reflectonline.co.uk

The Importance of “Believing In”

A Relational Reflection drawing on the Cognitive Analytic Model (CAT) of Interpersonal Relationships and Development.

By Cal Nield

Originally Written for Training the Trainer course Online Academy in my role as faculty tutor. https://www.acadtherapy.online/ 

As a seminar leader for psychotherapy training, a clinical supervisor in the NHS, and tutor for the Academy for Online Counselling & Psychotherapy, an ordinary moment in life captured an idea about the role of tutor/helper, and importance of self-belief.

I happened to be sat chatting to my 18-year-old, who coincidently began telling me about a sparring session he had just in the gym. Fully ignited from the session, my son spontaneously commented about his sparring teacher, “He cares about us”. In the same breath my son went on to reflect on a new experience he had had in the week, independently leading a session of 10-year-olds, in a Taekwondo sparring session. His TKD teacher had given him the gift of opportunity after being astute enough to sense a lack of motivation and confidence in my son. This skilfully chosen intervention, testing and challenging and trusting my son in one fell swoop, stretching him just enough outside of his comfort zone, seemed to spur both his motivation and his self-belief. My son voiced his relational experience, naming it explicitly as feeling ‘cared for’ and being ‘mentored’. He went on further, saying how good it felt to have “someone who believes in me…” and unprompted continued… “but it’s hard to believe in someone unless you’ve been believed in”.

This struck me as being rich about relationship. Firstly, it addresses the interpersonal, relational aspect that is the fundamental basis of the helping relationship. As a psychotherapist from a relational model, my relational ear conceptualises my son’s description of his experience with his trainer as a ‘reciprocal role’, representing an internalised relationship experience, with roots in childhood, as a template in adulthood for relating to self and other. This relational pattern is depicted as having two ‘poles’, an original adult (caring) to original child (cared for). Written as ‘caring – cared for’ the template is enacted in other relationships, and in this instance would be facilitative of self-care and of trusting, caring relationships. The other reciprocal role, “believing – believed in” would similarly involve self and others…and is internalised in “believing in” oneself and in others influencing relational and general self-management procedures that would be replicated and re-enacted.

Imperative to the role of the ‘helper’, is the capacity to instil the feeling of being cared for and of believed in, perhaps particularly important at the beginning of a course when the student or child may be anxious and need containing and encouraging, and when the aim of building a trust in the relationship would also be key for the helping alliance.

Secondly, it also spurred me to think about the Vygotskian idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which CAT has also taken to integrate into its ideology and theoretical basis. Therapists need to be able to gauge what is the ‘ZPD’, which Vygotsky relates to the difference between the two levels the zone of proximal development, which he defined as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky 1978 p86). In CAT this is often referred to when the therapist is gauging what the client might be able to work with, within the session or outside of it, perhaps having practiced with the therapist first. Vygotsky believed that learning takes place when the teacher is not a provider of content, but a facilitator. The idea ‘what a mother does today with a child the child will do for themselves tomorrow’, is a central tenet that can be related to the teacher/student, therapist/client relationship.

Thirdly, my reflection, concerns the feeling of being believed in, which ignites something and relates to the role of the tutor to inspire or impassion which perhaps comes from a relational pattern of the tutor also believing in their subject and their tutee. When a tutor can instil passion in the student, to be able to fully ignite and alight others with enthusiasm, is a magical aspect of the relationship.

So, this relational perspective emphasises the need to build a relationship that is trusting, allowing the student to bring themselves to learning in an open way, particularly as anxiety tends to shut down thinking and creativity and is the enemy of learning. The student needs to be able to make mistakes, and mistakes are exposing. The tutor needs to help the student feel safe enough to be vulnerable, as learning is a precarious process, always two steps forward one step back, and if I recall my own experience of undertaking the online diploma I was constantly being struck by discovering what I did not yet know. The tutor needs to be able to help the student immerse themselves in an unfamiliar territory and at the same time help them feel able to question. The student who nods and agrees is unlikely to get the most out of the experience. The tutor needs not to be defensive. And the tutor needs to be able to bear vulnerability like the student, not having all the answers, or the ‘content’ that Vygotsky referred to. In being open to not knowing, but facilitating, helping the student find out, may involve directing them to resources, enabling but accompanying them in their learning journey.

References

Ryle, A. (1990). Cognitive-Analytic Therapy: Active Participation in Change. Wiley, Chichester.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Final reflection. The gift of opportunity that my son was offered resonates for me with the invitations I have also had, of being a seminar leader, and tutor for the Online Academy.  CAT’s relational pattern of ‘caring’ to ‘cared for’ and ‘believing in’ to ‘believed in’ comes to life. It feels important to accredit my previous tutors and supervisors, as with their care and belief I have been in the position of facilitating others learning and keep learning myself in the process.

Further Information

Remember, we all need self belief, and a child who is believed in can go on to believe in themselves.

Facebook


Linkedin

What’s holding you back from achieving your goals?

By Cal Nield

So, finally I have a website! It feels like an important cyber-space, to help me to be able to reach people who might be interested in what I can offer, and where I can enjoy writing and reflecting on issues I want to communicate and put out there…

So why has it only taken two years for me to get around to it?

I could say it was because I didn’t have enough time, or that circumstances just got in the way, that I have been too busy with other things. But what is it really that sometimes gets in the way of us achieving our goals? What if it is something within us?

If we repeatedly seem to snag ourselves, then this makes it an even more important question? According to the dictionary definition, a snag is a hidden obstacle, it is likened to a tree stump, jutting out of the ground, and I guess literally stumps or trips us up. In psychological terms, it might be that which lies hidden in our unconscious.

Often therapy can help us to explore this. Our early life, through childhood, informs us early on about how the world ‘works’. And we internalise subtle messages, and covert ‘rules’ and extrapolate them, in all sorts of ways, without awareness.

Our family is the world in the first instance.

It is within the family we are exposed to ‘subtle’ rules about how the world works. Messages about what is ‘right’ for girls, and what is right for boys might be very implicitly communicated, but are internalised, and carried out in our lives without awareness. Maybe the traditions within the family or even within the wider culture suggest that girls don’t do science, or become businesswomen, and boys are strong and don’t cry. Messages such as these are often imbued in stories we are told. Things like birth stories, which perhaps tell us how placid and good we were become something of our ‘identity’. Stories can convey that there is a mould that we have to fit, and anything else is somehow unacceptable. There seems to be a narrative that becomes our own script, as if we are not in control of our own destinies.

If ‘you’re just like your father’ communicates something that might actually not fit you as an individual, then you may be left with a feeling of not being able to fulfil your own wishes… as if the script is already written and the pen is in some one else’s hand.

Aside from implicit narrative there may be other unseen forces at play. If we live in a family in which there is a competition for resources, whether that is love or attention or praise then we might become striving in adulthood but not be able to see things through as if there is an invisible force against us. If it feels as if something we have somehow deprives others, then we might feel bad about having success.

In therapy there is an opportunity to discover the nature of our underlying beliefs, stemming from experience, which unconsciously informs us to ‘abandon’ our goals. Perhaps in a family where there is a sense of competing needs, we may not feel allowed to have something for us, for example, where it feels as if there isn’t enough to go round, or where having something attracts envy or attack, may be in the form of exclusion or rejection. Understanding what might be ‘disallowed’ becomes important as in this way we might not feel able to pursue our wishes for fear of the impact…on others or on ourselves. These concerns are in the unconscious.

What might be holding you back?

Therapy can help shed a light on the ways in which we hold ourselves back and uncover narratives or beliefs that sabotage success. In the CAT approach to therapy, patterns including SNAGS are explored. Snags in CAT terms stands for ‘Subtle Negative Aspects of Goals’. Your therapist can help uncover what is holding you back from achieving your goals.

Have a think about the messages conveyed to you, or about your narrative. These are aspects of experience of the past that have little place in the present. Shedding a light on it can take away its influence and free you up to achieve the things that are important to you in life.

Further Information

“In therapy there is an opportunity to discover the nature of our underlying beliefs, stemming from experience, which unconsciously informs us to ‘abandon’ our goals. “

Facebook


Linkedin

Your Own Worst Enemy?

What’s Your Inner Chatter?

By Cal Nield

I was recently asked to do a talk on self-care and think of my top tips. It got me thinking what I might say that would stand out.
I often work backwards. In this instance, thinking about self-care leads me to think about the care that we have experienced, and what has that taught us, both about ourselves and other people, as well as what has it led us to expect or anticipate in others. As creatures of habit, familiarity is the warm cushion we like to sit on, whether it be an old worn lumpy one with pointy feathers sticking out, or a totally flat one that offers us no comfort or protection at all. But we still resort to it. it is a deeply unconscious thing.

Patterns in self-care link right back. If we have experienced some reasonably good care and have been nurtured then it gives us a sense of being cared for and valued. This in turn helps us to care for ourselves, and so there is actually something in the saying ‘you’re worth it’ – though it might not mean buying the latest shampoo or hair colour.
We also will have learnt how to ask for help, and how to get care from others when we need it. If we have had negative experiences that impact on our trust in others, then it can be hard to ask for help or it might mean that we turn to the wrong people or in the wrong way – and that then reinforces our negative experience, and low self-worth, which makes us even more vulnerable.

We all have what I refer to as inner chatter, the sort of running commentary we have on ourselves and how we do in our day to day. I sent an email out the other day and forgot to attach the document. I always forget, and I always hear myself mutter ‘silly old fool’ under my breath. This is something I’ve heard my father say many times and now having internalised something of his voice, out of my mouth comes my father. Sometimes the voices we have inside us are less benign and might have a harsher quality that resonates with less compassionate care and find this repeat in our self-talk that whispers imperceptibly in the background. And when it does, it does a good job of keeping us down and is unlikely to help us treat ourselves well.

Do you allow yourself time or do you run on empty? Do you struggle to say ‘no’ and overload yourself and become exhausted?

My top tips would include;

• Be aware of your relationship with you.
• Listen to how you speak to yourself. Would you speak to your best friend like it? If not, don’t do it! Easier said than done. if it was that easy, my job wouldn’t exist…
• Be content with who you are and where you are … mind the chatter that says we need to be better, achieve more, have more… Check in with yourself but have social interaction with people who reinforce your sense of self and wellbeing.
• Be mindful of your boundaries.

I will write a blog on boundaries next time to help reflect on what we mean by that,  and what healthy ones might look like.

“In therapy there is an opportunity to discover the nature of our inner chatter, the voices that have been internalised and motivate us unconsciously, often working against us and leading us towards poor self care “

Facebook


Linkedin

Self-Care 🙂  

What would you add?

By Cal Nield

I was recently asked to do a talk on self-care and think of my top tips. It got me thinking what I might say that would stand out.
I often work backwards. In this instance, thinking about self-care leads me to think about the care that we have experienced, and what has that taught us, both about ourselves and other people, as well as what has it led us to expect or anticipate in others. As creatures of habit, familiarity is the warm cushion we like to sit on, whether it be an old worn lumpy one with pointy feathers sticking out, or a totally flat one that offers us no comfort or protection at all. But we still resort to it. it is a deeply unconscious thing.
Patterns in self-care link right back. If we have experienced some reasonably good care and have been nurtured then it gives us a sense of being cared for and valued. This in turn helps us to care for ourselves, and so there is actually something in the saying ‘you’re worth it’ – though it might not mean buying the latest shampoo or hair colour.
We also will have learnt how to ask for help, and how to get care from others when we need it. If we have had negative experiences that impact on our trust in others, then it can be hard to ask for help or it might mean that we turn to the wrong people or in the wrong way – and that then reinforces our negative experience, and low self-worth, which makes us even more vulnerable.
We all have what I refer to as inner chatter, the sort of running commentary we have on ourselves and how we do in our day to day. I sent an email out the other day and forgot to attach the document. I always forget, and I always hear myself mutter ‘silly old fool’ under my breath. This is something I’ve heard my father say many times and now having internalised something of his voice, out of my mouth comes my father. Sometimes the voices we have inside us are less benign and might have a harsher quality that resonates with less compassionate care and find this repeat in our self-talk that whispers imperceptibly in the background. And when it does, it does a good job of keeping us down and is unlikely to help us treat ourselves well.

Listen to how you speak to yourself. Would you speak to your best friend like it? If not, don’t do it!
Check in with yourself but have social interaction with people who reinforce your sense of self and wellbeing.
Be mindful of your boundaries. I will write a blog on boundaries next time to help identify what is meant by boundaries and what healthy ones might look like.
What other top tips would you add to the list? Email me yours and I will add it to the list for others to benefit from 😊

.

What might be holding you back?

Further Information

“In therapy there is an opportunity to discover the nature of our underlying beliefs, stemming from experience, which unconsciously informs us to ‘abandon’ our goals. “

Facebook


Linkedin