Excessive empathy can impair understanding.

A recent study in Germany enabled scientists to prove that people who tend to be empathic do not necessarily have the additional skills to understand people well at a cognitive level.

The study also discovered insight as to how the different networks in the brain are orchestrated, revealing that networks crucial for empathy and cognitive perspective do interact with one another, and in highly emotional moments

for example when somebody talks about the death of a close person

activation of the insula, (which forms part of the empathy-relevant network), can have an inhibiting effect in some people on brain areas important for taking someone else's perspective. This in turn can cause excessive empathy to impair social understanding.

Personally from a counsellor’s perspective there is a fine balance between empathy and cognitive understanding when entering into a client’s world and attempting to see things from their perspective.

“Is it possible as therapists to keep our empathy under control so it doesn’t run to excess?”

I think so... I feel a sense of duty of care to my clients to ensure my feelings don’t run away with me in light of their situations. That seems to keep my empathy in check and allows me to dip into it throughout the session.

After all, uncontrollable empathy can turn to sympathy which is not professional and in fact detrimental to client progress. Although it hasn’t happened to me yet, it’s possible that someone could just tip me over the edge with a sad story, and if I find my emotions too much to handle, I would need to seek supervision to guide my decision on how best to serve that client.

The study sees cognitive understanding and empathy as two different social skills, but the scientists proved they can affect each other and that heightened empathy around a person’s predicament can reduce your cognitive understanding of it.

That is certainly something we don’t want happening in Therapy! Part of the counsellors job is get a real understanding of what everything means to the client. The client can sometimes do an excellent job of describing their thoughts and feelings to the therapist, and our job is to read between the lines, and for that our cognitive perspective ideally should not be diminished by over empathising.

Growing up I remember getting very upset when I didn’t understand someone’s meaning. My emotion would start to swell at the beginning of a conversation sometimes in expectation of the fact that I wouldn’t comprehend. So I soon realised my excessive emotion was the culprit in my diminished understanding not my intelligence.

Was this the beginnings of me learning to control my emotion? Possibly.... Maybe that’s why I now feel I have a good handle on my empathy in therapy, allowing me to really listen to people.

So as counsellors, there are many good qualities and skills we should have, but perhaps it’s not just about simply having those qualities but...

How we use them and how we control them, after all, these are skills in themselves.

Ultimately our aim is to provide the most successful and productive sessions we possibly can for our clients.

If you or someone you know needs help, please contact Sam at Therapy for Life
Source of Scientific Research

12 Tips for "Couple Trouble"

Things to Think About

1      Take stock of what is truly important in your life.  How would you spend your time if you had six months to live?  How would you think about you relationship differently?

2      Accept compromise and tolerate the persistent differences.  Most happy couples learn to live with significant differences about money, in-laws, vacations, household chores, etc.  Acknowledging the differences between the two of you does not have to mean you agree with them.

3      Identify and separate your frustrations.  Frustrations come from many sources, work, children, school etc.  Frustrations can come from the present and the past.  Avoid dumping frustrations on your partner that belong somewhere else.

Things to Do

4      Catch your partner doing something right.  Look for partner behaviours that are pleasing, and compliment your partner when he or she does them.

5      Surprise your partner with thoughtfulness.  Use your knowledge of your partner to please him or her unexpectedly.  Allow your partner to discover your thoughtfulness by her or himself.  Curb your disappointment if your partner misses your effort.  Try something else.

6      Carve out “couple time” your partner will enjoy.  Our busy lives often fill up with tasks.  Take time to spend with your partner.

Manage Tense Moments

7      Before reacting angrily, count to ten.  This old adage actually works.  Speak your point, but without the anger.  Every expression of negative emotion requires five expressions of positive emotion to regain a position of neutral feeling

8      Negotiate an unconventional place to discuss contentious issues.   Moving from your usual location of arguments to another room can shift your disagreements enough to reduce negative feelings and introduce new ideas.

9      Take a time out.  When issues get heated, politely announce a twenty-minute time out and then return with a calm tone and the intention to compromise.

10  When you know you have made a mistake, apologise. Few of us live closely with a partner without making some mistakes.  Admit your fault, say your sorry, and explore ways to avoid the mistake in the future.

Listen with Your Heart 

11  Provide support, solutions are secondary.  Feeling attached is a strong binding force in a relationship.  Many partners seek to relieve the frustrations of daily life by sharing them with a partner.  Really listening fosters togetherness.  Many of us impatient listeners try to shorten the process by offering solutions before our partner is ready to hear them.  Listen first.  If a solution occurs to you say,  “When you are ready, dear, I have a solution that might be helpful to you.”   When your partner is ready, she or he will be more open to your idea.

12 Deeply listen to your partner.  On an issue that is important to your partner, repeat your partner’s words back to them so that he or she knows you are really listening.  Keep this up and when your partner is finished, say the three most challenging words in a relationship,

 “Is there more?” 

 Continue listening until your partner can answer “No” to this question.  This is difficult to do but can go a long way to strengthening your relationship. 

If you think you may benefit from couples counselling please contact Sam at Therapy for Life

You may want somewhere neutral to really sort things out, and you will learn new skills and techniques in communication to help your relationship long term.

How to Negotiate Awkward Questions

We often find people asking questions and probing into our lives. For some it’s fine, but for others who don’t feel they’re in a good place right now, it's intrusive and unsettling.

We all have standards when it comes to manners and many people who are 'people pleasers' will not want to offend the person probing for information, we sometimes reluctantly and uncomfortably give it all away in a rush of anxiety. 

"There are many reasons we want to keep things private, fear of judgement and misunderstanding is one of the main reasons."

No matter how much we may say

“I don’t care what they think of me”

We still do on some level...

Not only that, when we feel pressured we revert back to our child when being asked personal questions, similar to how you were spoken to years ago by a parent or teacher and therefore feel you must answer honestly and in full.

"Many clients come to me with feelings of stress and anxiety, and occasionally the problem is dealing with Other People."

Social skills levels vary in all of us, depending on our upbringing, our self-esteem and confidence, our character and how much we really enjoy others company.

But for those of us who struggle, there are a few techniques that will help you dodge or deal with those awkward probing questions and uncomfortable conversations with family, friends and colleagues.

Before you enter into your life experiment, it’s wise to just check in with yourself and be aware that you intend to tackle each encounter differently and take control using these techniques...

Distract - Diffuse - Delay 

Distract

This skill is used to change the subject of conversation or line of questioning being directed at you. It’s useful if you know some details about the person directing the questions or details about someone you mutually know.

For example

• Awkward Question:  “So how’s the job hunting going?”
• Answer 1 “That reminds me, I forgot to ask you about your new job.” (about them)
• Answer 2 “Job hunting? I’ve been spending time with my son, you know he’s starting senior school soon.” (about you but redirected)
• Answer 3 “Talking of jobs, I wonder how that job is going for Uncle Mike.” (about someone else) 

You can of course answer a question with another question, which is another form of Distraction...

For example

• Awkward Question: “I heard you lost your job, how are you managing financially?”
• Question response: “Talking of money, didn’t Jim win the lottery?"

Diffuse

If confrontation is possible, this can cause a great amount of anxiety before the event. Learning diffusing skills helps you to stay in control and levels your emotions, but also reflects the behaviour back to the source allowing them to become aware of their behaviour. Direct reflection must be done carefully as it may come across as sarcasm. The key with all of this is to remain sounding calm in your voice and keeping your own emotions out of the words.

For Example

• Confrontational Question: “Why do you always turn up late and ruin everything?”
• Answer 1 “I’m sorry you feel my being late has ruined everything” (direct reflection of their words absorbing their anger)
• Answer 2 “Perhaps there is something I can do to help put things right” (offering a solution)
• Answer 3 “Perhaps we could discuss how you feel about this later... ” (offering to talk extensively later once feeling calmer)

Delay

If you are someone that has difficulty saying ‘no’ to people and seem to take on everything that is asked of you, maybe you stutter and stumble when faced with difficult questions and personal subjects, or you might be caught off guard and suddenly put on the spot. This skill gives you time to go away and think about the response you would like to give.

For example

• Awkward question: “So how’s the love life going?”
• Answer 1 “Now there’s a question, I just need to pop to the loo, back soon.”
• Answer 2 “Excuse me just one moment while I grab a glass of water, I’ve got a dry throat.”
• Answer 3 “Hold that thought, just remembered I think I left my phone in the car.”

These all politely allow you time to escape giving you a moment to compose an answer. This is especially useful for people in a career where they are feeling overwhelmed and taken advantage of by colleagues and the workload.

So you may find it’s just easier not to talk about yourself and your situation certainly with family, friends and colleagues. 

"But that’s not saying that keeping it all inside is a good idea... it certainly isn’t." 

Finding the right person to talk to is the key, it might be a trusted friend or better still a therapist or counsellor who is impartial and non-judgemental. In these sessions you can talk about anything and everything, in fact the counsellor welcomes it, and you’d be amazed how much better you feel after just one session.

These are just some of the techniques your tailored plan may involve. It’s different for each person, and in therapy, we can use the time to practise and come up with some great responses to the expected uncomfortable questions you could be asked.

Preparation and practise is such a comfort to many of my clients, and just having that tailored plan sitting in your back pocket is a real reassurance and confidence booster for those awkward, fearful moments.

"Why not try out some of the techniques on people that don’t upset you, learn to master them and feel in control."

If you like these and want to learn more and improve your social skills therefore reducing anxiety, please contact me, I’d be happy to help you succeed and feel much more comfortable within social situations.

If you or someone you know is in need of some counselling, don’t hesitate to contact me by clicking here... Take care, Sam

Coping with a Crummy Christmas!

Along with all the hustle-bustle, shopping, preparation and festivities at Christmas, for many it can drum up memories of a negative childhood, reflections of lost loved ones, and a focused awareness of ones own lonely situation.

Throw in a dose of shortened darker days, which can trigger Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It’s no surprise many people end up wondering why they feel worse around this time of year. The expectation to be cheery and festive is possibly the exact opposite of what you are really feeling. 

“Does it help you to know... that’s normal?”

There are ways to beat it, but a tiny bit of motivation in the beginning is essential. Once you find a way through the initial part, your mind and body will feel better making it easier to help yourself.

"So what matters to you?"

 Is it friendship? Health? Family? Alone time?

First choose something that matters to you and pick a small activity to enable it.

For example:

Friendship: Ring a pal, and make a date for coffee

Family: pop round on the off chance

Health: start some walking in the evenings or treat yourself to some healthy smoothies.

Alone time: Pick a moment and promise yourself a treat already prepared.

If these are a little intense for you to manage right now, how about just initiating a conversation by texting someone a joke. Show them you are free and open to talk right now. Or just write down a list of realistic tasks to see if you could possibly choose to do one of them. You may not feel like it, but once you do, you’ll feel so much better.

It’s all about striking up a conversation with yourself, that might sound strange but often one of you becomes the logical, reasonable one, and that’s the one to listen to.

"Ask yourself, if your friend was feeling this low, what advice would you give them?"

This is often the best advice you could give to yourself whether its time to reach out to someone for company or help, or just to find some time to do something for yourself and feel human again.

If I were a betting lady, I’d say you read this, and then forget about it later, but tap into that logical side of you and seize the moment. If you are reading this and it has struck a chord,

it's no coincidence that you need a little help!

Some people help themselves with a few therapy sessions, and much of what is done is asking ‘open-ended questions’. An open-ended question is a question that requires a longer answer using your own knowledge or feelings.

But you can do this yourself if you feel unable to meet someone. All you need to do is write those answers down on paper. Reading your thoughts and feelings back to yourself is surprisingly revealing and informative.

Examples of good open-ended questions: 

• Why is this happening to me?
• How do I feel about that?
• Are there other ways to look at this?
• What would a friend say about this?
• How can I feel better?
• What things are bothering me and why?

You see these kinds of questions need some thought to answer, and it all comes from you. It stimulates a brainstorming session and writing it down means you don’t forget any of it. You can also come back to your brainstorming session at any point because it’s all written down.

This technique has another beneficial effect; it puts on paper what was buzzing around in your head and allows you to have permission to stop worrying about it. 

YES

Some people imagine the worries flying out of their head onto the paper as they write and it just gives their brain some breathing space. That breathing space might just enable you to focus on solutions later. 

"This is a fantastic technique if you have trouble sleeping."

Pop a pad and pen by your bed, and when you find your mind buzzing with thoughts and feelings... write them down and give yourself permission to review them in the morning NOT NOW... Now is sleep time.

So these are just a few skills you might find a therapist teaching a client.

I’m Sam, and I teach new skills to help people cope with life. If you fancy a boost to help you through Christmas, come and see me, you will be very welcomed.