VolunteerMasha Bennett

Self-help: Creative Writing

I do not consider myself particularly creative as a writer – a few years ago I wrote, and had published a horticultural reference book (that was in my past life as a botanist and gardener), which was rather specialised and dry, though it did receive quite positive reviews from the enthusiasts of the subject matter.

I also wrote quite a few articles over the years, on various topics from tropical fish-keeping, to gardening, mental health and complementary therapies. Whilst it was satisfying and fulfilling to see my work in print, I would not consider those particularly healing or therapeutic pieces of writing.

When I think of writing as a self-help approach, what comes to mind are a few poems and songs that I wrote at the times that were intensely emotional, when I was facing uncertainty or perhaps loss in my life (most of these pieces were in Russian, my first language, as I find it really difficult to rhyme in English!)

Writing down your thoughts, feelings, intuitions – whether in a journal, a story, a letter (including the one that you don’t send), a poem – can be an intensely healing, often cathartic experience. And I will often recommend to my clients that they put their thoughts and emotions on paper, in whatever form.

I personally never attempted a story or a novel – these always seemed an impossible task. A feat undertaken by other people who are far more creative, articulate, inventive, who have a richer vocabulary, more interesting lives and much broader knowledge of a wide range of topics than me.

But a seedling of hope did emerge when I attended a wonderful workshop, Unleash Your Writing Power with Judi Goodwin, a couple of years ago. During that course I found myself writing fluently, effortlessly and surprisingly eloquently. Not on a usual dry technical subject, but on a variety of topics that evoked emotion, memories and touched my deeper self, in a series of simple exercises that Judi offered to the group.

I have not written my masterpiece as yet, though a couple of non-fiction books are ticking along. But I am hoping to surprise myself when I attend a week-long workshop with Judi later this summer, in Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire, which is intended for chronic procrastinators like me. The course is aptly called “Don’t get it right, get it written”. From personal experience, I could thoroughly recommend Judi’s shorter workshops to any aspiring or experienced writer, you can get in touch with her through her website

Below is one of my poems which I wrote during my Creative Therapy course a few years ago.

Pearl

Just a grain of sand, insignificant,
Rocked by the salty seas steeped in moonlight,
Sheltered in soft layers of flesh,
A pearl was born.

Unimportant to anyone but the mother shell,
Hidden from dangers and joys, so innocent,
Secretly cherishing dreams of a wider world,
The baby pearl grew.

Months have passed, many years flew by,
No longer an angular speck, but a smooth round beauty,
With her sheen still concealed in a safe and calcareous jail,
The pearl longed for freedom.

And when freedom came with a deafening crush,
And the safe haven of shell was brutally opened,
With a drill through her heart, our pearl glimpsed her dream
Of a wider world… Strung with dozens of others
On a smooth and indifferent neck

7 comments - First published on: 31/03/2010

Self-help: CBT

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on the principle that our thoughts and behaviour affect our emotions, and that changing the way we think and act will change the way we feel.

CBT is the preferred method of treatment for anxiety and depression in the National Health Service in the UK. More research has been conducted into effectiveness of CBT than most other therapeutic modalities, and the National Institue for Clinical Excellence recommends it for treatment of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Many programmes for treatment of addictions and eating disorders are based on CBT.

Through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, the government has put in enourmous resources into training thousands of new CBT therapists, to treat hundreds of thousands of people diagnosed with the most common mental health conditions (depression, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, health anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, specific phobia), so the waiting lists are getting shorter now in most areas. In the past you could have waited for 2 years or more for your initial appointment (which was clearly not terribly helpful if you were suffering from panic attacks, PTSD, obsessive compulsive disorder or other distressing issues).

There is still a controversy raging regarding whether CBT is indeed the most effective treatment for the array of psychological and emotional difficulties, and therapists in other modalities are often critical of the apparent CBT monopoly in the NHS. Some believe that its effects are short-term.

However, CBT does offer a wide range of self-help approaches and tools, and I remember using it when I was 7 years old to treat myself for a spider phobia and later for my social anxiety. Obviously I didn’t know that I was doing CBT – but that is just an example of how common sense the cognitive behavioural approaches can be!

The internet is brimming with resources and information on CBT, and some of the most useful in my opinion are:

• Mood Gym http://moodgym.anu.edu.au

• Living Life to the Full http://www.livinglifetothefull.com

• Fear Fighter http://www.fearfighter.com (free access can only be prescribed by the GP if you live in England and Wales)

• Centre for Clinical Interventions http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au

• Get Self-Help http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk

Computerised CBT self-help programmes, including Beating the Blues, are becoming available throughout the UK. In Greater Manchester they are provided by Self-Help Services and some Primary Care Trusts. If you are suffering with anxiety or depression, you can get a referral to your local Primary Care Mental Health Team or Psychological Services via your GP.

3 comments - First published on: 24/03/2010

Self-help: EmoTrance

I recently attended a two-day course on EmoTrance, which is a simple self-help and therapeutic technique. I was initially sceptical, as it seemed to resemble some of the other approaches I am familiar with (e.g. self-hypnosis) but appeared too easy, too simplistic. But after the two days I was impressed with the results I was getting myself, and by observing others I could also see how they were benefiting.

EmoTrance is based on the concept of energy healing – it doesn’t really matter whether you believe in such a thing, you can still use the technique anyway, i.e. I myself sit on the fence. I use many of the ‘energy therapies’, but on the other hand I am a scientist (originally I was a biologist), and need to see something with my own eyes (or at least see a respectable scientific paper on it) before I believe in it.

As I have never seen any meridians, chakras etc, I don’t know whether such things exist. However, it is a fact that our nerves do conduct electricity and perhaps this is the ‘energy’ that we are referring to.

Anyway, I don’t really mind how something works as long as it works – e.g. I use my mobile phone every day, and whist I can’t even begin to imagine how I am able to speak to someone some thousands miles away on this little thingy with some buttons, it certainly doesn’t stop me from using it.

The basic procedure of EmoTrance is as follows:

When we feel a negative emotion – e.g. if someone says something unpleasant, or we recall a difficult memory – we will usually experience this emotion as a physical sensation in our body (a few people find it difficult to identify bodily sensations in relation to emotions, but most of us can do it quite easily – e.g. “butterflies in my stomach”, “heaviness in my chest”, “lump in my throat”).

Now, in EmoTrance we assume that these bodily sensations are simply ‘stuck energy’. The theory is that the energy is supposed to flow, but when it gets stuck for whatever reason, we experience a negative emotion.

Once we identified the bodily sensation – we focus on the area where we feel this ‘stuck energy’, and set an intention for that energy to ‘soften and flow. Normally the area of ‘stuckness’ will feel quite hard or solid, and the task is to, gently, without trying too hard or forcing it, to allow that sensation to begin to soften, as if to melt (like an ice cube beginning to melt round the edges), and allow that energy to flow.

As it begins to soften and flow (and again, for sceptics among us, we can treat this as a metaphor rather than the actual energy flow) the assumption is that this energy will find the pathways for it to flow down (or up) through.

There are no ‘formal’ energy pathways in EmoTrance, unlike in many other therapies (including, of course, acupuncture, where it is assumed that the energy flows through meridians), so the sensation of the energy flowing could be in any direction. The trick is not to try too hard, with the only instruction to gently repeat to yourself “soften and flow, soften and flow..” every now and again.

It is surprising how quickly a hard, unpleasant sensation inside the body can begin to literally melt, using just a simple reminder of “soften and flow”. It is important not to force it. So if the sensation appears to be stubborn and is not softening enough for it to be flowing and liquid, just keep your attention on the sensation and just allow it to soften a bit more and more.

It can take a little while, but eventually most people will experience some kind of flowing sensation, feeling of movement, with the energy (or whatever you like to call it) moving through and out of the body. Often, though not always, through arms and hands and out of the fingertips, through legs going down out of the feet, or coming up and out through breath.

Though it isn’t part of EmoTrance training curriculum, I suspect that this technique could be used successfully with physical sensations associated with addictive cravings, as well as with negative emotions. I have tried it with some promising results for urges for junk food and one or two instances of compulsive shopping :-) If anyone tries it out for themselves, I would be curious to know how it works for you.

Masha

5 comments - First published on: 18/03/2010

Self-help: “Box” metaphor

Continuing the theme of coping with intense feelings during some of the difficult times in the process of recovery, I find that sometimes the following metaphor is useful to help people deal with overwhelming emotion and troublesome memories.

Whilst I am a big proponent of expressing and releasing negative emotions, rather than suppressing and hiding them, there are occasions in life when we almost cannot cope with a wave of strong feelings. And this is where people can often turn back to the tried and tested coping mechanisms, like drugs and alcohol.

There are situations where someone gets extremely upset and, for whatever reason, the problem they are dealing with cannot be resolved or relieved at the time. For example, in the context of a therapy session this could happen towards the end where there would not be sufficient time to work through what is going on for the individual.

In these circumstances I may suggest to them that perhaps they would like to – temporarily – put the issue that is so disturbing to them, in some type of container or a box, for safekeeping, so that we/they can have a look at it later when they are ready.

You can experiment with this now, perhaps using an issue or event that is upsetting you just a bit (it is best to practice these techniques on issues with mild to moderate level of emotion). Say, your boss criticised you at work – you may be angry, anxious or embarrased about this, and find it difficult to get it out of your mind.

Now, take the picture of the event/issue that is bothering you and see yourself putting it in a container, say a box of some sort. Then, take your time to answer the following questions.

• What kind of box is it?
• What colour is it?
• Is there a pattern?
• How big is the box?
• What texture is it?
• What is it made of?
• Where is the box?
• Does it have a lock on it? One or more?
• Is there a key to the lock(s)?
• Where is the key?
• Is there another box inside it? Or, would you like to put it in a bigger box? (there can be several layers of boxes or packaging, if needed)
• Where would you like to put it for now? (e.g. in the shed at the bottom of the garden, on top of a mountain, bottom of the sea, on the moon etc.)

Notice how you feel now that the difficult issue is packed away for now. Remind yourself that you can open it when you are ready and willing to deal with the issue and the associated emotion.

It is really important that we use this type of exercise only with intention of getting temporary relief from intense emotions, rather than to pack away all our troublesome thoughts and memories – as you will know, the latter does not work long-term and is likely to be counterproductive!

Eventually we do need to open our metaphorical emotional “containers”, one by one, and deal with the issues that are still affecting us.

As one of the participants on my recent EFT workshop in London said, “In order to edit a Word document, you need to open the file first” – a metaphor that perhaps best suits technophiles, but sums up quite neatly the notion that in order to make lasting changes we do need to “open our emotional files” first.

5 comments - First published on: 18/11/2009