Freedomain Radio

Christina enjoyed the last Sunday show so much that she is elbowing me aside this week as well, if that is of interest to you - is there a specific theme or topic that y'all would like to talk about?

Could we talk about being supportive friends to other people who are in therapy?

This might be an overly broad question, but what are the most important things that a therapist needs to know about their patient?

I second the first question. Great idea, JC.

What does it even mean to be 'supportive'? Should friends even accept any sort of extra responsibility in the relationship where the other party is in therapy, or is that a boundary crossing? (I.e., the overly-helpful variety of "supportive").

Yeah, and maybe y'all should discuss Harry Browne's concept of friendship,
based on mutual understanding, undermining the differencies and focusing on what you have in common with somebody,
deciding to expand a relationship on newly-found shared interests, and just dealing with the expectation factor that
"a friend should do this" and "a friend should do that".

Actually, I just thought of something else.

I know this has been a serious problem for me at times, and I've begun to recognize it A LOT lately, in people on the board, and in the chatroom. I don't know for sure if it's a rise in actual instances of it, or if I'm just becoming more aware of it.

The subject is self-attack.

How it arises, what are some of the major causes for it, how it manifests in mood and behavior, how to recognize it in yourself when you're not aware of it, how to deal with it long term, whether one can be rid of it entirely, or if we can only learn to cope with it...

I'm sure there are other questions around this topic, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

A few more requests:

1)    How to process stuff.  Therapy might only be once or twice a week.  Listening to podcasts is of course passive.  We’ve talked about some ideas (journaling, RTR with self, others?) I’d love to have a few more tools.  What are some other ideas, exercises, or workbooks that we can use to process stuff?  Examples might be exercises like those that Lily Lucerne has posted recently.  Is there a library of those online?
2)    Anger/negotiation.  This is hard to formulate but I guess I mean that for me anger is often the only tool in my repertoire that comes to mind for negotiation.  I either roll-over/repress/evade, or I “assert myself” in an angry fashion.  These ideas came up in a similar but different context on the 8/31 show (Stef said something like “I can see where that’s an unpleasant fork in the road. What about the middle ground, and how do we start using it?  I can negotiate fine in some areas of life (professional), but not in other (personal) areas.
3)    Getting on the beam, as described by Christina.  Stef does the topic justice, but sometimes hearing it in different terms helps me get a better understanding.  How can we start taking those difficult steps?  Sometimes it seems like I don’t see the opportunity to have a difficult conversation until after the moment has passed (or, I evaded the knowledge of the moment/opportunity to have the conversation because I was scared – even paralyzed).  How can we improve our chances of taking those difficult steps appropriately?

Thank you!
   

Those are great, great topics! Will u be around for the next show?

I was going through the self-help section of my local Barnes and Noble to pick up a couple Branden books and saw some Cognitive Psychology exercise workbooks for sale, along with a bunch of others. I didn't pick it up because I don't want to interfere with the other exercise programs that I'm involved in, but you might want to look there.

worger:

A few more requests:

1)    How to process stuff.  Therapy might only be once or twice a week.  Listening to podcasts is of course passive.  We’ve talked about some ideas (journaling, RTR with self, others?) I’d love to have a few more tools.  What are some other ideas, exercises, or workbooks that we can use to process stuff?  Examples might be exercises like those that Lily Lucerne has posted recently.  Is there a library of those online?
2)    Anger/negotiation.  This is hard to formulate but I guess I mean that for me anger is often the only tool in my repertoire that comes to mind for negotiation.  I either roll-over/repress/evade, or I “assert myself” in an angry fashion.  These ideas came up in a similar but different context on the 8/31 show (Stef said something like “I can see where that’s an unpleasant fork in the road. What about the middle ground, and how do we start using it?  I can negotiate fine in some areas of life (professional), but not in other (personal) areas.
3)    Getting on the beam, as described by Christina.  Stef does the topic justice, but sometimes hearing it in different terms helps me get a better understanding.  How can we start taking those difficult steps?  Sometimes it seems like I don’t see the opportunity to have a difficult conversation until after the moment has passed (or, I evaded the knowledge of the moment/opportunity to have the conversation because I was scared – even paralyzed).  How can we improve our chances of taking those difficult steps appropriately?

Yes! Great topics all.

Right now I don't know if I'll be in on Sunday, but this is making it even more attractive than usual.