Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (book)
🔗Connect
🔼Topic:: behavioral psychology (MOC)
✒️ Note-Making
💡Clarify
🔈 Summary of main ideas
- Therapy is about independence
- We can't avoid pain, but we choose to suffer
- Emotions left unsolved manifest in harmful ways
- Change is both loss and a gain
🗒️Relate
⛓ Life lessons, action items
🔍Critique
✅ by following this method, what will happen?
- If you believed it is true late for you to change, that you are incapable of change or undeserving a better life, have hope, it is never too late, and therapy can be the key
❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...
🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... The book doesn't guide us to a healthier perspective about life. We have to read between the lines with subtle cues to understand her message
🗨️Review
💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style...
- The book is a collection of short stories, some on her patients, some on herself. There is no clear connection or buildup through the chapters, and some seem unnecessary.
- The book is more similar to a prose, where we connect to the characters, and perhaps learn something along the way
🖼️Outline
📒 Notes
Part 1
The Idiot
Our first mistake is that we believe change can come without any loss, like being fit without working out, or expecting everybody else to act differently without doing the same ourselves. Every change has to come from us stopping or starting doing things differently. Creative Destruction
This is related to the topic of agency. We have to understand our part in the circumstances of our lives, and that we are the ones who have to act to improve it, and even more than that, we are often the root cause of the problem. Therefore change, specifically changing ourselves, is key to any solution. Agency Accountability
- We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same. (Location 157)
- are about formerly private matters, the stigma around our emotional struggles remains formidable. (Location 180)
- One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their current predicaments, because once they realize that they can (and must) construct their own lives, they’re free to generate change. (Location 195)
- Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens. (Location 204)
If the Queen Had Balls
We can't live in a "what if" mentality, or "it will be better when...", the perfect is the enemy of the good. We have to recognize and be grateful for what we have and stop projecting fantasies on our live, only to live in illusion which will end up in depression once the bubble bursts. Gratitude
- If you go through life picking and choosing, if you don’t recognize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” you may deprive yourself of joy. (Location 293)
In the Space of a step
Change doesn't happen in one day, one moment or one action, it is a series of small steps, each one we make is only to reach the next one, we don't even have to visualize the end goal, the progress is what matters.
- Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it’s very hard to give or get outside of it—even (Location 369)
- Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way. (Location 380)
The Smart One or the Hot One
If there is nothing that's keeping you going other than escapism, like watching tv, then you are depressed, and should dig for the reason for that.
- if the only thing that keeps you going all day is knowing you’ll get to turn on the TV after dinner, you probably are depressed. (Location 445)
Namastay in Bed
To lie to others or to ignore toxic behavior in order to comfort them or to support your image is tempting, but this will only cause more harm then good. Even in difficult topics, it's best to be honest and answer directly, it will hurt, but you will be there with them, instead of letting them discover the truth alone, or never at all. Honesty
Finding Wendel
The most important thing about a therapist is your relationship with him, the connection, more than his training or "topic of expertise". Having a common ground such as marital status, gender, etc helps.
- the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of “feeling felt.” This matters more than the therapist’s training, the kind of therapy they do, or what type of problem you have. (Location 581)
The Beginning of Knowing
Patients often have conflicting incentives, they want the therapist to know their deepest feelings, problems and tendencies so that they could find them a solution, but also we are afraid of being so exposed, and often, not even consciously, present a false image of ourselves as "being fine". Image vs core
- childhood based on our interactions with our caregivers. Attachment styles are significant because they play out in people’s adult relationships too, influencing the kinds of partners they pick (stable or less stable), how they behave during the course of a relationship (needy, distant, or volatile), and how their relationships tend to end (wistfully, amiably, or with a huge explosion). (Location 701)
Rosie
We often mistake feeling numb with feeling nothing. More often we are just overwhelmed with too many emotions of different, conflicting Kinds, that the only solution is to block everything out.
- idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed. (Location 801)
- People often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn’t the absence of feelings; it’s a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings. (Location 884)
Snapshots of Ourselves
At each point in time, at different contexts, we are different people, a collection of snapshots around a common theme, our "core identity". The goal is to resolve the tension between those snapshots and reach inner peace. harmonious self
- at first, each patient is simply a snapshot, a person captured in a particular moment. (Location 902)
- therapists listen, suggest, nudge, guide, and occasionally cajole our patients to bring other snapshots into view, to shift their experience of what’s happening inside and around them. We sort through the snapshots, and before long it becomes apparent that these seemingly discrete images all revolve around a common theme, one that might not have been in our patients’ fields of vision when they decided to come in. (Location 905)
- In time, they find out that they aren’t at war after all, that the path to peace is to call a truce with themselves. (Location 911)
- creativity described as being the ability to grasp the essence of one thing and the essence of some very different thing and smash them together to create some entirely new thing. (Location 915)
The Present is also the Future
We can't avoid pain, but we choose to experience suffering, to dwell on an issue, to let it block our time, emotions, and thoughts, we stay fixated in a nasty cycle instead of changing, healing. Pain
In that sense, suffering happens because it is helpful for us in some sense, perhaps we believe we can revenge, proven right, or perhaps we are too afraid of changing, of looking ourselves in the mirror and notice our flaws and part in our situation.
- Don’t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don’t be afraid of the truth. (Location 1017)
- The things we protest against the most are often the very things we need to look at. (Location 1031)
- There is a continuing decision to be made as to whether to evade pain, or to tolerate it and therefore modify it. (Location 1038)
- if we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret. (Location 1048)
Saying Goodbye to Hollywood
Welcome to Holland
Life is filled with uncertainty, and many things we can't control. Instead of focusing on the misfortunes we have, we need to focus on what to do with them. To change from victim to fighter. Even when death looks us in the eye, to have the courage to look back. Instead of "planning for the future", do now. Be the person you want to be, do the things you've always dreamed of.
- everyone who comes to therapy worries that what they think or feel might not be “normal” or “good,” and yet it’s our honesty with ourselves that helps us make sense of our lives with all of their nuances and complexity. Repress those thoughts, and you’ll likely behave “badly.” Acknowledge them, and you’ll grow. (Location 1194)
How Kids Deal with Grief
Hareld and Maeve
Specialization often causes us to ignore the big picture. In medicine, that is when we focus on the illness rather than the patient. We focus on organs, symptoms, and ignore the person. holistic
Hold the Mayo
Therapy is not a "one size fits all", it requires flexibility, to set unique boundaries with each patient, all in the purpose of allowing them to feel comfortable and at peace.
The Whole Package
The answer to an unanswered question is always no. Don't be afraid from rejection, you might be surprised how much people are inclined to say yes and help people
Without Memory or Desire
The goal is therapy is to allow the patient to create a more healthy narrative of their life, or the traumatic event. The main way is to allow them to grieve, in a self compassionate way.
- People want to be understood and to understand, but for most of us, our biggest problem is that we don’t know what our problem is. (Location 1789)
Part 2
Fridays at Four
Group discussion is a good way of finding out your blind spots and biases, and your way to help cover others' as well. peer support
After all viable strategies have been tested, and peers consulted, it might be worthwhile to also know when to stop, when pursuing further is a bad use of your time and energy, and will only end in a bad result. When to Quit
- What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to. A therapist will hold up the mirror in the most compassionate way possible, but it’s up to the patient to take a good look at that reflection, to stare back at it and say, “Oh, isn’t that interesting! Now what?” instead of turning away. (Location 1901)
What We Dream of
Dreams are often an indication about our fears. The dream itself is often a metaphor, it's not the situation itself which is the hint, but rather the feelings we have from that situation. Like a dream about a car chase, which symbolized that person's running away from responsibility.
- dreams can be a precursor to self-confession—a kind of pre-confession. Something buried is brought closer to the surface, but not in its entirety. (Location 1957)
The First Confession
When we ignore certain parts of ourselves, they find other, more harmful ways, of being heard. We suddenly feel depressed, unmotivated, have bad habits, or unexplained fits of rage.
- often different parts of ourselves want different things, and if we silence the parts we find unacceptable, they’ll find other ways to be heard. (Location 2049)
Therapy with a Condom on
Anger is the most obvious emotion that shows that something is wrong deep within, often covering feels of depression, insecurities, doubt, and through rage it's expressed, help us project the problem onto the world instead of looking inside, and push everyone away to keep us safe.
- It’s impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable. (Location 2168)
- Anger is the go-to feeling for most people because it’s outward-directed—angrily blaming others can feel deliciously sanctimonious. But often it’s only the tip of the iceberg, and if you look beneath the surface, you’ll glimpse submerged feelings you either weren’t aware of or didn’t want to show: fear, helplessness, envy, loneliness, insecurity. And if you can tolerate these deeper feelings long enough to understand them and listen to what they’re telling you, you’ll not only manage your anger in more productive ways, you also won’t be so angry all the time. (Location 2208)
Jail
Most often we are our own jailers. The ones who cause us to suffer, to avoid change, to cry for help, is ourselves. That also means that we are the only ones who can free ourselves. That freedom is terrifying because it entails responsibility over our lives, that everything that happens, is the result of our choices.
- therapy is about understanding the self that you are. But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life. (Location 2295)
- Most of us come to therapy feeling trapped—imprisoned by our thoughts, behaviors, marriages, jobs, fears, or past. Sometimes we imprison ourselves with a narrative of self-punishment. (Location 2325)
- freedom involves responsibility, and there’s a part of most of us that finds responsibility frightening. (Location 2334)
Trader's Joe
Our life's purpose doesn't have to be a grandiose one, as long as it makes us fill fulfilled, even being a cashier that helps people be more joyful is a worthy cause.
Rita
The opposite to depression is vitality, to do something, to feel alive. First start doing, going out, be in places, interact with others. Happiness will follow.
The UPS Guy
Embarrassing Public Encounters
Silence is when truth is revealed. At first, our words convey the narrative we want to present, not the actual one. But if we stay silent, we wait out until all others words have been said, the truth will come out.
- Being silent is like emptying the trash. When you stop tossing junk into the void—words, words, and more words—something important rises to the surface. And when the silence is a shared experience, it can be a gold mine for thoughts and feelings that the patient didn’t even know existed. (Location 2744)
Wendel's Mother
Addicted
The Rapist
People tend to project their feelings onto others In order to get rid of them. for example, if you're angry, you might feel that your partner is angry too. Emotional Projection
On the Clock
You can't help others if you are unauthentic, if you don't believe what you say, or try to present a false image of yourself.
- I can’t help anybody unless I’m authentic (Location 3242)
Part 3
My Wandering Uterus
Untreated anxiety can manifest as an actual physical illness
Emergency Session
Karma
Therapist are not meant to make decisions for you, but rather help you make decisions for yourself, so that you can achieve independence.
Not acknowledging children's emotion, like "there's nothing to be afraid of", can cause them to hide their emotions, even to the point of hiding it from themselves, making them unaware of their own emotional state. Acknowledgement
- Sometimes “drama,” no matter how unpleasant, can be a form of self-medication, a way to calm ourselves down by avoiding the crises brewing inside. (Location 3482)
- as a therapist, I can come to understand people and help them sort out what they want to do, but I can’t make their life choices for them. (Location 3487)
- Everyone wages this internal battle to some degree: Child or adult? Safety or freedom? But no matter where people fall on those continuums, every decision they make is based on two things: fear and love. Therapy strives to teach you how to tell the two apart. (Location 3506)
- Sometimes people can’t identify their feelings because they were talked out of them as children. (Location 3521)
Just Be
- Sometimes people needed to accept themselves and others the way they were. But sometimes in order to feel better, you need a mirror held up to you, and not the mirror that makes you look pretty, (Location 3602)
Would You rather
A lot of things in our lives are taken for granted, even though the are the things that make us the most happy, like our health, our relationships. We should experience gratitude to acknowledge these things and enjoy them while they last.
The Speed of want
We desire quick solutions, we have short attention span, and zero patience. All these prevent us from achieving meaningful lasting results, which are based on deep, uninterrupted, face to face conversation with the therapist. The Attention Economy is not only causing the problem, it is also preventing the solution.
- People wanted a speedy solution to their problems, but what if their moods had been driven down in the first place by the hurried pace of their lives? (Location 3877)
- If we create the space and put in the time, we stumble upon stories that are worth waiting for, the ones that define our lives. (Location 3934)
Ultimate Concerns
Uncertainty is a main driver of fear in our life. Instead of fearing it or fooling ourselves that it doesn't exist or that we can control it, is to embrace it. To see it as an opportunity to change, to have something new in life, to have more positive surprises. Life as Flow
- The four ultimate concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness. (Location 4013)
- What we fear isn’t just dying in the literal sense but in the sense of being extinguished, the loss of our very identities, of our younger and more vibrant selves. How do we defend against this fear? Sometimes we refuse to grow up. Sometimes we self-sabotage. And sometimes we flat-out deny our impending deaths. (Location 4014)
- Uncertainty, I’m starting to realize, doesn’t mean the loss of hope—it means there’s possibility. I don’t know what will happen next—how potentially exciting! I’m going to have to figure out how to make the most of the life I have, (Location 4033)
Legoland
Repressing emotions causes harm not only to yourself but also to others. Your partner for example might feel the need to fill the void, feeling for both of you, or replace the void with anger and frustration. To have intense emotions is not to break down it's to break open
- we all have to come to terms with the unknown and the unknowable. Sometimes we’ll never know why. (Location 4180)
How Humans Change
Five steps of changing:
- Pre contemplation - denial, not acknowledging that change is needed
- Contemplation - decided that something has to change, not knowing how. Fearing both the loss of the old and the unknown new
- Preparation - coming up with a plan on how to change
- Action - the change is initiated
- Maintenance - keeping up with habits to support new lifestyle
- therapists aren’t persuaders. We can’t convince an anorexic to eat. We can’t convince an alcoholic not to drink. We can’t convince people not to be self-destructive, because for now, the self-destruction serves them. What we can do is try to help them understand themselves better and show them how to ask themselves the right questions until something happens—either internally or externally—that leads them to do their own persuading. (Location 4242)
Fathers
As Frankl is saying, there is a space between what is happening to us and our reaction, and this is where freedom lies.
Integrity Vs Despair
Even when people with depression change their situation, go out more, have a social circle, human connections, that's not necessarily mean that they automatically will be happier.
Most often, they will feel bad for being happy, a combination of Imposter Syndrome and self Punishment, they feel that they don't deserve happiness, perhaps due to harm done to others in the past, or perhaps their pain is their connection, distorted as may be, to what was lost. While they might feel that they will never get the forgiveness of others, the most important forgiveness they need is from themselves. Only by Self-compassion they can escape this self made prison. Their pain doesn't help anyone but themselves.
- forgiveness can serve as a powerful release—you forgive the person who wronged you, without condoning his actions, and it allows you to move on. But too often people feel pressured to forgive and then end up believing that something’s wrong with them if they can’t quite get there—that they aren’t enlightened enough or strong enough or compassionate enough. (Location 4547)
- We may want others’ forgiveness, but that comes from a place of self-gratification; we are asking forgiveness of others to avoid the harder work of forgiving ourselves. (Location 4566)
What's not to Say to a Dying Person
Don't try to help, don't flood them with questions, don't treat them like a disease. They are still the same people, be authentic, just say what you are feeling, like love, fear, etc.
- When people delude themselves into believing they have all the time in the world, she’s noticed, they get lazy. (Location 4681)
Boyfriend's Email
Wendel's Beard
Change can be liberating, we can suddenly feel again, which can encourage us to grow even more, creating a virtuous cycle of growth.
- A flight to health is a phenomenon in which patients convince themselves that they’re suddenly over their issues because, unbeknownst to them, they can’t tolerate the anxiety that working through these issues is bringing up. (Location 4792)
Part 4
The Bees
Kenya
There is no hierarchy of pain. Who suffers more is not a contest. The only way to get rid of pain is to decide what to do with it, not to avoid it.
- There’s no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest. (Location 5022)
- You can’t get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. (Location 5031)
Psychological Immune System
Similar to the Hedonic Treadmill, our brain learns to protect itself from hardships.
- Sometimes in their pain, people believe that the agony will last forever. But feelings are actually more like weather systems—they blow in and they blow out. Just because you feel sad this minute or this hour or this day doesn’t mean you’ll feel that way in ten minutes or this afternoon or next week. Everything you feel—anxiety, elation, anguish—blows in and out again. (Location 5151)
Consultation Vs Therapy
Deathzilla
Dear Myron
Mothers
A common phenomenon is called displacement, when we vent our feelings into a different target. For example, when our boss screams at us, so we scream at the dog. That means that we might be the target of emotional outbursts which are unrelated to us. A slightly better option is to find a healthier venting method, like a person with anger issues who goes to boxing, but the best option is to solve the problem, either to make the source of it go away, or learn to accept what is happening.
The Hug
Don't Blow it
It's My Party and You'll Cry if You want to
- deathbed conversations—those are mostly fantasies. People may seek peace and clarity, understanding and healing, but deathbeds themselves are often a stew of drugs, fear, confusion, weakness. That’s why it’s especially important to be the people we want to be now, to become more open and expansive while we’re able. (Location 5849)
Happiness Is Sometimes
Wendell
- Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and experience something before its meaning becomes apparent. (Location 6105)
A Pause in the Conversation
- Relationships in life don’t really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you’ve been close to lives on somewhere inside you. (Location 6146)