D
Deleted member 1860
I was chatting with a friend of mine today and thought this would be a good topic of discussion here on the forum. A few days ago I read a Facebook post that linked to an article that discussed how Introverts interact with the world differently than extroverts. This is the article.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/physical-behavior-of-introverts_n_6069438.html
It dawned on me that certain parts of treatment may be geared more toward the extroverted personality instead of the introverted personality. The one that comes to mind immediately is the push toward being more social. Without trying to give too many details away, my friend was saying how his therapist was always pushing him to be more social and that he is stuck at a certain level of treatment because the therapist doesn't think he's being social enough. He is around people much of the day and it is quite draining for him. I told my friend that if I was around people as much as he was, I'd feel quite drained as well and wouldn't have much energy left for socializing any more. (We are both introverts.)
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that its good for us to isolate, because I know it isn't. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to be social, because we should. What I am saying is that it seems like therapists may be pushing people toward goals which would make an extrovert thrive, but not necessarily an introvert.
And, even in my own experience, this seems to be true as well. I remember being in treatment in the trauma unit and they would monitor our activity levels and how social we were. If we weren't social enough, we were locked out of our rooms! And, if we were on the lowest safety level, we were locked out of our rooms. (This would be from just after waking up until bedtime.) Fortunately that never happened to me, but I can see how that sort of "punishment" would be detrimental to an introverted personality in that they had to be subjected to everyone else on the unit for all waking hours of the day. (I would have gone nuts!)
I honestly think that it would help if treatment providers recognized these different personality styles and took them into account. That is, not all of us want to be alone because we have a mental illness and the mental illness is making us want to be by ourselves. I personally like being by myself and have no problems with it. I never get bored and can always find ways to entertain myself or have fun. I am social on my own terms, but I am still hesitant to even discuss my social level with a therapist as the common attitude is "you need to be more social and go out and make more friends".
Thoughts?
It dawned on me that certain parts of treatment may be geared more toward the extroverted personality instead of the introverted personality. The one that comes to mind immediately is the push toward being more social. Without trying to give too many details away, my friend was saying how his therapist was always pushing him to be more social and that he is stuck at a certain level of treatment because the therapist doesn't think he's being social enough. He is around people much of the day and it is quite draining for him. I told my friend that if I was around people as much as he was, I'd feel quite drained as well and wouldn't have much energy left for socializing any more. (We are both introverts.)
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that its good for us to isolate, because I know it isn't. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to be social, because we should. What I am saying is that it seems like therapists may be pushing people toward goals which would make an extrovert thrive, but not necessarily an introvert.
And, even in my own experience, this seems to be true as well. I remember being in treatment in the trauma unit and they would monitor our activity levels and how social we were. If we weren't social enough, we were locked out of our rooms! And, if we were on the lowest safety level, we were locked out of our rooms. (This would be from just after waking up until bedtime.) Fortunately that never happened to me, but I can see how that sort of "punishment" would be detrimental to an introverted personality in that they had to be subjected to everyone else on the unit for all waking hours of the day. (I would have gone nuts!)
I honestly think that it would help if treatment providers recognized these different personality styles and took them into account. That is, not all of us want to be alone because we have a mental illness and the mental illness is making us want to be by ourselves. I personally like being by myself and have no problems with it. I never get bored and can always find ways to entertain myself or have fun. I am social on my own terms, but I am still hesitant to even discuss my social level with a therapist as the common attitude is "you need to be more social and go out and make more friends".
Thoughts?