Psychology Today - SWEET INSTITUTE - Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals

Can We Cease Suffering?

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:39:28 +0000

Here’s the truth and the answer. This article was first published in Psychology Today â€œWhat does it mean to be a human being? What is life all about? Why are we here?â€ he asked, but without waiting for a response. â€œWhy are we supposed to be here? How did we get here? And why do we have to be living a life that is so unpleasant and such a struggle?â€ He paused and then resumed: â€œIs this what life all about? Is life supposed to be this hard? Whatâ€™s the difference between these other folks who are making it and me? Those rich people, with a lot of money, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, why them, and why not me?â€ He now took a longer pause, just enough to catch his breath before proceeding and said: â€œWhat did I do to be born into this family? What sins did I commit to deserve to be born to an addict mother?â€ â€œWhy was I born mixed? Why was I not just either all white or all black? Now, where do I belong? No one accepts me except those I was smoking and using with. Now that I am sober, where do I belong? Who am I? What am I? Why am I even alive?â€ At this point, he starts to look tearful, and he then continues: â€œI can see why so many people kill themselves. I used to think it was stupid, but when you think about it, when you become realistic, you realize that they are right in just ending it.â€ This is an extract of a patient, â€œMike,â€ receiving combined psychotherapy and management. He had graduated from a specialized high school for gifted and talented students and received scholarships from three different Ivy League colleges. Mike had started college but had to leave to get treatment for substance use and mental health conditions. Now he is in recovery, back in college, working, and regularly attending his mental health services. Almost 1 million people die by suicide each year.[1] Thatâ€™s more than one person every 40 seconds, and for each person who dies, 20 persons attempt to die, which means one person attempts suicide every two seconds. Now, when accounting for confounding factors, the most common reason behind all forms of suicide, either attempted or completed, is â€œfeeling depressed.”[2] â€œFeeling depressed,â€ in turn, can be part of, or due to, various factors, one of which is related to where Mike was at that point in his life. When people die by suicide or are contemplating it, several of the questions posed by Mike at the beginning of this article are their questions as well. Before considering suicide, they have attempted to find the answers to these questions, and have often engaged in behaviors that turned out to be detrimental to them, their loved ones, and society. At times, people turn to drugs and alcohol, or their symptoms of depression, anxiety, or OCD become more apparent.[3] Many seek treatment to get answers to their suffering. At times, they explicitly pose similar questions; at other times, they are implicit, while still, they hardly know these are the types of questions they are asking. They know, deep inside, something is missing, something is not making sense, something is not clicking. They know internally that their self-concept is shaky, their sense of identity is confusing, and their sense of purpose is nonexistent. Five major thought systems try to answer these questions and try to make sense of the world, our human race, and our existence. Philosophy, religion, and science started, while spirituality and metaphysics continued. Whoâ€™s right? Who has “the Truth”? Instead of asking who has the Truth, it is more beneficial to ask what the Truth is. Part of the answer to this question helps make it easier to recognize that the Truth is at the intersection of all our five major thought systems. In other words, the Truth is not in religion, spirituality, metaphysics, or philosophy alone. By the same token, the Truth is also not in science alone. And as the phrase goes, the great scientific truths of today are expected to be the great scientific lies of tomorrow. Yet these significant five thought systems have something in common among them, and that commonality is the Truth. Now, the question is: Why is this important? To which we answer in the form of the following five questions: 1. Do we want to cease suffering? 2. Do we want to learn a new way to navigate the world? 3. Do we want to know aliveness, peace, freedom, authentic happiness, and authentic success? 4. Do we want to fully use our talents, skills, passion, and strength for our highest benefit and that of our loved ones and others? 5. Do we want to grow ourselves and help elevate ourselves to a new way of being in the world? If you say “yes” to any of those five inquiries, it means the question of “What is the Truth?” is important to you. Answering this question in the most rigorous and accurate way possible is also of the utmost importance because it is fundamental to everything else we are and we do. The answer is also fundamental to something all of us are concerned with, and that is suffering. Just like Mike, billions of individuals in the world are wondering why life is so hard. Like Mike, often enough, we find ourselves suffering as if this is indeed what life was all about. Can we cease suffering? This article introduces a series on Ending Suffering for All. Suffering has been with us since the dawn of time; therefore, it must sound preposterous to assume that we can end it. This would indeed be a logical way of thinking about it, except that such an assertion derives from the same type of thinking that created suffering, to begin with. As Einstein said, â€œWe cannot solve our problems with the same type of thinking that created it.â€[4] This means nothing we can currently say about suffering would end up being helpful as long as we continue in the same type of thinking that has engendered it. “What is that other type of thinking that will help […]

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The Formula to Help Cease Suffering

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:36:45 +0000

Introducing the process of integration. This article was first published in Psychology Today The best way to understand others is to understand ourselves. We keep hearing that, yet we hardly understand what that means. We also hear “the clinician treats, but the patient heals herself.” And, once again, what does that really mean? No, not what does that mean intellectually—what does that mean from an experiential standpoint? Unlike psychotherapy, which has been around for a few centuries, coaching has been around for only a few decades. Many therapists have slowly moved their clinical practice to a coaching one, making use of the same skills they learned in school and in their practice, but through a different lens [1]. However, no research shows the opposite—coaches transforming their coaching practice into a psychotherapy one, though the skills they are using are practically the same as clinicians’. This, then, begs the question: What is that different lens? Medicine, mental health, and psychotherapy are based on a disease model. This model is based on what’s not working, and it’s based on what’s wrong, what’s to be fixed, and what the patient is not doing. Coaching, on the other hand, is a strengths-based model. It’s based on what’s working and how to make it work better and faster. It’s based on what’s good and how to make it great, what the strengths are, and what the client is doing, all of which is predicated upon the same skills that clinicians have learned [2]. Here’s the caveat: The moment we start looking for what needs to be fixed, we will always find things that need to be fixed. Similarly, when we start looking for what’s working, we will always end up finding what’s working. The world we live in is one of awareness and consciousness. We experience only that which we are aware of, and we do not come across that which we are not apprised of. Without any form of judgment or blaming ourselves, much less blaming others, let us take an objective look: In 1952, the DSM-I was 130 pages long and contained 106 mental health conditions. In 1968, the DSM-II was 134 pages long and listed 182 conditions. In 1980, the DSM-III was 494 pages long and listed 265 conditions, and 7 years later, the DSM-III-R was 567 pages long with 292 diagnoses. What about 7 more years later? Well, the DSM-IV came with 410 conditions and was 886 pages. By the time we went from the DSM-I to DSM-IV-TR, we have seen an increase in the number of mental health conditions listed by more than 300 percent [3]. Have we been making them all up? Yes and No. For, as the Nobel Prize Laureate Daniel Kahneman explained it, the decision has been made, and we simply justify it as if we had made it consciously. Our consciousness is the decisive factor, and as long as we continue to practice medicine, mental health, or psychotherapy with the same level of consciousness that we have been practicing all along, more conditions are likely to be listed, more patients will be diagnosed, there will be more problems to be fixed, and more money will be spent towards disease management than towards enhancing wellness. As Einstein said, “We cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” This implies we need a different mind, which simply means we need a different level of consciousness: an update in our “Decisive Factor.” For the Fundamental of Consciousness is constant, and it will not change. What to do: Understand and help others understand that we have been treating individuals on a superficial level, just at the tip of the iceberg, ignoring everything under the water. Understand and help others understand that as long as we continue this way, we can guarantee an increase in the number of conditions, in the amount of resources spent trying to treat them, and in the number of disabilities due to illness. Understand and help others understand that helping individuals stay well and be better does not take business away from us; on the contrary, we will end up with a richer economy, much more for more people, because we will be helping more individuals create more cool stuff in the world, making it easier for everyone to live a better life with less striving. Data shows that coaches consistently do better than therapists on several levels. And they focus consistently on what can be better instead of what’s not working. Understand and help others understand that pointing fingers at anyone does not make things better; clinicians do not have to continue to leave the field, and clinicians can start being the change they want to see in the field, to borrow Gandhi’s suggestion. How to proceed: While helping patients and clients with their psychology and biology, which means with their “Normal Blueprint,” keep in mind that the work is not done and will never be done until we lead them towards their Natural Blueprint. Emphasize at all times that behind our psychology and our biology are the “Three Fundamentals” and that behind our Normal Blueprint is our “Natural Blueprint.” Understand that our biology and psychology will continue its “normal” pattern of symptom formation, maladaptive coping mechanisms, and disease making, as long as disintegration remains the norm since it is the mechanism of disease. Understand that the only way to wellness for all individuals is through the mechanism of integration, which is the opposite of disintegration. Emphasize that the process of integration means the fusion of “the Fundamental of Mind,” “the Fundamental of Consciousness,” and “the Fundamental of Thought,” and that mastering the how of reaching integration is the best gift clinicians can ever give to their patients and clients. There is no one formula to get to integration. But the more practical the formula, the easier it becomes for patients and clients to implement and master. The following formula meets such criteria, and it is the “Triple R Triad”: Refocusing Restructuring Redirecting Might clinicians hold the key to help ease the suffering in our patients and clients? Might clinicians be the pioneers to help our beloved field catch up […]

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An Inside-Out World

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:33:29 +0000

Reality and illusory-based thinking. This article was first published in Psychology Today Almost all of us navigate the world through a set of controlled hallucinations [1]. While it would be in our best interest to give up these controlled hallucinations, we have all agreed to collectively call them “reality.” Our reluctance to give up our controlled hallucinations makes sense, except that suffering ends up being the consequence. Regardless of how our thought systems convey and repeat the message, we still seem to miss it. We fail to understand, appreciate, or see that this is an inside-out world [2]. In other words, we continue to navigate the world as if it were happening to us; as if we were victims of it. Understanding that this is an inside-out world entails taking responsibility for our lives, and our circumstances. Yet this is no easy accomplishment, and for many reasons: We are socialized to think dualistically [3]: It’s either/or, it’s all or nothing — and there is no grey area. As such, we are socialized to either blame the outside for our own circumstances or blame ourselves for our life situation. Both blaming ourselves and blaming the outside world lead to suffering. And, both are based on an illusory context. If the only two options we think we have are between blaming “others” or “things” and blaming “ourselves,” then taking responsibility for our lives remains elusive. We’ve spent our life “believing” in an outside-in world. Beliefs direct our actions, which means we act as if things were coming from the outside into our brain instead of the other way around. Because we try to remain faithful to our belief system, we behave accordingly. It is then hard for us to even consider what life would be like if we stopped pretending that it operates from an outside-in paradigm. We are oblivious to the concept of Consciousness. Yes, we experience it all the time and would not be able to experience it without it. We would not be able to enjoy a movie, get fully into it, and still know that it is just a movie. Consciousness allows us to do this. Yet, we still have no idea what the decisive factor is-what Consciousness is. It takes a different level and state of Consciousness to see Reality, to shift to Reality-Based Thinking, and to see Harmony instead of the effects of Illusory-Based Thinking (our collective controlled hallucinations). It is very easy to mistake Illusory-Based Thinking as meaningful because it is contrasted with Reality. However, its relationship, put in context, will help us fully understand how and why it is meaningless. This, in turn, can be summarized as follows: Reality is all there is. Reality is the only Source. And, Reality is the only thing we can see. This means in the absence of Reality, there is nothing. In the presence of nothing, our brain makes up something based on our Ordinary or Normal Blueprint. Our mind creates an illusion. However, the illusion still has its effects, and we do not passively perceive the world. Instead, we actively generate it. This third point is crucial. The fact that something meaningless, not real, and which does not exist, can affect us, is a hard pill to swallow. However, we cannot escape it, and the reluctance to give up our illusory based belief is not without consequences. Judgment, attack thoughts, projections, and the resulting suffering stem from meaningless Illusory-Based Thinking, but all have an effect. Many of us make the shift when it no longer makes sense for us to continue to suffer, and when we experience another way that leads to a different result. This is easier said than done. Once we shift to Reality-Based Thinking, everything shifts. However, due to how deeply rooted our current modus operandum is, making such a shift is not a straightforward process. But there is a way to make it happen: Have the desire, decide, be determined, be willing, and be committed, to make the shift. Practice giving your brain a new point of reference, a new Blueprint, a new template to draw from. Practice regularly, frequently, and intensely until your new point of reference becomes more predominant than your habitual Illusory-Based Thinking Use everything you perceive in the world, in others, in yourself, and in situations, as a feedback mechanism, or feedback loop. Use it to determine if you are operating from Reality-Based Thinking or from Illusory-Based Thinking. And commit to making a shift each time it is necessary. This includes those times when you beat yourself up for not “getting there fast enough.” If this comes up for you, know that you are merely operating from Illusory-Based Thinking, and it is an instantaneous invitation for us to make the shift. For Reality-Based Thinking will, and can only bring you harmony, peace of mind, and an end to suffering. If there is any skepticism, it is a sign of which context we are operating from, and the invitation is there for us to put it to the test. Testing it and experimenting with it, allows us to see for ourselves. Then, we become a model to help ourselves, to help our loved ones, patients and clients cease suffering in their lives, so they too can be a model for those around them. References [1] “Anil Seth: How Does Your Brain Construct Your Conscious Reality?” NPR, NPR, 5 Oct. 2018. [2] Keltner, Dacher, and Paul Ekman. “The Science of ‘Inside Out’.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 July 2015. [3] Enviroart, et al. “Dualistic Thinking.” Enviroart by Suzanne Bélair, IAF, AFC, 25 May 2009.

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The Forgiveness Exercise

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 15:54:34 +0000

The ripple effect on health, happiness, and well-being. This article was first published in Psychology Today Forgiveness is defined as the intentional and voluntary process by which someone undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding a perceived offense. This process also entails the overcoming of unhelpful emotions, such as resentment and vengeance, however, justified they might be. [1] The benefits of forgiveness have been studied in medicine and social sciences. For example, researchers at the University of Wisconsin developed a 20-Step Process Model of Forgiveness [2] following a longitudinal study that showed that people who are generally more affected by neurosis, anger, and hostility were less likely to forgive another person even after a long time had passed. Studies also show that those who forgive are happier and healthier than those who hold resentments. For example, some studies show improved functioning in cardiovascular and nervous systems for those who thought about forgiving, and those who were more forgiving were less likely to suffer from a wide range of illnesses. Needless to say, the less forgiving individuals reported a higher number of health conditions. And studies done at Stanford University show that forgiveness [3] can be taught and learned as a skill and that those who have learned to forgive become less angry, feel less hurt, and are generally more optimistic. Further, with forgiveness one is found to become compassionate, more self-confident, and less likely to experience stress, and will have increased vitality. Despite the power behind the process of forgiveness, many either don’t practice it or don’t practice it well. One optimal place to start, however, is to understand that the process of forgiving someone else entails starting by forgiving ourselves. This, therefore, means that the process of forgiveness entails an inside-out and not an outside-in approach. Studies show that anything done to promote forgiveness has no impact unless we think emotionally and experience the process by making forgiveness of the self, of others, and things, a way of life that is habitual and natural, through practice. As a result, learning to forgive can be quite a challenge for all of us, and additional factors that explain that are as follows: The system-based thinking we’ve all been raised with is Illusion-Based. We’ve been wired for Illusion-Based Thinking, which means our default thinking is through the lens of the past. Perceiving through the lens of the past brings fear and attack thoughts. It brings projection, further fear, retaliation, and further attacks. And the cycle continues, which leads us further away from forgiveness. The above three mechanisms explain why it is such a challenge to get to forgiveness and why forgiveness is impossible to get to as long as we continue to run our lives on Illusion-Based Thinking. As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” To truly and fully forgive then, entails a shift from Illusion-Based Thinking to Reality-Based Thinking; a shift to understanding that we live in a world of projection and that our inability to forgive is nothing less than a reminder, sign, and an invitation to, forgive ourselves fully and truly. In Reality-Based Thinking, forgiveness allows us to fulfill our shared function of modeling, a function we are currently unconsciously fulfilling in ways that are not always beneficial to ourselves, others, and the world. Now, given that our authentic happiness, fulfillment, and authentic success are dependent upon our ability to fulfill our function, and, given that forgiveness is part of fulfilling our function, it seems to be clear that our authentic happiness is tightly tied to our ability to forgive. Now, given the essential nature of the practice of forgiveness, we will all agree that we cannot delay any further. Here’s what we can do right now and what we can also help our loved ones and our patients and clients start doing right away. Stand in front of a mirror. Look in your eyes for 30 seconds. Say your name, followed by “I forgive you.” And repeat this at least 10 times. Then say your name, followed by “I forgive you for…” and fill in the blank. Do so at least three times, with a new fill in the blank item, each time. Stay in front of the mirror for a few seconds to observe how you’re feeling overall, including in your body. And commit to this exercise every day, for at least one month, and be ready to share how much it will have changed your life because it has to. There are several reasons why this forgiveness exercise is so powerful. Let us mention just a few: It automatically starts removing unconscious blocks we have for self-love, for our sense of worthiness, and for our self-confidence. It starts to wash away self-hatred, any sense of worthlessness, and any low sense of self in general. It starts to give us a sense of freedom, allowing us to slowly but surely put down our heavy bag of the past, which then allows us to live and make more conscious decisions in the present. It allows us to start using a different template for our future. It helps us start developing a different relationship with our incessant thinking or mental chatter, which then helps decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and even trauma. It starts to give us a taste of what it means to start living in Reality-Based Thinking, which will help expand our consciousness to make this shift from Illusion-Based Thinking to Reality-Based Thinking. Do you not find it is worth it? Are you willing to at least start doing this exercise? You will be glad you did. We thank you for being part of this journey to help cease suffering for our patients and clients, for our loved ones, for the world, starting with us. References [1] “Forgiveness.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Feb. 2021. [2] “How to Forgive.” Need To Forgive Forgiveness Institute Benefits of Forgiving How to Forgive. [3] Stanford Medicine.

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