On this weekend, when there is so much wrong in the world, it may be more important than ever for us to gather in small groups, pause, focus on what’s right and good, and express gratitude.
How’s that going? Are you feeling the gratitude?
Often, focusing on what’s right, on good things, and on strengths and solutions, takes effort. It’s not easy to orient our brains to what’s right, even in the best of times.
As negativity rains down on and around us through news and social media, it’s easy to get judgy. And when I say “judgy” I don’t mean judgy in a nice, positive, “I love your shoes” or “You have such creative views on immigrants” sort of way. Shifting our brains from their natural focus on angst and anger to gratitude feels difficult and sometimes impossible.
First Toast: Let’s hear it for the forces outside and inside ourselves that make it REALLY DIFFICULT to FEEL gratitude, hope, and positivity.
[Editor’s note: When I’m suggesting we push ourselves to experience gratitude and focus on strengths, I’m not endorsing toxic positivity. Sometimes we all need to rant, rave, complain, and roll around in the shit. If that’s what you need, you should find the time, place, and space to do just that. What I’m suggesting here is that opening yourself up to experiencing gratitude and focusing on strengths and solutions is like a muscle. If we intentionally give it a workout, it can get stronger. But, if you’re not ready for or interested in a positivity workout, don’t do it!]
Second Toast: How about some cheer for the EFFORT it takes to push ourselves to focus on gratitude, hope, strengths, and solutions—because that’s how we grow them. Woohoo!
Earlier this year, I attended a medical conference where the presenter did an exquisite job describing the “problem-solving model.” Having taught about problem-solving for three decades, my mind wandered, until the presenter—who was excellent by the way—passionately stated, “Before moving forward, before doing anything, we need to define the problem!”
Maybe it was just me being oppositional, but my wandering mind suddenly became woke and whispered something sweet in my inner ear, like, “This might be bullshit.”
I found myself face-to-face with the BIG problem with problem-solving.
You may be wondering, “What is the BIG problem with problem-solving?” Thanks for wondering. The problem includes:
As my colleague Tammy says, maybe we don’t need to gather round and worship the problem.
When we drill deeper and more meticulously into what’s wrong, we can grow the problem.
As social constructivist theorists would say, “When we center the problem in our collective psyches,” we give it mass, and make it more difficult to change.
What if, instead of relentlessly focusing on the problem, we decided to only discuss what’s going well and possible solutions? What if we decided to grow and celebrate good things?
Adopting a mental set to persistently focus on strengths and solutions is not a new idea. Back in the 1980s, Insoo Kim Berg and Stephen de Shazer pushed as, “Solution-focused brief therapy” (SFBT).
At the time, I found their ideas interesting, but not captivating. One of my friends and a champion for all things strengths-focused (you know who you are Jana), knew the famous Insoo Kim Berg. Once, as Jana and I brainstormed, the possibility of consulting with Insoo came up. Jana said something like, “I could reach out to her, but if we frame this as a problem, Insoo might not even understand what we’re talking about. Insoo only speaks the language of solutions.”
Third Toast: Let’s toast Jana and Insoo Kim Berg for inspiring me to suddenly remember a conversation from 25 years ago.
The language of problems has deep roots in our psyche. Of course it does. Evolutionary psychology people would say we had to notice and orient toward problems to survive, and so we passed problem-focused genes onto offspring. As our brains evolved, they became excellent at identifying problems, because if we didn’t quickly identify problems, threats, or danger, we would be dead.
[Editor’s note: In contrast to biological evolution theory, evolutionary psychology is incredibly fun, but not very scientific. I know I’m supposed to be orienting myself to the positive right now, but evolutionary psychology mostly involves creating contemporary explanations for observed patterns from the past. As you can imagine, it’s quite entertaining and easy to make up fascinating explanations for human behavior, especially if you don’t need to reconcile your creative ideas with anything resembling fossilized evidence.]
Fourth Toast: Hat’s off and glasses up to evolutionary psychology for aptly demonstrating the power of social constructionism. Boom!
Most of us are naturally well-versed in the language of problems. We see them. We expect them. Even when no problems are present, we worry they’re coming. And they are. Problems and catastrophes are always on their way.
But most of us are not especially well-versed in Insoo Kim Berg’s language of strengths and solutions. Becoming linguistically fluent in strengths and solutions requires effort, discipline, and practice. How could it be any other way? If we WANT to speak the language of the positive, we need to learn and practice it; immersion experiences can be especially helpful.
As our collective gratitude weekend ends, we might benefit from committing ourselves to practicing the language of the positive. We could strive to become so linguistically positive that, at night, we begin dreaming in solution-focused, strengths-based language.
Fifth Toast: Let’s raise our glasses to dreaming in bright, colorful strengths.
We shouldn’t forget our old, natural, first language of problems. Problem-focused language is essential to survival and progress. We just need to stretch ourselves and become bilingual. Imagine the benefits for individuals, families, communities, and nations when we become intentionally bilingual, moving beyond the problem saturated language of our times, and into a solution-saturated future.
Last Toast: Three cheers to you, for making it to the end of this blog. May you have a glorious gratitude-filled holiday weekend.
Every day, I keep getting older. I can’t seem to stop myself. And every day, I keep running into dialectics. They’re everywhere. My aging experiences of ubiquitous dialectics seems consistent with the fact that yesterday, Merriam-Webster declared “polarization” their word of the year (https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year).
Boo, Merriam-Webster! I would have chosen dialectics. Here’s one of the definitions for dialectic listed in the online M-W dictionary: “the Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite.” TBH, I have very little understanding of what the heck Hegel was talking about, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening ALL. THE. TIME.
This morning I find myself plagued by the idea that although most mental health professionals advocate mindfulness, many mental health professionals (including myself, sometimes), aren’t very mindful when using basic counseling skills in practice. Today’s topic is questions. I’m polarized inside a dialectical and thinking, “We should all be more mindful and intentional in our use of questions in counseling and psychotherapy.” At the same time, I’m sure, “we should all relax and be more of ourselves.”
With these confusing caveats in mind, today, tomorrow, and maybe the next day, I’m posting about the very basic use of questions in counseling and psychotherapy. This content is excerpted from our Clinical Interviewing textbook.
Here’s our opening section on questions, which is conveniently found in Chapter 5 of Clinical Interviewing, which I’m continually surprised that not everyone has read (but really not at all surprised).
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Questions
Imagine digging a hole without a shovel or building a house without a hammer. For many clinicians, conducting an interview without using questions constitutes an analogous problem: How can you complete the interviewing task without using your most basic tool?
Despite the central role of questions in clinical interviewing, we’ve avoided discussing them until now. Similarly, when teaching clinical interviewing skills, we usually prohibit question asking for a significant portion of the course (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Means, 1987). Our rationale includes several factors: Questions are easy and often misused. Also, because questioning isn’t the same thing as listening, our goal is for students to develop alternative information-gathering strategies. Asking questions can get in the way of gathering important information from clients. The Little Prince expresses a fundamental problem with excessive questioning.
Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. (de Saint-Exupéry, 1943/1971, p. 17)
The questions you ask may be of no value to the person being asked. Ideally, your questions should focus on what seems most important to clients.
Despite our reservations about excessive questioning, questions are a diverse and flexible interviewing tool; they can be used to
Stimulate client talk
Inhibit client talk
Facilitate rapport
Show interest in clients
Show disinterest in clients
Gather information
Confront clients
Focus on solutions
Ignore the client’s viewpoint
Stimulate insight
There are many forms or types of questions. Differentiating among them is important, because different question types produce different client responses. In this section, we describe open, closed, swing, indirect, and projective questions. Chapter 6 covers therapeutic questions. Although we distinguish between general question types and therapeutic questions, all questioning can be used for assessment or therapeutic purposes.
Open Questions
Open questions are used to facilitate talk; they pull for more than a single-word response. Open questions ordinarily begin with either How or What. Sometimes questions that begin with Where, When, Why, and/or Who are classified as open, but such questions are only partially open because they don’t facilitate talk as well as How and What questions (Cormier, Nurius, & Osborn, 2017). The following hypothetical dialogue illustrates how using open questions may or may not stimulate client talk:
Therapist: When did you first begin having panic attacks?
Client: In 1996.
Therapist: Where were you when you had your first panic attack?
Client: I was just getting on the subway in New York City.
Therapist: Why haven’t you tried to ride the subway again?
Client: Because I’m afraid I’ll have another panic attack.
Therapist: How are you handling the fact that your fear of panic attacks is so restrictive?
Client: Not so good. I’ve been getting more and more scared to go out. I’m afraid that soon I’ll be too scared to leave my house.
As you can see from this example, open questions vary in their openness. They don’t uniformly facilitate depth and breadth of talk. Although questions beginning with What or How usually elicit the most elaborate responses from clients, that’s not always the case. More often, what’s important is the way a particular What or How question is phrased. For example, “What time did you get home?” and “How are you feeling?” can be answered very succinctly. The openness of a particular question should be judged primarily by the response it usually elicits.
Questions beginning with Why are unique in that they commonly elicit defensive explanations. Meier and Davis (2020) wrote, “Questions, particularly ‘why’ questions, put clients on the defensive and ask them to explain their behavior” (p. 23). Why questions frequently produce one of two responses. First, as in the preceding example, clients may respond with a form of “Because!” and then explain, sometimes through detailed and intellectual responses, why they’re thinking or acting or feeling in a particular manner. Second, some clients defend themselves with a “Why not?” response. Or, because they feel attacked, they respond confrontationally with “Is there anything wrong with that?” Therapists minimize Why questions because they exacerbate defensiveness and intellectualization and diminish rapport. In contrast, if rapport is good and you want your client to move away from emotions and speculate or intellectualize about something, then a Why question may be appropriate and useful.
Closed Questions
Closed questions usually begin with words such as Do, Does, Did, Is, Was, or Are and can be answered with a yes or no response. They’re useful if you want to solicit specific information. Traditionally, closed questions are used later in the interview, when rapport is established, time is short, and efficient questions and short responses are needed (Morrison, 2007). Questions that begin with Who, Where, or When also tend to direct clients toward talking about specific information; therefore, they should be considered closed questions (see Practice and Reflection 5.1).
Closed questions restrict verbalization and lead clients toward details. They can reduce or control how much clients talk. Restricting verbal output is useful when working with clients who talk excessively. Closed questions are used to clarify behaviors and symptoms and consequently used when conducting diagnostic interviews. (For example, in the preceding example about a panic attack on the New York subway, a diagnostic interviewer might ask, “Did you feel lightheaded or dizzy?” This question would help confirm or disconfirm one symptom possibly linked to panic disorder.). As compared to open questions, closed questions usually feel different to clients.
Sometimes, therapists inadvertently or intentionally transform open questions into closed questions with what’s called a tag query. For example, you might start with, “What was it like for you to confront your father after all these years,” and then tag “was it gratifying?” onto the end.
Transforming open questions into closed questions is fine if you want to limit client elaboration. When asked closed question, clients will likely focus solely on the answer (e.g., whether they felt gratification when confronting their father, as in the preceding example). Clients may or may not elaborate on feelings of fear, relief, resentment, or other thoughts, emotions, and sensations.
If you begin an interview using a nondirective approach, but later change styles to obtain more specific information through closed questions, it’s wise to use role induction to inform your client of your forthcoming shift. You might say,
We have about 15 minutes left, and I have a few things I want to make sure I’ve covered, so I’m going to start asking you more specific questions.
Beginning therapists are usually advised to avoid closed questions because closed questions are frequently interpreted as veiled suggestions. For example:
Client: Ever since my husband came back from active duty, he’s been moody, irritable, and withdrawn. This makes me miss him terribly, even though he’s home. I just want my old husband back.
Therapist: Have you tried telling him how you’re feeling?
We usually boldly tell our students to never ask, “Have you tried. . .” We believe have you questions are advice-giving in disguise. We’re not against advice; we’re just against asking questions that imply clients should have already tried what you’re recommending. In the preceding interaction, the client might think the therapist is suggesting she should open up to her husband about her feelings. Although this may be a reasonable idea, therapists and clients are better served with an open question: “What have you tried to help get your old husband back?” Our advice—which is not disguised in the least—is that when you feel an impulse to ask a “have you” question (and you will), simply stop yourself, and add the word “What” to the beginning to make it an open question. Closed questions are a helpful interviewing tool—as long as they’re used intentionally and in ways consistent with their purpose.
Swing Questions
Swing questions can function as either closed or open questions; they can be answered with yes or no, but they also invite more elaborate discussion of feelings, thoughts, or issues (Shea, 1998). Swing questions usually begin with Could, Would, Can, or Will. For example:
Could you talk about how it was when you first discovered you were pregnant?
Would you describe how you think your parents might react to finding out you’re leaving?
Can you tell me more about that?
Will you tell me what happened in the argument between you and your daughter last night?
Ivey and colleagues (2023) believe swing questions are the most open of all questions. They note that clients are empowered to decline answering a swing question by saying something like, “No. I’d rather not talk about that.”
For swing questions to work, you should observe two basic rules. First, avoid using swing questions unless rapport has been established. Without rapport, swing questions may backfire and function as a closed question (i.e., the client responds with a shy or resistant yes or no). Second, avoid using swing questions with children and adolescents, especially early in the relationship. This is because children and adolescents often interpret swing questions concretely and respond accordingly (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2007b). For example:
Counselor 1: Would you tell me more about the fights you’ve been having with your classmates?
Young Client 1: No.
Counselor 2: Could you tell me about how you felt when your dad left?
Young Client 2: No.
Counselor 3: Would you like to come back to my office?
Young Client 3: No.
Swing questions with young clients (especially if you don’t have positive rapport) can produce awkward and unhelpful interactions.
Indirect or Implied Questions
Indirect or implied questions usually begin with I wonder or You must or It must (Benjamin, 1987). They’re used when therapists don’t want to directly ask or pressure clients to respond. The following are examples of indirect or implied questions:
I wonder how you’re feeling about your upcoming wedding.
I’m wondering about your plans after graduation.
I’m curious if you’ve given any thought to searching for a job.
You must have some thoughts or feelings about discovering your child is transgender.
It must be hard for you to cope with your wife being shipped out to serve overseas.
You can use other indirect sentence stems to gently imply a question or prompt clients to speak about a topic. Common examples include “I’d like to hear about…” and “Tell me about…”
Indirect or implied questions can be useful early in interviews or when approaching delicate topics. Like immediacy, they can contain a supportive self-disclosure of interest. They’re noncoercive, so they may be especially useful as an alternative to direct questions with clients who seem reticent (C. Luke, personal communication, August 7, 2012). When overused, indirect questions can seem sneaky or manipulative; after repeated “I wonder…” and “You must…” probes, clients may start thinking, “And I’m wondering why you don’t just ask me whatever it is you want know!”
Projective or Presuppositional Questions
Projective questions are used to ask clients to imagine particular scenarios and help them identify, explore, and clarify unconscious or unarticulated conflicts, values, thoughts, and feelings (see Case Example 5.5). Solution-focused therapists refer to projective questions as presuppositional questions (Murphy, 2023). These questions typically begin with some form of What if and invite client speculation. Projective questions can trigger mental imagery and prompt clients to explore thoughts, feelings, and behaviors they might have if they were in a particular situation. For example:
What would you do if you were given one million dollars?
If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
If you needed help or were really frightened, or even if you were just totally out of money and needed some, who would you turn to right now? (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 1998, p. 193)
What if you could go back and change how you acted during that argument (or other significant life event): What would you do differently?
Projective questions are also used to evaluate client values, decision making, and judgment. For example, a therapist can analyze a response to the question “What would you do with one million dollars?” to glimpse client values and self-control. Projective questions are sometimes included as a part of mental status examinations (see Chapter 9 and the Appendix).
CASE EXAMPLE 5.5: PROJECTIVE QUESTIONING TO ELICIT VALUES
Your use of projective questions is limited only by your creativity. John likes to use projective questions to explore relationship dynamics and values. For example, with a 15-year-old male client who had an estranged relationship with his father and was struggling in school, John asked, “If you did really well on a test, who’s the first person you would tell?” The client responded, “My dad.” After hearing this response, John used the fact that the boy continued to value his father’s approval to encourage the boy and his father to meet together for counseling to improve their communication and relationship.
[End of Case Example 5.5]
And . . . here’s a pdf of the Chapter 5 Table describing the different question types.
Tomorrow is a celebrated holiday involving gratitude. Given the American history of mistreatment, oppression, and abuse of indigenous peoples, I have trouble saying the holiday name. You may think I’m being over-sensitive or politically correct, or you may find yourself seeking some other label to describe me. No worries, I’m here to help. My current labels (which switch with considerable frequency) are grumpy and discouraged.
I know better than to dwell too long on my grumpy and discouraged thoughts, feelings, and somatic complaints. Those of you who know me well know that it makes me grumpy to even use the word somatic, and so the discouragement is deep. While I’m drilling down into my negativity, I’ll add that it also makes me grumpy to hear the words “fight-or-flight” and “brain shut-down” and “amygdala hijack” and “PHQ-9 or GAD-7” and “mental illness” and the mispronunciation of “Likert” and everything else our culture is using to push us into negative mental and emotional states—and keep us there.
I also know that some of the preceding linguistic pet peeves may seem cryptic. That’s okay. I like being mysterious. I’ll just say that I would prefer “amygdala hijinks” over “hijack,” and leave the mystery unsolved.
Not surprisingly, the bigger laments are what give the smaller laments most of their negative power. My bigger laments are probably obvious, but here are a few: How did we develop into a culture where the voices and opinions of people like Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan shape the psychology, emotions, and behavior of so many young men? How did we become a nation that could elect a convicted felon, rapist, racist, sexist, reality television star as the next president? When did Christianity take a turn and become a narcissistic, nationalist, anti-immigrant movement? How did our mainstream media become an entity that gives voice to social media posts from the president elect? And, because the president elect is a well-known serial and pathological liar, how did the media decide they should center their reporting around his likely dissembling bloviations as potentially truthful statements?
I do have to admit that it makes me a little bit happy to use the word bloviations. That was fun.
Now that I have you (my six faithful readers) grumpy and discouraged along with me, maybe I should pause to take stock of the many things and people toward whom I feel gratitude. If, by chance, you’ve also been feeling your share of doom and gloom, I hope you’ll consider joining me in a gratitude activity.
First in line is Rita. Only minutes ago, while planning a few Turkey Day dishes, I offered up one simple suggestion that may have required only one or two brain cells and could easily have been brought forth during a so-called fight-or-flight brain shut-down. Her response of, “That’s a REALLY good idea!” made me laugh out loud (even amidst my gloomy mood). This small interaction reminded me of the many ways that I am lucky to be supported and inspired by Rita every day.
Our children (and son-in-law) are basically overachieving geniuses who work every day to make the world a better place. I won’t go into details here, but this is more good fortune on a rather magnificent scale.
This past weekend I hung out with my sisters, attending a Bat Mitzvah with my Jewish cousins who welcomed us into their celebration with open arms and hearts. We mercilessly teased each other, laughed together, played games, and did what family does. My sisters and I often marvel at our mutual family experiences . . . as given to us by our amazing parents. More big gratitude.
First thing this morning, I got to lightly supervise a few interns who are facilitating a group for dads, prepping to present to classrooms of 8th graders, and being coached by Dylan Wright, who just might be the most dynamic presentation coach of all time. These young people are smart, capable, and committed to being therapeutic forces in the world. . . and I get to work with them.
Tomorrow Rita and I will have dinner with a long-time friend who, having already made substantial contributions to the mental health of a multitude of Montanans, invited us over to help her eat up a frozen turkey that she surprisingly found in her freezer. We have gratitude to her for the past, present, and future.
Just in case you’re wondering, the empirical research on gratitude is pretty fantastic. Focused and intentional gratitude will not immediately transform your life, but in general, gratitude practice is linked to improved mood, increased positive communications with others, hope, and improvements in physical exercise. That last one is as cryptic as my linguistic pet peeves. How could gratitude make you exercise more? Nobody knows. All I can say is this: How about you practice gratitude tonight, tomorrow, and into the future and then see if it helps you exercise more? As B.F. Skinner might say, we should all experiment with our experiences.
Given all the world-wide and local reasons to be grumpy and discouraged, my plan is to counter those feelings by spending more time being grateful. I know it won’t fix the world . . . but I know it will create nicer feelings . . . and that, I suppose, is plenty good for now.
This past week I spent four days at West Creek Ranch, where I was forced to eat gourmet food, do sunrise yoga, experience a ropes course (briefly becoming a “flying squirrel”), watch a reflective horse session, dance away one night, hike in the beautiful Paradise Valley, and hang out, converse, and learn from about 25 very smart/cool/fancy people. Yes, it was a painful and grueling experience—which I did not deserve—but of which I happily partook.
On the first morning, I provided a brief presentation to the group on the concept of belonging, from the perspective of the Montana Happiness Project. Despite having shamefully forgotten to take off my socks during the sunrise morning yoga session, and having anxiety about whether or not I belonged with this incredible group of people, they let me belong. They also laughed at all the right moments during my initial mini-comedy routine, and then engaged completely in a serious reflective activity involving them sharing their eudaimonic belongingness sweet-spots with each other.
If you don’t know what YOUR eudaimonic belongingness sweet-spot is, you’re not alone (because hardly anyone knows what I mean by that particular jumble of words). That’s because, as a university professor, I took the liberty of making that phrase up, while at the same time, noting that it’s derived from some old Aristotelean writings. Yes, that’s what university professors do. Here’s the definition that I half stole and half made up.
That place where the flowering of your greatest (and unique) virtues, gifts, skills, talents, and resources intersect (over time) with the needs of the world [or your community or family].
I hope you take a moment to reflect on that definition and how it is manifest in who you are, and how you are in your relationships with others. If you’re reading this blog post, I suspect that you’re a conscious and sentient entity who makes a positive difference in the lives of others in ways that are uniquely you. Because we can’t and don’t always see ourselves as others see us, in our University of Montana Happiness course, we have an assignment called the Natural Talent Interview designed to help you gain perspective on your own distinct and distinctive positive qualities. You can find info on the Natural Talent Interview here: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2023/12/26/what-do-you-think-of-me/
And my West Creek presentation powerpoint slides (all nine of them) are here:
You may have missed the main point of this blog post—which would be easy because I’m writing like a semi-sarcastic and erudite runaway loose association train that’s so busy whistling that it can’t make a point. My main point is GRATITUDE. Big, vast, and immense gratitude. Gratitude for the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation (AMBFF) and our massively helpful program officers. Gratitude for our retreat facilitators. Gratitude for the staff at West Creek Ranch. Gratitude for the presence of everyone at the gathering. And gratitude for the therapeutic feelings of belonging I had the luxury of ruminating on all week. My experience was so good that I’m still savoring it like whatever you think might be worth savoring and then end up savoring even more than you expected.
Thank you AMBFF and Arthur Blank for your unrelenting generosity and laser-focus on how we can come together as community and make the world a better place.
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*Note: At the Montana Happiness Project, we do not support toxic positivity. What I mean by that is: (a) no one should ever tell anyone else to cheer up (that’s just offensive and emotionally dismissive), and (b) although we reap benefits from shifting our thinking and emotions in positive directions, we also reap similar benefits from writing and talking about trauma, life challenges, and social injustice. As humans, we are walking dialectics, meaning we grow from exploring the negative as well as the positive in life. We are multitudes, simultaneously learning and growing in many directions.
I just realized that mindfulness meditation is all about nonjudgmental acceptance of the experience of failing at mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation always involves failure, therefore it requires nonjudgmental acceptance.
We fail at mindfulness because we are always more or less distracted; we cannot achieve perfect mindfulness.
Practice does not make perfect; practice makes practice.
If the goal of mindfulness is to practice, then we cannot fail, unless we fail to practice.
But if we practice nonjudgmental acceptance, failing to practice is neither failure nor victory.
All this brings us back around the circle to never failing, but just being.
Today we had a spirituality panel in the Art & Science of Happiness class. Featured guests were Community Chaplain, Courtney Arntzen, Lama Tsomo, and Rabbi Mark Hayim Kula. Rita S-F was also featured as the panel moderator. I sat on the side of the room, desperately seeking enlightenment.
Over the years I’ve taken to poking fun at the highly regarded statistical procedure called meta-analysis. I like to make fun of it because, in essence, meta-analytic findings are a summary of a summary of a summary. Today, in our class, the distinguished panelists were given tiny shreds of time during which they offered brief anecdotes, summaries, analogies, and facts about their three spiritual traditions. Providing them with such little time was a disservice that we all tolerated in the service of experiencing 80 minutes of their wisdom. And now, I’ll be doing that disservice a disservice by trying to summarize a few salient points. Meta-analysis never looked so deep.
In this oversimplification of the rich and amazing information we experienced today, I’m including a prequel, a dialectic, and a sequel. Here’s the prequel.
Lama Tsomo began by pointing out that when we stub our toe, our whole self hurts. She followed up with how Tibetan methods are useful for getting us out of our individual ego, and noted that although we should love our neighbors as ourselves, many of us aren’t all that good at loving ourselves. In the end, she put us all together in a metaphoric ocean where we are both all interconnected, but all individuals.
Courtney Arntzen began with a heartfelt apology, “For ways my faith has hurt or wounded you or told you that you’re not enough or not loved.” She followed this with the old testament message of loving the lord with all your heart and soul and strength, combined with the new testament message of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Rabbi Mark asked the students if they’re feeling happier from their experience in the class. Some heads nodded. I wanted to leap up and tell everyone on the class that they God Damn better be feeling happier, but that seemed spiritually inappropriate for someone seeking enlightenment. Then Mark said that his final exam for the class would be “Are you happy?” He went on to discuss how one of the Jewish commandments is to be happy and pursue joyfulness.
Overall, and here’s where my silly oversimplification feels terribly limited, I thought the main messages coalesced dialectics. In case you’re not carrying your counseling theories textbook with you all the time (yet), here’s a definition for dialectic: “A dialectic is a process where learning is stimulated from the integration of opposites” (Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2018, p. 90; yes, quoting myself hereJ).
All three spiritual disciplines featured today emphasized that happiness for the self is directly related to the happiness you offer others. Whether it was all of us being interconnected in the ocean, or the message that to dismiss the other is to negate God’s work, I kept hearing how deeply important it is for us to love ourselves well and to love others just as well. Rabbi Mark suggested that we carry two different messages, one in each pocket. The first, we should pull out when feeling down, “The entire world is was made for you.” The second is good to read when feeling overconfident, “I am a mere speck of dust.” Yes! Learning from dialectics.
Eventually the conversation leaned into forgiveness. Everyone embraced the idea that we can be quick condemn ourselves and others, and that forgiveness is a decision or empowered choice. We need to get beyond who’s right and who’s wrong. We need to accept grace for ourselves, but also for others. None of us is perfect; we are all striving. More dialectics.
Some small fireworks were ignited twice. Rita asked Courtney about her thoughts on whether self-esteem was evil. Turns out, Courtney not only had thoughts about that particular idea, she also had feelings. She made it clear that because we’re all God’s creation, “instead of negating what God loves, I try to be compassionate and kind to myself.” She extended that principle to loving one’s neighbor and to loving and being a steward of the universe.
Toward the end of the panel discussion Rabbi Mark and Lama Tsomo were readying themselves for spiritual combat, but Rita, being mindful of time, transitioned to the next topic. Lama Tsomo lamented that lost opportunity because, “I wanted to debate, because Jewish debate is a great way to get to the truth.”
Although I’m sad to have missed out on a good old Buddhist-Jewish debate, I think we managed to get to some truth anyway.
To end, Lama Tsomo led us all in mindfulness meditation. She gently recommended that we meditate with our eyes open, because we want to go through life with our eyes open (and keeping our eyes open also reduces the chances of falling asleep while meditating).
My take home message for the day was something like this, “I need to meditate with my eyes wide open in order to illuminate my mind to the idea and action that psychological, spiritual, and religious practice is a practice that requires repetition and a commitment to being perfect creations who imperfectly strive to act out values of loving others, loving ourselves, and loving God (aka the great ocean of wisdom).”
Thanks to Courtney, Mark, and Tsomo. Thanks also to Rita and to the Happiness class.
This weekend in Missoula is the Annual Montana Book Festival, so I’ve got books on my mind. In a stroke of good fortune (and thanks to Susan O’Connor and Rita), last night I got to meet David James Duncan, the author of my all-time favorite book, The Brother’s K. Talking with DJD was ALMOST as fun as reading The Brother’s K, which, if you haven’t read yet, should be on your reading list.
Speaking of Davids and books, several days ago one of our fantastic UM Doc students and I had a book review published in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy. The Doc student’s name is Ariel Goodman (not David), and I have the bragging rights (and honor) of being the co-author of her first (of many to come) publication.
Our review is of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David A. Treleaven. Ariel and I both liked the book. Although we take him to task a bit for less than perfect scientific rigor, overall the book is very well written and has many excellent ideas about how to safely employ mindfulness with individuals who have previously experienced trauma.
Self-regulation is central to nearly everything in life. I suppose maybe that’s why Dr. Sara Polanchek and I have been ruminating on it so much in our Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast series. In fact, the podcast that became available today is more general and less parent-focused than is usual. Again, that’s because self-regulation or self-control in the fact of outside forces or stressors is so important for everyone.
And finally, here’s a description of the podcast that’s live today!
The Secret Self-Regulation Cure (Seriously, this time)
For this Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast you should just let yourself relax, let go of all expectations, and tune in. You can even practice being bored, because one part of the secret to self-regulation is that it’s all about embracing your boringness (Spoiler alert, Sara gets bored at the end). Another way of putting this, is that the deep secret to self-regulation (which John shares in this episode) is to repeatedly focus on one comforting thing that is—or becomes—boring (for you science types, that means focusing in on one comforting stimulus). Another big part of the secret to self-regulation is mindful acceptance. Of course, you probably know that mindful acceptance is from Buddhist philosophy, but the concrete application of mindful acceptance involves accepting the fact that you will always get distracted and won’t ever be able to meditate or use progressive muscle relaxation perfectly. You can only strive to be imperfectly mindful (and you shouldn’t even strive to hard for that).
If you make it through this podcast episode without falling asleep, then you might be able to answer one of the following questions:
According to Herbert Benson, What are the four parts of the “relaxation response.”
What’s the problem with counting sheep as a method for dealing with insomnia?
What was the spiritual mantra that John shared?
And if you can answer one of these questions and be the first person to post it on our Facebook page, then you will win something—something in addition to having that warm, positive feeling of having been the first person to post the answer.
“I’m in suspense,” Sara said. “I’ve been in suspense since the last time we recorded, because John said he had this big secret and I don’t know what it is.”
Partly Sara was lying. She wasn’t in much suspense, mostly because the “last time we recorded” had been only five minutes earlier. But, as I’m sure you realize, capturing and magnifying in-the-moment excitement is the sort of behavior toward which we Hollywood podcasting stars are inclined.
Sara stayed enthusiastic. When I told her that I thought every self-regulation and anxiety reduction technique on the planet all boiled down to a single method that Mary Cover Jones developed in 1924, she said things like, “That’s exciting!” and “I love Mary Cover Jones.”
[Side note] If you end up needing a podcasting co-host, be sure to find someone like Sara who will express enthusiasm even when you’re talking about boring intellectual stuff. [End of side note.]
Mary Cover Jones was the first researcher to employ counterconditioning with humans (although she rarely gets the credit she deserves—but that’s another story). Counterconditioning involves the pairing a desirable (pleasant or comforting) stimulus with a stimulus that usually causes anxiety or dysregulation. Over time, with repeated pairing, the pleasant feelings linked with the desirable stimulus are substituted for the anxiety response. Eventually, the person who has experienced counterconditioning can more comfortably face the undesirable and previously anxiety-provoking stimulus.
My belief is that counterconditioning is the first, best, and only approach to self-regulation and anxiety reduction. Put another way, I’d say, “If it works for self-regulation, then what you’re doing is counterconditioning—even if you call it something else.”
I know that’s a radical statement. Rather than defend my belief and philosophy, let me move on and describe how you can begin using counterconditioning to make your life better.
Let’s say your goal is for you to experience more calmness and relaxation and less agitation and anxiety. That’s reasonable. According to Herbert Benson of Harvard University, you need four things to elicit the relaxation response.
A quiet place
A comfortable position
A mental device
A passive attitude
Benson was studying meditation way back in the early 1970s. Okay. I know I’m digging up lots of old moldy stuff from the past. But take a deep breath and stay with me.
Let’s say you’re able to find a quiet place and a comfortable position. If you’re a parent, that might be tough. However, even if you find it for 12 minutes as you lie in bed, waiting for sleep, that’s a start. And really, all you need is a start, because once you get going, you don’t really even need the quiet place and comfortable position. On airplanes, I use this all the time and it’s not quiet and I’m not physically comfortable.
The next question that most people ask is: “What’s a mental device?” or, “Is that something I have to strap on my head?”
A mental device is a mental point of focus. In Benson’s time and in transcendental meditation, the popular word for it was “Mantra,” but Benson’s research showed that it can be almost anything. One mental device (that’s actually physical) is deep breathing. Another one is to sit comfortably and to think (or chant) the word OM. Benson also found that simple words, like the numbers “one” or “nine” also were effective. But, as I mentioned on the podcast, you can use other words, as long as they are—or can become—comforting. For example, I know people who use the following words:
I am here
Here I am
Peace
Shalom
Banana
For those of you with religious leanings, you might want to use a specific prayer as your mental device. For those of you who are more visually inclined, you could use a mental image as your mental device. For those of you who are physically-oriented, you could use progressive muscle relaxation or body scanning.
The point is that all you need is a point . . . of focus.
Now comes the hard part. Because we’re all human and therefore, imperfect, no matter how compelling or comforting or soothing your mental device might be, you won’t be able to focus on it perfectly. You will become distracted. At some point (and for me it’s usually very early in the process), you’ll find your mind wandering. Instead of focusing on your prayer, you’ll suddenly realize that you’re thinking about a recent movie you saw or a painful social interaction you had earlier in the day or your mind will drift toward a future social situation that you’re dreading.
What’s the solution to the wandering mind?
Well, one thing that’s not the solution is to try harder.
Instead, what Benson meant by a “passive attitude” is that we need to gently accept our mental wanderings and distractions. More commonly, the words we use for Benson’s passive attitude are “Mindful acceptance.” In other words, we accept in the moment of distraction and every moment of distraction, that we are humans who naturally become distracted. And then, after the noticing and after the acceptance, we bring ourselves back to the moment and to our chosen mental device.
On the podcast, Sara asked, “What if, as I try to focus on my mental device, I notice that all the while I have an inner voice talking to me in the background?”
What an excellent question! The first answer is, of course, mindful acceptance. For example, when you notice the inner voice, you might say to yourself, I notice my mind is chattering at me in the background as I focus on my mental device. Then, without judging yourself, you return to your mental device. A second option is for you to find a more engaging or more soothing mental device. Perhaps, you need two mental devices at once? For example, that might include a soft, silky blanket to touch, along with your “I am here” mantra.
As Mary Cover Jones illustrated over 90 years ago, the counterconditioning process is a powerful tool for anxiety reduction and self-regulation. I happen to think that it’s the only tool for anxiety reduction and self-regulation. Whether you agree with me or not isn’t important; either way, don’t let anything I’ve written here get in the way of you identifying and using your own cherished mental (or physical) device. At first, it might not work. It will never work perfectly. But, like Charles Shulz was thinking when he created Linus’s special blanket, life is way better when you live it with a comforting counterconditioning stimulus.
On November 10, 2016, I decided to read Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. I was suddenly interested in how and why individuals and society develop an urge toward the death instinct. It’s light reading. I mean, the book is light, and it’s short. So there’s that.
Some people are unhappy that I’ve chosen to read something by Freud. He wasn’t known for his progressive feminist views. He didn’t even make it into the first wave. Maybe I should have read Adler or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But Freud was on my bookshelf. Besides, the person who doesn’t think I should be reading Freud is the very same person who gave me this particular copy of Civilization and Its Discontents.
Having an impulse to read about the death instinct is ironic. Or maybe it’s funny. But if there’s one thing that’s not especially funny, it’s Freud. I know he has a book on Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, but I’m betting right now—without even looking at it—that it doesn’t make people laugh. If Civilization and Its Discontents is any indication, Freud may have written about jokes, but he was no joker.
Here’s a little glimpse of his optimistic discourse.
Thus our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to [others]. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other. (1930/1961, pp. 23-24)
Okay. So maybe when Freud wrote this he was a little short on serotonin at his pre-synaptic cleft [as if I believe that neurochemical imbalance nonsense]. Seriously, what Freud needed was some regular aerobic exercise . . . and maybe yoga combined with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy so he could embrace nonjudgmental acceptance. I think Freud would have gotten into mindfulness because it would have allowed him to bask in nonjudgmental acceptance of all things except for people who didn’t practice mindfulness. Or maybe he would have been better served using individual emotion focused therapy with Leslie Greenberg; that way he could talk to a chair and emote. And if you read Freud, it’s easy to conclude he needed to do some emoting because his self-analysis was sort of like late 19th century self-injurious behavior. . . VERY PAINFUL.
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud starts by confessing that he feels troubled over his apparent inability to have religious experiences. He seems to long for an “oceanic” experience of being one with the universe that might be attributable to God or religion. Although he seems rather reluctant to openly admit that. Later, he trudges through an analysis of “Love thy neighbor.” Unfortunately (at least for his neighbor), Freud ends up making more of a case for hating the neighbor. His logic is flawless, at least from his perspective. In the end, Freud embraces the likelihood of a death instinct which, in his time, was probably related to Hitler’s rise to power.
But what was Freud’s solution to the death instinct and Hitler’s ascension?
He had no solution. Or at least he had no solution in which he had much confidence. His last two sentences mark the battle lines. He admits to an incontrovertible aggressive and destructive impulse in individuals and in society. That’s much less fun than riding in a convertible. But more to the point, will hate, aggression, and destruction dominate? Freud seems to say—paraphrasing here, “Maybe so, maybe not.” The future, according to Freud, is in the hands of Eros.
With regard to the final outcome, Freud implies, “We shall see.”
This is like when your television show ends with the phrase, “To be continued.” Only now with internet streaming, rarely do we have to wait a whole week for the stunning conclusion. Sadly, Freud died before he reached the stunning conclusion.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Freud died on 23 September 1939 and John Lennon was born on 9 October 1940.
According to Buddhist philosophy, the soul can be reincarnated somewhere between 49 days to 2 years following death.
This leaves open the possibility—or even likelihood—that Freud was reincarnated as John Lennon and eventually, in 1967, wrote and sang, along with his Beatle friends, “All You Need is Love.” The point that Freud, reincarnated as John Lennon, was trying to make is that we all need to be liberally spreading Eros around as a Death Instinct antagonist.
There’s much more to say about this, but for now, I think the obvious take-home message is for us to all practice loving our neighbors even though we might be able to make a better intellectual case for hating them. We should probably love our enemies too. And I’m adding a twist to this for 2017: sometimes this isn’t going to be fluffy gooey love. It’s going to be some bad-ass, in-your-face tough love.
This is my New Year’s resolution—to be a practitioner of good-old Freudian in-your-face tough Eros.
Although I’m ending this with a wish for you all to have a Happy New Year, I’m also recognizing that the pursuit of happiness is aptly phrased because just when you think you’ve got it, it goes and flits off to somewhere else and you have to keep chasing it.
Good luck with the chase and good luck with that Eros thing.
The place to click if you want to learn about psychotherapy, counseling, or whatever John SF is thinking about.
This weekend in Missoula is the Annual Montana Book Festival, so I’ve got books on my mind. In a stroke of good fortune (and thanks to Susan O’Connor and Rita), last night I got to meet David James Duncan, the author of my all-time favorite book, 
“I’m in suspense,” Sara said. “I’ve been in suspense since the last time we recorded, because John said he had this big secret and I don’t know what it is.”
John Sommers-Flanagan 