Use Your Damn Skills

Your success in therapy, recovery, and life is dependent upon the development of one essential skill: directing your focus. 

Whenever anyone meaningfully recovers from anything, from addiction to PTSD to depression to any other psychological struggle, the significant thing that has shifted is that they have developed the skill of effectively directing their focus. 

In the end, why do people struggle with addiction? Because they have not yet developed the skill of directing their focus away from their cravings and toward alternative ways of getting their needs met. People recover from addiction when they are able to direct their focus where they want it to go, when they want it to go there. 

In the end, why do people struggle with PTSD? Because their focus is constantly being dragged from the present and the future to the past. They recover when they are able to direct their focus where they want it to go, when they want it to go there. 

In the end, why do people struggle with depression? Because their focus is constantly being dragged to the darkest, least helpful, most distorted thoughts and beliefs their brains can conjure. They recover when they are able to direct their focus where they want it to go, when they want it to go there. 

EVERY type of therapy is about learning to purposefully, voluntarily shift and control focus. 

For a lot of people, this seems like the bad news. 

After all, shifting focus doesn’t seem to be as kill that comes naturally. 

We don’t WANT to have to invest all of that energy into monitoring and intentional shifting our focus. 

It’s a hassle. It’s a pain. 

We’d far, far prefer if our attention just naturally went to things the made us feel good. Just naturally avoided addictive cravings, PTSD flashbacks, and depressive crevices. 

Many people, when they realize how difficult it is to shift their focus, and that they can’t do it naturally or instinctively, get it in their heads that they are somehow “broken.” They think that “normal” people can shift focus easily and automatically, without having to learn how to do it through training or treatment. 

This is something we all desperately need to get over. As soon as we can. 

The fact is, shifting focus doesn’t come “naturally” to most people. 

Some people have had life experiences and have neural wiring that makes shifting focus an easier skill to learn than other people. That’s it. 

Regardless of how easy or difficult we find it, we ALL have to learn it. 

And the sooner we get past being angry or disappointed that we didn’t come “equipped from the factory” with this ability, the sooner we can go about actually taking control of our destinies. 

The good news: we have plenty of experience learning to control our focus.

Think about the fact that if you’ve ever held a job— EVER— you’ve learned to direct your focus, at least a little. 

Think about the fact that if you’ve successfully been potty trained— you’ve learned to direct your focus. 

Think about the fact that if you’re even reading these words— you’ve learned to direct your focus. 

The fact is, you control your focus in lots of ways, and you’ve probably done so for years. Therapy and treatment just teaches you to direct your focus in specific ways that we haven’t yet mastered. 

That’s it. 

So this essential task of therapy? You’ve mastered it. Just not in the specific domain that you need to just now. 

When you enter into therapy, when you get into treatment, as you go about your recovery journey, remember: I KNOW you can do this. And the reason I KNOW you can do this, is because I KNOW you have some practice and skill with the essential skill involved: shifting your focus. 

Don’t give up. 

Just keep drilling the basics.

Master this one skill in the specific domain with which you’re struggling. 

If you’re going to avoid addiction, you need to get good at diversification. 

Addiction happens when we get dependent upon one source to get an important need met. 

Once we become overdependent upon that one source, we lose the ability to deal with that source with realism and perspective. 

Our brains realize that, if something should happen to that source of need fulfillment, we’d be out of luck— and once our brains realize that, they begin to panic. 

Our behavior around that source of need fulfillment becomes compulsive and impulsive. 

A very common example of this phenomenon is how some people relate to food. They make food the main source of stimulation and pleasure in their lives. Once this is the case— that most, if not all, of the enjoyment in their lives comes from food—their relationship with food tends to get toxic. 

They never miss an opportunity to eat, because they don’t know when their next “hit” of eating-related pleasure will arrive. They become defensive about their eating behavior and preferences. They refuse to consider any potential changes to their eating habits, because they’ve gotten it fixed in their minds: IF I WANT ANY PLEASURE IN MY DAY, I HAVE TO EAT LIKE THIS…AND ANY CHANGE TO THIS PATTERN THREATENS MY ABILITY TO FEEL PLEASURE. 

Another example of this is in certain peoples’ patterns around friendships and romantic relationships. When a person gets it in their head that their primary, or even their exclusive, source of self-esteem is a limited number of friendships or romantic relationships, then their behavior around those relationships tends to become toxic. 

They put up with behaviors in those relationships that are disrespectful. They no longer feel free to be “themselves” in those relationships, because they’ve figured out that to be “themselves” is to risk doing something the other person may disapprove of, which would leave them bereft. They become terrified of abandonment, because they’ve gotten it fixed in their minds: IF I WANT TO EXPERIENCE SELF-ESTEEM, I HAVE TO RELATE TO THESE PEOPLE IN THESE SPECIFIC WAYS…AND ANY CHANGE TO THIS PATTERN THREATENS MY ABILITY TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF. 

This happens EVERY time we get exclusively dependent upon one or a few sources of important needs. 

Pleasure, self-esteem, money, feelings…it is ENORMOUSLY important that we cultivate numerous sources of all of these in our lives, if we’re going to avoid becoming overdependent and addicted to one or a limited number of sources. 

The main reason many people fail to give up their addictions, even in structured rehab programs, is usually because they have not diversified the sources in their lives that provide them with whatever they were getting from their drug or behavior of abuse. 

The good news is, diversifying our sources of need satisfaction usually isn’t as difficult as it might seem. 

It may be the case that it is very EASY for certain substances or people to get certain needs met in our lives. But if we’re going to diversify, we often need to accept that we’re going to have to take the less-than-easiest road to getting our needs met, at least sometimes. 

For example: it’s very EASY to feel AWESOME when you take, say, an opiate. 

But if an opiate is the ONLY way you’ve developed to feel good in your life, it is almost certain that you’ll become addicted to opiates. 

In order to keep that from happening, you need to develop numerous ways to feel good in your life. You need to diversify. The catch being, the various ways you develop to feel good will probably not be as EASY as popping an opiate. 

They will, however, save you from getting addicted. 

Similarly, it’s enormously EASY to feel good while eating chocolate. 

But if chocolate is the ONLY way you’ve developed to feel good, it’s a certainty your behavior around chocolate will get compulsive and neurotic. You’re going to become addicted. 

In order to keep that from happening, you need to develop a few non-chocolate ways to feel good in your life…but you’ll also need to accept that those ways will probably not be as EASY as chowing down on chocolate. 

Again, though: they’ll save you from getting addicted. 

Understand, diversifying isn’t necessarily a lot of fun. It’s certainly more fun, a lot of the time, to just pop the pill, eat the chocolate, call up the toxic ex, spend the day on Facebook, or whatever, than to cultivate multiple, healthy ways of feeling good. 

You know what’s even more of a drag than developing coping skills, though? 

The end consequences of addiction. 

Diversify. It’ll quite literally save your life. 

Be alert: part of you is going to try to use the concept of an “emergency” to trick you into abandoning your goals. 

It’s not a matter of “if” or “maybe” this will happen. It’s GOING to happen. 

This is how our brains work when we try to make significant changes in our lives. Part of us immediately goes to work trying to figure out an end run around the changes we’re trying to make. 

Sometimes part of us does this because, deep down, we’re sorta scared about what those changes may mean in the big picture. 

Other times part of us tries to sabotage us because the changes we’re trying to make call for us to give up immediate gratification, and we’re wired to pursue immediate gratification whenever we get the opportunity. 

Whatever the reason, one of the most effective methods this part of us tries to use to get us to abandon our goals is by shouting, “EMERGENCY!” 

Maybe you’ve put yourself on a caloric budget or changed the types of food you eat in order to improve your health. It’s almost a sure bet that, sooner or later, part of you is going to try to confound this shift by telling you you NEED to eat whatever’s in front of you right now— it’s an EMERGENCY!

“You haven’t eaten anything ALL DAY. You’ve had a really BAD DAY. There’s nothing on your diet in the house. Making those changes would be nice, but we can’t do it right now— this is an EMERGENCY!” 

Maybe you’ve decided to stop communicating with a toxic person in your life. You can bet that part of you is going to try to collapse your resolve by telling you you NEED to contact this person— it’s an EMERGENCY!

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I said I wasn’t going to call them anymore, but there’s something I forgot to ask them. There’s something I need to tell them. I just need to know how they’re doing— it’s an EMERGENCY!” 

Do actual emergencies exist? Sure, of course they do. 

Do actual emergencies usually require us to abandon our goals? Usually they do not. Usually there is a way to respond to an actual emergency while continuing to hold fast to our goals. 

Our brains pull this stunt because we have associated the word “emergency” with the idea that “all rules are suspended.” A state of “emergency” is one in which we don’t have to pay attention to the long term consequences of our behavior— by definition, in an “emergency,” we have to concern ourselves with just surviving for the moment. 

Lots of times, our “emergencies” aren’t real emergencies. Lots of times, we’re just looking for an excuse to suspend the rules we’ve imposed upon ourselves. 

Change is freaking us out, and we’re looking for a way to push the pause button. 

Let’s be clear about the fact that no one is expecting change to be easy. 

Let’s also be clear about the fact that very often we bit off more than we can actually chew when we’re trying to make changes to our lives. We go on a diet that is unreasonably restrictive. We set unreasonable standards for ourselves. We demand that we change without realistically assessing the “how” and “why” of those changes. 

If you need to reassess your goals and rules in order to successfully carry out your change program, do it.

But don’t create an imaginary “emergency” in order to push the pause button on change that’s just freaking you out.

A rise in your anxiety is not an “emergency.” 

It is what it is: an emotional fluctuation that requires regulation and response from you. 

No more, no less. 

You’re GOING to be anxious in the process of change. 

Plan for it. Expect it. Have ideas and lists ahead of time on how to cope with that anxiety when— not “if”— it arises. 

By that same token: plan for, expect, and have contingencies ready for when your brain tries to trick and sabotage you in order to keep you from changing. 

Again, it’s GOING to happen. It happens all the time. 

But your anxiety doesn’t get to choose whether you change. 

Only you do. 

Doing the stuff we need to do to get better is tough enough. 

Change often asks us to do things that are uncomfortable, unfamiliar, unnatural. Which, of course, makes sense: if the stuff we needed to do was comfortable, familiar, and natural, then we’d be doing it already. 

Making positive change often takes us out of our comfort zone. It asks us to acknowledge our vulnerability, acknowledge that we don’t know it all, acknowledge that we didn’t come “equipped from the factory” with everything we need to know and do in order to live well. 

All of which can be hard. 

But, most of which is quite doable, provided we access the right supports and— not infrequently— swallow our pride and our preconceived notions a little in order to do the stuff. 

As it turns out, however, there’s part of getting better that might even be harder than making changes in the first place: continuing to do the stuff, even after we’ve experienced relief or made some progress. 

There is this temptation, once we’ve turned a corner, to quit doing the stuff that got us to that point of progress. 

We’re suddenly not so depressed that we can’t see straight. Or we’re suddenly thinking clearly, without the influence of psychosis or paranoia. Or our anxiety has lessened such that we can be outside our house without freaking out at passing cars or ambient noises. 

All of which makes us feel good. 

And sometimes when we feel good, we sort of forget what it’s like to feel bad. 

And when feeling bad isn’t this huge, overwhelming fear or reality, anymore, we tend to look at the tools that got us to that point— medication, therapy skills, therapy tools, external support— slightly differently. 

Whereas those tools might have been lifesavers a minute ago, sometimes they now look kind of like a burden. 

For example, if we’re suddenly no longer afraid of being crushed by our depression or burning ourselves out with mania, we’re tempted to look at our medication regimen in a new light. We find ourselves asking, are mediations REALLY something we need to function? Now that we’re feeling better, wouldn’t it be preferable to see if we can function med-free? 

Or, if we’ve used internal communication and internal leadership skills to make peace between previously warring “parts” of ourselves, sometimes we’re then tempted to look back at those very skills and think, hm, now that I’m not at war with myself anymore, is it REALLY necessary to put all this time and effort into talking to myself? Wouldn’t it be better to try to function like “normal” people do, not having to use these specialized skills? 

The temptation, once we’re feeling better, is to forget how very much we really DO need— not “needed,” NEED— those skills in order to function. 

As a rule of thumb: if a tool or skill got you better…it’s probably necessary to continue using that tool or skill to STAY better. 

Understand, that’s not necessarily to say that you’ll need to use EVERY skill or tool you’ve EVER used in your recovery indefinitely, or that you’ll continue to use those skills and tools in exactly the same way over time. 

The truth is, your needs are going to be different at different times in your recovery, so you’ll probably need to adapt the skills and tools you use to your evolving symptom picture. 

But I’ve seen lots and lots (and LOTS) of people unnecessarily backslide in their recovery because, after getting to a certain level, they’ve gotten it in their heads that they’re going to “try” to function without the tools and skills that got them there. 

At the very least: if you think you want to change how you’re managing your symptoms, it’s highly, highly advisable to sit down with EVERYONE in your support system— including your mental health providers, your primary supports, and others who might be impacted by your decisions regarding what tools and skills to keep using or stop using— and get their feedback about what you’re thinking of doing. 

I know, I know. Nobody likes to think they have to use the “crutch” of medication or therapy tools forever.

I wouldn’t, either…if I thought of them as a “crutch.” 

The thing is…usually tools and skills aren’t really a “crutch.” 

Usually they are simply the tools and skills people NEED for successful, pleasurable, productive living. 

Most tools and skills you’ll run across in your recovery from trauma or mental illness— including medication!— are simply extensions of the tools and skills any well-adjusted person learns and uses in their lifetime in order to manage life. 

If you want to stay better, please, please, PLEASE: keep using the skills and tools that GOT you better. 

Don’t just stop. 

Skills and tools that work have a tendency to KEEP working— unless they’re suddenly dropped. 

If you’re doing therapy or personal development right, you’re developing skills that will, hopefully, generalize. 

Many people get into therapy to work on a specific challenge in their lives. They might be recovering from trauma; or they might be trying to improve their functioning at work; or they might be trying to establish or improve a relationship. 

The primary skills psychotherapy teaches— reality testing, constructive self-communication, emotional regulation, and goal setting— will help you improve most situations or challenges you find yourself struggling with. They WILL help you recover from trauma, they WILL improve your functioning at work; they WILL make it possible to establish new relationships and make existing relationships better. 

That’s the good news. 

But the better news is, they will probably help you do a lot of other stuff, too. 

The reality testing skills you learn in psychotherapy, for example, will hep you ANY time you’re experiencing thoughts and fears that feel overwhelming, depressing, and anxiety-provoking. Once you learn to identify cognitive distortions and talk back to them, thus cutting their consequent emotions down to size, those skills will help you ANY time your brain tries to mess with you by making situations seem bigger and scarier and less manageable than they actually are. 

Similarly, the self-communication skills you learn in therapy will help you ANY time your brain falls back into the habit of playing “old tapes” that contain voices from the past or the world that do not serve you. Once you learn to tell the difference between your “true” voice, as opposed to voices from the past or voices from “out there,” you’ll ALWAYS be able to design and reinforce an internal script that works TOWARD your values and goals, not AGAINST them. 

As well, the emotional regulation skills you learn in therapy will serve you ANY time you feel as if what you’re feeling is out of proportion to what you can handle. Once you learn how to change your breathing, change your focus, and manipulate your brain waves and central nervous system so that your limbic system is no longer running the show, you’ll NEVER AGAIN be one of those people who is ruled by their feeling states as opposed to their goals and values. 

And it goes without saying the the goal setting skills you develop that enable you and your therapist to actually carry out your therapy plan will be useful to you ANY time you’re faced with a multiple-stage, long term process. Once you learn how to set realistic intermediate goals and stay focused on achieving milestones you can easily visualize and accomplish, no goal will EVER AGAIN feel like it’s outside of your grasp. 

If you’re doing therapy right, you’re not just hacking away at or solving one particular problem. 

If you’re doing therapy right, you’re learning a new way of being in the world— and a new way to approach problems and life challenges generally that will stay with you for the rest of your life. 

It’s a pattern with several of my longer-term patients that they came to me for help with a specific area of their lives. My area of therapeutic expertise used to be serious postrauamtic and dissociative disorders, so many of my first patients came to me because they were struggling with serious dissociative symptoms (up to and including Dissociative Identity Disorder, the condition that we used to call Multiple Personalities ) and/or serious self-injurious or suicidal ideation. 

So we set about solving those problems with the tools I emphasize in therapy: reality testing, self-communication, emotional regulation, and goal-setting. And, because therapy works (and my patients work really, really hard), they got better. I’m proud to say that I have a very positive track record when it comes to the recovery rate of the trauma patents with whom I’ve worked— mostly because of their hard work and perseverance in therapy. 

But then, after they’d recovered from their post traumatic crises, something interesting tended to happen: life went on. 

My patients went on to do other things with their lives, rather than be professional victims. Several got married. Several went on to get graduate degrees and jobs in their fields. People who thought their lives were effectively at an end went out in the world and designed the “second acts” of their lives, and it was a beautiful thing. 

But, as often happens when life goals on: challenges popped up. Sometimes they were challenges that were related to their previous life circumstances; most often, they were brand new challenges related to life, health, finances, or something else. 

The thing is: because they had worked so hard to develop reality testing, self-communication, emotional regulation, and goal-setting skills, these patients were in a much, much better position to handle these new challenges than they would have otherwise been. 

In fact, in every instance in which I’m aware, my patients have NOT had to develop entirely new tool boxes to deal with their new life challenges. In most every case, they’ve used variants of the very same tools and skills that they used to recover from trauma, to make their new lives work. 

That’s why I can’t emphasize enough: therapy isn’t just for fixing specific problems. 

Therapy is for learning how to fix problems and live life, period. 

Keep this in mind when you’re discouraged by how difficult it is to develop the tools and skills of therapy. 

You’re developing tools and skills that will serve you for the rest of your LIFE. 

Not everyone is a leader. 

Not everyone SHOULD be a leader. 

Not everyone NEEDS to be a leader. 

Not everyone would enjoy being a leader; not everyone would be good at being a leader; and, believe it or not, not everyone WANTS to be a leader.

It’s fashionable these days to market self-help material by promising that it will make you into the LEADER you KNOW YOU CAN BE! Doesn’t that sound GREAT?!?

Few people stop to ask: if everyone purchasing these materials are fashioned into leaders…uh, who, then, are they leading? 

There’s even an inspirational meme going around that says something to the tune of, “great leaders don’t create followers…they create MORE LEADERS!” 

So, got that? Apparently we’re all going to be leaders! 

The reason the word “leader” is used so often in marketing materials is because the people who turn out these materials think everyone wants to think of themselves as a potential leader. 

And why wouldn’t they? In our culture, we associate leadership with attributes like courage and exceptionalism and charisma.

Everybody wants to be the “lead actor” in their own drama. Nobody wants to be an extra, or even a supporting player. 

Our egos, in other words, entice us into thinking of ourselves as always potential leaders. We’ve come to think that there’s something wrong, or maybe even shameful, about playing any role that isn’t a “leadership” role. 

(The unspoken subtext of all of this, of course, is that self-help materials get disproportionately marketed to people who think of themselves as “leaders” because the working theory is these are the people who are willing to pay for the advice and guidance that will supposedly make them into leaders.) 

Here’s the thing: there’s nothing wrong with leadership, or wanting to be a leader, or cultivating the habits that leaders are supposed to embody in our culture. 

But it is a mistake to think that, if you don’t happen to be in a leadership position, that you cannot show courage, inventiveness, charisma, or even exceptionalism. 

“Leader” is but one role that is necessary for any given organization, group, or effort. Because leaders tend to be more publicly visible or easily identifiable than other members of a group, they tend to be overemphasized when people think about the identity of an organization. 

Great leaders don’t mean much without great supporting players. 

Prize fighters don’t get very far without the expertise and consistency of their cornermen and training partners. 

Candidates rarely win without committed, intelligent, and passionate staff and supporters. 

Planes wouldn’t get off the ground if the pilot was the only crew member available, and ships would constantly run aground if the captain was the only person manning the bridge. 

Why is any of this relevant to you? 

Because I don’t want you to get sucked up into cultural myths or marketing hype. 

When you are thinking about how to design your life, and when you are evaluating tools and systems to help you achieve your goals, you are going to be subjected to lots and lots of propaganda that will try to tell you if you’re not a leader, you’re not important. 

The thing is, you may not want to be a leader. You may not be equipped to be a leader. Leadership may not be where your particular set of talents and tools is best used. 

I want you to design a life that fits you. 

I want you to design a life that prioritizes what you want to do; what you like to do; what you’re good at; and where you’re most effective. 

On a broader scale, I want the world to let go of its destructive attitude toward “leaders” and “followers.” 

Not being a leader does NOT mean you are designated to be a passive zombie, devoid of agency or responsibility. 

The fact is, leaders often don’t have a great deal of say about where their free time goes. (In many cases, they don’t have an awful lot of free time, either.) 

Leaders often have much less flexibility and autonomy than you think they might. 

It’s true that leaders exert a certain amount of control over certain specific domains…but they often pay a price for that control, by giving up control over a great deal of their focus and energy. 

All of which is to say: don’t buy into the leadership hype. 

Think for yourself. 

Define for yourself what role you want to play in the organizations, companies, groups, and family systems in which you exist. 

And do NOT feel pressured to buy products or services on the premise that they can make you a “leader”…because true “leadership” is really hard to teach. 

Diagnoses can be tricky. 

They can be useful; they can be complicated; they can be helpful or unhelpful. 

Mental health diagnoses are a tool; and like any tool, they can be productively used or destructively misused. 

One of the important things to understand about a diagnosis is that it’s not a “thing” that exists independently of anyone’s behavior or neuropsychology. 

You can’t see, feel, hold, or physically measure an “eating disorder” or “PTSD.” 

These are all descriptions of patterns of feeling and behavior. No less, but no more. 

Many people get in trouble when they over-assign importance to a diagnosis, or when they begin to think of a diagnosis as a “thing” unto itself. (There’s actually even a name for this problem— it’s called “reification,” after the Latin word for “thing.”)

It’s true that a diagnosis can be helpful in understanding what’s going on with someone. It can even leave some people feeling relieved that their pain has a name, and that it’s more than just someone choosing to act destructively or think negatively or feel terrible. 

But it’s also true that if we get it in our heads that simply naming our pain will always lead to a straightforward path to a cure, we’re going to be in for frustration and heartache. 

When you’re facing the issue of a mental health diagnosis, keep in mind that the labels and numbers we mental health professionals assign to your symptoms serve various functions. 

Sometimes they serve a “place holder” function while we gather more information. 

Sometimes they open up opportunities to work with different kinds of professionals (there is a subset of specialists, for example, whose services are unavailable unless people are diagnosed with specific conditions). 

Sometimes a diagnosis is necessary to procure payment for the kind of professional services necessary, even if the specifics of that diagnosis aren’t particularly well-established. 

Don’t get married to a diagnosis. 

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a mental health diagnosis necessarily means what is “wrong” with you has been determined with the specificity of a CAT scan or a blood test. 

And always, always, always remember that a diagnosis can, at best, DESCRIBE what’s going on with you…but it often can’t EXPLAIN what’s going on with you. 

So, if there are all these caveats, what good is a mental health diagnosis at all? 

There is a subset of conditions for which accurate diagnoses are absolute lifesavers, when it comes to choosing treatment modalities. Post traumatic and dissociative conditions are like this. Very often PTSD and dissociative disorders get diagnosed as mood, anxiety, or psychotic disorders, and treatment functionally grinds to a halt because it is not accounting for the core symptomatology that trauma presents. 

Another good example of this is certain eating disorders. There are known patterns to how people with anorexia and bulimia tend to think, and labeling these conditions accurately can give the provider a clue on how to treat them psychotherapeutically. 

Most mental health diagnoses, however, are not like this. 

Major depressive disorder, for example, is a condition that is frequently diagnosed (accurately enough, according to its diagnostic criteria), but which doesn’t, on its surface, give a provider much to work with in terms of the thought patterns and life events that are contributing to it. 

Most disorders that are diagnosed with a caveat of “not otherwise specified” (NOS) are also examples of this. The “NOS” designation is usually employed as a sort of “place holder” diagnosis when someone’s difficulty is clearly related to a type of diagnosis— is clearly a mood problem, or clearly has elements of an eating problem, or clearly has aspects of a dissociative problem— but the specific diagnostic criteria necessary to nail down a firm diagnosis are not present. As a rule “NOS” diagnoses don’t contain an awful lot of useful information for a treating therapist— or a suffering patient. 

Something else we need to remember about mental health diagnoses is that, most often, they essentially offer “snapshots” of someone’s symptoms and functioning at the time of assessment. While this can be useful, it is also necessary for therapists (and patients, and family members) to think about this “snapshot” in the context of everything we know about this person— including their past behavior, their past diagnoses, and their past treatment (both successful and less than successful treatment). 

All of which is to say: treat mental health diagnoses as the provisional tools that they are. 

They do contain information, and that information is often useful. 

But they are not tools that are designed to be used in the absence of other information; they are not tools that should be considered infallible or unchangeable; and they are limited by the imperfect procedures and perceptions of the human beings who assign them. 

Remember what I always say about any tool: you need hammers to build houses. It’s hard to build a house WITHOUT hammers. 

But hammers can also crush your thumb if you’re not paying attention. 

In “Making Friends With Your Unconscious Mind: A User Friendly Guide,” Patricia O’Hanlon Hudson wants us to think of our unconscious mind as a computer. It is a tremendous tool…if we know how to access its functions and use it judiciously.

Hudson makes the case that our unconscious mind knows things we don’t about why we do what we do; what we need; and how we can function better. She advocates learning to access our unconscious minds through self-hypnosis, dream interpretation, and intentional dream programming, and she lays out simple techniques for familiarizing ourselves with and harnessing the abilities of our unconscious mind.

Her techniques for inducing self-hypnosis are fairly straightforward; they would be recognizable to anyone who read the book I reviewed a couple weeks ago, Goldberg’s “Self-Hypnosis.” Hudson touches on progressive relaxation and visualizing relaxing places and situations; however, unlike Goldberg, she stresses that hypnosis is optimally induced via permissive “possibility” language, rather than directive, “you-will-now-feel/think/do-this” language.

(Students of psychotherapy will appreciate the fact that this emphasis on “possibility” language is, in fact, linked to the fact that Hudson is married to one of the pioneers of solution-focused psychotherapy, Bill O’Hanlon.)

Something that I like about Hudson’s book is that she treats the unconscious generally with gentleness and respect. Unlike Goldberg, who was fond of giving our unconscious commands to follow, Hudson’s interventions mostly focus on asking for our unconscious’s cooperation in telling us things it wants us to know anyway.

Examples of things we can ask our unconscious to elucidate for us include reasons why our behavior is blocked or why we’re behaving in self-sabotaging ways; clarifications of fears or anxieties; and assistance with shifting our emotions and behavior with less pain and internal struggle.

A unique feature of Hudson’s book is the focus on proactively working with dreams. There are reams and reams and REAMS of books on dream interpretation, many of which approach the subject from involved Freudian viewpoints.

Hudson here doesn’t do a deep dive into dream theory; rather, she advocates doing as much conscious thinking and writing about the problem as is practical, then intentionally asking our unconscious mind to keep working on the problem via dream states. Then, when we wake up, Hudson advises immediately jotting down what we can remember of our dreams (a widely advocated technique that has been shown to progressively improve how much of our dreams we can recall), and reviewing our dreams for “answers” our conscious might have provided (either obviously or symbolically).

Hudson goes on to elaborate on how we can use self-induced trance states to mentally “rehearse” dealing with difficult situations, or mentally prepare ourselves for life events or tasks.

Again and again, Hudson asserts that the key to effectively engaging our unconscious mind is to treat it with curiosity, respect, and deference. She emphatically states that becoming familiar with how the unconscious mind “talks” to us, and intentionally setting out to communicate with and draw upon the unconscious mind can provide us with perspective and resourcefulness we may not have even suspected.

Overall, I like Hudson’s approach to the mind. It fits well with my own therapeutic philosophy, which prioritizes forming a supportive relationship with one’s self (long-time followers of my work will remember my repeated assertions that you simply cannot bully  or shame yourself into feeling or behaving better– it just doesn’t work).

Likewise, I like the way she recommends thinking of the mind– as a computer that will work better and better the more familiar you become with it. I cannot tell you how much of my own work with patience centers around getting them to be less afraid and reluctant to look at and explore their own minds. We cannot, as it turns out, change something that we don’t understand well and/or are reluctant to engage.

The only glitch I have with this book is, we still don’t know– not really– what the unconscious mind actually IS.

We don’t know if it functions the same for everyone.

We don’t know how it works, or interacts with the physical nervous systems we human beings have.

Yes, it’s a great thing to become familiar with the workings of your mind; yes, human beings are responsive to suggestion and it’s important to learn how to frame and introduce suggestions to your mind in a way that will get results; but I think it’s also important to remember that, when it comes to “the unconscious mind,” we’re all just taking shots in the dark.

We don’t REALLY understand it all that much better than Freud did.

(I’m acquainted with at least one personal development teacher who claims, over and over and OVER again in his social media posts, that psychology “proves” that “90 percent” of what motivates us is driven by our “unconscious mind.” It drives me up a goddamn wall. Psychology “proves” no such thing. Either he doesn’t understand how psychological research works, or he doesn’t understand what “the unconscious mind” suggests to psychologists; either way, I’m pretty sure he only says it because he thinks it makes him sound smart.)

Overall, this is an incredibly accessible, constructive little book. Hudson’s suggestions on how to nurture concentration and relaxation skills are solid, and her suggestions for imaging and journaling exercises are well-thought out. Most people can benefit tremendously from developing the skills she discusses.

Just don’t expect your “unconscious” mind to do work that can, and should, be done consciously.

You can make any change in your life you want. 

Adopt any habit. Give up any habit. Pursue any goal. 

(You may not ACHIEVE every goal you pursue, but that’s a different matter.) 

Truly, you can make any change you want…but there’s a catch. 

The catch is, you have to decide— and then frequently remind yourself— that the UPSIDE of making the change is worth the DOWNSIDE you’ll incur in the process. 

Our brains and behavior really aren’t that hard to figure out. They operate on a principle that B.F. Skinner called the Balance of Consequences: we do (and think, and feel) things that we think will lead to pleasure or gratification; and we avoid doing (and thinking, and feeling) things that we think will lead to pain or punishment. 

Yes, yes, it seems that we sometimes get our wires crossed— that is, we sometimes think, do, and feel things that seem certain to sabotage us or lead us to painful outcomes— but usually that’s a glitch. We can often understand self-sabotaging behavior if we look for how our brains have construed those choices as more pleasurable or less painful than the alternatives.

(Usually this boils down to, a decision that might be painful in the long term is seen as less painful or more pleasurable in the short term. Our brains aren’t good at thinking long-term; they tend to prefer immediate gratification to playing the long game.) 

If you want to get yourself to do something that you’re not doing, or to stop yourself from doing something that you’re already doing, what needs to happen is, you need to convince yourself that one path is more pleasurable and less painful than the other path. 

That’s one way to go about it, anyway. 

The other way to go about it is to acknowledge, up front, that you’re asking your body and brain to embark upon a project that’s going to lead to some pain, it’s going to involve some forfeiture of pleasure…BUT, those downsides are worth it, because there is a compelling upside here. 

Sounds simple. And it is simple— but, as anyone who has ever tried to change a habit can tell you, it’s not particularly easy. 

How can we make it easier? 

First thing’s first: we have to get super clear on the UPSIDE you’re chasing. 

There has to be an actual benefit to the change you’re looking to make, and it helps if that benefit can be quantified and expressed in clear, emphatic terms. 

For example: if you’re looking to give up smoking, it’s not enough to characterize the benefit of that as “I’ll be smoke free.” You need to be able to list multiple benefits of giving up smoking, that really resonate with you. You need to be able to make a convincing list, a list that includes upside after upside, benefit after benefit, to giving up that habit. 

The good news is, our brains will respond to our attempts to condition them. 

As you seek to make long, clear, emphatic lists of the UPSIDES of the changes you’re looking to make, your brain will work with you. The more you look for these upsides, the easier it will be to find these upsides. 

Not only that: the more you look for those upsides, and the more you review your list of upsides, the more emphatically your brain will imprint and reinforce those upsides. 

The more you think about them, the easier it’ll be to think about them, in other words. 

The end goal here is to make it super, super easy to think about the many clear, emphatic, important upsides to making the change you want to make…because in many cases, the downsides, or the costs, are going to be in your face. 

This is especially true if you’re looking to quit a habit you’ve been engaged in for awhile. 

The brain doesn’t like giving up patterns. Even patterns that seem to be self-harming or self-defeating— your brain likes patterns. 

Giving up patterns is a pain in its butt. 

So you need to give it reasons to give up those habits and patterns. 

Those reasons need to be clear. They need to be real. They need to be things you can review, things you can memorize, things you can pull up on a moment’s notice when your resolve begins to weaken. 

You can make any change you want. 

But you have to work WITH your brain…not against it. 

We are what we repeatedly do and what we repeatedly think. 

We literally create who we are based on the patterns that reinforce and allow to continue. 

This may seem obvious— but there seems to be an epidemic of people who think they are somehow something OTHER than what they repeatedly think and repeatedly do. 

They seem to think that they are nothing more than the sum of their past. 

Or they think they are nothing more than the sum of what others think about them. 

Or they think that they are destined to carry on, for ever and ever, the legacies of their family members. 

We get these ideas in our heads because we want our human existence here to mean something. Some people really like the idea that they are more than the sum of their patterns of thought and behavior; whereas other people are quite dismayed by that thought. 

I’m here to tell you that there is no need to complicate it— and there is no benefit to doing so. 

The fact that we are what we repeatedly do and what we repeatedly think means we are in the driver’s seat. 

It means that we can change who and what we are. 

It means we are not beholden to the past, to our family legacies, or to anyone else’s opinions or viewpoints. 

If we don’t like who we are or what we’ve become, there is one way out of it: change our patterns of thinking, and change our patterns of behavior. 

Unless and until we change what we do and what we think, we do not change who and what we are. 

What this means is, no label or diagnosis has control over you. 

No genetic predisposition has any control over you. 

No court ruling has control over your fundamental identity. 

All of these things can INFLUENCE who and what you are— but I would encourage you, strongly, to look deeper at this equation. 

How and why do these things influence who and what you are? 

The ONLY extent to which ANYTHING can influence who and what you are is by influencing what you DO and what you THINK on a REGULAR BASIS. 

You do not need to be held captive to your influences. 

Because you can (and will) be influenced does not mean that you do not control your choices. 

Because you can (and will) be influenced does not relieve you from responsibility for choosing who you are and what you’re all about. 

Think about the fact that anybody who wants to influence us— what do they want to influence, specifically? 

That’s right: your thoughts and behavior. 

Why? 

Because of exactly what I am saying: your regular thoughts and behavior are literally what defines you. 

Do you want to change your life? Start simple. 

Make a list of things that you regularly DO and regularly THINK. 

Look not at isolated thoughts and behaviors; look at PATTERNS. 

You’ll quickly come to find that when people refer to their “personality,” all they are really talking about are their predicable PATTERNS of thinking and behaving. 

The good news is: patterns can be interrupted. 

The better news is: patterns can be replaced by different patterns. 

Your current patterns didn’t evolve overnight; your new patterns won’t develop and solidify overnight. 

But if you’re capable of developing the patterns you already have— you’re capable of developing different patterns. 

Patterns you choose. 

Patterns that align with your goals and values. 

But first thing’s first: get real about accepting that we are what we repeatedly do and think. 

No more; but no less.