Tag: Counselor

Two Shrinks Over Drinks! With Lou Lasprugato

Hi Friends!

I am excited to share a new series with you! I call this one, “Shrinks Over Drinks!” And this episode will be called, “Two Shrinks Over Drinks!”

Have you ever wondered how it feels like to eavesdrop on a couple of shrinks having a casual conversation? Well, welcome to our world! Hope it doesn’t turn into a rude awakening! But seriously, this was a wonderful conversation with a fellow ACT therapist. Hope you enjoy your eavesdropping!

In this video, I feature a conversation with Lou Lasprugato who is an internationally recognized trainer and behavioral health provider. He’s a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, with private practices in both California and Virginia (United States), and Peer-Reviewed Trainer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, for which he also serves as chair of the Training Committee.

Here’s how Lou describes the video:

“I was delighted to have been hosted by Nathaniel Chua for his new podcast series entitled “Shrinks over Drinks” where we touched upon various ACT-related/informed topics, including eclectic vs integrative approach, clinical implications of functional contextualism, rule-governed behavior, couples therapy, ACT-flavored movies, our ACT origin stories, love, humanity, and more!”

For more information about Lou and his work please visit: www.loulasprugato.com!

We will talk about a number of exciting and interesting stuff like, what movies remind you of ACT and what’s love got to do with our work and many more!

For more information about One Life Only Counseling Services, please go to www.onelifeonly.net!

Common Sense and Psychological Sense

by Nathan Chua

As I learn more in the field, I can understand why some people might have a negative view of psychology.  Besides the stigma, there is plenty of material out there that can make any person think, “Do you really need a PhD to know that?”  In this article, I’d like to talk about some examples of how this happens and why much of the common sense advice we hear online can at best, be heard but reflected on before implementing.

Here are some examples of very common common sense advice we all may have heard about at some point:  

A common sense or logical approach to sadness or depression:

Eliminate negative thoughts!  Think positive!  This will work only if we eliminate a function of our thinking, which is thinking of the opposite!  

You and I can test this for ourselves.  Living in a tropical country like the Philippines, note what thoughts come to you when the heat and humidity become unbearable.  Your mind will probably remind you of how much more pleasant the weather is in the cooler months of the year.  During the cooler months, you would probably remember the impending summer months and how short-lived these more pleasant temperatures are.  This is our minds’ propensity to think of opposites.  For our minds to not be able to do this, we would have to damage it in some ways.  Thinking positive will only remind us of the negative thinking that we were trying to avoid in the first place.  

Here’s another reason why it becomes difficult for you and I to simply think positive.  In fact, it can even be counterproductive.  The command here is, “It is important for you to not think that negative thought.”  The paradox of this command is that it makes you monitor your thoughts, specifically, your negative thoughts.  So how do you know you’re successful?  You’re not thinking of the…oops!  In other words, simply using common sense to not think about a negative thought, already reminds you of what you are avoiding in the first place and it has taken such an important place in your mind.

This war between positive and negative thoughts is unending.  One thing for certain is life will provide us with challenges, which inevitably produce negative thoughts.  This is part of what we mean when we say that depression is not really due to sadness, but it is mostly about the struggle with sadness.  Thinking only positive thoughts may sound logical by the process of elimination, but it leaves us in a losing war with our feelings which will only disappear if we are in a state of numbness from medication, or if we were dead..        

Common sense advice on sleeping problems:

Be prepared to go to sleep!  Keep it as dark as possible, with just the right temperature, and dead silence.  What’s more, follow a routine of taking a warm shower or a hot bath and make sure you have comfortable clothes.  The fact that you are prepared to go to sleep means you are primed and anxious for a battle with your insomnia.  If you are prepared for a battle, it goes without saying that you will be awake!  

I remember in the early days of my work as a therapist, I used to give one piece of advice to conquer insomnia, try not to sleep!  In other words, come to an acceptance with your insomnia and you will probably be more able to sleep.  So common sense advice as mentioned above may only serve more to keep you awake than it is to help you get the rest you want. 

Couple advice on apologies or using formulaic sentences:

Be quicker to forgive or apologize to your partner or spouse.  That’s a common statement we hear from different experts in the field.  When taken as a rule for its own sake, it forgets about the different contexts that couples have.  As I have mentioned before in a previous article, context does not just refer to a physical location but also people and our very own thoughts and memories.  If applied without sensitivity to context, this can lead to misinterpretations and even more loops in a couple’s arguments.  A quick apology can be interpreted as insincere just as a quick word of forgiveness.  It’s easy to say words we don’t mean but body language is harder to disguise.  This can lead to more vigilance from one of the partners and more frustration on the other.  One is seen to be insincere while the other is perceived to be unappreciative, which leads to the point of them giving up on each other.     

The kind of psychology I espouse is not difficult because it takes a lot of effort, it is difficult because it is tricky.  As you might have experienced yourself, common sense advice can be effortful and offer more opportunities for discouragement and escalation to even bigger problems.  To paraphrase a famous psychologist, we are not in therapy to do the logical thing, but the psychological thing.  So next time you hear someone give common sense advice, please either think critically or try not to generalize.  You may even give it a try if you wish, but also be more noticing of the results.  What makes psychological sense may not be what common sense dictates, and that’s the whole point of this blog post.    

Who really needs counseling? Why is there a stigma against mental health concerns?

by Nathan Chua

I am writing this in the hope that we can soon find ourselves disabused of the ways our current mental health system has set us up to think about who needs help in their journey towards better life skills.  This post is going to include a personal account of my learnings in the field and how elated I am to find my reservations affirmed by a group that believes in empowering people rather than casting them as one of those unfortunate ones who need correction.  

I remember back in my graduate training days, I was introduced to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  The professor appeared very learned and quite self-assured that he knows the manual by memory.  I really felt like an idiot compared to how he was able to diagnose a case accurately as one of the exercises that formed part of the lecture that day.  In my mind, I thought, this person must be a genius!  The text we were using was even entitled as a simplified one and it was already more than 500 pages long!  The actual DSM manual is even less reader-friendly with more clinical language.  I told myself, I just want to be a helping person, a counselor.  Does it really take a photographic memory or an incredibly fast reading speed to become one?  

Moreover, as I read through the required textbook, I noticed how each syndrome or diagnosis ends with a segment that indicates a mental health disorder that is not otherwise specified.  So besides having to remember each symptom in a list of more or less 10 items, I also have to recognize the ones that cannot be found in the list!

Each diagnosis can be made if a client shows around five of these symptoms and voila!  You got yourself a diagnosis!  And off you go to your counselor or therapist, or to the local pharmacy to take the medication that will address your symptoms.  And as I read through each of the bullet points, I noticed that for almost every set, I could identify with a few of them!  I could at any given point in my life, be a person with a narcissistic or borderline personality!  I just miss out on one or two and then I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I don’t have that disorder!  

I told myself, if this is the way I should do therapy then I don’t think it is something I would find enjoyable.  What’s worse is that I see clients who have used such diagnoses on hand, and eventually use them as excuses for their behaviors.  Furthermore, it is used to cast blame on other people for not making room for their symptoms or weaknesses.  In other words, I can only change if others change the way they treat me!  And that includes the way my therapist handles me! 

In their work in contextual behavioral science, a group of researchers have found this system to be unhelpful or even harmful.  The group proposes that what we need is a system that uplifts people and identifies what people do that creates problems in the way they behave in society.  Their research has brought to fore the idea that all of us need therapy.  The metaphor used here is that of how preventive medicine works.  We don’t recommend a healthy diet and adequate exercise only to those who have already shown signs of high blood sugar or high cholesterol in their systems.  These practices are for all because there are certain processes that our bodies go through which are universal and can be addressed without having to wait for trouble.  The same is true with our mental health.  We need a regular diet of therapy or behaviorally flexible skills that we can practice in order to create better lives and relationships.  

Sadly, because of these models of disease and symptoms, many come to therapy rather late in the game.  People wait until their lives become stuck.  I am no exception.  I have seen my relationships destroyed and precious time unwisely spent on struggling with mental processes that are otherwise part of being a “normal” human being.  It’s time for a change.  It’s time for us to pursue this path and see if we can get better results in the lives of many.

Watch this on YouTube!  Or listen to it on Spotify!

Do you have irreconcilable differences with your partner?

by Nathan Chua

Couples often wonder how the person they loved has turned into someone they can’t stand at all. Why can’t he be responsible enough to take care of our finances? Why is she so disorganized and impulsive? He seems to care more about his family than he cares about me. I’m bored in this relationship. My partner doesn’t care about what I feel. She is too quiet and aloof. I don’t feel any closeness anymore.

Of course, there are legitimate reasons for you to consider leaving your partner such as violence and infidelity. But most couples often say that their issues mostly revolve around their differences. Thus comes the term, irreconcilable differences. What I enumerated in the first paragraph can be summed up in this term that we often hear couples declare as their reason for separating. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that these cannot be legitimate reasons to call it quits. I am in no position to tell you that you should stick to your relationship just because your problems simply fall into this category. And if your partner refuses to seek the help that your relationship could benefit from, then you may have a legitimate reason to find a more meaningful life either without a partner or with someone else.

Herein lies the beauty of Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy or IBCT. One of the details that I look for in couples as I work with them, are the reasons why they fell in love with each other in the first place! Let’s take the complaints that couples bring to the therapy room that I enumerated in the first paragraph.

Contextual Thinking vs. Essential Thinking:

Complaint #1: He’s not responsible enough. He is disorganized and impulsive.

You may have liked the idea that your partner now was, during your dating days, the helpless person who appreciated it everytime you would come to his rescue. Somehow you found a role that was satisfying in this relationship. It could also mean that your partner’s impulsiveness in certain contexts, can be an endearing quality! Why, he would buy me an expensive gift out of nowhere!

Complaint #2: She seems to care more about her family than us.

I think this is one of those issues that couples complain about quite often. Given our culture of being in a context where family is a Filipino’s greatest resource in hard times, is it any wonder that your partner finds it difficult to split loyalties in the context of your relationship?

Complaint #3: I’m bored in this relationship. My partner doesn’t care about what I feel. She is too quiet and aloof. I don’t feel any closeness anymore.

Maybe when you were looking for a partner, there was an attraction to this person’s aloofness. It made this person mysterious and interesting. She is also quite the opposite of the noisy, agitating people you grew up with as a child. Finally, I can have the peaceful and quiet relationship that I was looking for. At the same time, your aloof partner may have liked the idea that you gave him the emotional element in his life. So goes the saying that opposites attract.

IBCT encourages couples to see that their partner will never be everything to them. No couple is one hundred percent compatible. In fact, the chances of you ending up with someone who is incompatible with you is 100 percent! Let’s face it, your partner who goes at a snail’s pace will go at a snail’s pace in situations when this quality can be disadvantageous to facing life’s inevitable problems as you go through it no longer as individuals but as a couple.

So if you are wondering what I mean by contextual vs. essential thinking, your partner and you behave differently in different contexts! Your partner is not essentially a bad person. (Believe me, I have yet to encounter a client who I felt had inherently harmful intentions!) If you come to therapy with the same intention of saving your relationship, it is more likely that you and your partner are doing your best to show that you care and you want your partner to be happy. Your partner is not essentially defective. They just learned to behave in certain ways in certain situations that at times covers other situations that do call for a different behavior!

That’s what IBCT makes you aware of as aspects of your relationship that are better off accepted and may take a long while or even forever to change. If we can learn to notice and accept these so-called irreconcilable differences, chances are, your partner will notice that. And having the minds that we have, I always go back to what Carl Rogers had said many years ago. Let me paraphrase it to apply not just to yourself but also for your partner and your relationship.

The Quote from Carl Rogers:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”

Paraphrase:

“The curious paradox is that when my partner accepts me, just as I am, then I can change.”

Coping with Tunnel Vision During a Crisis

by Nathan Chua

I am quite certain that most if not all of you, my readers, have experienced being caught in a difficult situation and having to focus mainly on the problem at hand.  When there is a crisis, we often develop tunnel vision and end up doing greater harm to ourselves and others.  For example, when your teenaged child comes home really late, tunnel vision can lead a parent to think that the child doesn’t care and that the only solution is to show your anger in order to keep them in line.  These situations don’t usually end up well.  Often, what could have been a moment of tenderness and bonding, turns into a messy fight.  

Now don’t get me wrong.  Tunnel vision is not always harmful.  There are plenty of times when you and I need it.  If your toddler suddenly feels the urge to go towards an open window and tries to climb over it, tunnel vision will help you get your child out of that precarious situation.  In these instances, following the dictates of your mind works well for you and the survival of your child.  If there was a wild animal chasing you thinking you are prey, tunnel vision is what you need in that moment to come out of it alive. 

The topic I’d like to discuss here is about the times when developing tunnel vision and instantaneously acting on it, may not be a move in our best interest.  A timely example would be that incident when we saw a famous actor in Hollywood come up to a comedian in front of millions of people watching the Annual Academy Awards for motion pictures.  We can say that Will Smith developed tunnel vision in the heat of the moment.  Although the context of the moment would certainly make hurt feelings understandable, standing up and committing a violent act is the proverbial solution that becomes the problem.  

On a larger scale, think about the war in Ukraine.  That tunnel vision can cause egregious acts done against our fellow humans.  To use an example closer to home, how many times have we seen road rage cause tunnel vision, rendering someone who has no record of violence helpless enough to physically or emotionally harm or even kill someone for a slight.

So here are some ways that I borrowed from Dr. Steven Hayes’ book, “A Liberated Mind,” that could be helpful for us to cope with tunnel vision when it occurs.  In my opinion, it is but natural for us to get into that mode of mind, it only takes some mindfulness in the moment to avoid as I had mentioned earlier, making the solution become the problem. 

  • Try to sense in your body where you feel this current issue is affecting you.  Is it a heaviness in the chest?  Does it feel like a weight on your shoulders?  Tightness in your head?  Notice these sensations and give it a good clean yes.  Give yourself a minute to experience this without defense. 
  • Have you seen anyone you cared for in your family who had suffered something like this?  Recall that moment and see if you can purposefully witness their struggles with compassion. 
  • Say yes to the thoughts that come with this problem.  See if you can drop any kind of struggle with it and notice them for what they are, just thoughts. 
  • Is there something here that you can learn from if you project yourself into the future?  Is there something in this experience that can help you learn something about your life’s journey?  
  • See if you can find out why this is so painful for you.  Behind anything that hurts you deeply, there could be the values you hold dear.  Maybe you’re hurt because you care about honesty or openness.  Maybe you are angered because of your love for justice.  What could be the loving and caring thing to do at this moment?   
  • If this was a story in a book you were writing about a hero’s journey, what could this moment be for your hero?  How can this moment make your hero become wiser and more alive?   
  • Do you have other memories attached to this present problem of yours?  Can you willingly say yes to just one more of these? 
  • If there’s someone that you blame for this, can you think of times that you may have done something similar to what they’ve done to you, even if it was in a less hurtful way?  Sometimes we point our problems towards other people and avoid seeing how we have in the past behaved in the same way.
  • If you had a friend who had this problem, how would you feel towards them?  What would you suggest they do?
  • You have picked something that your mind says you have to say no to or that you shouldn’t have.  Is there something that’s hard for you to give up in order to let go of that no?  Perhaps saying yes to the hurt feelings would indicate that you are a weak person.  Can you give up that struggle with that thought and allow that to be there just as a thought?
  • If you could have these thoughts and feelings without having to fight them, what would you be able to accomplish in your life?  Think about taking this along for the ride of your life or the journey you set out for yourself.

That’s all for now folks.  Hope this will give you a wider perspective every time your mind gives you that urge to go into tunnel vision.

Listen to this post on Spotify! Click here!

Climbing the Mountain of Your Life

by Nathan Chua

Have you lost hope recently?  Does it feel like you have hit a ceiling in your life?  Does it feel like everything is just one dreadful day after another?  Has life turned into a series of musts, shoulds, and can’ts?  Are you tired of running away?  Perhaps running away from a life that you had always wanted?  What is left to pursue with your time? 

Whether it’s an addiction, anxiety, depression, or whatnot, it’s probably time to change your perspective on what’s going on with your life.  If feeling safe is what you had been looking for in a long time, then you might notice that it is only a matter of time when your anxiety, depression, addictive urges, or anger catch up with you.  It’s a fruitless endeavor.  Why?  Because you had been hardwired to have them.  To what extent will depend much on your personal history.  Unfortunately, no matter what, your personal history is going to be with you.  Your memories are not your roommates that you can avoid by just picking another place to stay. 

Clients who start gaining the ability to move forward in their lives would often run back for help whenever there are new challenges that come or when these obstacles feel insurmountable.  Well, here is something that might encourage you.  Let’s say you are a mountain climber.  As you climb up that mountain, you would probably feel the challenges getting more daunting. Why?  Because the higher you go the harder your fall will be.  You also notice that you begin to have some bruises or more tired muscles as you reach one milestone after another.  Your supplies may also show that you have less of what’s left as you climb.  There may also have been unexpected delays or injuries that needed more time to heal.

Such is life when you go after what it is that gives it meaning and purpose.  Success or no success, what’s important is the climbing.  I mean you probably wouldn’t exchange the experience with just having a drive up the mountain in a nice SUV.  

You might be reading this and think about what this has got to do with your problems.  Let’s say you have the dream of finding a partner that you can love.  You may fail along the way.  Not all your relationships end up with an exchange of vows.  The other end of this journey could be finding the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.  Either way there is one common denominator in this pursuit of a meaningful relationship.  You want to be in a relationship because you want to love and care for someone.  And this doesn’t change regardless of outcomes, but the challenges can change and become even more challenging.

Another example is, you might be working hard for your dreams of sharing the fruits of your labor with people you care for.  Bottom line is you probably are not working for money for the sake of one day lying down on top of it.  You probably want to use this money for the people that matter to you, including yourself and maybe that sense of being independent.  Whether you succeed or not in making the level of income you want, it would not change the fact that you wanted to be generous with what you earn.  So the outcome doesn’t really change who you are and what you want to be.  That’s a constant companion.  They are your dreams and aspirations of being the person you want to be and living the life you want to live.

So let that mountain that I just stuck in your mind be your guiding metaphor.  As you climb higher towards your dreams, you will have new and more difficult challenges that will come.  Learning how to embrace them as opportunities to continue with your mission is the key.  It is not about results, it’s about you and your dream of just being what you want to be in every step of your way there.  

Listen to this blogpost on Spotify! Click here!     

Interview Conducted with Dr. Matthieu Villatte!

Perhaps we are making Philippine history here!

Here’s a video of my interview with Matthieu Villatte, PhD who is an Assistant Professor at Bastyr University in Seattle, WA in the United States.

He obtained his doctoral degree in psychology in France, where he was trained as a clinical psychologist. He moved to the US in 2010 to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Nevada, Reno under the mentorship of Steven Hayes, PhD. 

Matthieu Villatte is the author of numerous books and chapters on mindfulness, acceptance, experiential therapies, and contextual behavioral science, such as the first manual published in French on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mastering the Clinical Conversation: Language as Intervention, co-authored by Jennifer Villatte and Steven Hayes.

In the video, we talked about how the principles of behavioral therapy apply to everyday lives of people, the OFW or migrant worker phenomenon prevailing in the Philippines, as well as the pandemic!

Listen to the audio version on Spotify! Click here!

How to be a guide to your teenager

by Nathan Chua

Generation gap?  What happened to my baby?  I want the best for her but she seems to not understand!  He’s not listening to my words anymore.  She seems to spend more time in her room, on her phone than with us parents exactly when there are opportunities to connect and bond.  These are just some of the common problems I see from parents who, for the first time, are feeling like they have lost control over their teenage child.

One of my favorite metaphors to share with parents who struggle with their teenagers is that of a mother bird who has a few grown up chicks that are just about ready to fly out on their own.  Your teenager wants to take flight.  They will have some unsuccessful attempts and this is the time you could be seen by your child either as a teammate or a big obstacle.  

The teen years are like the toddler years.  They can be really challenging.  Remember how much you had to worry about your toddler hurting himself, or losing them in a mall?  Your teenager is no longer a child but not yet an adult, just as your toddler is no longer an infant but not yet able to walk without falling badly at times.  This can be a painful realization for the parents.  If there was separation anxiety for kids, I think this could be the closest thing to it that parents experience.  

One of the more frequent complaints I get from parents is that their kids are no longer listening to their admonitions and at times showing no fear of their sterner warnings.  In some cases, one parent plays the good cop and the other the bad one.  Not only does the conflict happen between the parents and the child, but also between the couple.  One resents playing the bad cop and the other resents the other for being the bad cop.  It’s quite a common issue for parents with kids, to disagree about how to parent.

But I get it.  Parents have all the good intentions to keep their kids from harm and get them to a brighter future.  The problem lies in the way they do it.  Dr. Darin Cairns has come up with an interesting metaphor on how to help your relationship with your teenager get better.  Dr. Cairns asks parents to choose if they wish to act as gatekeepers or guides. 

More often, parents perform the role of gatekeepers.  They determine for their children what they should or should not do.  Of course, there are certainly some things that parents would not want their kids to try, like crossing the street without a care about vehicles coming toward them.  Most of the time however, gatekeepers use rules of what to do or not to do for their kids without much of an explanation or giving the child a sense of some autonomy over their actions and choices.  Guides, on the other hand, are parents who validate their teens, allow them to make choices, and let them see for themselves the consequences of these choices.  

It doesn’t end there though, being a positive guide is also part of this equation.  By positive I don’t mean that everything should be happy and joyful.  This will give the impression to the child that it is bad to feel sad or anxious or angry or any of the unpleasant emotions.  By positive I mean that you should focus on asking your child to do things rather than telling them what not to do.  Why?  Because through this your child will not feel criticized and will take your guidance as an opportunity to learn new things and give them a sense of agency.    

Well, I am getting tired as I write this.  Suffice it to say that I completely empathize with parents of teenagers.  It is quite the chore but nonetheless it can be rewarding to be a guide and a friend to your teenager rather than a gatekeeper who is constantly on the lookout for what disaster your kid is up to now.  Haha!