Why you should work with good feelings in therapy

If you make the person think about a problem and you distract him, the person is dissociated from his problem in that moment. So for a moment he is not even thinking about it, but the memory is still present in the brain. The neural network is still active. Indeed, you it is even changeable over the next 24 hours and that opens up possibilities

Good feelings in therapy

When the person is dissociated then the next step is to have the person think about what they would like to feel about that problem. It seems logical to me that that would obviously be a positive feeling, such as self-confidence, relaxation, rest or something else. There are 3 different ways to do that.

The first way is to have someone at that moment think of a memory that felt very good. What's important for the therapist in that moment is to work with that feeling as well. So if you want to make a client laugh, it is more helpful to go into a humorous mood yourself than into a mood of sadness or depression.

Seems logical but a lot of therapists don't do that very well. They are used to staying very neutral so as not to influence the client too much. But is that even possible? If you have studied Paul Watzlawick then you know that is impossible.

Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921, March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American psychologist known as one of the world's leading communication scholars.

He is best known for the five communication axioms he established. These are:

1. You cannot not communicate, or in other words you always influence even by not talking or moving.
2. Every form of communication has both a content aspect and a relational aspect. The latter classifies the former and is therefore a form of metacommunication.
   In addition to the content of an interaction, the relationship between the individuals involved in the communication always plays a role. If this relationship is strong, there is greater mutual understanding, which in turn influences the content.
3. The nature of a relationship depends on the interpretation of interactions between the people communicating.
   Interpunction is the interpretation of interactions in terms of cause and effect. The sender and receiver interpret their own behavior as a reaction to that of the other person. An example of this is a conflict in which the parties react to each other with increasing intensity. For example, one person reacts angrily because the other did the same. At a certain point, no one can determine anymore who or what caused the argument.

   People are then tempted to point to a specific issue as the cause of the argument. However, this disrupts communication. People have a choice in how they respond to others. This offers the opportunity to step back, stay in the conversation, keep the substance of the issue in mind, and maintain a healthy, secure relationship.

4. People communicate both digitally and analogously.
   Not only the spoken word—also known as digital communication—but also nonverbal, analog expressions, such as laughing and looking away, convey a message. Digital communication focuses on content, while analog communication reveals more about the relationship. For communication to be successful, these two must align with one another. Therefore, one must use nonverbal cues to reinforce what is being said verbally.
5. Communication between people is either symmetrical or complementary, depending on whether the relationship is based on similarity or difference.
   In communication, there may be an attempt to eliminate differences in order to reach agreement. Alternatively, emphasis may be placed on the differences, allowing people to complement each other and gain insights or learn from one another. Both forms are necessary for communication to be successful.
   (Source: Wikipedia)

Watzlawick's 5 axioms are interesting to take away because it then becomes clear that as a therapist you have a great deal of influence on the client's healing process.

Not so serious...

So if you know that, what would happen if you stayed very serious all the time. If not a single smile is possible during a session. You influence the client. So you yourself ensure that the client remains in that seriousness and it becomes more and more difficult for the client to step out of it.

What's more, the therapist thereby amplifies the severity of the problem and thus makes it worse that way. I know plenty of stories of people who go to a therapist and the complaint gets worse because they suddenly start looking at it seriously. It wasn't too bad, but after a few conversations, it becomes more and more obvious that the problem is serious. Even though it wasn't a serious problem.

The therapist in question made matters worse by associating the client with the problem, but leaving it at that, probably. He did not bother to dissociate, and if he did, he did not tap into the right resource with the client to make a change.

Associate with a resource

Associating with a resource is also an essential step and you have to get it right. So don't work with negative and bad feelings because that only reinforces the problem. If the therapist in question talks to the client and talks about his problem then the client has activated his problem. If he lets the client dissociate from the problem then the client is momentarily distracted. Then he has to let the client think about a good feeling for a while.

In fact, at that point, 2 neural networks in the brain are activated. One has to do with the problem and the other has to do with the good feeling. Probably two memories are also activated that are thus changeable at that moment.

You have to be careful with that.

After all, you can change those memories now, indeed you already do. So I think that is exactly when you should start working only with good feelings. You don't want to make it worse by making the client only think about bad feelings , do you? And that is what often happens.

If you then evoke a good feeling in the client and then you link it to the problem by having the client think about their problem with the good feeling, you create something good. If you do this continuously, then at some point you will have a happy client who no longer has a problem :-)

Did you find this interesting or have a question? I'd love to hear from you.