It's podcast time with Richard and Fiona. This is the Therapy Natters podcast. If you didn't realize what you clicked onto, which is a podcast all about psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and pretty much all the other modalities that fall under the umbrella of the talking therapies as opposed to psychiatry. We're not psychiatrists. Please don't ask us to do anything like that. Wouldn't know where to start. although it does work the other way around.
Psychiatrists will do psychotherapy, but psychotherapies don't do psychiatry. Have you met any psychiatrists? Fiona? Have you got into a, a natter with a psychiatrist?
I have met one or two through uk. UK Council for Psychotherapy because there is a medical college which basically are psychiatrists who do psychotherapy. So I've, I've met a few in that. The chair of that college is lovely. He's called Svetlin but I haven't really got into any sort of conversations with them, but this is, it is certainly something that some psychiatrists can do. but they don't all do it and it's sort of a specialism within it.
It's just strange cuz in America psychiatrists do do psychotherapy. It's, that's what they do. Whereas here it's primarily about prescribing Medication.
Yeah. Um, I, I, I've met a, a couple who think outside the box and a few gps as well, but I think it's quite rare for the medical community to think about the benefits of just sitting talking to somebody,
There is an organiz.
which is not a.
There is an organization called the Critical Psychiatry Network who are psychiatrists who don't believe in psychiatry the way it's done in the uk, it's a British organization.
wow.
So I did go to a conference of theirs once some people were psychiatrists, some people were people like me, and then there were service users. So that was, that was quite good fun. But no, they, they they challenge for example, making it quite simplistic, but they challenge the use of antidepressants as the, as the cure for depression. The basis of, well, several bases. One, they don't know why it works, don't know if it works.
And not sure that it cures anyway, because people don't tend to take it for a while, come off and be okay. And a lot of people who do take it are still depressed. So it's all very it's a muddled picture. But yeah, that organization exists.
frustrating for the public because don't we all want an easy life where we just put a hand in the air and say help?
me. Fix me please.
Yeah. Yeah. And. The book seems to be passed back to the patient to go, here are your choices. Make a decision. Well, I can't make a decision. My head's a shed. You need to make the decision for me, doc, what do I do? And the GP says, well, we've got two more minutes to have a conversation before Ethel comes in with a arthritic leg. So yeah, lemme go through those, those things again, which is is up to you. Oh, choice isn't always that good. is it?
No it's, well, it is and it isn't. are wanting something that's not actually the best thing. I mean, I've got a, a, I had to speak to the GP yesterday and that was very good. I mean, I had to wait 40 minutes on the phone to speak to somebody, but when I did it was very good and I got sorted within an hour. But I've got an infected finger.
And the, the GP phoned me and then I had to send him a picture of my finger, which I thought, well, it just looks like a finger that's swollen, but you can't see it swollen unless you see the other one. And I couldn't manage to take a photo of two fingers at the same time. So anyway yes, I wanted him to just say, oh, right. Antibiotics. I mean, I, I'm not in favor of overusing antibiotics, but. It's clearly an infected finger and it blew me my alerts and I'm going on holiday today.
And he was, no, no, no, we, we don't do antibiotics. He did in the end when I said I was going on holiday on promise that I won't take them unless I need to. But then it was all sorts of, well you need to soak it in hot water and you need to put this cream on and you need to do that and this and that. So, It's not what I wanted. It's not the fix. So we want the quick fix, but we don't really do we, we want the choices, but we don't.
yeah, we're not very good at making decisions humans, which is why we have the shortcuts in our brain to make the decisions for us. And that's just based on history. Whatever we've done in the past, we just end up doing the same again, which is the, I guess the behaviorist movement, which was, it's all about the repetition or all about the linking together of a, a stimulus. and uh, um, and a feeling or a behavior. It's those things that, that drive humans.
I guess that was in the fifties, sixties, and that was behaviorism. And then along came the cognitive ideas and then got merged into the cognitive and behavioral. What was the cognitive before behavioral therapy? Which came first? Do you remember? Not that you'd actually remember.
Pretty much parallel, I believe. The, the cognitive and the behavioral people worked in parallel and then they found a emerging, but they, there's two things still do have some degree of separation. There are people who are purely one or purely the other. And then there's cognitive analytic as well, which I was talking about yesterday and thinking, What's that? I need to do some more investigation into what cognitive analytical means.
Cause they're within the humanistic College of UKCP, which neither cognitive nor analytic seems to fit with humanistic, but I don't know because I don't really know what it is.
I was thinking about. Because we said we were gonna do an episode about stress cuz so many people have been messaging and, and saying things in the therapy room, and not just patrons but private clients as well. Everybody's a bit stressed. It's all a bit much. And when everything was either cognitive therapy or behavioral therapy, they all had the different ideas about what stress was and it's when they were merged together, I think that.
People were able to see, it's not just the associations that we might have with the situation that makes a heart pound and makes us overwhelmed. It's also the way we think about it. It's the thinking behind it. and there was a guy, I'm trying to remember his name. I was, I was, I was thinking about it earlier. What was his name? Richard somebody. Richard Lazarus. That
Oh.
He studied emotions and stress in the sixties and it was him that did some studies and found that the defense mechanism of denial, prevented stress, which seems obvious nowadays of course, that if you deny there's a problem, you're gonna feel better. But that was the case and still is the case, and it meant that people who were in denial about how difficult a problem was, they handled that problem better than those that were thinking about what a problem it is.
Again, it makes obvious sense, doesn't it?
It, it really does. It, it's, it, it is obvious when you look at it like that. And yes, the, the, the weight of how much a problem is perceived to be a problem. Is so, so, so crucial. And I was thinking of somebody that I know the other day. I asked a question and I got an answer, right?
Simple, straightforward normal sort of interaction between two people several hours later said, person communicated that they'd been worrying about this the whole time since, and hoped that they'd be able to sleep well at night. And I. but it was just a question that you were able to answer easily without any problem. But they had put so much weight on the fact that they'd been asked a question.
Yeah.
we've talked before about the fact that we are not sophisticated creatures when it comes feelings. So I know I've used the example of in a queue for a rollercoaster. Some people are feeling fear and some people are feeling excitement. Well, you know, some level of eustress or good stress spelled EU stress. Not as in European Union stress, which is another kettle fish entirely. Some level of, of stress is, is good for most people. Where that lies varies. And again, it's interpretation.
if you think, oh I'm, I've got a really important meeting later today, but this is an opportunity where I can show that I really understand this topic and that I can communicate well and all these other opportunities it might be able to come up against, that will be a eustress situation. As other people think, oh my God, it's gonna be terrible. What if they see through me? What if they think I've no good and I can't show it? You know, all of that sort of stuff.
Same situation, different interpretation.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Old bill Shakespeare said that back in the day, I dunno when, I don't know why. Whether he said it in a conversation, wrote it in a letter or put it in a play, but he said it, but,
And I can't,
it sounds very hamlet.
in, it's in a, it's in a play. It's in one of his plays. But I cannot remember which one
I'm, I'm, I'm Googling
You Google it. You Google it whilst you are Googling that, I just wanted to say something about stress. and again, we must have said this before cuz we are on episode 48. We are gonna be repeating ourselves quite a lot. But that's sort of what people who natter do, doesn't it? I hope it doesn't matter. And then I
Act two. Scene two.
oh, it was great.
course it was
Good old omelet. When I first started in practice very nearly 30 years ago, 29 years and 11 months ago,
Wow.
people said stress very, very regularly as their presenting issue. That's what they came. As well as all the other stuff that's still the same, apart from smoking, which isn't the same, and then stress declined and anxiety took its place. To the point, which I'd say a few years ago, everybody was saying anxiety and nobody was using the word stress
Hmm.
Since the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, and I don't know how, or if you can pull those two things apart. The word stresses come back
Yeah.
and an awful lot of people, as you said, are saying, I'm really stressed. Too stressed.
To me, stress is an imbalance between our perceived abilities to handle something and our perception of the difficulties. It's all about the perceptions. Thinking makes it so, I mean, we've gotta be honest. it sounds really negative, but there is a lot to be stressed about because there's so many things that are outside of our control and I think that's where a lot of work with stress and anxiety, if you don't wanna pick 'em apart, That's where the treatment needs to lie with ourselves.
That says there are some things I can control and there are some things I can't, I don't need to really worry about the things that I can control. Cause I can control those and I don't really need to worry about the things that I can't control. Cuz I can't control those. I can't do anything about them anyway. But it's easier said than done, isn't it really?
A phrase that I know we have used, I think we used it very early on in this series, was I can't control everything, but I can manage anything. And that one certainly bears repeating because I'll often come back to that with clients and they go, oh, oh yeah, I forgot and I've done it myself. I've forgot to use it. Oh, yes. It's so, so helpful
Hmm.
this could be being too simplistic, but, and I'm sure it is in certain circumstances that, Preparation and planning, is, so important in terms of reducing the amount of stress because if you've prepared and planned and are sticking to your plan then things will be better. So Taking this away from the extremes of, you know, somebody knocking on your door and saying, right, you, you've got to leave.
Cuz we are reposing your house, taking it away from those things everyday things of, you know, you worrying about whether you're gonna pass an exam or stressing as to yeah, whether you, you, you're gonna have months left at the end of your money rather than money left at the end of your months. Then thinking it through and planning and then keeping to said plans really is helpful.
So I'm a big fan, as we discussed in our episode on defense mechanisms, I'm a really big fan of utilizing them but not to the extent of bearing your head in the sand.
Yeah. Think of work stress. Something that a lot of people back in the day used to bring into therapy. It was all, oh, well, I've got too much work. I'm stressed, and they'll say, I haven't even got time to come to therapy cuz I'm so busy and go, ah. If you say you haven't got time to come to therapy, you definitely need to go to therapy. It's like the old phrase. Those that have the time should meditate for half an hour a day. Those that don't have the time should meditate for an hour.
And I've probably abused that phrase probably, but you get my drift if our workload is higher than our perceived ability to handle our workload, then there's gonna be a feeling in the body, a feeling that says that something bad is coming around the corner. And that's the issue because for some people with a great amount of assertiveness and confidence, they don't mind if there's an imbalance. Cuz if their boss comes to them and says, have you done that?
They've got the confidence to say, No, I was given too much other work. It won't be done until next week. Is that okay? Or do you want me to do you want me to put something else to one side instead and the boss goes, no, I want you to do everything. Well, I'd love to, but genuinely because there's not enough hours in the day. What do you want me to prioritize, boss? Or do you wanna take something off me and give it to somebody else? It's up to you.
You are the boss, boss and a lot of people who come to therapy. Probably don't have that level of assertiveness and confidence to look a manager in the face and say things like that. And is that, is that cognitive or behavioral? I'm not sure. Little bit of both. it's cognitive behavioral. Yeah.
Yeah. And I
is it, because if you play with that, why didn't they have the confidence and assertiveness in the first place? Why were they the people pleasers like we were talking about last week, worrying about what people think. So you can probably go back into the psychoanalytic stuff and attachment theory and all sorts of stuff.
But the boss example, I think it's useful to recognize that in that situation, Boss and employee, you've got two. stating the bleeding obvious. You've got two people interacting, but with each of their own personal processes going on. So the boss could be maintaining a level of control by handing the control over to the employee and, saying, your job, your job, your job, therefore not my job. Whereas it actually is the boss's.
But then going back to what we were still talking about, beginning as this episode was about, do we want choice or don't we want choice? And that's again, do do you want a boss who micromanages you and tells you exactly what you should prioritize? Or do you want the freedom to be able to say, you know, I really think that this is what we need to prioritize and then defend it.
But if you want that, but then don't have the level of assertiveness to be able to do so, and if that conflicts with the manager's own processes needing to be in control. Oh gosh. It's no wonder these things are complicated.
Hmm. And I wish there was an answer. I wish there was a, a simple rule book that you just follow these instructions and all your stress just disappears away cuz it is, it's a lifelong lesson to learn and practice dealing with stress. Unless you know some magical formula Fiona.
Well, I do, but it's um, it's a secret.
Oh, you, you've gotta, you've gotta pay to go on a course and learn all about it. Who are you? Tony Robbins.
I think you
he doesn't listen.
Well, do you know, I was, I was listening to his seminar yesterday. I'm thinking, I wonder if he listens to Therapy Natters. I was laughing as I thought it, but I, I like laughing at my own thoughts. that's.
It's an interesting thing to say because anything's possible, but is it probable? And I think that is a question to ask ourselves a lot when it comes to stress. Is this possible? Yes. Is it probable? No. Is the boss gonna fire me if I say there's too much work for me? Well possibly, cuz anything can happen in an infinite number of universes. But is it probable? No. No it's not.
But going back to magic formula for dealing with stress obviously, There isn't a formula
Yeah. Sorry about that, everybody.
Yeah. No, but the, the good news is that there are some things that are really quite simple to do and really powerful. One is a recognition that you have a choice as to how you perceive things, and maybe shifting that perception a little bit. Can majorly beneficial, even with just a small shift, a recognition that some stress is for most people at most stages of their life, a good thing that, you know, the opposite for a lot of people would be, oh God, that would be a bit boring, wouldn't it?
But we, we, we need some sort of, Stress stretchiness going on to make life interesting. So recognize that. Utilize your defense mechanisms well. Become skilled in knowing when and how to do those So, You know, we don't want to be in denial about our bills. You know, that we have to pay a certain amount each month, and we want to get to the end of the month and it to be okay.
So, you know, don't bury your head in the sand about that, but that doesn't mean that you have to be thinking about it at three in the morning.
Hmm.
Because that's not gonna help you. Nobody's good at, well, I don't think anybody's good at thinking these things through at three in the morning. Although we did have that discussion a while ago about the break in sleep, which I've, I've certainly used that quite a bit myself since coming across that theory.
When I wake up at that time, rather than them beating myself up and saying, there's no point worrying about this now because there's notice I should, I should only think about this and I will think about it in the morning. I'm thinking, actually, well, I'm lying here awake anyway, so let's give it a little bit of thought, but that's a little bit of thought, not worry.
Yes, because those, those are different things. to a degree, we can do whatever we like with our thoughts. The fact that thoughts can pop into our head and can be negative means we have a creative imagination. But to be able to turn those thoughts into, well, what's the best case scenario rather than the worst case scenario, that that isn't easy for a lot of people.
And if you do struggle with that, Follow the worst case scenario on silly, as it sounds, cuz for a lot of situations, the end of the worst case scenario is, and it was okay. Everything worked out all right. Wasn't easy, but it worked out okay. In the end, I, I lost my house, but I moved in with my sister and then the council sorted something out for me and it wasn't easy, it wasn't good, but you did. and we all lived happily ever after. We don't tend to get to that.
We tend to get wrapped up in the worst parts of everything about our perceived future. Keep the thought going. We do it with phobias. Somebody, you mean you are going on holiday when somebody comes to therapy and says, I want to go on holiday with my family, but I just can't, the idea of being on the airplane is just overwhelming. Okay. Well think about getting off it at the other end. Carry the thought on. Don't just imagine that you're sitting on the plane freaking out.
Think about after you freaked out and how. Oh, thank goodness for that. Oh, it's quite nice here actually, isn't it? Huh? Think about that.
one of the people I am flying with tomorrow is Is a bit phobic of flying. And I'm smiling now as I, think, oh, we said we were gonna set up some anchors didn't we? And I'd forgotten. But we'll, we'll see. It's, it's not, it's not terrible. It's, it's, it's mild. But I had said that, let's, let's set up some positive anchors that you can fire off when. On the plane going to the plane. That's the wrong way
We did an episode about anchoring and somebody did, actually, somebody did send us a message asking us if we could go into a bit more detail about him. We might do not, not sure. But if what we were talking about wasn't clear enough for you to ask a question that says, oh, could you go into more detail? Then maybe we need to go into it a little bit more. Well, we're here for the rest of our lives, so we need something to talk about
That's a commitment. I didn't know I'd made
for the rest of your life. that's it. Well, you're tied in. people like us. Actually, I don't really know what our plans are for this podcast. are, we're just gonna keep on doing it till we drop.
Well, we do have, we do have our little plan for something else, don't we? But that's, that's too, too early to even be mentioning that.
Yeah. We probably won't, I, I might edit this out when it goes
Oh, leave it in
Yeah. Or you tease But when it comes to setting goals, is it important to put it out there cuz that encourages you then to do something about it? When it comes to providing content or anything else? You put it out there. That's one of the first things. Tell our clients, eh, I know it's February, but it's still the new year. People are still coming to us about New Year's resolutions. I'm still getting inquiries for weight loss help. Put it out there.
Tell people that that's what you want to do in your life. Because when you do that, you'll hold yourself accountable, even if that is well, I want to learn how to relax more. Be less stressed, more calm. That's an interesting thing to mention, actually, avoiding the negatives in our speech. There's a big difference between be more calm and be less stressed, and negative phrases, negative mantra.
that's not something we've talked about, which is a surprise to be almost a year into this series and not tell people, Hey, don't think about what doesn't exist. The brain doesn't like
I think we've done little bits on it, but the thinking of Tony Robbins a big part of what he does is about the identity labels and the thing as his exceptionally important is to, is to avoid the, and I, no, we've talked about labels in terms of sort of diagnostic labels, but anything that you say I. And then what follows. Be very, very careful,
Mm-hmm.
Because if you, if you say it often enough the mind believes it, which is a good thing if you're saying things that are good. don't, don't be silly if you know, for, for me, if I say I am the world's greatest basketball player, my mind is never going to believe that.
If you can see it, you can be it Fiona Toxic positivity is nonsense.
It's, I, I cannot be that thing. So it's about having some reasonableness to, those ideas. But yeah, phrase things in the positive. Definitely. So I'm good at being calm in the evenings. I can switch off really well, those sorts of ideas, you know.
far better than, oh, I won't get stressed tonight. because you will, because the brain doesn't know what doesn't exist. It's like telling a child not to run or, or don't touch that what this, oh, I said don't touch that. So they did. Oh, and I remember doing that even as a teenager. Maybe that's just my impulsivity, but when somebody. Don't touch that. It was my brother-in-law's car window. I felt guilty about that for years. And when I told him about it, he went, don't even remember that.
But he said, you know, don't touch that window. It's broken. And I did. And it just fell into the car door but I was this 12 year old kid. he was probably angry at the time cuz he'd said, don't touch that. So all my brain could think about was touching it. And I know we are not all 12 year old kids.
Oh, oh, what?
are
yes, yes, we are. Do you know, if you think about court cases, and I, I've mentioned before, I love watching court TV from the States and they always, before they go off for any breaks, they always say to the jury, Don't look at this case. Do not look at social media. Don't look, don't research it, and oh, I mean, I've done jury service, but not on a case that would've had any social media around it.
Can you imagine if you are on one of the really, really big cases somewhere and all you're getting is don't look at it, don't, don't discuss it. All these negatives.
mm.
Gosh, yes. It'd be very, very difficult. I think they could really do well to rethink that language.
Do you remember Police Five? I think it was on
Oh gosh. Shaw Taylor.
don't have nightmares. Oh, alright. Thanks. Now you've told me all about these serial killers and murderers and things don't have nightmares. Oh, okay. Thanks Shaw Wonder how many people
Whereas crime Watch. they had some phrase, but they would talk about the risk, the statistical risk. Didn't they? Some, it was some sort of phrase about it's, it's not likely. Yeah.
Yep. I think it was about the rarity of it all, how these things are rare. And we mentioned this because when it comes to stress, when it comes to anything, Phrasing any mantra that you've got in your head as positive is what leads you towards those positive experiences. But like we say, it has to be realistic, but still it can be positive even if it's, even if it's a wish. To say I can be calm rather than I am calm.
Cuz if you, if you're not a calm person and you've had 10 years of nothing but stress and anxiety in your life, this mantra of I am a calm and confident person, it might feel unrealistic. So I can be a calm and confident person. I will be, I have the potential. Start there if you have to. Mantras do work if you phrase them well.
that second clause, if you phrase them well, is really, really important. I was just thinking then of people who have was I suppose stereotypically stressful jobs people who work in the nhs, teachers, those sorts of jobs where, when they're in it, it's constant, it's high stress, the job itself, and it seems to me not having ever done such a thing. Who am I to say? But it seems to me that the key is whether they can then stop and let it go and feel content with. I did all that. I got it done.
I remember talking to somebody who'd gone back into medicine during the pandemic working in I C U. and that was the, feeling that I got that, that she was saying that, you know, at the end of the shift there was such a few feeling that it was over for now, but back in a very few hours. But there was something about that break and then that made me think about anybody who's listening, who's gone skiing, which is what I'm as in, I'm going on a skiing holiday tomorrow.
Slight difference in that I'm actually not going to ski. But put that to one side, that feeling that you get at the end of a day skiing where you are physically, absolutely everything hurts. But it's been really good and you feel so. Content that you've done. You've had all these lovely, beautiful experiences in the mountains and it was exhilarating, but it was blooming hard work. But then you really just relax and chill. There's so, to me, there's nothing like it.
There's nothing I've experienced like it but I would
Because of the juxtaposition,
Well, yes. Sort of the hard, the hard work. But, but good hard work. And then you are okay, then you, then you can chill. So there's something, there's something there about that. There's, there's nothing quite like that, that relaxation after a day skiing. And I don't know, it could be that people are listening to this going, what the heck is she talking about? But there might be some people in those stressy jobs.
You would say, actually, yeah, there's, there's something in that, that at the end of that day when it's been so tough, but I've been doing good things with the patients, with the pupils, whatever the scenario, and now I can just relax and it's okay and I can go back and do it again tomorrow.
Yeah, a bit like the muscular relaxation exercises, where in order to make the muscles as relaxed as possible to make them tight first and then let them go.
Autogenic.
Autogenic, that's it. Yeah. Or autogenic method. So you tighten the muscles in your tummy and then you let it go, and then your legs and you let it go. And every time you let it go, it gets more relaxed. Softer. Softer and softer until they're asleep. And there are people that can fall asleep in like 30 seconds. What a skill. Hey Fiona. Look at the time. We need to wrap up. Leave these lovely people to their day.
Whatever day it is that you're listening to this, let's love them and leave them, you know where we are if you need anything, drop us a line, send us a message. If you've got a topic idea, tell us. We'll probably talk about it. Send us a question. The link is in the show notes. Have a super week and we'll see you next time.
Bye. See you soon.
Bye.