#big podcasts are sponsored by like betterhelp

[foxmulderautism]

point of postgrad unemployment where you're like i should really dive into content creation actually

[most-annoying-sponsorship]

Any submitted propaganda under the cut

BetterHelp - 44

the ads are unilaterally either cheesy 'everyone needs help sometimes pardner' stuff or a therapist who works for betterhelp saying how good betterhelp is. notably was an uptick in ads AFTER it was revealed how bad betterhelp is for actual mental health and how it doesnt vet its therapists lol

It’s overpriced, they underpay their workers, they have fake 5-star reviews and they sell your info. So many big YouTubers still promote Betterhelp to this day when most this info came out in 2018-ish. Fuck Betterhelp, all my homies hate Betterhelp

I guess it’s more of a podcast sponsor in my experience but OH MY GOD it’s such a bad business, but more importantly for this poll I just hate hearing youtubers/podcasters put on a serious voice to talk about Mental Health and how they themselves have struggled with Burnout and blah blah it literally all sounds the same. It’s like a psa in the middle of your video.

not only is it annoying bc it’s everywhere but it also sucks ass & exploits people

not only annoying, but a harmful service as well!!

It's being sued or smth rn (class action I think?). The program has been sketchy af and exploiting people who are experiencing mental illness or trauma, falsely claiming they have a full scale psychiatric team when they don't, selling data, etc. All for profit. Every other sponsorship is annoying, sure. But I instantly lose a little bit of respect when I hear a YouTuber talk about the importance of mental healthcare and then point you to BetterHelp.

The motherfuckers at Betterhelp call it ""'therapy""" but it sells your data. Youtubers I like promote this bastard of a conpany without a care in the world. I don't know why it is legal, I don't know how they get away with it, and I'm going to rip Betterhelp molecule by molecule

Its a scam trying to get your data and they dont even follow HIPPA laws or vet their therapists and they've had so many scandals that I'm shocked they still get sponsors unironically

Doesn’t even work like they’ve had a ton of controversy and the Youtuber is always like “lemme get real with you guys for a second… ok… phew… I go to therapy” and it’s like OKAY WELL YOU SHOULD GIVE A SHIT THAT THE COMPANY SUCKS THEN 💀

Takes advantage of people needing access to mental health care, when in reality BetterHelp is a terrible company that treats therapists AND clients like shit. The FTC recently gave them a huge fine for selling client health data to for-profit advertising corporations like Facebook but they still deny wrongdoing and haven't stopped the shill campaign. At least when a meal kit service or w/e is poor-quality usually all it means is you wasted your money, but if you trust the wrong therapy service there is a lot more that can go horribly wrong. (Cerebral is even worse since it was essentially all the problems of BetterHelp mixed with handing out addictive controlled substances like candy, but I haven't seen it on Youtube as much)

This is the only sponsorship that has actively made me unsubscribe from anyone that advertises it. While others like raycon or squarespace are usually annoying. Betterhelp is actively harmful to both their patients and their therapists, sells personal health data of their users to ad companies and it isn't even cheaper than real therapy at this point like they claim to be. It makes me see red when I see another youtuber saying how "good" it is and how it helped them (which it honestly looks like a script at this point) and telling their usually young audience to sign in. And then they dare to ignore the thousands of comments telling them about how bad betterhelp actually is. Like, I thought we all knew about their shady practices. It has been common knowlege since 2018, why are you acting surprised when you get called out. But I guess they pay really well so I hope those 1000$ were worth it I guess. Sorry for the ramble.

I've never tried it so I can't know for sure, but by all accounts the app is shit, yet everyone talks about it as though it's the best thing ever

There are sooo many controversies with BetterHelp and youtubers stopped accepting (not medically trained professionals, highly unethical and unprofessional and rude etc) sponsorships with them until recently like they all just forgot how shitty it was and it makes me dislike the youtuber every time i see they accept one

A shitty company taking advantage of those struggling with mental health (overcharging, horrible therapists, sharing data with third parties etc.) and yet everyone is sponsored by them

It harms both the therapists and the patients using it and is particularly evil to do that during the current times

Fake therapy and unqualified folks

they literally prey on mentally ill people for their money. their therapists seem extremely unqualified. i have heard so many horror stories including therapists telling (non-religious) clients to pray their problems away, talking about their own problems to the client for the entire session, and sitting on the toilet mid appointment. i genuinely don't understand how otherwise respectable creators can take their sponsorships in good faith because i have ONLY HEARD BAD THINGS

Shit company that abuses their “patients” and takes their money, and youtubers REFUSE to listen to their audiences on this

Not only is it incredibly fucking common and annoying, but it preys on and is advertised to people with mental illness. It apparently isn't very helpful for this (it seems like therapists don't even have to be licensed) but still presents itself as therapy. People have also said it sells your data and isn't confidential at all

It's everywhere and I heard it's actually a little harmful sometimes.

THEY STEAL YOUR INFO??? YOUR DEPRESSION IS LITERALLY BEING MONETIZED FUCK THESE GUYS JUST DO A NORMAL SCAM LIKE ESTABLISHED TITLES INSTEAD OF TAKING ADVANTAGE OF SUICIDAL PEOPLE

It's a legitimately harmful product and it is /everywhere/

It's basically a scam and can cause actual harm!

Evil fucking service, straight up dangerous

Its not even real therapists

IT DOES NOT VET ITS THERAPISTS. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH, BETTERHELP DOES NOT VET ITS THERAPISTS. It also doesn't pay nearly enough.

it's a scam that preys on people trying to get help with their health

Literally sold user data from THERAPY SESSIONS

somehow it doesn't matter how many times there's articles about how better help abuses patients personal data, uses counselors who aren't licensed therapists, does conversion therapy on ppl who ask for lgbt sensitive counseling....ppl STILL take the money and i hate it

It's a scam and people (even some professional therapists have promoted it). "Despite its credible presentation, BetterHelp was caught selling data to Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest. The company recently settled for $7.8 million. The FTC confirmed that BetterHelp pushed people into handing over health informatio" quote is from this article which sums up the problem pretty well: https://www.themarysue.com/betterhelp-controversy-explained

It turns out they sell user data for advertising purposes which GOES AGAINST WHAT THERAPIST GROUPS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO!!!

always feels really dystopian to get advertisement for scammy corporate mental health services... like what a sign of failure for society if ppl have to rely on such expensive and potentially unprofessional ways of getting the help they need. get that thang away from mee

therapy site with bad therapists on it

It's actually bad morally speaking

AWFUL SERVICE !!! every youtuber who still takes this sponsorship is cringe to me

Jim Beam "People Are Good For You" Ad - 1

I hate this ad. 1st of all, as an autistic person, being in a loud crowded bar would be a sensory nightmare for me. Also I don't like the taste of alcohol. So borboun is probably gross anyways. 2nd, I wouldn't want to go a bar because I would concerned about getting sick. That's because it's flu and cold season where I live, and Covid-19 is around. Lastly, I've seen this ad enough times now that it's annoying. So no Jim Bean, I will not be going a bar or buying your bourban (or anyone else's) anytime soon.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

GOD I wish youtube would put a skip ahead button on some videos. so I listen to the vulnerable and the big name bitches podcasts, which are both hosted by christy carlson romano (and the latter also co-hosted with annalise vander pol). like dgmw, I know they have to make money somehow..... but the fact that NO ONE posts timestamps for the multiple sponsor ads throughout the YT vids i watch of them irritates me to hell and back. like PLEASE one person the comments has to start putting timestamps in!!!! bc if i have to listen one more 2 MINUTE ad read for clairns hair care or betterhelp or vitamin supplements, i will go insane. and THEN the gall of YT to put ADS 1MIN 45SECS UNSKIPPABLE ADS (sometimes) and then ANOTHER AD AFTER THE FUCKIN 2 MIN AD READS!!!! I WILL DIE.

like ok, i think im carrying over my timestamps for ad reads thing from my ASMR habit, because sometimes BOTH the asmrist AND the viewers will post the entire video's timestamps in BOTH the description AND the comments for easy access. but MY GOD. there's none on the YT podcasts that i watch and it's driving me insane. i NEED a 10 to 30 secs skip ahead button on podcast ad reads or timestamps!!! i CANNOT keep listening to ads on YT when they want to shove TWO (2) ADS before a video even starts and then 15 more throughout a 45min to an hour long podcast ep.

[pears-trinkets]

Its honestly unsurprising but still disappointing how many white (especially us & uk) disability content creators with a big audience conveniently ignore the ongoing genocide in Gaza and everything that is connected to it. Especially because its a mass-disableing event that often leaves survivors with one or two amputated limbs (making Gaza the place with the most amputations on children in the world), infections due to lack of healthcare, horrible living situations, malnutrition and a weak immune system and more.

But these influencers or YouTubers or TikTokers that got rich off of "how it is to be disabled" videos and making themselves the voice of a whole community/minority are completely looking the other way.

They only open their mouths when pressured and then their "support" remains mainly on the surface level, without action or change. Meanwhile they also look away when they're being critiqued for taking sponsorships from brands associated with Israel and the genocide or don't even feel ashamed to collab with companies on the BDS boycott list and sell the consumption of their product as a lifestyle.

Its okay to not know something, most of us started learning in October too. But you have to listen and learn.

I'm sick of hearing "being disabled is hard, that's why should sign up with today's sponsor betterhelp!!" while this burning garbage dump of a company is gifting all the IOF soldiers free therapy because the war they started is affecting them. I'm not even gonna go into betterhelp selling their most vulnerable patients' data that could be seriously harmful. And im not only talking about disabled people or people with any kind of migration background, its a lot of LGBTQIA+ people too. But those creators don't care about that while milking pride month until the last drop.

They are part of the LGBTQIA+ community themselves. But the only people they care about is themselves and their family. If someone else is endangered by the content they're promoting its none of their business anymore and gets you blocked.

Which is another great example of being one minority doesn't mean you can't be homophobic/racist/ableist/etc. Especially if you're while and wealthy.

I don't care that you have a family to feed or bills to pay if you're doing it by exploitation and endangerment of others.

You can't claim you're fighting for a community and just putting information out into the world while your life is paid by brand deals with Starbucks where you make a quirky WORKING AT STARBUCKS FOR A DAY video. Meanwhile everyone who keeps up with news and recent events has been criticizing and boycotting them for years because of their mistreatment of workers and killing every chance of unionization.

Yeah, you can argue "its not an influencers job to speak out on events like this" with people who do quirky humor skits or make up videos or something, even though I don't agree with that stance either. (Let's remember how a lot of make up and beauty products are made in Israel or with resources they stole, same with food, clothes, etc etc etc) But if you're a disabled content creator who makes money off of that title its literally the kind of content you make. Its literally what they talk about in every post, every video, every podcast. And them getting selective about their support and acceptance and awareness tells you everything you need to know.

No, not every disabled person has to be an activist and take it up to themselves to educate other people. Yes, most of them make content about their own experience only. But none of that exists in a vacuum where you get to profit off of one part while looking the other way. No one expects a big speech, a ted talk about whats going on or even an apology. Just acknowledgement and harm reduction, but apparently thats too much to ask already.

[astonishinglegends]

Ep 209: The Phantom Horse of Greensboro

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

– Revelation, Chapter 6, Verse 8, King James Version

Description:

Many of us have taken an adventurous expedition to check out some local, notorious spot to see if we could witness or sense some evidence of a past famous or infamous incident.  Most of the time, one only returns with a minor anecdote or pictures of an ordinary location bereft of anything noteworthy.  The more realistic purpose is not so much to find a ghoulish memento but to imagine what it must've been like to have been there when it happened.  But what if such an outing starts with strange coincidences and ends with the adventurers enduring a paranormal event seemingly unrelated to the original incident?  This is the sort of tale we'll hear from our good friend, graphic designer, and illustrator Tommy Beaver about the time some friends went to check out the scene of a horrific crime that happened in Summerfield, North Carolina, almost 13 miles northwest of Greensboro.  On June 3, 1985, the incident in question occurred when at the end of a murder spree and police pursuit, Fritz Klenner and his first cousin, lover, and accomplice, Susie Newsome Lynch, ended their standoff detonating a bomb in their Chevrolet Blazer.  Klenner and Lynch had blown themselves up along with Lynch's already deceased two sons who were in the vehicle rather than face arrest.  The site of this shocking finale was what the friends were hoping to explore, but their souvenir was an unsettling experience they'll never forget.  Strangely, a mysterious white horse suddenly appeared to encounter the group, except that this creature may not have been a horse at all.  Many people have claimed to see a spectral white horse, and the ancient Britons believed a sacred white horse was one's ride to the afterlife.  Yet these friends may forever wonder, as will we, what was the connection of this beast to the tragedy if there is one?  And if this wasn't a horse as we know it, what sort of monster haunts the location of one of North Carolina's most ghastly crimes?

Location:

The intersection of Strader Road & North Carolina State Road 150 in Summerfield, near where Fritz Klenner and Susie Newsom Lynch blew themselves up in their Chevy Blazer after a crime spree and police pursuit on June 3, 1985, and where Tommy’s friends saw the mysterious “horse.”

Location Video:

Reference Links:

Illustrator and Graphic Designer Tommy Beaver’s website, tommybeaverdesign.com

“Summerfield slaughter 30 years ago ended in deaths of couple, two sons” from the Greensboro News & Record

Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder, a novel by Jerry Bledsoe, 1988

The púca, pooka, phouka of Irish/Celtic folklore

The kelpie of Scottish folklore

“Horses in Celtic Mythology” from Transceltic.com

“Have ghost HORSES been captured on video? Teenagers believe they spotted ethereal equine scene at one of Britain's most haunted sites” from DailyMail.co.uk

“Phantom Horses” on real-british-ghosts.com

Related Books:

Please help out our good friend Stan Gordon, by purchasing his books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble – you’re gonna love ‘em!

At Barnes & Noble:

Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook

Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures, Casebook 3

Really Mysterious Pennsylvania: UFOs, Bigfoot, and Other Weird Encounters, Casebook 1

SPECIAL OFFERS FROM OUR SPECIAL SPONSORS:

FIND OTHER GREAT DEALS FROM OUR SHOW’S SPONSORS BY CLICKING HERE!

Mint Mobile – After years of getting ripped off by “Big Wireless” providers, there’s finally a better option. Mint Mobile is the affordable, premium wireless service that you buy online. To get your new phone plan for just $15 bucks a month, go to MintMobile.com/AL

Squarespace – Have something you need to sell or share with the world but don't have a website? Or maybe that old website of yours could use a serious style and functionality update but you don't think you have the time or money to pay someone to do it? Well, now you can do it yourself, stylishly and cost-effectively in very little time with Squarespace! With their large gallery of beautifully designed templates, eCommerce functionality, built-in Search Engine Optimization, free and secure hosting, and award-winning 24/7 Customer Support to guide you along the way, you'll be up and running on the Web in no time, with flair, ease and a choice of over 200 URL extensions to make you stand out! So what are you waiting for? Go to Squarespace.com/LEGENDS for a free trial and when you’re ready to launch, use the Offer Code "LEGENDS" to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

The Great Courses Plus – There are so many benefits to lifelong learning, which is why we love The Great Courses Plus! Learn about virtually anything, now with over 11,000 lectures on almost any subject you can think of – from history and science to learning a new language, how to play an instrument, learn magic tricks, train your dog, or explore topics like food, the arts, travel, business, and self-improvement. And all taught by world-leading professors and experts in their field. Their app lets you download and listen to only the audio from the courses or watch the videos, just like a podcast. Switch between all your devices and pick up right where you left off. Available for iOS and Android. So what is your purpose this year? What new things will you learn? Don’t miss out on this great deal! Sign up right now for The Great Courses Plus to start your FREE TRIAL and find out! And for a limited time, our listeners can save 20% OFF the annual membership! But this limited-time offer won’t last long, and it’s only available through our special URL and you don’t want to pass this up, so go NOW to: TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/LEGENDS

Best Fiends – If you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time while engaging your brain and enjoying breathtaking visuals and a gripping story, your answer is Best Fiends! Best Fiends is a casual, matching puzzle game that the whole family can play, but really made for adults, and you don’t need to be a gamer to be great at it! You can also play it the way YOU want to, wherever you want, and as much or as little as you want! Collect cute and funny cryptid-like insect creatures while battling silly slugs as you advance through stages in the Best Fiends world. Connect with friends and family through Social Media and challenge them to beat your levels or help them along. This unique puzzle game doesn’t require the internet, so it’s great to play offline while traveling or commuting, and Best Fiends has thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters added every month – it’s hours of fun right at your fingertips and it never gets old! With over 100 million downloads and tons of five-star reviews, Best Fiends is a must-play! Download for free on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That’s FRIENDS without the “R,” Best Fiends!

BetterHELP – Is there something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goals? BetterHELP will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. It’s not a Crisis Line, it’s not self-help, it’s professional counseling done securely online, and you can start communicating in under 48 hours. There’s a broad range of expertise available that may not be locally available in many areas, but this service is available for clients worldwide. You can login to your account anytime and send a message to your counselor. You’ll get timely and thoughtful responses plus you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won’t ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room as with traditional therapy. BetterHELP is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. It’s more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available. BetterHELP wants you to start living a happier life TODAY! Read the testimonials that are posted daily. Join the over 1,000,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using BetterHELP that they are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states! This podcast is sponsored by BetterHELP and Astonishing Legends listeners get 10% OFF their first month at betterhelp.com/astonishing

Credits:

Episode 209: The Phantom Horse of Greensboro. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel. Sound Design by Ryan McCullough; Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher; Research Support from the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2021 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[erraticfairy]

Podcast: Online Teen Therapy: Everything You Need to Know

  In today’s episode, we speak with Haesue Jo, Clinical Support Lead for a large online therapy website, about their new offering for teens and adolescents.  On-line therapy is a novel idea for many — and prompts a lot of questions.  How does on-line counseling work for adolescents?  Are there a lot of differences between the experiences of teens and adults?  How are parents involved?  What are the safeguards in place?  How does payment work? 

Listen in to see what online therapy for teenagers is all about. 

(BetterHelp.com is a long-term sponsor of The Psych Central Podcast.)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Online Teen Therapy’ Podcast Episode

Haesue Jo, MA, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with experience providing individual and family therapy in community mental health, school settings, day treatment facilities and is currently the Clinical Support Lead at BetterHelp. Her current clinical focus includes working with individuals with a variety of presenting problems, including anxiety, relationship and family issues, trauma, community violence, gender identity, and depression.

  Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Online Teen Therapy’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: Welcome to the Psych Central Podcast, where each episode features guest experts discussing psychology and mental health in every day plain language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Podcast. And today I will be talking to Haesue Jo, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the clinical support lead for our sponsor BetterHelp.com. She’s here today to talk a little bit about online therapy and specifically their latest offering at TeenCounseling.com. Haesue, welcome to the show.

Haesue Jo: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Gabe Howard: Well it’s always a pleasure when you can hang out with me. I’ve been fascinated with online therapy for a long time and one of the primary reasons is because in mental health I realize that, depending on where you live in America, your options can be very limited. I’m very fortunate to live in a big city so I sort of have my pick of therapists and counselors. But if you live in a more rural area it sort of gets a little sticky both in terms of who you can choose and maybe your privacy options. Is this something that you have found to be a big advantage of online therapy?

Haesue Jo: Yes absolutely. We have plenty of people signing up that say very similar things, whether they’re in rural communities or they’re just in tight knit communities where everybody knows each other. We also have health care professionals signing up saying that it’s hard to find someone in their local community because they know all the other professionals; that they are peers in their workplace. So there’s a lot of different situations. And hopefully we’ve been able to provide some option for those sticky situations.

Gabe Howard: It sounds like privacy is really key to this, though. A lot of people are really describing that it’s more private for them to get the therapy and support that they need versus the more traditional you know drive, park, walk in, go to an appointment.

Haesue Jo: I think for many people it can feel that way. You don’t need to be seen anywhere per se, you can get access to services from the comfort of your own home or wherever it is that you have a solid internet connection. I think a lot of people still, as much as we’d like to help destigmatize the idea of getting mental health help, I think there are still a lot of people in today’s society and our local cultures and all that you may not want other people to know that this is something that they’re involved in. When you’re having struggles with your mental health, it can feel very isolating and personal to you, and you want to figure that stuff out on your own first before the interventions of the people that care about you or people that might not have your best interests in mind. The discrete nature and private venue that we are able to provide is something that’s appealing for a lot of people.

Gabe Howard: And also, as I talked about a moment ago, you have to know the traditional model is you have to drive there, you have to walk in, you have to make the appointment. So, it’s much more time consuming. And I also know that the traditional model is generally, you know, once a week or once every other week at a specific time. With the online model, it’s more frequent, right? I t’s not 1 hour every other week. It’s a few minutes every day or it can be it looks can you sort of talk about that a little bit?

Haesue Jo: It can be, right. So now we have thousands of providers in our network at this point and they are coming from every state in the United States. They’re all licensed here in the US and many licenses per each state are represented on the platform. And we have a lot of professionals coming to join us that have most of their, if not all of their, experience off line. So, they are very much aware of and used to these more traditional models of how we’re going to connect with our clients. Like you said, typically that’s once a week 50 minutes or so but even then, it’s more than 50 minutes. With the commitment, with driving into the parking, and everything that you just mentioned. On the online model here at BetterHelp.com we give a lot of autonomy to the independent providers to coordinate their schedules with their client or what we are finding actually is that counselors are having a really diverse kind of way of communicating with their clients. So, a counselor may have 20 clients, and it could be that half of these clients do engage very regularly in weekly live sessions. That feels kind of like that traditional model and in between those live sessions they’re supplementing it with messaging back and forth and then you also have many subscribers signing up for these services that are not looking to have live web sessions on a regular basis. So, they’re communicating with a counselor pretty frequently but through messaging and that’s not in real time but it’s more kind of like an email. I sent a message to you this morning, I might get a response from my counselor in a couple of hours, and then we go back and forth that way. And then a lot of counselors are doing a combination of that messaging and live sessions. So, there’s a whole bunch of different ways that you can find yourself figuring out what’s going to work best between you and your counselor.

Gabe Howard: And BetterHelp.com been around for a while now. This isn’t something that just cropped up overnight. This is an offering that’s been around for a long time.

Haesue Jo: I’d like to think that, yes. BetterHelp.com started in 2013. But my understanding is that the concept of telehealth, which is helping professionals providing their services not face to face but over some kind of technology platform, I think that’s been around for far longer than that.

Gabe Howard: I’m really glad that you brought that up because you know a lot of people hear things like “online therapy” and there’s a sort of this knee jerk reaction to say, “No, no, no. It’s never been done that way before.” But until you do something, it’s never been done that way before. And the online therapy is not really, as you said, it’s sort of the natural progression of telehealth which has been around for a lot longer. And again, it’s had a dramatic impact on rural areas or people who just cannot get to medical therapy etc. We’ve done another show all about online therapy and we’ll link that show in the show notes of this show so you can learn a whole lot more. We just sort of wanted to establish a baseline of what online therapy is. And up until recently this has really been aimed at adults. The busy adult professional, or the adult who was looking for privacy, but now you’re sort of gearing a section towards teens and you’ve discovered that there’s some differences in how you reach out to teenagers versus how you reach out to adults. Can you talk about that for a moment?

Haesue Jo: So you know, as you mentioned, we did start with adults and the nature of therapy and getting any medical treatment at all for some kind of care for a physical ailment or in our case a mental or emotional challenge or struggles that you may be facing in your life. There are a lot of laws in place in the US to protect people, right? So, these laws will make it so that if you’re going to enter into this kind of relationship with a health care provider, you need to provide your consent as a legal adult. You’re consenting for your own treatment. When you’re a minor, you’re under the care of a parent, who is your legal guardian. And if not your parents, whoever it is has that legal guardianship over you, they are the ones that provide consent for you to enter some kind of health care treatment. Right? So, we wanted to make sure we were doing this right. And so that’s why we started with adults. We found a lot of success. And now we’re working to bring this form of counseling to the younger age group, and we find a lot of differences in the ways that teenagers will communicate versus adults.

Gabe Howard: So obviously with several years of experience working with adults you probably got that model down pretty good. But we know that there’s differences, as you said, between adults and teenagers.

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: How are you handling some of those difference? For one thing, in my mind at least, teenagers are probably much more adept at technology?

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re probably much more willing to do things like face to face and you know they can fire off a text with one thumb while half asleep and and I’m still using full sentences with complete grammar and punctuation. So what have you found? Not from a therapy level, but from just a comfortable with technology level, when it comes to teenage clients versus adult clients?

Haesue Jo: Well you know, a lot of people that are signing up for BetterHelp, so our adult clients, they are typically more tech savvy than somebody that’s not signing up or not choosing to do a lot of the things that they do in life online. But as you mentioned, a lot of teens today, they grew up in a world where technology was there when they were born. And so, I think a lot of the features and the things that are offered on the platform feel more natural and easier for them to navigate sometimes in terms of technology. I don’t think there actually is a huge difference between what I’ve observed with the teens and the adults that are using these services, since if you’re an adult looking for online counseling, you’re probably spending a lot of your time online already.

Gabe Howard: That’s a very fair point. You know, I just I think to myself that all of these adults that are using online counseling are my dad. But you’re right. He probably wouldn’t gravitate toward an online system because he is less comfortable with technology.

Haesue Jo: Yeah, we have a lot of adults signing up that aren’t super comfortable with technology and so they’ll actually e-mail us and we have a support team that’s here to help people and walk them through how some of these technology features work. But we also find it’s not really the best option for all people.

Gabe Howard: And when you say it’s not the best option for all people, do people sign up, try it, and then realize it’s not the best option? And I know that if you go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral you can try it for a week absolutely free.

Haesue Jo: Exactly. We want to be able to provide an exploration process for people that aren’t really sure if this is something that’s going to work for them. So that’s why we like to partner with people and give out free trials so that someone can sign up for a week, test it out see if they like it, and if they’re not into it, then yes they can absolutely cancel during that free trial and we’ll go our separate ways. And our hope is that you now have some tools in your bag to look for services that are going to feel more appropriate for you.

Gabe Howard: Okay, everybody hold on, we are going to listen to a message from Haesue Jo’s employer, and our sponsor, BetterHelp.com

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: I love your online counselling. But now I’m a parent and I’m thinking about my daughter, and I’m thinking do I want her on this platform? Am I more comfortable with the traditional model? What would you say to me as I’m sort of contemplating this decision of should I allow my 15-year-old old daughter to go online to receive services? You know this is new and I want to make sure that I’m being a good dad.

Haesue Jo: Understandable.

Gabe Howard: What would you say to me to sort of help me?

Haesue Jo: So interested parents, curious parents, intrigued parents they can check out TeenCounseling.com and they can get started. So, the way that these accounts work is that a parent is the one that does sign up first, and a parent can get their account set up and get connected with a counselor and even communicate with a counselor before ever inviting their teen into the platform. And so, in that way, the parent can sign up first and get a lot of their questions answered. Talk to this counselor. Ask the professional about what their experience is like, what their expertise is, or look into the credentialing of professional. Parents have opportunities to vet these people that they’re going to possibly introduce to their kid. And understandably, parents want to make sure that their kids are safe and talking to reliable people online. And so parents have the opportunity to sign up first, and if they find that they don’t think it’s going to be a good fit for their family, they don’t have to continue with the same kind of thing. And so, if parents are interested, they should just check out TeenCounseling.com. There are FAQ sections that are geared towards the parents. But there’s also another FAQ section for the teen themselves if they wanted to do some research on their own also. And then they’re always welcome to contact us if they have any further questions that they find that they can’t get answered through the web site.

Gabe Howard: I think the part that really kind of puts me at ease, and that I didn’t realize until you just said it, is this is parent driven. It’s a partnership between parents and child. It’s not sort of the Wild Wild West where you just create an account for your teenage daughter and hope for the best.

Haesue Jo: Correct. And you know every counselor is going to have their own approach and their own way of conceptualizing a case, looking at their teenage client in the context of this kid’s family. But I think any of us that have worked with adolescents will agree that a lot of things going on with the kid’s identity, or any concerns that are coming up, the behaviors in the context of social situations and relationships with people. A lot of that stuff very much starts at home. And so it doesn’t make a lot of sense all the time to engage in a therapeutic relationship with a kid and not involve the parent because a parent very much is in that kid’s life. So the way that the Teen Counseling accounts work is that a parent will sign up and then they can invite their teen at any time and then at that point the parent and the teen now have their own respective log in information. So, they can each log in with their own email addresses and they have their own private space. So they’re both connected with the counselor, and the counselor has opportunities to speak with the parents and opportunities to speak with the teen. But what the parent messages with the counselor is not visible to the teen and vice versa. What the counselor and the teen are communicating about, the written message, is not visible to the parent. Now when, and if, they would like to have joint sessions, where the teen and the parent are together, those live sessions can be scheduled and coordinated with the counselor. And it’s just an understanding that they’re both going to be at the same location at the same time and that will allow the counselor to have this joint session for both the parent and the kid.

Gabe Howard: I like what you said about the teenager. The child will have their own personal space and the parent will have their own personal space with the counselor having access to both. So when the parent has questions they can ask the counselor?

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: But the counselor will sort of be the arbiter of information and make sure that everybody feels comfortable.

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: They’re not printing a transcript and saying, “This is what your child said.”

Haesue Jo: Right. Absolutely. And in general, when therapists are working with adolescents, that is a huge theme that comes up most of the time, if not all of the time. A kid needs to feel comfortable that their parents are not going to know every small little detail about their life. This is I think a universal thing that we’ve all experienced as teens ourselves. There’s just some stuff that you don’t want your parents to know and there could be a million reasons for that. And so with the accounts on Teen Counseling, the teens have their private space. And therapists that are working with adolescents have this experience of knowing that they need to respect the privacy of this client even if the client is a kid. The kid is still a human. So privacy will be respected and usually there’s a conversation to be had with the parent that I will communicate with you when I feel that there is a need for you to know something. For example, if somebody might be in imminent danger, or if I feel like somebody is in harm’s way. Those are the things I’ll absolutely let you know about. But ultimately, to help with your teen’s progress through therapy, they need to feel like this is a safe and comfortable space and that I’m not going to be a messenger of what they’re talking about directly to you. And I’m speaking in the first person because I also work with teens. For me it’s like there’s gonna be times where I think we should all be talking so that we’re all on the same page, but that’s how I’m gonna be most of the time since right now we’re here for your kid.

Gabe Howard: And it’s important to understand that that’s how it works in the “traditional model.” You know, if you go to the traditional therapist, you know you’re in the office, usually parent and child go in together. They sort of talk about the issues, then the parents leave. They talk to the child and the child leaves and then the parents come in and there’s this constant back and forth as needed etc. So the model just translated online exactly the same way. It’s not like the child loses some of that privacy or the parents lose some of that understanding or connection. It just literally transfers right online in the same way. So for people who aren’t familiar with therapy, they might not realize that it really is the exact same model.

Haesue Jo: Yes, very very similar. And in fact, I think it’s even more convenient for parents because when I work with teens in an office setting, with this minor, it’s really important for me that I’m not left alone with them in a building because I’m not their parent. And so, for me personally, and every counselor, like I said, is going to have their own approach. When I have teenage clients, I require for their parent to wait in the waiting room for the entirety of the session. And that’s just a safety precaution to make sure that this kid’s parent is around in the event that something happens. With TeenCounseling.com and these accounts, now a parent doesn’t necessarily need to be waiting in a waiting room an hour every week to know comfortably and safely that their kid is getting services from a provider. And the parent is just a message away if the counselor does need to reach them. But all in all, I think the model is very similar to what I’ve experienced off line in that there’s a way for both of them to be involved. And there’s also avenues that are provided to have the safe, private conversations with the parent or with the teen.

Gabe Howard: I really like what you kind of alluded to, where you were like you know, that the parent is waiting in the waiting room for safety, but it also means that the parent is waiting in the waiting room. So, that the child or the teenager, that person knows that Mom and Dad is what? A wall away? So that might make them think, “You know, hey, I can’t say whatever I want because what if it turns out poorly? What if I don’t like it? What if Mom and Dad overhear? They’re right there.” And I think it’s an interesting concept because, you know, the best time of day for a child to open up is probably not the best time of day for a parent to open up. You know, maybe a child you know wants to share more at night when parents just want to relax and go to bed or whatever. And often, when teenagers are getting help, they’re on their parents’ schedule, because they’re the ride.

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: This does allow everybody to be the most comfortable and feel the most safe. You need to be comfortable in therapy to really get to the root of whatever the issue is.

Haesue Jo: A lot of times it is those deepest darkest secrets that are making it hard for you to function. And it can be very scary to reveal those deep dark things to people that really care about us, or people that we may fear may have some kind of judgment about that. So, therapy can be scary for a variety of reasons. And I think that’s just because some of the scary things in the world are internalized, they are within us. So yeah, I like this idea of creating safe space, creating access. You mentioned sometimes this barrier of scheduling is absolutely a thing. Sometimes the kid is free as a bird, but they can’t get to your office. So hopefully we’ve been able to alleviate some of those challenges.

Gabe Howard: Let’s talk about some more practical things for a moment. Because you know, one of the things that I’m thinking about, is you know might my child with metered data. How does it work in online therapy? I mean, is it pay per message? Pay per hour? What are sort of the safeguards in place to make sure that everybody gets what they need, including not a gigantic bill?

Haesue Jo: It’s a very good question. So on Teen Counselling, for those of the listeners that are not familiar with the way that Better Help works and how our adult clients are paying for their services there, the payment structure is very similar on Teen Counseling. So, we are a subscription based model, meaning the person paying for this account is going to enter the payment details. You’re going to select a subscription plan period. So, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever it is that they decide upon. Then this flat fee does not change and is going to renew on that monthly basis or whatever it is that you’ve decided upon. And in that flat fee, is included all the interactions that are going to happen during that month. And so, no matter how many live sessions a teen is able to have with their counselor, no matter how many messages go back and forth between them, that flat fee remains the same. And so the parent on the account is the one that enters payment details, and only the parent is able to edit things in the billing settings. So, the accounts on the parent end and on the teen end do look a little bit different, because the teen doesn’t have as much of the admin access into that account.

Gabe Howard: That makes perfect sense to me. Thank you so much for answering all of my questions. It’s exciting to see where the world is going and what we’re able to achieve with technology. And I’m glad to know that it’s making things better. Is there anything else that you would like to let us know about TeenCounseling.com?

Haesue Jo: Sure, this isn’t too much of an operational thing, this is just coming from a personal space, because working with teens adolescents is near and dear to me. I’ve worked with teens off line, in office settings, in school settings, in clinic settings, for many years before I found myself in this online therapy world. And what I found is, with my teenage clients a lot of times, they take a little bit longer to open up and to warm up to you and a lot of the times, it’s because they’re not there completely out of their own volition, right? An adult client has made this choice for themselves that they’re going to walk in and get help. Typically, for a kid, a parent or a teacher or some kind of administrator at school has recognized that they’re having an issue. It’s usually an adult that’s driving this process, saying, “I think you need help. You’re going to be put in this place, whether you want to go or not.” So in the office setting, in these clinic settings face to face, teens are going to be a little bit more guarded and reserved a lot of the time. And another thing is that, you know, when you’re an adolescent and you’re growing up, you’re still learning how to regulate your emotions. I think most adults are still doing that too, actually.  But as a teen, even developmental and physiologically, your brain isn’t fully developed. And I think with all these challenges in terms of regulating emotion and being able to articulate any kind of internal process, it gets really hard to try to get comfortable with someone that you don’t know. Someone that you might feel is just going to relay all this stuff back to your mom and dad. On the online format, what I have found, and I’m pleasantly surprised by it and I appreciate every day, is this is the way that a lot of teens are communicating with each other. They send text messages and they have more time to think about what they want to say; they’re not as put on the spot and it’s not as much about emotion regulation while trying to verbally articulate some kind of challenging experience for them. They get to text. They get to send a message, take their time with it, and communicate the way that they have grown up doing all along with all their friends and their peers. So with Teen Counseling, I think there is a lot to be explored still, and a lot to be had for kids that are struggling with something in a venue that’s familiar to them and that feels safe to them. It is not going to feel like they’re being stuck in a room by force.

Gabe Howard: Right. Yeah.

Haesue Jo: They can have an app on their phone that they can open whenever they want.

Gabe Howard: And it can kind of feel like that. As a child who went to therapy with my parents, I imagine it’s much easier to make the child comfortable when they can sort of ease into it over a few weeks. Because I know with parents busy schedules

Haesue Jo: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re like, “Look, we’re here from 3 to 4. You must get everything out from 3 to 4, and then we’ll be back in 2 weeks from 3 to 4 and you will get the rest out then.” And you know, if you’re not in the mood, you’re not in the mood. And especially if your parents are very busy, which all of us are, if they’re very worried, which in general when you’re seeking medical treatment of any kind there’s usually some concern or worry, and you know these things cost money. Parents are worried about wasting money, as they should be in general. I think a lot of those concerns are alleviated with this other option. And that’s what it is, right? It’s just another option. Nobody is saying that you you have to use this option over that option. You have to make the right decision for you and your family and the right decision for the person seeking treatment. And this is one of those options

Haesue Jo: Yes.

Gabe Howard: And it’s really nothing more and nothing less, right?

Haesue Jo: Yes, and I think for the busy parent, the busy family, the busy kid, just having options is a good thing. Because sometimes it feels like even though there are options out there, they might not feel like those options are available to them for a variety of reasons. So yeah, I guess I like that there is this other option for people to explore.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful. Haesue, thank you so much. And thank you to BetterHelp.com for sponsoring the podcast. It really has allowed us to get a lot of great information into the hands of people who really appreciate it and really need it. So, we’re of course, very thankful for your support. And we also like to be transparent about that. You know BetterHelp.com is a sponsor of the Psych Central Podcast and we appreciate that as well.

Haesue Jo: Thank you so much for having me.

Gabe Howard: You’re very welcome and thank you everyone for tuning in. Obviously, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere just by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And wherever you download this podcast, if you would give us as many stars as humanly possible. Use your words and write us a review, show us on social media, email us, send us around, burn it onto a C.D. and play it for your grandma, whatever it takes to get mental health information into the hands of people that need it. We would appreciate it, and we will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Psych Central Podcast. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at GabeHoward.com. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, PsychCentral.com offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email show@PsychCentral.com. Thank you for listening and please share widely.

About The Psych Central  Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

  from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2YAsJi0 via theshiningmind.com

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Podcast: How to Let Go of Past Hurts



It’s inevitable that we will suffer emotional pain as we go through life. Whether it’s from a death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, or any number of other issues, sometimes the pain we experience becomes embedded to such a degree that we can’t seem to recover from it. We might dwell on past hurts to the point that it negatively affects our emotional health, preventing us from moving on and growing as we should. In this episode, we examine this kind of emotional baggage and how to break free of the grip it can have on us.

Subscribe to Our Show! And Remember to Review Us!

About Our Guest

John M. Grohol, Psy.D. is the founder & CEO of PsychCentral.com, a mental health and human behavior/technology expert, co-author of Self-Help That Works (Oxford University Press, 2013), the author of The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online, and is a published researcher. He sits on the scientific board of the journal, Computers in Human Behavior and was previously on the editorial boards of CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and the Journal of Medical Internet Research. He is a founding board member and current treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine, and sits on the board of the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression. He currently oversees PsychCentral.com, the world’s leading mental health resource offering information and support groups to over seven million people each month.

  LETTING GO OF PAST HURTS SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Narrator 1: Welcome to the Psych Central show, where each episode presents an in-depth look at issues from the field of psychology and mental health –  with host Gabe Howard and co-host Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe Howard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Show podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and with me as always is Vincent M. Wales. And before we get started, we want to give a big shout out to our sponsor, BetterHelp online therapy. You can go there and you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private, online counselling anytime, anywhere. Just visit betterhelp.com/PsychCentral today. Vince and I will be welcoming back PsychCentral.com founder Dr. John Grohal. John, welcome to the show.

John Grohol: Hey, great to be joining with you guys today.

Vincent M. Wales: Good to have you. We are going to talk about something that we all have, and that is past hurts. Specifically we’re going to try to figure out how to let go of them, right?

John Grohol: Absolutely. I can certainly understand that dealing with emotional pain is not something that people are taught how to do. It’s not something we learn in school. And so, one of the things that is a challenge is the fact that we have to learn how to do this on our own.

Gabe Howard: And the benefit to doing this is what?

John Grohol: Well hurt equals pain, so we try and reduce the amount of pain we have in our lives and increase the amount of pleasure. That just seems to be the thing that leads people to greater happiness. So it’s not surprising that when we come across something that has hurt us emotionally, we’re looking for a way to reduce that emotion and to make a person get beyond it.

Vincent M. Wales: How common is it, do you think, that people are actually doing that already?

John Grohol: I mean, we all kind of struggle with this to some degree or another. It’s not a question of do these emotional hurts cause pain; they do for all of us. The question is, how long do we have to hold on to them before we can sort of move on in our lives? And the answer to that question is that it varies widely from person to person. And so I guess one of the things I’d like to do today is to talk about how we can work to try and reduce the amount of time that it takes to move on from an emotional hurt like a relationship breakup or something of that nature.

Vincent M. Wales: It’s interesting that you mentioned relationship breakups because I remember when I was going through a divorce some years ago, I found this article online that said that the general rule of thumb on how much time you need to recover from the end of a relationship is about one month for every year that you were together and I was thinking, really, because that does not seem like enough.

Gabe Howard: And who made this rule? Like…

Vincent M. Wales: I don’t know! But I remember reading that and thinking, Yeah that’s messed up.

Gabe Howard: It was definitely not on PsychCentral.com. It was on one of those competitor sites; it’s just just funky garbage. John, you wrote a great article called Learning to Let go of Past Hurts – 5 Ways to Move On. And that’s really the crux of what we want to discuss today, right?

John Grohol: Absolutely. And I wanted to also just point out real quick that the thing that Vincent mentioned is an important point, which is that we’re all kind of looking for you know how long is this going to take? When will I get over this person or this relationship? And I think it’s not really a time-based metric that you use to evaluate how long it’s going to take. It’s really a metric of how much the relationship meant to you and how important that relationship was in your life. After 20 years of a marriage where both people emotionally checked out maybe 10 years prior, you might think oh, well that’s going to take a long time to get to to move on. but that might not be the case if if they’ve already had ten years of basically being emotionally unattached. Whereas, if you’re looking at a one-year relationship, but that one year has been full of emotional commitment and emotional attachment of a very strong variety, then it could take a very long time for a person to get over that intense one-year relationship.

Gabe Howard: Well I think it’s also important, and please correct me if I’m wrong, to understand that everybody is different. There’s no wrong way. If it takes somebody longer to move on, that doesn’t mean that they’re doing it wrong.

John Grohol: Yeah yeah. And there’s no one time limit. Just because it took your friend you know a week to get over their relationship doesn’t mean it’s going to take you one week. It could take you a month. It could take you six months. There is no average. There is no sort of rule of thumb on how long it’s going to take to feel better.

Gabe Howard: See I told you wherever you read that, Vin – bunk.

Vincent M. Wales: Oh,I knew at the time.

Gabe Howard: Complete bunk.

Vincent M. Wales: But I just always wondered, how did they come to that conclusion? You know, was it just personal experience, was it they polled their small group of friends or just pulled it out the air.

Gabe Howard: The fact that they didn’t cite their source should have been clue number one. So John, from the article you’ve got your five ways to let go of past hurts and number one is…?

John Grohol: Make the decision to let it go. And that might seem obvious, but it’s not really obvious because when you’re in the depths of emotional pain, you’re not really thinking with your rational mind; you’re thinking with your irrational mind. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Let me be clear. We are irrational human beings. That’s perfectly normal. And so you need to give yourself time to be that person who is in pain, that person who needs to feel that emotional pain. But at some point, you have to make the decision to let it go. It usually has to be a pretty conscious choice upfront. Otherwise, you might end up self-sabotaging any effort that you make to try and move on.

Vincent M. Wales: I really like your second point, which is to express your pain and your responsibility. I think the responsibility part of it is crucial.

John Grohol: There is no doubt that if you are not at the point where you can take some responsibility for how the relationship ended or the fact that it did end or anything of that nature, you also need to take responsibility for the fact that this is a choice, that this is a choice that you’re making about letting your emotional pain go.

Gabe Howard: I want to add a clarifying point to number two, express your pain. We’ve talked a lot about taking responsibility, which I think is is what you’re saying there. But what is a healthy way to express pain? I mean I’m sure you don’t mean go key the person’s car if they broke up with you, which is a way to express pain. So how can you do that in a healthy manner?

John Grohol: Yeah, I think this is the one point that a lot of people have difficulty with and it’s not surprising because again, we were never taught in school or by our parents or really by anyone in our lives on how to deal with our emotions in a way that is healthy, in a way that helps us move forward. So one of the ways you can express your pain is to find a way to share it with someone else or something else, and that someone else could be a friend or a family member or a trusted person. A lot of times people turn to friends in a relationship breakup to just be able to sort of vent, to to share their emotional hurt and grief over the loss of the relationship. If that’s an option, there are things like writing in a journal or writing in a blog. You know we might pooh pooh such things as being, oh, that just sounds like psychobabble. How’s writing all all my feelings down going to help? But there’s actually research that confirms that writing things out, writing things down actually helps our ability to move on from emotional hurts.

Gabe Howard: I do think that it’s interesting that you brought up this idea that writing these things down seems, I don’t know, the word you used was you might pooh pooh the idea probably because people think that it’s foolish or stupid or insignificant, but it is something that a lot of people do and that it helps a lot of people. But the specific question that I have is, when you say that, are you talking more to men? Because I think women are comfortable writing down their emotions. So is this sort of like a gender gap?

John Grohol: I’m not sure if it’s a gender gap or not, but I would just say that you need to find the outlet for expressing your emotional pain in a way that makes you feel like you’re getting some relief from doing so. And so again, just like we talk about endlessly, there is no single right way of doing it. It’s just finding an outlet for you that works for you. I think the other important thing to remember is that we also have to take some responsibility for what we could have done differently.

Vincent M. Wales: Definitely.

John Grohol: It’s a question of whether are you an active participant in your own life or are you just a hopeless victim where life just happens around you and you sort of just are observer and bystander? And so the question is, do you let your pain become a part of your identity or are you someone who is more deep and complex than that?.

Gabe Howard: And this is a good segue into number three because stop being the victim and blaming others. And I think that is something that… I’ve fallen into that pattern before. It’s not fair that this happened to me, it’s not fair that I got sick. It’s not fair. And that really is it playing the victim. Am I correct?

John Grohol: It is a thing of playing the victim. And don’t get me wrong, playing the victim feels good. It feels good to feel like you are the person who has been wronged. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing to feel that way for a short time. So in every moment of our lives, we have that conscious choice that we can make, whether it is to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions or just start feeling good. And it’s a matter again of taking responsibility for your own happiness and for finding your own path forward. No one’s going to do that for you. No one’s going to tell you that, hey, the world has wronged you and you deserve better. Maybe it has, and maybe you do deserve better. But at the end of the day, you’re the only person who can help yourself move on. And so you need to make that conscious choice to do so.

Gabe Howard: We’re going to step away for a moment so we can hear from our sponsor. We’ll be right back.

Narrator 2: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com, secure, convenient and affordable online counselling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Vincent M. Wales: Welcome back everyone. We’re here with Dr. John Grohal talking about how to heal from past hurts. Here in the U.S., I have seen just in my casual observations that people who are in a relationship and then it falls apart…. there is a strong tendency for these people to immediately jump to the other end of the spectrum and hate each other. I’ve never understood that and from what I understand, it’s more common here than than in other countries. Do you have any thoughts on that?

John Grohol: I think it’s an interesting question and one that probably speaks more to individual differences than to any sort of generalization that I can probably make about culture. I believe that different people just come from different emotional backgrounds and that those emotional backgrounds, their upbringing, their psychology, their personality allows them to either sort of forgive that person and find a healthy way to end their relationship or they come from a viewpoint where, if you have wronged them emotionally, then you are dead to them and that is all that there is to it, or that you create this intense anger and emotionality and the other person as well. So I just think that those are individual differences that come from different backgrounds. I don’t know that there is anything more I could say about that.

Gabe Howard: Well and I think though, to your point though ,this is part of being the victim, because in order to be the victim, you have to have an enemy and you hate that enemy. So when those two people hate each other, the person that you hate is the person that… really, isn’t that just,,, it’s just a way to be the victim.

John Grohol: Yeah absolutely. I think that’s a great point, which is that, you know, when relationships fail, a lot of people turn into a very black and white issue and if they’re the victim, then they need that enemy to be able to point to and say, oh my gosh, this is the person who ruined my life, this is the bad person, I’m the good person. And it just makes it easier for their brains to sort of deal with all the pain for many people to put it into those black and white terms. And I guess you could look at it sort of as a as a dysfunctional coping mechanism because it does work for that other person. It does not work usually for the person that they’re leaving in the relationship.

Gabe Howard: Hey, if you keep making sense like this, I might send this podcast to one of my ex-wives.

John Grohol: You could try.

Gabe Howard: She she’s not a fan. The number four in this, and it’s the one that I like the most, and it’s kind of a mindfulness technique not to… People that are big fans of the Psych Central Show have heard a lot about mindfulness in the past couple of months, but it’s to focus on the present, the here and now, and to focus on your joy. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

John Grohol: Mindfulness is a great technique. It’s something that practically everybody can and should be practicing to one degree or another in their lives. Because it’s so simple and it’s so easy to incorporate into your daily routine where it lets you focus on just being here in the present, the here and now, and stop focusing on the past. And that’s where so much of this this hurt and this rumination comes from, which is just focusing on the past. I guess some of us get stuck in that focusing on the past because it kind of feels good and we maybe want to learn something from going over the things in our head and maybe saying, well, maybe I could have done this differently or maybe that person… I didn’t see that the signs that this person was evil or bad or whatever. But by focusing on the here and now, we can temporarily let that pain and that that rumination go and bring ourselves back to what we’re doing right now. You can do this in many different ways, but it’s sort of a meditation technique and we talk more about it on the website, if people are interested.

Vincent M. Wales: When I was younger, in my college years, I was accused quite rightly of dwelling on my past and I readily admit to that. I had some events that happened in my youth that I had a lot of regrets about and I would dwell on them. I would live in the past, in other words, It’s always been very difficult for me to let go of that. And of course I can always defend myself by saying, but if you don’t learn from your past, you’re going to repeat it. And I guess I never learned properly how to stop learning from it and keep studying, I suppose. Any tips on on how to actually let go? ‘Cause I’m still struggling with it.

John Grohol: So I would say that there are lots of different ways that we struggle with these past pains and the reason that they may not go away very easily. Indeed, we do try and learn from our past, but there certainly has to be a difference between learning from the past and thinking about the past and then ruminating on the past, because if you’ve applied hundreds if not thousands of brain cycles already to the problem or to the behaviors and the relationship or whatever, and it’s… you can’t change the past. You can only change your future behaviors and hopefully after you apply those hundreds or thousands of brain cycles to such a thing, your rational mind can say, well I’ve gone over this a hundred or a thousand times. It might be… that might be everything that I could possibly learn from that situation. It’s really… some things I think are extremely difficult for a person to let go and I cannot… No one can can give you five tips that will let those things go, unfortunately. I think some things can only be properly addressed in a therapeutic relationship with a trusted counselor or therapist, because they are very difficult. There are so many topics, you know, for instance if if you had childhood abuse, if you had abusive parents, if you had if you had sexual assault, any anything like that. I mean those are much bigger challenges to face and I think that they’re best dealt with by talking to a therapist.

Vincent M. Wales: Well this sort of leads into your fifth point, which is all about forgiveness. You say forgive them and yourself. I understand forgiving other people. It’s pretty easy for me to do. The whole concept of self-forgiveness, though, I have honestly struggled with because I feel if I have hurt someone, it’s not my position to forgive myself for that. Only they can forgive me.

John Grohol: I think that’s an interesting perspective and certainly one that has some validity, except for the fact that the person might not have any interest in having any kind of association or communication with you. So in that case, they might as well be dead. And if someone’s dead, they can’t forgive you. No matter how much you’d like them to. So it’s up to you to look at yourself and say, am I worth this forgiveness? Have I worked on myself? Have I worked on the things that may have hurt the other person? And if you can answer some of those questions with, well yeah, I have looked at myself and I have tried to work on some of these behaviors, then I think you have to do yourself some justice and say you’re worth forgiving. You are a worthy person and you deserve forgiveness as much as the next person. And it can be really really hard for a person to not only hear those words, but then to say them to themselves and mean it.

Vincent M. Wales: Well, thank you.

Gabe Howard: And of course I don’t think you’re saying forget. I think that a lot of times people hear, forgive yourself or forgive others then forget that it ever happened, and that’s not what you’re saying. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting about it, it just means forgiveness.

John Grohol: Absolutely. And it also doesn’t mean that you’re condoning what happened, or you’re agreeing with what happened or you think it’s a it was an OK thing. Forgiveness just means that what happened happened in the past. I would like to find a resolution to it in my own mind and I acknowledge that we are all human beings. None of us are perfect and we do the best we can based upon our upbringing, our backgrounds ,our experiences. And that means that sometimes we’re not going to do the best things for ourselves or for another person in our lives, even a person that we love very very much. We have to remember that, that we make mistakes. And if we make mistakes, guess what… So do other people. And we do have to forgive them. We do have to forgive ourselves in order to move on from past hurts.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much, John. One of my favorite quotes that I ruminate about when I can’t sleep is, we judge other people by their actions and we judge ourselves by our intentions. And you know that’s… that can that can work out differently for different people. But what do you think about that quote? Can you speak on that a bit?

John Grohol: Yeah I think that’s a great quote and I think it has a lot of truth to it in the sense that other people can’t look into our minds and we can’t look into other people’s minds. And that creates a lot of potentials and possibilities for miscommunication. And so, while we can see that are our intentions were always the best, we tend not to always give other people the benefit of the doubt in our lives. And ironically, it seems as for the people that we love the most, we give them the least benefit of the doubt and complete strangers or people we just met, we will give them a wide latitude of doubt. So I think there’s some interesting psychology in that, as well. But I think it goes back to the fact that we can’t see other people’s intentions until they make it clear by communicating those to us.

Gabe Howard: Well Dr. Grohol, we’re about out of time so, for our listeners, can you break it down for us? Just make it as simple as possible.

John Grohol: Sure, the five ways to let go of past hearts are to number one, make the decision to let it go. It has to be a conscious choice on your part. Number two, express your pain and also take the time to take responsibility for what happened in the relationship. Number three, stop being the victim and blaming others. Victimhood feels good, but at some point, you have to let go of that role and take back your life and what you’d like to do to move forward in it. Number four, focus on the present, the here and now, and find joy. Remember joy in your life. Because it’s it’s there and it hasn’t gone anywhere, it may have been in hiding for a bit. You just need to refocus on your own life and the present and and stop ruminating about the past. And number five, forgive the other person but also forgive yourself. You’re a valuable, special person. Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything differently. And you deserve forgiveness as much as the next person.

Gabe Howard: John, thank you so much for being here. We always appreciate it when you stop by.

John Grohol: Always a pleasure

Vincent M. Wales: John, yeah, as Gabe said, it’s always a good time having you on the show. These these conversations are great. I really appreciate it. And we also appreciate our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next week.

Narrator 1: Thank you for listening to the Psych Central Show. Please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you found this podcast. We encourage you to share our show on social media and with friends and family. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website. Psych Central is overseen by Dr. John Grohol, a mental health expert and one of the pioneering leaders in online mental health. Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who travels nationally. You can find more information on Gabe at GabeHoward.com. Our co-host, Vincent M. Wales, is a trained suicide prevention crisis counselor and author of several award-winning speculative fiction novels. You can learn more about Vincent at VincentMWales.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email talkback@psychcentral.com.

About The Psych Central Show Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

    Vincent M. Wales is a former suicide prevention counselor who lives with persistent depressive disorder. He is also the author of several award-winning novels and creator of the costumed hero, Dynamistress. Visit his websites at www.vincentmwales.com and www.dynamistress.com.

      from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-how-to-let-go-of-past-hurts/

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Podcast: What Are Cognitive Distortions?



  At some point or another, virtually everyone has fallen victim to cognitive distortions – lines of thinking that are based on things that are simply not true. This doesn’t mean to the level of conspiracy theories, but even the tiniest things. In this episode, Psych Central founder, Dr. John Grohol, explains many types of these distortions, as well as how to address them in order to improve our lives.

Subscribe to Our Show! And Remember to Review Us!

About Our Guest

John M. Grohol, Psy.D. is the founder & CEO of PsychCentral.com, a mental health and human behavior/technology expert, co-author of Self-Help That Works (Oxford University Press, 2013), the author of The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online, and is a published researcher. He sits on the scientific board of the journal, Computers in Human Behavior and was previously on the editorial boards of CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and the Journal of Medical Internet Research. He is a founding board member and current treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine, and sits on the board of the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression. He currently oversees PsychCentral.com, the world’s leading mental health resource offering information and support groups to over seven million people each month.

  COGNITIVE DISTORTION SHOW TRANSCRIPT (Computer-Generated)

Narrator 1: Welcome to the Psych Central show, where each episode presents an in-depth look at issues from the field of psychology and mental health –  with host Gabe Howard and co-host Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe Howard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Show podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and with me as always is Vincent M. Wales. And before we get started we want to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, BetterHelp online therapy. Remember you can go to betterhelp.com/PsychCentral and get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private, online counseling anytime, anywhere. Remember, all you have to do is go to betterhelp.com/PsychCentral. Today, Vince and I will be welcoming back Psych Central founder, Dr. John Grohol. John, welcome back to the show.

Dr. John Grohol: Hey, great to be with you guys today.

Vincent M. Wales: Glad to have you again. And we’re here to discuss cognitive distortions with you. I mean if that’s OK with you.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. Hey that’s fine by me.

Vincent M. Wales: Awesome. Well can we start by telling our listeners just what a cognitive distortion is.

Dr. John Grohol: Sure. Cognitive distortion is a as a psychobabble term that psychologists and other professionals use to talk about the way that people use thinking in ways that is not very helpful. It’s sort of like a lie that we tell ourselves in our own thoughts.

Gabe Howard: And what’s the negative of this, aside from that you’re lying to yourself?

Vincent M. Wales: I was gonna say, that’s kind of obvious, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: Well, not necessarily, I mean you know what does that fake it till you make it. I mean this is something people say��.

Vincent M. Wales: That’s crap.

Gabe Howard: I’m just saying these these are well-respected terms that you know… “Believe in yourself!” “But I suck at baseball, Dad.” “Believe in yourself!” Wouldn’t that be a cognitive distortion? But it’s deeper than that.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. The problem with cognitive distortions is that they are based in untruths. They are lies. They are faulty ways that we tell ourselves something about the way we’re thinking that simply isn’t true. And unfortunately what this does to us is that it teaches us to believe those lies because we hear them so often in our own heads. So I mean if you tell yourself something often enough, you’re going to start believing it. And if that something is a lie, that’s going to be a problem.

Vincent M. Wales: I think I get it. And I think Gabe gets it too. And I’ll bet you that we could probably think of some off the top of our heads. Like I know a lot of people who think in black and white with virtually everything. It’s either this or that. There’s no shades of gray.

Dr. John Grohol: I’d say that’s probably one of the most common cognitive distortions out there is this what psychologists call polarized thinking, black or white thinking, that you’re either perfect or your a total failure. There is no middle ground. It’s black or it’s white. And a lot of times when you hear people talking, especially in certain areas of discourse today, politics for instance, there’s a lot of black and white thinking going on. And as we all know, nothing is usually so simple that it can be boiled down into yes or no. A lot of things are going on in your head and in your life are complex things nuanced things or subtle things and they deserve the subtlety and nuance that they need in order to better understand them, better understand your behavior and what to do about your behavior.

Gabe Howard: There’s a couple of things that I’m very guilty of and I do try to work on them. But me, personally, I see the worst in everything. I just… Everything’s a catastrophe. You know, one little thing is missing, the whole thing is ruined. And I also think that everything is about me, you know like like any little… you know. “Well, that didn’t go so well.” They’re talking about me. I know I’m at a conference with 20 thousand people and I don’t know these people but they’re definitely talking about my thing that I did three days ago. Are these also examples and probably pretty common ones. Are these examples of cognitive distortions?

Dr. John Grohol: Sure. I mean they could encompass a couple of the kind of distortions that could be overgeneralization, in which that we’re coming to a conclusion based upon a single incident or a single piece of evidence. So, if someone is talking about something and you just did that something and and you know that they they know that you did that something and that something was a mistake or a problem, you might be overgeneralizing the fact that they’re bringing this up and you think that they’re pointing to you. So when a person believes that something is directly singling them out, that’s a cognitive distortion that we call personalization. And it’s where you think that anytime someone is is speaking about something in general, like your boss talking about “Oh, you know, we need people to turn their expense reports in on time,” and you know you’re one of those people that doesn’t always target your expense reports in on time, you think they’re specifically talking to you. And they very well may be talking to you, but there may also be 10 other people on staff that also have this problem. So it’s not just about you.

Gabe Howard: And of course it could also be, you know, lighter than that. They could say, you know, we need people to really work hard to get this done. And you could believe that way your boss is saying is that Gabe is not working hard and that’s why we’re behind schedule.

Dr. John Grohol: Absolutely yes.

Gabe Howard: Excellent thank you… I knew we were behind schedule.

Vincent M. Wales: A lot of people too will focus on, for example, just the negative aspect of something and ignore all of the positive aspects of it.

Dr. John Grohol: Yes. And when someone looks at only the negative aspects and only pick out the things that they want to focus on, that’s a cognitive distortion that’s called filtering. They’re looking at things and magnifying only the things that their mind is focusing on. And a lot of times those things obviously are the negative things, and they will completely obliterate and blot out the fact that anything positive happened or occurred, and they will only focus on the negative and of course, that’s not being fair to yourself.

Vincent M. Wales: John, one of the things that we often hear, and maybe maybe in younger people than than older is “that’s not fair.” Right? And in my personal opinion, I think realizing… coming to the realization that the world is not fair is one of the hardest parts of growing up. But some people, it seems, still go through life using fairness as this measuring stick for things. You have any comments on that?

Dr. John Grohol: I think most of humanity is intrinsically drawn to the idea that we need to be or we should be fair to one another. It seems to be ingrained in our upbringing and in most people and even in most cultures, and so when it comes to the realization that the world isn’t exactly a fair place and that some people don’t actually play by the same rules as everyone else, it really is an eye opening experience and we lose a bit of our innocence that first time that we realize that. And it’s important to realize that if you want to get ahead in life and want to get ahead in your own life, because falling back on blaming others for or blaming life for not being fair isn’t going to get you very far, and ultimately isn’t going to get you the empathy or compassion that you’re you’re hoping for from other people because they’ve already realized that life isn’t fair and you’re the one who, apparently, has not yet. So it’s a difficult lesson to learn and we all have to learn it at one point or another and we do our best to try and understand how we can be a moral and ethical being in this world and try to act in a way that’s fair and take those times when life isn’t fair and try and take them in stride and act accordingly.

Gabe Howard: We’re going to step away for a moment to hear from our sponsor and we will be right back with Dr. John Grohol.

Narrator 2: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com, secure, convenient and affordable online counselling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: We’ve been talking to Dr. John Grohol, the founder of Psych Central, about cognitive distortions and we are back. When I was really sick, before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I just believed that every single thing that happened to me was somebody else’s fault and I can’t imagine that thinking that everything that happens to me is somebody else’s fault is not an example of a cognitive distortion.

Dr. John Grohol: Blaming other people is a cognitive distortion and it’s it’s a result of our belief that other people can actually influence our feelings or make us feel a certain way. Of course they can influence our feelings and our emotions and they… other people have a lot of sway in our lives. But what most people don’t realize is that we actually give them that power to have that sway in our lives, and that’s something that is under our control. So when you blame someone else for the way you’re feeling, you’re you’re actually giving up some of the control in your life and being the ruler of your own destiny, because I think it’s important to realize that your life is yours to live and other people can’t make you feel a certain way or aren’t responsible for your having a physical illness for your having a mental illness. These are the fates that we are given. You have to understand that you can take control of your emotions and your life and ensure that you move forward, understanding that.

Gabe Howard: I imagine that thinking that it should be a certain way that I I should be well I shouldn’t have bipolar disorder. I should have been born rich, my biological father should have loved me… all thinking that the world should have been – I know we’ve already talked about fairness – but I I can’t imagine that just just thinking that things are supposed to be a certain way… is that a different cognitive distortion or is that just go back to the fairness conversation?

Dr. John Grohol: “Shoulds” are another cognitive distortion in the world that we need to be aware of and especially when we’re using them in our own lives because a “should” statement is a statement indicating that someone else is breaking one of your unwritten rules that you have running around in your head. And the problem is of course that most other people don’t know what your rules are. And there’s usually not a very clear or easy way to communicate what those rules are. And that’s where “shoulds” come from. So if you’re in a situation, you’re at a restaurant, you have just been served a meal, and the steak isn’t cooked to the temperature that you asked it for. And you know some people in that situation would be like, I’m not going to ask them to take it back and redo it. That would be mortifying. I would be embarrassed. Whereas another person might be like, of course you should.. That’s… you know, that’s why you’re out eating at a restaurant. So different people have a different perception of a situation. And if if I were to tell you, well you should, you know, make them take that steak back and cook it to your the right temperature, I’m communicating one of my rules to you and it has no relevance to another person. My rules are not your rules. So shoulds are just a good indicator that you’re climbing up a tree there that isn’t likely to end in any kind of positive interaction.

Vincent M. Wales: John, this has all been really fascinating and everything, and I’m sure there are still some common cognitive distortions we haven’t mentioned, but I think what I’d like to ask is, what do we do about them? How do we how do we stop distorting our cognition?

Dr. John Grohol: That’s a great question and I think something that’s often overlooked in these kinds of discussions. The first thing you need to do is to become aware of the distortions that are running through your head. And the challenge here is that these distortions are running through your head every single day, every single day, and probably dozens of times a day for most people and you don’t even know that they’re going on because you’ve never stopped for a minute to think critically about them. Once you identify them and keep track of them over a period of time, usually the therapists recommend a couple of weeks, actually, because you just don’t realize how many cognitive distortions you’re you’re actually employing every day. Then you can start answering those distortions and talking back to them, because the problem with these distortions is that, again, they’re not true. And the best way answer a not truthful argument is with the truth, with the facts. So you need to examine the evidence – does the evidence actually support the way you’re thinking? Because nine times out of 10, if it’s a cognitive distortion, the evidence isn’t going to support your way of thinking. And that’s going to be a clear indication to you that what you’re thinking about in that moment in time is a problem and is probably causing you some concerns.

Gabe Howard: And obviously some things are easier to resolve. An example – Vince and I work together and Vince knows that I think that everything that I touch sucks. It’s just kind of a thing that I have and and Vince suggested that I get a bulletin board and put you know like nice e-mails that I get, thank you cards, awards, things and just you know stick them up on the bulletin board so when I think that I suck, I can look at them. And as you said, I’m now fighting cognitive distortions with facts. Now, that one’s simple, but if it’s something that impacts like your political views or your cultural views or your religious views, I imagine that’s going to be significantly more challenging. You probably just can’t get a bulletin board for that one.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah I mean we need to focus on the things that matter to you in your everyday life, I would argue, and primarily your relationships with other people, your relationships at work, things that are causing you anxiety or other kinds of problems, mentally or cognitively. I think those are the low-hanging fruit to focus on. I think you know your strategy for putting up some thoughts on a board, and some statements, is a perfectly sound and wonderful strategy. It’s something that anybody can try and do, which is to remind themselves of every time every time you’re feeling down on yourself to remind yourself of something positive that you’ve done, an accomplishment, an achievement that you’ve made, a raise or a promotion you got to work or you know finishing a semester at school. These are all achievements that people could and should be proud of, because they actually mean something and they should mean something to you. You know one of the things that we talk about in cognitive distortions as well, because black and white thinking is such a such an issue, is to really stop and recognize when you’re looking at an issue from a black and white perspective and start thinking about the different shades of gray in that perspective, the different other perspectives, rather than Democratic or Republican, whether I’m doing the chores or I’m not doing the chores. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you said you’re going to take out the trash and you didn’t take out the trash, so then you think oh well I didn’t take out the trash. I’m a total loser. I can’t do anything right. That’s usually the sort of thought pattern that a person might have if they have low self-esteem and and they have that cognitive distortion of overgeneralization. And the answer to that is no, I forgot to take out the trash this one time. I’m usually pretty good at taking out the trash, but this week I got busy with something else and I meant to take it out and I forgot and I’m human and that’s OK. Like human beings forget stuff. So that would be an example of of reattributing the event in a way that actually gives proper weight to alternative explanation for you know for what happened, rather than saying oh you’re a loser because you take out the trash, you say, no I’m human, I make mistakes. I made a mistake in this case. I’ll try and do better in the future, and that doesn’t make me a loser.

Vincent M. Wales: And you’re right people do forget things, for example, Gabe has somehow consistently forgotten to buy that bulletin board.

Gabe Howard: I… That’s not true. I actually have the bulletin board, I just haven’t hung it or put anything on it. But I have acquired the bulletin board.

Vincent M. Wales: OK. Baby steps.

Dr. John Grohol: The first step.

Gabe Howard: Yeah. The challenge is really I don’t have any skills to hang things, so…

Vincent M. Wales: I see.

Gabe Howard: That, and I’m incredibly lazy.

Dr. John Grohol: I could see how hammering a nail might be cause of anxiety.

Gabe Howard: I mean you probably shouldn’t give me tools. You never know what’s going to happen. John, thank you for being here. Do you have any final thoughts or words or advice when it comes to cognitive distortions, because as you pointed out – at least I believe you point out at the beginning of the show – this is this is really something that impacts everyone.

Dr. John Grohol: Yeah. Cognitive distortions are at the core of what a lot of cognitive behavioral therapists and other kinds of therapists try and work with people in psychotherapy with. So you’re kind of getting a jump on therapy and your own self-care if you learn more about cognitive distortions and learn how to take control of them in your own life. You might even save yourself a therapy bill or two.

Vincent M. Wales: Thank you. It’s always always interesting having you on, John.

Dr. John Grohol: Always a pleasure. Thank you guys.

Vincent M. Wales: Well again, also thank you everyone for listening in and I hope you’ll join us again next week for the Psych Central show.

Narrator 1: Thank you for listening to the Psych Central Show. Please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you found this podcast. We encourage you to share our show on social media and with friends and family. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website. Psych Central is overseen by Dr. John Grohol, a mental health expert and one of the pioneering leaders in online mental health. Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who travels nationally. You can find more information on Gabe at GabeHoward.com. Our co-host, Vincent M. Wales, is a trained suicide prevention crisis counselor and author of several award-winning speculative fiction novels. You can learn more about Vincent at VincentMWales.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email talkback@psychcentral.com.

About The Psych Central Show Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is also one of the co-hosts of the popular show, A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. As a speaker, he travels nationally and is available to make your event stand out. To work with Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

    Vincent M. Wales is a former suicide prevention counselor who lives with persistent depressive disorder. He is also the author of several award-winning novels and creator of the costumed hero, Dynamistress. Visit his websites at www.vincentmwales.com and www.dynamistress.com.

      from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-what-are-cognitive-distortions/