Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

Is Closing Escape Hatches Always Possible?

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escape hatches in Transactional analysisThe term “escape hatches” is used in Transactional Analysis to describe the idea that when faced with very difficult or trying situations, some people exit the situation by carrying out one of three behaviours.  These behaviours are to kill or harm self, kill or harm others or go crazy.

It’s normal practice for a transactional analyst to be listening out for talk of these four options when working with a client.  It’s important that this talk is brought into awareness and discussed because the therapist has a responsibility to keep the client and those around the client safe.  This duty of care requires that the therapist invites the client to close the escape hatch when it is detected.

How are escape hatches closed?

The usual way a therapist will close escape hatches is by asking the client to state clearly that they will not kill themselves/harm others/go crazy within a set period of time.  This may be an agreement that they will not ever do this, or for those clients that are having very strong feelings, especially around suicide, they may contract to stay alive until the next session.  The therapist can then contract with them in the new session for the next week, and progress week by week, hopefully moving the client on during the sessions to where the escape hatch can be closed on a longer term basis.

An important part of the escape hatch process is that the client is making a positive decision from an Adult place (an Adult ego state in TA terms) and is demonstrating to themselves that they have some power over their own lives.  For some clients, who feel that they are at the whims and mercy of others, this may in itself be a big step.

Do we all have escape hatches?

I guess the answer to that is “yes”.  Whether we allow ourselves to have them open or not is a different question.  There is a difference between being aware of ways in which we deal with tragic situations and making that clear decision never to kill ourselves, harm others or go crazy.  It also occurs to me that this decision may also change depending on our life circumstances.  If you were diagnosed with a terminal illness and you knew you were going to face immense pain and discomfort as part of your demise could you honestly say that suicide would not be an option?  It makes sense to me that people in such extreme circumstances would at least think such options through as a possibility.

Where do we make decisions around escape hatches?

Berne would say that the decision around whether to have our escape hatches open and which way we think is the best way of exiting is decided as part of our script.  Script decisions are made early in life (between the ages of birth and six) and we spend the time from making them until early adulthood adjusting and refining them.

Other ideas around escape hatches.

Mark Widdowson, in his book “Transactional Analysis – 100 key points” talks about this idea that it’s often difficult to draw clear lines around escape hatches and I see his point.  For me, as a psychotherapist, it’s easy to spot an open escape hatch if the client that is sat in front of me is talking about, say, suicide.  I can intervene, talk it through with them and invite them to close the escape hatch.  But how should I deal with a client that routinely overeats?  What about smoking?  These too are ways in which we do ourselves harm, albeit on a longer term less obvious basis.

As a therapist I believe it is my responsibility to point these methods of self-harm out too, but I may not contract with a client to change this behaviour specifically (ie, close this escape hatch).

Escape hatches are an interesting and important issue that therapists have to be aware of but, as with all things, are not necessarily as clear cut as they may first appear to be.

Do you have questions around escape hatches?  Please let me know what you thought of this blog post and any opinions you have on escape hatches in the comment space below.

Combating Negative Self Talk

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negative self talkA common feature of many of the clients I work with as a counsellor in Stockport  is their frequent use of negative self talk.  Maybe we should start with a negative self-talk definition.  Negative self talk is the ability to put ourselves down, slag ourselves off; call ourselves stupid, or ugly or useless and see all of the bad in ourselves.  People who engage in negative self talk are often kind, gentle people who care about others and readily praise.  The negative self talk sems to prevent this kindness being extended to themselves.

Where does negative self talk come from?

So how do people learn to put themselves down?  What prevents the more positive talk to self?  There are many theories so here are a couple that make sense to me.

As we grow up things don’t always go as planned. When things go wrong children have to make sense of it.  Let’s take an example of parents separating.  This may be a difficult situation for a child to rationalise and so they have to decide who was at fault.  But the child has a problem.  If she decides that it’s the parents at fault then this leaves her being looked after by people who are getting things wrong and this is a direct threat to her own survival.  This only leaves one option.  It must be her that is at fault and that has caused the breakdown in relationship – she must be a bad person.

The child may not make this  decision on a deliberate, conscious level.  It may be that these decisions are made out of awareness but sit in the subconscious dripping poison into the mind.

Parental Messages

Another way that negative self talk could arise is through much more direct messages from our parents.  These may be overtly stated e.g: “why do you always get things wrong” or “you’re so lazy and useless”, or they may be covert in that achievements and successes of the child are ignored and negative behaviours or failures gain attention.  This is sending a message to the child of “I expect you to get things wrong because I know you’re not a worthwhile person”.  Once more it’s difficult for a child to decide that their parent is wrong because to children this is an inconceivable concept – parents always get things right don’t they?

So clients in this situation find it difficult to work out how to become positive. One Transactional Analysis expert that has spent a great deal of time studying this area and who has investigated how to help people become positive self talkers is Claude Steiner.  Steiner is one of my favourite Transactional analysts and I would encourage you to go over and read his many free books on his website which you can find here.

Steiner explains that the negative talk starts as an external influence that is forced on us by powerful people in our childhood.  He goes on to say that this voice is internalised and may even help us survive as children.  This voice may seem useful to us but the reality is that as adults it holds us back, costs us self esteem and belief in ourselves and diminishes our ability to live happy fulfilled lives.

How to drop the negative self talk and be more positive.

You often hear of positive self talk in sport situations but how do we apply this to everyday life?  Here’s a few suggestions on how to talk more productively to yourself.

Firstly, realise that the voice in your head saying negative things is not telling you the truth.  It’s information is historical and from another source that is not you.  The negative self talk you are hearing is lying to you.  It can be useful to use distancing techniques to overcome the negative self talk you are hearing.  I have written a post here about doing this and it may be useful to give it a read. Distancing yourself from the negative self talk, understanding that you are not your thoughts, can help some people enormously.

Therapy helps

The next suggestion is that you talk about your negative self talk to others.  You lay it out there openly and discuss it with someone who will listen without prejudice and help you see that the negative self talk is untrue and in many cases, ridiculous.  A good therapist or counsellor is an excellent resource to help you do this as they are trained to pick up the negative self talk when it slips out of your mouth without realising it and point it out to you.

Positive affirmations

Another great technique involves actively being positive with yourself.  Repeating affirmations in the mirror can be a powerful way of reminding yourself that you are a worthwhile, OK human being.  Look at yourself and say out loud “I am important”  or whatever other idea you have difficulty dealing with.  Be ready for the negative self talk to click in and tell you that it is not true and make the decision that when you hear that voice you will either ignore it or tell it to eff off! (another Steiner suggestion).

Steiner suggests that a key part of loving yourself is around giving love to others in an honest and straight way.  By loving others we can love ourselves better.  This may involve battling with the stroke economy  – that ability that we all have to reject nice things said to us and accept the horrid.  If you are aware of this though you have more of a choice.  You can choose to reject the negative messages you tell yourself.  You have power.

If you have a big problem with negative self talk and lack of self esteem then I would advise you to work with a counsellor or therapist to support you in change.

Please use the comments section to tell me about your experience with negative self talk.  Do you suffer from low self esteem?  Have your conquered your lack of belief in yourself?  Let me know below your thoughts and opinions on how to give negative self talk a good kicking!

Introduction To Couples Counselling Stockport

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couples counselling stockportLast week I wrote about counselling for individuals so this week I want to run through how I deliver couples counselling Stockport.

Couples counselling Stockport

Couples or marriage counselling is a field that I have a great deal of experience and training in.  It’s also something that I really enjoy doing.  I’m afraid I’m one of a small number of therapists that feel this way about couples work.  Many of my therapy colleagues dislike and actively stay away from couples therapy and if you look at how the average therapist is trained to work with couples it’s easy to understand why.

Why are there so few therapists offering couples counselling Stockport?

Most therapists undergo a formal training in order to become qualified.  This usually consists of 100 hours of therapy training for 4 years – 400 hours in total.  On top of this trainee therapists gain practise “on the job” and often have CPD in areas of therapy that they are interested in.  Out of these 400 hours, I spent 7 dealing specifically with couples and how to work with them.  That’s less than 2% of my total formal training dedicated to couples.

When I started practicing as a therapist I decided that I would take the plunge and work with couples.  There was something exciting about the idea and I wanted to help as many groups of people as I could.  Within two or three sessions I had no doubt that I needed a good model to support me in this work.

Why I felt I needed to get in depth training for marriage counselling.

Picture if you will a couple arguing heatedly on the sofa before me whilst I looked on in amazement and complete uncertainty of what to do or how to intervene!  I had a problem of numbers.  I had been trained to work effectively with one person but in front of me there was two.  What’s more, these two people did not seem to like each other very much and were inviting me at every opportunity to decide which of them was right.  They wanted me to be judge and juror to their marriage and I had no desire to be either.

Feeling so impotent and useless as a therapist only armed with a model aimed at individuals was a horrible feeling.  I went on a mission to find some quality training as a couple’s therapist. This was also not an easy task.  For whatever reason, there seems to be a shocking lack of provision to train therapists to work with couples in the UK.  Maybe this is a reflection of the perceived lack of demand, or the belief that Relate has it all sawn up, I’m not sure, but it took me a good while to find a course that I liked the look of and gave me the training I so seriously needed.

Imago Relationship Therapy

The training I went for was Imago Relationship Therapy.  Imago Relationship Therapy is a modality of therapy with couples work at its heart. Individuals can have Imago Relationship Therapy but it is primarily designed for couples.  It is a theory of how couples choose each other and what they need to do to “get the love they want”.

Imago Relationship Therapy is big in the States and has some heavy weight celebrities promoting its effectiveness including Alanis Morrisette and Oprah Winfrey, who rated the interview she did with Harville Hendrix, the founder of Imago Relationship Therapy, as one of her all-time top ten favourites (catch it here if you want to see what she was on about).

I studied Imago Relationship Therapy for a year, over 100 hours of some of the best training I have ever had.  The training gave me a great model to use when working with couples and removed any fear that I had about being impotent.  Now when working with couples I know exactly what I am doing and am sure that the Imago Relationship model has something positive to offer them.  I see the Imago theory as a great way to revolutionise the way a relationship can be had and have seen the impact it has had on many, many couples I have worked with.

Do all couples benefit from marriage guidance?

Not that every couple that comes to me leaves holding hands and skipping into the sunset!  Unfortunately some couples seek therapy far too late and years of bitter resentments and emotional wounds prove too big to heal.  Sometimes these couples decide to separate. Even in these situations I see the decision to seek therapy as a positive one.  It may take a couple of hours of therapy for some couples to realise that they are just not prepared to put in the effort needed to change their relationship and they would rather separate.

This brings me on to the next truth about couples counselling Stockport.  If you want to change the way you relate to your partner then you are going to have to do things differently.  As Albert Einstein famously said, a good definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Get ready to put in some work

Imago Relationship Therapy gives you a new way of connecting with your partner.  It will demand effort and energy both during the therapy sessions and back in everyday life.  I’m convinced it can be a catalyst to change and that it provides a safe, structured way to connect with your partner and start listening to what they have to say.

Lastly, I want to say that there are other methods of Couples counselling out there.  There is the more traditional model of therapist on one side and couple on the other.  The couple talk to the therapist individually about what’s going on for them in the relationship whilst the other partner listens.  At some stages the therapist may encourage the couple to talk to each other and act as a mediator.  This is very different to Imago and the way that I work.  If you come to me for couple’s therapy then within two or three sessions (once you have learnt the Imago Dialogue process) the amount that you hear from me has trailed off to about 10 minutes per session spread over the hour.  You will talk to your partner and use the structure of Imago Dialogue to do this.  There is no one more important in the room.  My job will be to help you to do this by gently nudging you in the right direction now and again.  I am also there to keep the dialogue safe so both partners can really hear each other and are not feeling defensive or under attack.

What’s your experience with couple’s therapy?  Have you got a question about how I work?  Please comment under this post about your ideas and feelings around this topic.

Thanks for reading and you can email me at couples counselling Stockport by using my contact form.