I know my therapist is really trying to help me to the best of her ability. I sense that. She is telling me I need to continually practice my mindfulness exercise, which I try hard to do all day and night (since I'm up usually in the middle of the night). She says it takes a lot of practice to get it down. I believe that must be the case because I've been working hard at it for a few weeks. I still struggle with intrusive thoughts and flashbacks and continually try to think them away. I do this constantly all day, and all night when necessary, but they still keep coming. I tell her that and she says I just have to keep at it. I get discouraged. I still keep trying, because I don't see any other way out of this, but I really get discouraged.
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Therapist Trying To Help
- Post starter hodge
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Queen Boudica
VIP Member
I got told that if you try not to think about something, then the automatic thing is that you think about it. That is what my psychologist told me. So if someone says to you "don't think about pink elephants" you will think about pink elephants.
ms spock
VIP Member
Hi hodge,
I don't know if your therapist really knows what s/he is doing in terms of both being a trauma therapist, and also teaching mindfulness, or being a Mindfulness practitioner. Mindfulness is not the thing to be doing when you are having flashbacks. That is ridiculous as far as I am concerned. Mindfulness is not the thing to be doing when you are dealing with intrusive thoughts either. I did one hour and fifteen minutes of mindfulness this morning. It resets me into being able to deal with the day - I went through three rugged years of busting my guts doing mindfulness practices. I am a dedicated student who has practiced seriously for three years now. There are volumes that I don't know about mindfulness, but I have discussed it with my psychiatrist constantly - my own practices of mindfulness - and there are dangerous times to be doing mindfulness - it can be very counter productive at times.
I spent many years discussing mindfulness with an old friend whilst she was using mindfulness to recover from lifelong Major Depressive Disorder, so I saw her get lucky with a very knowledgeable teacher who said "I don't know what that means." And advised her to find a teacher that did understand what she was going through. So she did the 8 week beginners course three times. She travelled all over the world to do three month retreats on mindfulness. She found her way through it all. She now gives talks. She had to find her own way - and she had to learn a whole lot of other skills to then be able to apply the mindfulness. And in all her early years the teachers kept her coming back to an attitude of kindness towards her self, an attitude of curiosity towards her practices, non striving, acceptance, non judgementalness was one she took quite a long time to get on top of - and a whole of other stuff - but she spent a lot of time getting support, interacting with teachers, doing group practices, doing audio practices, going to conferences, talks - a tremendous amount went into the formation of her practice - one therapist for one hour a week doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg, of a tip of an iceberg of what was put into her from outside sources as her depression was severe, serious and all encompassing. The teachers spent hours and hours with her and hours and hours with their other students - so they could tailor her mindfulness practices to her.
If you are depressed - even The Mindful Way Through Depression Dead Link Removed, J. Mark G. Williams DPhil Dead Link Removed, Dead Link Removed (you can listen to the whole audio book on youtube @hodge) (and the people that wrote that are some of the experts in the field) says at the end and the beginning of the audio book - that they advise against beginning mindfulness if you are in the middle of a depressive episode. So the experts teaching mindfulness - who are major contributions to mindfulness in the West, they suggest that you don't do it when you are in a depressive episode - I can only imagine the incredulous looks that someone would be so unskilled to suggest mindfulness to someone with PTSD who doesn't have a hell of a lot of other skills under their belt.
Individual practice is really hard going for a beginner who doesn't have mental health challenges. That is why people meditate and do mindfulness together in groups.
Did your therapist give you audio meditations to practice mindfulness with? How long are these?
Also if you don't have emotional regulation skills mindfulness is nigh impossible - so you don't go there with people until they have some way to manage their own emotional dysregulation. I have to exercise regularly and discharge a lot of cortisol to do mindfulness.
Mind only exercises can catapult me into dissociation, derealisation and depersonalisation - I have to be very careful about the way I do the practices - I always do audio tapes. I did my first 8 week course of mindfulness in a group. Group practice is much better for beginners and for people suffering severe anxiety, depression and PTSD. Also I always have the body as my locus of attention even for the practices they suggest not to do that - because it would be dangerous for me to go down that path.
I am all for mindfulness, but it needs to be applied skilfully by practitioners that actually know what they are doing. Your therapist does not sound like one of those people. Your therapist doesn't even sound like they have adequately grasped the basics of mindfulness or trauma therapy.
We are doing a mindfulness challenge on this forum right now. Most people are reading along a couple of us are doing the practices. I learnt about my monkey mind in my teens but it took almost two decades before I calmed down enough to even begin to practice because of the ongoing nature and when my traumas began. There were a lot of skills I needed to gain to be grounded enough to practice mindfulness.
What grounding has s/he done with you? What breathing has s/he done with you? Have you worked on having a safe place with her/him? Do you know how to rigorously and astutely and adeptly counter your own distorted cognitions? Doing mindfulness without the ability to dispute your cognitive distortions can set people up for suicide attempts and it is very poor practice indeed. Hey I went there. I had suicidal ideation from about 8 years old until 43 years old then I began mindfulness and I actually tried to commit suicide. So that has to be care taken.
Mindfulness is not the thing to start or try when you are struggling with suicidal ideation.
If you are feeling homicidal - that is not the time for mindfulness.
My psychiatrist thinks it is very important and encourages me to write about my experiences which were rugged. She suggests it is important to write about the experience of mindfulness intersecting with trauma as a lot of people can be set up to be damaged seriously by inept mindfulness.
Mindfulness is different for someone who has ADHD to someone who does not.
Mindfulness is different for someone who has PTSD and someone who does not.
Mindfulness is very different to someone who has Complex Trauma and someone who does not.
Mindfulness is very different for someone who is having hallucinations and someone who does not.
So hey now I am going against the whole mindfulness thing (did I mention I have a real beginners mind?) I am going to be very judgemental and say your therapist might have done an 8 week course, a weekend workshop for therapists, or some other similarly small amount of Mindfulness over perhaps a year - because no one who really knows what they are doing doing, would say what s/he is saying to you. I don't know what the whole enchilada is, but I can spot the people who are not so well educated about the whole shebang.
Your therapist might be the kindest person on earth. S/he might mean really well and really, really want to be helping you. That is lovely for you. Unfortunately this type of therapy/mindfulness is not only counter productive but can be quite dangerous. And you can end up reinforcing a whole lot of distorted cognitions, rumination patterns, faulty thinking, intrusive thinking, self hatred, self abuse, etc stuff that can send people spiralling in a serious downward spiral or in to a major depressive episode or suicide attempts or similar.
If someone really knows what they are doing - (then in my becoming a little bit more educated opinion) they would spend some considerable time making sure you can ground yourself in therapy and outside therapy, they would get you to mindfully eat a meal, mindfully go for a walk or mindfully brush your teeth and report back on what that felt like. They would do hundreds of really tiny steps and stick with you on those until you get it and get you to ease off if it is triggering you or making you worse.
To be a really good mindfulness practitioner/tacher you need to tune in where your student is and to go with that rather than trying to get them to do practices that are destructive to them and aggravates their conditions.
An experienced trauma therapist or Mindfulness practitioner/teacher is not going to expect mindfulness to actually make any significant changes in your life for years - whilst always encouraging the practices they would be comprehensive in many other skills to help you manage life and eventually be able to do more mindfulness practice.
At times my mind was so bad I did three one minute mindfulness practices per day. I don't do practices without guided audio. I am not yet ready for that.
Someone new at Mindfulness can get stuck in their heads in seriously damaging ways. It has to be done with skill, wisdom, openness and you never say to someone to battle on in emotional agony that is beyond the normal range of the human condition - that is pretty unmindful if you ask me (Being judgemental tonight I also say that is pretty stupid as well!) How unmindful of me to say such a thing!
This is probably of very little help for you @hodge - but know it is not you that is not managing this well - you are being expected to tap dance even though you have no legs. If someone who has no legs is expected to tap dance - then well you have to get them moving around and exercising, then you have to get legs designed for them, then the legs need to get made, then they have to do physio to work up to using their new legs, then they need to start standing on their new legs, they need to learn how to walk, jog, run, then they need to get some tap dancing shoes and learn to dance. A really tactless example I know - but that is what is being expected of you and it is really rather silly. This is why people will write papers in ten years and say that mindfulness is not helpful or not as helpful as it once was - because uneducated people with a tiny bit of knowledge can be so damaging.
Take what you want and please ignore the rest.
You are incredibly brave to be trying to do this @hodge. It is amazing that you are still doing it a few weeks later.
I don't know if your therapist really knows what s/he is doing in terms of both being a trauma therapist, and also teaching mindfulness, or being a Mindfulness practitioner. Mindfulness is not the thing to be doing when you are having flashbacks. That is ridiculous as far as I am concerned. Mindfulness is not the thing to be doing when you are dealing with intrusive thoughts either. I did one hour and fifteen minutes of mindfulness this morning. It resets me into being able to deal with the day - I went through three rugged years of busting my guts doing mindfulness practices. I am a dedicated student who has practiced seriously for three years now. There are volumes that I don't know about mindfulness, but I have discussed it with my psychiatrist constantly - my own practices of mindfulness - and there are dangerous times to be doing mindfulness - it can be very counter productive at times.
I spent many years discussing mindfulness with an old friend whilst she was using mindfulness to recover from lifelong Major Depressive Disorder, so I saw her get lucky with a very knowledgeable teacher who said "I don't know what that means." And advised her to find a teacher that did understand what she was going through. So she did the 8 week beginners course three times. She travelled all over the world to do three month retreats on mindfulness. She found her way through it all. She now gives talks. She had to find her own way - and she had to learn a whole lot of other skills to then be able to apply the mindfulness. And in all her early years the teachers kept her coming back to an attitude of kindness towards her self, an attitude of curiosity towards her practices, non striving, acceptance, non judgementalness was one she took quite a long time to get on top of - and a whole of other stuff - but she spent a lot of time getting support, interacting with teachers, doing group practices, doing audio practices, going to conferences, talks - a tremendous amount went into the formation of her practice - one therapist for one hour a week doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg, of a tip of an iceberg of what was put into her from outside sources as her depression was severe, serious and all encompassing. The teachers spent hours and hours with her and hours and hours with their other students - so they could tailor her mindfulness practices to her.
If you are depressed - even The Mindful Way Through Depression Dead Link Removed, J. Mark G. Williams DPhil Dead Link Removed, Dead Link Removed (you can listen to the whole audio book on youtube @hodge) (and the people that wrote that are some of the experts in the field) says at the end and the beginning of the audio book - that they advise against beginning mindfulness if you are in the middle of a depressive episode. So the experts teaching mindfulness - who are major contributions to mindfulness in the West, they suggest that you don't do it when you are in a depressive episode - I can only imagine the incredulous looks that someone would be so unskilled to suggest mindfulness to someone with PTSD who doesn't have a hell of a lot of other skills under their belt.
Individual practice is really hard going for a beginner who doesn't have mental health challenges. That is why people meditate and do mindfulness together in groups.
Did your therapist give you audio meditations to practice mindfulness with? How long are these?
Also if you don't have emotional regulation skills mindfulness is nigh impossible - so you don't go there with people until they have some way to manage their own emotional dysregulation. I have to exercise regularly and discharge a lot of cortisol to do mindfulness.
Mind only exercises can catapult me into dissociation, derealisation and depersonalisation - I have to be very careful about the way I do the practices - I always do audio tapes. I did my first 8 week course of mindfulness in a group. Group practice is much better for beginners and for people suffering severe anxiety, depression and PTSD. Also I always have the body as my locus of attention even for the practices they suggest not to do that - because it would be dangerous for me to go down that path.
I am all for mindfulness, but it needs to be applied skilfully by practitioners that actually know what they are doing. Your therapist does not sound like one of those people. Your therapist doesn't even sound like they have adequately grasped the basics of mindfulness or trauma therapy.
We are doing a mindfulness challenge on this forum right now. Most people are reading along a couple of us are doing the practices. I learnt about my monkey mind in my teens but it took almost two decades before I calmed down enough to even begin to practice because of the ongoing nature and when my traumas began. There were a lot of skills I needed to gain to be grounded enough to practice mindfulness.
What grounding has s/he done with you? What breathing has s/he done with you? Have you worked on having a safe place with her/him? Do you know how to rigorously and astutely and adeptly counter your own distorted cognitions? Doing mindfulness without the ability to dispute your cognitive distortions can set people up for suicide attempts and it is very poor practice indeed. Hey I went there. I had suicidal ideation from about 8 years old until 43 years old then I began mindfulness and I actually tried to commit suicide. So that has to be care taken.
Mindfulness is not the thing to start or try when you are struggling with suicidal ideation.
If you are feeling homicidal - that is not the time for mindfulness.
My psychiatrist thinks it is very important and encourages me to write about my experiences which were rugged. She suggests it is important to write about the experience of mindfulness intersecting with trauma as a lot of people can be set up to be damaged seriously by inept mindfulness.
Mindfulness is different for someone who has ADHD to someone who does not.
Mindfulness is different for someone who has PTSD and someone who does not.
Mindfulness is very different to someone who has Complex Trauma and someone who does not.
Mindfulness is very different for someone who is having hallucinations and someone who does not.
So hey now I am going against the whole mindfulness thing (did I mention I have a real beginners mind?) I am going to be very judgemental and say your therapist might have done an 8 week course, a weekend workshop for therapists, or some other similarly small amount of Mindfulness over perhaps a year - because no one who really knows what they are doing doing, would say what s/he is saying to you. I don't know what the whole enchilada is, but I can spot the people who are not so well educated about the whole shebang.
Your therapist might be the kindest person on earth. S/he might mean really well and really, really want to be helping you. That is lovely for you. Unfortunately this type of therapy/mindfulness is not only counter productive but can be quite dangerous. And you can end up reinforcing a whole lot of distorted cognitions, rumination patterns, faulty thinking, intrusive thinking, self hatred, self abuse, etc stuff that can send people spiralling in a serious downward spiral or in to a major depressive episode or suicide attempts or similar.
If someone really knows what they are doing - (then in my becoming a little bit more educated opinion) they would spend some considerable time making sure you can ground yourself in therapy and outside therapy, they would get you to mindfully eat a meal, mindfully go for a walk or mindfully brush your teeth and report back on what that felt like. They would do hundreds of really tiny steps and stick with you on those until you get it and get you to ease off if it is triggering you or making you worse.
To be a really good mindfulness practitioner/tacher you need to tune in where your student is and to go with that rather than trying to get them to do practices that are destructive to them and aggravates their conditions.
An experienced trauma therapist or Mindfulness practitioner/teacher is not going to expect mindfulness to actually make any significant changes in your life for years - whilst always encouraging the practices they would be comprehensive in many other skills to help you manage life and eventually be able to do more mindfulness practice.
At times my mind was so bad I did three one minute mindfulness practices per day. I don't do practices without guided audio. I am not yet ready for that.
Someone new at Mindfulness can get stuck in their heads in seriously damaging ways. It has to be done with skill, wisdom, openness and you never say to someone to battle on in emotional agony that is beyond the normal range of the human condition - that is pretty unmindful if you ask me (Being judgemental tonight I also say that is pretty stupid as well!) How unmindful of me to say such a thing!
This is probably of very little help for you @hodge - but know it is not you that is not managing this well - you are being expected to tap dance even though you have no legs. If someone who has no legs is expected to tap dance - then well you have to get them moving around and exercising, then you have to get legs designed for them, then the legs need to get made, then they have to do physio to work up to using their new legs, then they need to start standing on their new legs, they need to learn how to walk, jog, run, then they need to get some tap dancing shoes and learn to dance. A really tactless example I know - but that is what is being expected of you and it is really rather silly. This is why people will write papers in ten years and say that mindfulness is not helpful or not as helpful as it once was - because uneducated people with a tiny bit of knowledge can be so damaging.
Take what you want and please ignore the rest.
You are incredibly brave to be trying to do this @hodge. It is amazing that you are still doing it a few weeks later.
Last edited:
ms spock
VIP Member
You see thinking your thoughts away is magical thinking and is total rubbish and has no place in the world of educated mindfulness practitioners and/or therapists.
In The Mindful Way Through Depression - and I feel most concerned now @hodge I would seriously buy your therapist a copy @hodge so they can listen to the the polar bear example on the tape - this therapist is getting you to reinforce ruminations in your mind - been there and done that - it doesn't end well for you. This is a very unskilled and ignorant understanding of mindfulness (there really doesn't seem to be much understanding here). This is dangerous stuff and a really basic thing to understand.
What Lizio is saying that her therapist said (that you can't think your thoughts away) is backed up by a couple of thousand years of Buddhist practices. There is no banishing of thoughts, there is no thinking thoughts away, - banning a thought amplifies it in any mind.
It makes me ask "Has your therapist, seriously read even one of the major texts?" I think not. I know I sound harsh but this is ridiculous what this therapist is saying to you. And so dangerous - it hasn't sent you spirally down or suicidal but it could so easily be so dangerous to so many other types of clients.
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Queen Boudica
VIP Member
I don't think he is telling me to think my thoughts away, that is the exact opposite of what he is saying. He is saying if you try NOT to think about it, then you think about it because you are trying not to.
ms spock
VIP Member
@Lizio is that not what I said in my post?
What I thought I had said was that trying to think thoughts away will entrench and fixate those thoughts in your mind - one of the reasons not to do mindfulness when you are suffering from suicidal ideation.
The example in The Mindful Way Through Depression is about a polar bear - think about the polar bear then they ask you not to think of the polar bear, which of course is impossible. This illustrates you can't think your thoughts away that you are thinking about the polar bear alot because you are trying not to.
What I thought I had said was that trying to think thoughts away will entrench and fixate those thoughts in your mind - one of the reasons not to do mindfulness when you are suffering from suicidal ideation.
The example in The Mindful Way Through Depression is about a polar bear - think about the polar bear then they ask you not to think of the polar bear, which of course is impossible. This illustrates you can't think your thoughts away that you are thinking about the polar bear alot because you are trying not to.
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Queen Boudica
VIP Member
Yes but how does that link to what I said my psychologist told me. He didn't tell me to try to think the thoughts away. So I don't get why you quoted what I said. Are you telling me I should buy my therapist the mindfulness book or are you talking to hodge and about hodge's therapist?
digger
Sponsor
'Mindfulness' and 'trying to think things away' aren't really the same thing. What does the exercise involve that she asking you to do?
Queen Boudica
VIP Member
Queen Boudica
VIP Member
Actually same thing when people tell you "not to panic" doesn't work.
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