 pounds, but not a lot more. hey, ho.
As we were saying last week, when people are starting a new year with new resolutions and, and are gonna make changes, there is a painful point to go through that if you're making changes, it's painful, it has to be. Because the brain doesn't like change. So everything about change is gonna create some sort of response. Whether we call it anxiety or whether we call it excitement, dunno, it's whatever you call it. But it's gonna create something and sometimes the brain really kicks off.
Have you ever heard the term extinction burst?
I have.
Hmm.
But I would like you to define it
I wouldn't know how to define it, define it. But I can tell you about the experience of it. For some weird reason. Neurologically, when the brain is experiencing changes, a change to your routines particularly. A change in your expectations. Your brain at the start will create an emotional response about it because it's different and the brain doesn't like different, different might be dangerous.
As the brain eventually catches up and learns, oh, we've had this new experience of, you know, eating healthier or exercising every day, or whatever the, the change might be. We've had this every day now for six weeks. Maybe it's safe after all. And strangely, right before the neurons or the neurological strings sort of die off, they, they go a bit crazy first, they get really activated for a couple of days before they completely die off.
So before the new habit becomes an actual habit rather than just a new behavior. It actually becomes part of who you are, part of your personality. The old part of you doubles down on itself, which is why people can eat healthier for a month and they wanna make that a permanent thing.
And then just as it's becoming permanent, they go right back to square one and they think, oh, you know, I've just pigged out on pizza and I've had a really lazy weekend, and I, I've been, I've had no motivation at all. It's been absolutely rubbish. I might as well just give up. So, no, you were at the cusp of it becoming permanent, permanently a part of you. And I'd like to see more research done into these extinction burst things.
I was listening to a podcasty sort of thing yesterday, and in it the, the person was describing the urge to to go back to an old behavior,
Hmm.
as being like a child demanding ice cream when you've just driven past a ice cream van.
Right.
I want it, I want it, I want it. And I found that that was sort of resonated. I thought, yeah, that's when I'm doing that, you know, when I'm wanting to change something, it does feel a little bit like my inner child yelling at me. Give it to me or do it or don't do it, whichever, whatever combination of situations we have. And that works with the extinction burst in that if you think about a small child who's being told, let's take the ice cream example.
They whine and whine and whine and, and then you say No. And they're quiet for a little while and then they can easily come back and have another little tantrum.
Yeah, I guess it is a tantrum, isn't it? That's what the brain is doing. It's having a tantrum.
if, if you think of it as you, you in a child talking to you like that, cuz we haven't talked an awful lot about inner child stuff, but we've all got a child within us, it's part of us. I think that can be useful. And the other bit that this, this podcast used, was to talk about how, in this case, the parent of the child who's demanding the ice cream. And it was an example of how a parent parents their children, who are having tantrums.
So it works for that, but it also works, I think for the force to go back to the old way is to use the water off a duck's back analogy. And this mother was saying that she would tell her children, when I'm in Duck Mode, then everything you say, whatever you say, whatever you ask, it's like water off ducks back and I am not going to change.
And she has found this really helpful in her parenting style because when she tells her children I'm in Duck Mode, they know there's no point in going on about it because she does not change So just bringing that in, because as I say, that was about particularly she was using it for parenting. But how about, well, let's, let's say this try trying to, well, it's January, so a lot of people are doing dry January. If they get the urge or craving to have a drink for whatever reason.
Maybe we'll do an episode on that at some point, but whenever they get that, how about saying to your inner child, who is the one bizarrely asking for the alcohol, saying, no, I'm in duck mode. I'm just not going to give in.
Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.
Quack.
Yeah. I think I might incorporate a bit of that in, in, or am I doing okay. I think I'm doing okay. I try to practice what I preach I used to, every now and again um, I used to do some teaching for Nick Cook in Birmingham, and I think it was the behaviorism module he asked me to teach, and every time I, I saw the, the students there, we'd talk about behaviorism making some changes and things like that, and I'd set them homework.
And I want you to go make some changes yourself between now and when I see you next month or whenever it was. Bring it into the group. We'll talk about these changes and how it feels to make those changes and so on. And they said, What are you gonna do? well, oh, okay. So I'll have to do something. And. There was something different every time and I was cleaning my teeth with the opposite hand was one of them.
Then I was, I was doing some press-ups or sit-ups or something like that when I got up in the morning and before I went to bed and things like that. This, and, and I've sort of carried that with me for decades. Cause it was years ago when I was teaching for Nick. And I think I've worked, I mean, nobody's perfect by by goodness. No, my wife would never think that I'm in any way perfect.
I've probably got loads to work on, but I try to practice what I preach and if there's something that I think, yeah, I could do with working on that, then I do. Having said that, I still left that cheque there for 12 quid, didn't I?
Yeah, I, I think it is important that we, we do. Practice what we preach, but recognizing that we are not gonna be perfect and that wouldn't be very much fun for everybody else. If, if even if we were, would it? Nobody wants to be around people who are perfect, but no, I mean, I, I've, I hurt my back back in September and so exercise had dwindled to, almost nothing. I mean, I was just, I was being so cautious and then the thing I did hurt. So that's my main thing.
Since my main thing in January has been right, I'm going to get through that pain and I'm going to get back to a reasonable level of fitness. I mean, I'm never gonna be fit, fit, fit. Reasonable so I can do things and not be holding other people up, so that's my main thing. But I'm doing dry January as well. But for me, when I say to myself, right, no alcohol, then that's easy. It's not, it's not a difficult thing, but I know it is for a lot of people,
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's obviously such a, a big part of our
Oh, and chocolate as well. I'm doing that too. Well, sweets. I, I can, that, that's one of my, it's always been one of my things. I can easily just eat too many sweets, but it doesn't really, does it matter? It just felt gradually and over Christmas and everything. It just sort of felt a bit, bit too much. So cutting that down. And therefore eating more fruit. So, quite a few things, but it's all, it all feels good.
So yeah, practicing what we preach, but I think, you know, as, as we were talking last time about New Year's resolutions and so on there does come a time for a lot of people when any change you try to make, you can meet obstacles and hurdles. So it's useful to think about your reasons for doing it. I.e what your motivation is for the change,
Hmm.
but what a lot of the time I think people forget is to look at the motivation for doing the behavior or not doing the behavior that you are wanting to get away from
Right,
so you can have, what's your motivation for doing dry January? Don't forget to do well, what was the motivation for the drinking in the first place?
Right. Yes. I ask clients when they're on this sort of journey, for want of a better phrase, I, I'll ask them, you know, let's be negative for a bit. What's gonna get in the way? What's gonna be the first obstacle you come across that's gonna mean that you struggle. And I think that's only a recent thing that I've started asking those sorts of questions in the last sort of five, five to 10 years. I think early on in my career, cuz I was only doing sort of positive motivational hypnotherapy.
I was constantly thinking about the positives. Don't, don't talk about the negatives. Talk about how great you're gonna feel. Get 'em to lie on their back and close their eyes and imagine a world where they achieve all their goals. And look how wonderful it is. Doesn't that feel wonderful? Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, you've got it. It's yours. Yay. But actually it's unrealistic if you only look at the positives because life isn't like that, cuz there might be a negative.
Okay. Well the negative might be if you're trying to do dry January. What's gonna happen on Wednesday when you meet up with those friends that you always meet up with? Oh, I won't meet up with them. Ah, okay. Well, as long as you're okay with that. Well, no, I'm gonna be really lonely. I'm gonna miss my friends. Okay, well that's a hurdle we need to cross. So you want to see your friends, but you want to drink something non-alcoholic in a pub.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing, which is one of the issues I guess with things like dry January was you could do that probably for a month, but it wouldn't be healthy to sustainably say, right? Well, I'm not, I'm not gonna be friends with Derek anymore because the only time I am friends with Derek is at the pub and or he brings beers around when we watch football. And therefore Derek, sorry, bye. Not seeing you again. No, that's not sustainable. But maybe for January you can say, Derek, sorry.
I'll see you in February.
Yeah. But within time as any recovering alcoholic will say, they learn over time, they can go into a pub and they get into the habit of not drinking
it needs to be addressed, that's the point. And with, with a month long thing, it's unlikely to be addressed.
Hmm. Yeah, you literally wrote the book on motivation,
I literally wrote A book.
not the only book,
book, it might be the only book on motivational hypnotism, cuz that is what it is called,
It's the only book called Motivational Hypnotism. I'm pretty sure
Or somebody
we should say co-wrote. Really? Although, I mean, I, I think you wrote most of it, didn't you?
I even got my name first on this one. Which I, I think, I think shows you the percentages. Yes there was somebody in the States who started running a course called Motivational Hypnotism after we wrote that book. But anyway, that's another story. The book is actually for therapists. But. I think, to me, the key part from that book, the one, the part that I use most in, in my client work is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
There are lots of other factors in there that are quite useful, but that to me is, is the main thing. Should I explain the differences? Yeah.
Do. Yes. Yes, please.
I'd encourage you as a listener to have a think about something you do on a regular basis. Doesn't matter if it's something like going to the pub with Derek or cleaning your teeth, as Richard just mentioned. Could be, you know, having a cup of tea at three o'clock. It could be having coffee as soon as you wake up. maybe going to the gym or some work activity that you do, or phoning somebody, something that you do on a regular basis. And to think about what that gives you.
Basically, why do you do it? what's the purpose? Intrinsic motivation is things that the motivation comes from within the activity itself, so things like enjoyment, interest, challenge. So going to the pub with Derek is presumably enjoyable. If the thing that you thought of was doing a daily crossword in the paper that would be challenge. If it's undertaking a night class on a regular basis, that would be interest, but it might also be challenging and probably would be enjoyable.
So that's the activity itself has the benefit within it. An extrinsic, not surprisingly. Is the the benefit that comes externally to the activity. So typically rewards avoidance of punishment or pressure. So things for that might be that you are intrinsically motivated to take a particular course because you know that that will lead to you getting a pay rise at work, even though you're not really interested in the topic whatsoever.
There's somebody that Richard, you and I know who is known to have done courses within the field of therapy just because he liked the certificate. That's extrinsic motivation. Ooh, I get this nice pretty certificate that I can put on my wall. Don't care what I learn. Don't care about the process of doing it. But I do it anyway. Pressure you know, often certainly as children, we might have to do things because we're under pressure to do them. Things around the house.
I mean my kitchen was a complete mess after everybody left at Christmas for a few days because there was no motivation to clean it up for a while because there was no pressure on me to do so. Cuz I was on my own. And there was no intrinsic motivation, but it did get to the point where there was an element of reward. So still extrinsic, but an element of reward because it looks so nice when I actually did clean it up,
Well, that's also intrinsic, isn't it? Cause there's a, there's an internal positive feeling that comes from pride. Oh, I feel good about my nice clean kitchen.
yes. But afterwards, not during. I didn't enjoy stacking the dishwasher, cleaning the surfaces, throwing all the stuff in the recycling bins, all of that sort of stuff. That's not fun. Not to me, but some people love
know, I think you can combine intrinsic and
Absolutely. You can.
processes. We know from lots of research about how much time people spend at the gym on particular machines, that if they are listening to an audio book that they enjoy, for example, then they'll exercise for longer because they're enjoying the exercise. No, they're not. They're actually enjoying the listening of the audio book or the
I have had so many clients who say, oh, I don't go to the gym because it's boring. And that's exactly what I say. At the moment I'm doing an online bridge course. So when I'm on my exercise bike, I'm doing the online bridge course at the same time. So I don't even think about the exercise cuz my mind is completely engaged with the bridge. And when I was doing the cleaning up at the kitchen, I was listening to the Serial podcast.
mm.
This, this is actually really an important part of this theory is that in theory, intrinsic motivation is much more motivating and much more genuine and helpful than extrinsic to most people, but that you can work on building the intrinsic, but you can also work on building the extrinsic and people do vary anyway. I mean, I'm much more intrinsic generally.
So the colleague we mentioned with the certificates is generally extrinsically motivated by the rewards that he perceives to be getting from things whereas. You know, he said to me, well, what sort of certificate do you get on that course? I said, or did you get one? Did I get one? I don't know. I don't even think of that. I'm doing it because I want to do the course and to learn it. But that doesn't mean that I would necessarily enjoyed every part of something.
I know when I was doing the dissertation part of my masters, I really didn't want to do that bit. So I made sure that the environment was as nice as it could be. I'd make my office as nice as, put nice music on put pajamas on and comfy slippers, and make a nice cup of tea and make it as nice as possible so that the intrinsic was maximized. There's another couple of little bits of theory that go along with this, although the people who wrote them probably wouldn't like me saying a little bit.
One is to think of there being a continuum from extrinsic motivation through to intrinsic that you can move along and in fact, you need amotivation at the far, let's say, left hand end of the continuum. Amotivation being that you have just no motivation to do whatever it is at all. So for me, I am completely amotivated to play golf. It's just nope, not happening. So
No intrinsic. No extrinsic, nothing.
nothing would get me to play. Mm, I mean, several million quid, or playing with George Clooney, maybe no, I'd walk around with, around the course with George Clooney, but I wouldn't play anyway. No, nothing, nothing could make me play golf in reality. So amotivation at that end, but then you move to the extrinsic levels. These do have fancy names for the points, but let's not worry about that. We'll talk about what they mean. The first point is the, I must do it level.
So in a sense, for me, cleaning up the kitchen was an I must. Because, well, if it, if I'd left it longer it might have got a bit smelly, for example, and I wouldn't want that and you know, so, but musts vary. I often use the example of wanting to stop smoking to illustrate this. The I must level for stopping smoking is the person who's gone to the doctor and the doctor has said, you've got to stop smoking right now, or you'll be dead in six months.
That's pretty strong motivation, you would think,
You'd.
not always, but that's, an I must. We then move along to the next step, which is I should. So for a smoker, that's the, the one who's, who's thinking, oh, well, I'm, I'm 50 now. I've been smoking for 35 years. That's a lot of smoking. What on earth are my lungs gonna be like, this isn't going to be good, is it? I really should stop smoking now. Goodness, how much I'm wasting on cigarettes when I could be heating the house. That's an I should.
Still extrinsic, still not very strong motivationally. Although again, looking from the outside, you think, Hmm, it should be strong. you move on to the, I want to level, which is next. The I want to is the person who's saying, yeah, okay. I'm, I'm 50 now. I, I wanna do this. I, I want to, I want to stop, had enough. You know, the kids are growing up now and I don't want them to be thinking that they should be smoking. No, I, I wanna do this. Okay. Getting better.
Mm.
the final level, the, the, the most intrinsic is the one who says, this is really important to me. Being a smoker no longer fits with my identity. It's just something that I do because I've always done it, and I just, it's, it's, it's got to go. That's it. It's so important to me to be a non-smoker. There is a slight problem with this because the person at that level will often say I must, which is the first level, so we mustn't get the two musts confused.
One is an external must and one is an internal must. That continuum can be a very useful thing to use when you are struggling. or even just setting your, your goals or struggling to meet or continue with behaviors or continue not doing things. As we were saying, why are you doing it or why are you not doing it? So if you've got dry January, well hopefully if somebody's at the extrinsic level of that, the, I must as in you must stop drinking or your liver's going to explode.
If you're at that point then dry January isn't gonna help you. it's, it's got to be more than just the month. So maybe some people are trying it out to see what it's like to make sure that they can still be alcohol free and that it's not a problem. So checking that. It could be for you know, sort of a little bit of a detox could be to lose weight, could be part of a general health kick. But have a think about where on that continuum you are.
Is it the, I should somebody telling you is there pressure, is it that extrinsic or is it more towards the I want to do this, or is it that it's really important to me? And if it's the really important to you, then maybe that's again, not the dry January. Maybe that's a permanent or a permanent cutting down. So it's a useful way to see where you might be on that continuum.
I think what helps people keep their motivation going is to not always look at the idea of cutting down one thing or quitting something, but think of it as starting something else, something new. So it's not just cutting down on sugar. it's, I'm going to start eating healthy snacks. Instead of I'm gonna cut down on alcohol. I'm going to start drinking slower. For example, I'm going to start asking for a half a pint. To top up this pint I've still got.
I'm gonna start doing that, and the outcome that you want will happen naturally as a consequence. So it's about starting something new rather than quitting something old. That can help for some people, I think.
Yeah, I think that we need to be careful not to presume that something needs to be replaced.
Hmm.
I would think it's fairly reasonable to think that if you are going to a pub and you used to have a large glass of red wine, I dunno who that might be. But if you were, then it might be that you would rather swap that out for a glass of sparking water with a slice of lemon. Than sit there with nothing in front of you. So in that case, it makes sense to exchange one thing for another.
But again, speaking for myself, if I'm sitting in front of the TV watching The Apprentice, and I would've been sitting there having four or five chocolates from the still extant box of Heroes. Then I don't need to replace that with anything else.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true.
So it's just something to think of.
It Is. And when it comes to food, it, it's difficult because we have to eat. Somebody sent me a message fairly recently that I saw for quit smoking therapy a couple of years ago, and they messaged to say, I wonder if we could do some something, some other, other work. and I needed them to know We can do, but it's not gonna be that sort of one-off session that you get with quitting smoking because this was about food. Because when you quit smoking, you no longer smoke. But you still need to eat.
You might have to change your diet to be healthier, but you're still gonna need to eat, and that takes a lot more work. But when you get in touch with your appetite, and you only eat when you're hungry, in most situations. It's gonna be easier to control your behavior, but it takes practice. A lot of practice sometimes.
Going back to what I said early on in this natter about checking out your motivation of the behavior beforehand. That's come back into my mind from what you just said about the, the eating and why did you do it? Because you said about only eating when you're hungry in most times, and that's logically why would anybody eat otherwise? But there are lots and lots of reasons why people eat otherwise, and it's for anybody who's wanting to cut down on anything that they are consuming.
It's think about why, you know, over Christmas there can often be pressure and extrinsic motivation to eat more than you should. Cuz it's, oh, come on, you haven't had a piece of that cake yet. I made a Christmas cake this year. I didn't have a slice, didn't have
Oh,
because it was there. I mean, I didn't actually make it till Boxing Day because that's when people were arriving, but it was still, then, it was all, you know, I was making the, the big meals for the family, so I didn't have room for cake. I was not hungry, so I did not eat it. And then I gave a quarter of it to my daughter-in-law's parents. And then both sons took a quarter of it away with them and I gave the rest to the Ukrainians. I didn't have any.
But I know that if it had sat there, I probably would've just sat there. So, cause I don't tend to get to the point where I think, oh, a piece of cake is what I want. Whereas chocolates, heroes, Skittles, peach rings, those sorts of things. Yeah. I can always find room for those. Everybody's different. But yeah.
So to conclude, perhaps it's, think about what your motivation was to do the things and, and quite often then you'll find, well, actually, yes, I've got that motivation to do that, but that's not really quite right. Again, we can do some more on this if we do a specific session on alcohol or eating or any other habits, but look at the motivation and decide. Then look at the motivation for what you want to change, and again, it gives you, it gives you choices.
Well, thank you very much. What a lovely natter. Thank you Fiona. Thank you for your insight. We need to finish off cuz time is ticking on. As always, we are contactable there's a link in the show notes to a form on my website where you can send us a message. Tell us what you think. Give us a topic. If you want us to talk about anything in particular, ask us a question. We've got, we've had, we have had some questions over the Christmas period.
We need to look through quite a few actually, some complicated ones and we'll, we'll pick and choose and we'll go through all these different things and we'll, we'll get some topics for, for the rest of 2023. But please send us more, the more the merrier that really does help us. So let's love them and leave them for another week. Fiona, we'll take yourself off. You do the same. And we'll see you next time.
Bye Bye