Hello. I'm The ASMR Psychologist. And, in
this video, I'm going to be reading to you
a little bit more from my self-help book—'Reinventing
Your Life', by Jeff Young and Janet Klosko.
And, if you have missed my previous videos
in which I read about this book, you can watch
those just here—it should pop up on the
screen.
But I guess the other thing to say is that
this book is based on a therapy called 'Schema-Focused
CBT', which is a therapy designed to help
us to address those factors that have made
us vulnerable to developing problems like
depression, anxiety, or relationship problems,
in the first place. So, it's a really important
therapy, and this is an amazing book. It's
very easy to read, and it is packed full of
techniques that have been proven to help us
to reinvent our lives.
Okay, so, today, I'm going to be reading about
something called 'people-pleasing', which
you may have heard of. It's a very common
thing that we do, and it's a way of coping
with not feeling particularly good about ourselves.
But, before I do that, I'm going to make myself
a cup of tea with my new teapot.
So, this is a teapot that is especially for
flowering tea. So, these are teas that are
very pretty, are very tasty, the flavour is
very intense. But they have a lot of health
benefits as well—in particular, they help
to boost our metabolism, and to reduce inflammation
in the body, and, also, stress.
So, this is a sample tin, so I'm not quite
sure what I'm going to get, but let's have
a little look. It comes in a nice tin.
Okay, let's see.
Okay, so, this is a Jasmine,
Peony, and Chrysanthemum, green tea.
Okay, so...
Quite tricky to get out.
There we go.
Okay, so, then we just pop it in.
Okay, and we leave it
to steep for three minutes
—I'll just leave it there,
so you can watch it flower,
while we read 'Reinventing Your Life'.
Okay, so, we start with a case example about
a man called Carlton.
He's 35 years old, and he works for his father
in a family textile business. He's not very
good at managing other people and would much
rather be doing something else. Carlton is
caught in the Subjugation lifetrap.
Carlton is a people-pleaser. He puts everybody’s
needs before his own. He is the one who always
says, 'I don’t care, you decide,' when other
people ask him what he wants. Carlton tries
to please his wife by saying 'yes' to everything
she says and wants. He tries to please his
children by never saying 'no'. He tries to
please his father by going into the family
business, even though it means doing a job
he does not like.
Ironically, despite the fact that he tries
to please so hard, other people often feel
irritated with Carlton. He is so self-sacrificing.
His wife is angry that he has no backbone.
And, although his children take advantage
of his permissiveness, at some level, they
are also angry that he fails to set limits.
His father is constantly annoyed with Carlton’s
weakness and lack of aggressiveness at work,
particularly in dealing with employees. Although
Carlton does not know it, he is angry, too.
Deep inside, he is angry about having denied
his own needs for so long. This is a pattern
he learned in early life. His father is considered
a tyrant; he thrives by domineering and controlling
others. Everything has to be his way. As a
child, if Carlton disagreed or argued, his
father spanked and belittled him. His mother
adopted a completely passive role. She was
depressed much of the time, and Carlton often
found himself in the role of caretaker, trying
to make her feel better. There was no place
he could go to get his needs met.
Before coming to us, Carlton was in an experiential
treatment called 'Gestalt therapy' for two
years. His therapist encouraged him to stay
in the present and get in touch with his feelings.
For example, the therapist had him try imagery
exercises in which he would picture his father
and practise talking back to him. The approach
was helpful. He started to feel how angry
he was.
The problem was that the therapy lacked direction.
It did not have a consistent focus. Carlton
drifted from session to session, exploring
whatever feelings were most prominent at the
moment. Naturally, his anger at his loved
ones kept surfacing, but he did not act on
his feelings, and he did not understand why.
The therapist did not draw all the components
of his problem together for him and then teach
him specific change techniques to overcome
his subjugation.
Lifetrap therapy provided Carlton with a simple,
straightforward conceptual framework that
allowed him to see that subjugation was a
primary theme running through his life, and
he learned ways to change it. He made rapid
progress. We often find that the Subjugation
lifetrap takes the least amount of time to
break.
Carlton developed a stronger sense of self.
He became more aware of his own desires and
feelings, which he had learned to suppress.
He started developing opinions and preferences.
He also became more assertive with his father,
employees, and his wife and children. Particularly,
he worked on expressing anger; he learned
to state his needs in a calm and controlled
manner. Although his wife and children put
up some minor resistance at the beginning,
once they recognised they were losing power,
they soon settled down. In truth, they liked
him better. They wanted him to be strong.
He had a more difficult battle with his father.
Although his father tried to squash Carlton’s
rebellion and assert his dominant position,
Carlton discovered that he had more leverage
with his father than he realised. When he
threatened to leave the business if his father
would not assume a more equal role, his father
backed down. Carlton is now beginning to take
over many of his father’s responsibilities
as his father prepares for retirement. He
has also discovered that his father has a
newfound respect for him.
This case illustrates the importance of going
beyond getting in touch with our feelings.
Many so-called experiential therapies, such
as inner-child work, provide a valuable role
in helping us feel the links between what
we experience in our daily lives today and
what we felt as children. But these approaches
rarely go far enough. Participants often feel
much better after therapy sessions or workshops,
but they usually drift back to their old patterns
quickly.
The lifetrap approach provides structured
behavioural homework assignments and continual
confrontation to help you maintain progress.
Okay, I'm going to stop there because I think
there's quite a lot of information to consider.
I'm going to put my bookmark back in, and
we can pick things up in a couple of days'
time.
Okay, so, I hope that was interesting, useful,
and also enjoyable.
Let's check out this tea. Okay, so, it looks
very pretty—I wonder what it tastes like.
Okay.
Okay, let's have a little smell, first of all.
Mm, that's nice. That almost smells sort of
peachy, maybe apricot. I'll have a little
sip.
Mm, it definitely has a very fruity taste
to it. That's delicious. I think that would
be a nice evening drink, maybe just before
bed—it feels like quite a comforting flavour
to it. Okay.
Okay, so, if you like this type of video,
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In the meantime,
I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
Thank you very much for watching.
And I will see you soon.
Bye-bye.
