"Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andreas Steve)

Congruence Check: Asking for Objections

Before beginning the exercise below, I do a thorough congruence check, to be sure it is appropriate to reduce or eliminate the anxiety or other unpleasant symptoms that they feel. If someone has very good reason to be anxious, and their anxiety keeps them out of dangerous situations, it would not be appropriate to change their feelings until and unless they had some other way to protect themselves from that danger.

However, often there is no real danger, only a perceived or imagined danger, or their response is to some past context, so the danger is no longer present. In order to distinguish between these different possibilities, it is important to find out if there are any positive outcomes that would be affected by eliminating the anxiety.

The simplest way to do this is to ask, "Does any part of you have any objection to having a more comfortable response in all the situations in which you have had these intense feelings?" Often an objection will emerge as an uncomfortable feeling or nonverbal incongruence. At other times, it may appear as an image of a potential problem, or a internal voice that is more explicit. "If I lost my anxiety, others would expect me to take charge and be more responsible." Any objection needs to be satisfied before proceeding, or it will tend to interfere with the process.

Whenever you find an objection, one option is to simply stop what you are doing until you have more experience with adjusting a voice, or until you have more experience with satisfying an objection. This is the safest option, but it prevents you from trying some changes that could be very useful.

Another option is to proceed with the process, with the full knowledge that any change can be reversed if it turns out to be unsatisfactory. If you assure any objection — whether that is a vague feeling, or a more specific image or internal voice — that you agree reverse any change if it objects to it later, it can be comfortable trying out a change to find out if it is satisfactory or not. This option is particularly useful when an objection is not based on a specific perceived danger, but only on a somewhat vague fear of the unknown — what might happen if the change was made.

Other objections are much more specific. For instance, "If I lost my anxiety, I wouldn't get out of dangerous situations fast enough," describes a protective function that needs to be respected. The simplest way to satisfy this objection would be to agree to keep the anxious feeling in any contexts that are truly dangerous, while exploring alternatives in other contexts.

Most anxiety doesn't actually protect someone by keeping them out of a context that is perceived as dangerous; it only makes them feel bad while they are in it. For instance, many people are anxious about flying, but it's not strong enough to keep them from flying, it only makes them miserable when they are on a plane. Once you have decided to risk getting on a plane, the anxiety is useless, so you may as well feel comfortable.

Yet another way to satisfy an objection is to ask the objection how it could be satisfied. "OK, you want to protect me from danger; how can you continue to protect me from danger, while allowing me to feel more comfortable?" In many ways this is the best option of all, because it gives the objecting part the task of finding a solution. Since it knows most about exactly what it wants to protect you from, it is in the best position to propose an effective solution.