Read part one, Personal Empowerment.
Read part two, Personal and the Grown-Up.

Four siblings, each learning what the other knows about power.  His power, her power, and their power and how it relates to the family, society, pharmacology, emotions, school, accomplishments and finances.

Kurt learned that, beyond anger, he really has no power of his own. Power is a commodity, a commodity earned by his achievements and maintained by being the best. He is anxiously driven to earn what others could give because of their pride or withhold because of their disappointment.

The safety Kurt needs comes with the power only others can give. A “golden boy” dangled from the cliff’s edge by the slender thread held by someone’s approval. The expectations of others that provide Kurt the guidelines for how to live his life were the same expectations that threaten his sister, Kathy’s, sense of independence.

As Kurt defines himself by his compliance to others’ expectations, Kathy’s identity is defined, instead, by her opposition to them, opposition to what she fears can suffocate her spirit and take her identity.  Kathy feels power when she feels freedom from what others think she should be or should do. She craves the freedom to be Kathy rather than the comparative shortcomings of being “Kurt’s sister.”  She wants freedom to control others disappointment on her terms instead of feeling controlled by others’ disappointment of her.

Either way, Kurt and Kathy learned that, when the day is done, others hold the power. As Kurt does all that he could to earn it, Kathy does all that she can to avoid or oppose it. As accomplishments help Kurt fill his emptiness, methamphetamines serve to fill hers.  They areboth driven to the next “fix.”  One with money, the other with drugs, each continuing their pursuit of the personal power that eluded them both.

In the meantime, Sara is in her power; she radiates it. She found “the one.” Eric, a 30-year old aspiring musician, had replaced Jeff, an aspiring general studies major at the local community college. Jeff replaced Alex who was an aspiring something-or-other in the world of cellular phone sales.

Anyway, there’s Eric. A nice guy, for the most part.  He has his own car, an old hatchback.  He moved away from home – actually, he was gently kicked out when Mom and Dad sold the family home to down-size to a two-bedroom condo. Eric, coincidentally (or not), shares the youngest child title with Sara.

Eric and Sara found one another and decided to enter into a committed, monogamous, intimate relationship three weeks ago. As soon as Eric gets hired at the club where they like his “people skills” and want him to do promotions, he’s going to buy Sara an engagement ring. Then, they are going to get a place together. After that, Sara is going to help him win custody of his five-year old son who lives with an ex-girlfriend’s mother somewhere. Sara knows some people who work somewhere that can help them locate where this ex-girlfriend’s mom lives.

Sara is happy with Eric and they really love each another.  His ex-girlfriend – not the one he had a baby with, the last one, Alicia – is a real bitch. So is the one he had a baby with, Janice. Eric is a good guy when he’s on his ADD medicine. Otherwise, he’s an asshole, but he doesn’t mean it.

Sara found her power just as Kurt found his and Kathy found hers. Like her older siblings, Sara’s power comes from beyond her. Sara’s power relies on the potential of every relationship she’s ever had.  What it could be, what it might be, what he could do, what we might be, what we will have when we get married. Then, when we have a baby and can be a family together, that’s when we’ll be happy. That’s when every dream of any potential will be realized.

Where does your power come from? Does it come from you or somewhere else?

Tags: Uncategorized, addiction, positive change, relationships, self-improvement by Greg
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If you have ever sought out a mental health professional for yourself or someone that you care about, you have undoubtedly experienced a broad range of people, each with their own style and approach to counseling and psychotherapy. This can be very daunting for someone that was not expecting so many choices, especially if the need for help is urgent. Those of us who practice in this field and truly care about what we do completely understand the stress this might cause. The variation, however, is not without reason; we are as varied as our client base is to provide for the potentially infinite different combinations of afflictions, stressors, personality traits, fears, and motivators.

Each of my clients, students, and audience members are individuals, one different from the next. Though common threads run through the human experience, each person requires and deserves a special approach. Whether I’m helping a group of new dads find out what being a father means or helping someone get past their long-held fears, I find ways to adapt what I know to that particular situation. Like the human experience, however, there are common threads running through my practice and it might help you to understand what I do a little bit better if I can make these commonalities transparent.

First, I should clarify a few terms. There is, indeed, a whole vocabulary that comes along with this profession but I am only going to tackle the ones that are relevant to what I do.

A term that I am asked to define on a regular basis is “psychotherapy.” This is a scary word to some people because its prefix, “psycho-,” has a well-established stigma attached to it. I define psychotherapy loosely as providing an environment for a “patient” to freely emote, to purge accumulated hurts, pain and anger. The psychotherapist maintains a relative anonymity while providing their patient with a safe, therapeutic context to randomly express.

Wikipedia has a nice accurate and general definition of psychotherapy:

Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. This usually includes increasing individual sense of well-being and reducing subjective discomforting experience. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change and that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family)

I resonate with the idea of psychotherapy and do provide a certain amount of it for my clients. I am not, however, a classical trained psychotherapist; I am, in fact, an experienced counselor. I do not classify the people that come see me and talk to me as patients; I, instead, refer to them as clients. Like a traditional psychotherapist, my goal is always to improve my clients’ mental well-being, to assist with relationship building, and to encourage dialogue. The difference is in the approach: I approach people less as an expert with an arsenal of jargon and expertise and more like a close friend with capacity to listen, understand, and advice.

The standardized clinical term that best describes my style of counseling is Cognitive-Behavioral. With the help of an honest and open client, I try to identify and modify thought patterns that lead to destructive or unhelpful behavior. I am not here to assess whether your behavior is “right” or “wrong” or that your thought process is “flawed” or “unhealthy.” I am here to guide you towards an understanding of how your perception can affect certain components of social interaction with others.

I, once again, turn to Wikipedia for a good description of cognitive Behavioral Therapy:

An example will illustrate the process: Having made a mistake, a person believes, “I’m useless and can’t do anything right.” This, in turn, worsens the mood, leading to feelings of depression; the problem may be worsened if the individual reacts by avoiding activities and then behaviorally confirming his negative belief to himself. As a result, a successful experience becomes more unlikely, which reinforces the original thought of being “useless.” In therapy, the latter example could be identified as a self-fulfilling prophecy or “problem cycle,” and the efforts of the therapist and client would be directed at working together to change this. This is done by addressing the way the client thinks and behaves in response to similar situations and by developing more flexible ways to think and respond, including reducing the avoidance of activities. If, as a result, the client escapes the negative thought patterns and destructive behaviors, the feelings of depression may, over time, be relieved. The client may then become more active, succeed more often, and further reduce feelings of depression.

The objectives of CBT typically are to identify irrational or maladaptive thoughts, assumptions and beliefs that are related to debilitating negative emotions and to identify how they are dysfunctional, inaccurate, or simply not helpful. This is done in an effort to reject the distorted cognitions and to replace them with more realistic and self-helping alternatives.

As a counselor, I wear many hats: teacher, mentor, advocate, trainer, coach, interventionist, guide, liaison, source of community referral, supporter, confronter, brainstormer, re-framer, parent educator, theosopher and philosopher, sponsor, witness, recovery specialist and cheerleader. I am interactive in my feedback and I use tools and methods to help my clients see their situation objectively. Homework (i.e. reading a particular book or keeping a journal or attending a twelve-step meeting, etc.) might be assigned as a means of highlighting or accelerating a process that assists the client towards his or her counseling goals.

I am asked, by my clients, my audiences, and my family, to understand someone else’s frame of reality. Being a great counselor does not come simply from being attentive and present in the situation but being able to take on someone else’s experience. Without judgment and without criticism, I try to “put myself in their shoes,” if you will pardon the old cliché. I take the information I am trusted with and try to build a picture of a person from the inside out.

Can I do this every time for every person? Unfortunately, the answer is no; any therapist, counselor, or other mental health professional who claims otherwise may need some serious re-framing themselves. I believe, however, that everyone has the ability to do what I do in some capacity. When you look at your child and try to connect with them to understand why they do what they do, you are doing what I do. When you listen to your spouse and make an attempt to see who they really are, you are channeling the same energy as I am. When you look at yourself in the mirror, not with judgment but with a strong desire to see who you really are, you are beginning to feel what I feel when I do the same for my clients.

This is what I do, I discover how someone could feel the way they do and why, in turn, they respond the way they do - a way that might seem patently mysterious to those around them. I do this through directed questions and a very open mind. I might ask what your birth order is (whether you have siblings older or younger than you, if any at all). I might ask you if one of your parents had a substance abuse problem or if they were even present in your life. I might ask you how you feel about yourself, what you hate or love about yourself, how you see yourself in relation to others.

What I try to do is create a frame of reference, a picture not only of you as a person but the social constructs that surround you and influence your choices. It is about understanding what’s right about what we do rather than arrogantly judging what’s wrong with it. It is about following the clues and exploring different paths until a clear picture begins to form. We tend to treat those closest to us as we treat ourselves and this is the key to understanding behavior, both our own and those that surround us. The critical father or wife who has high expectations of those around him or her will often prove to be self-critical to a much greater degree. You might find that they protect themselves from others’ judgment by being defensive, combative, or preemptively demeaning.

It’s like human algebra: just do the math and it all adds up.

The teen that seems unmotivated in school specifically, and in life generally, begins to progressively becoming more dedicated in their alcohol and/or drug use. This behavior follows years of parental pride in their child’s academic and athletic accomplishments. Pride in achievements, motivation to succeed, and social prowess begins to change into broad apathy, drinking or taking drugs, and surly defensiveness. Maybe this teen feels the suffocating stress of not disappointing her devoted, supportive parents. Maybe he feels this debt load and attempts to emancipate himself by diminishing the power of Mom and Dad’s expectations and subsequent disappointments. These expectations of perfection and accomplishment, maybe the parents don’t have them beyond the teen’s assumption they do. Now, any concern or disappointment parent expresses is immediately countered with anger, defensiveness and door-slamming. Now, the whole family is stuck between trying to express themselves and trying to understand the situation.

What we do, how we feel, it all serves us, serves what we believe (whether true or not), serves what is true for us. What we believe about ourselves, what we believe about another or the world around us, what we do, how we feel, this is all revealed in the moment we believe. Tell me how you experienced the actions or words of another and I’ll begin to see what those actions and words meant to you. What it meant to you can reveal your true beliefs.

Good relationships demand that we understand each other’s experience, whether or not it is our own experience too. When I begin to understand another’s experience, I can help that person move from the place that has not worked for them to a place that can. If we can start to challenge what we’ve always believed, it’ll change how we react to others and to the world around us.

It’s hard work; there’s no question about that. It demands rigorous ownership and personal accountability. It requires, too, that blame and defensiveness be replaced with understanding and compassion. Just remember, all of these things are within reach for every person out there with a desire to make a positive change in their life.

Tags: addiction, children, family, marriage, positive change, relationships, self-improvement by Greg
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