Patterns of loving

Psychologists have identified six differing types of love or patterns of loving that can occur in human relationships. This questionaire allows one to identify the types of love they experience in relationship with a partner.







The six types are
Storge
Agape
Manic
Pragma
Ludus
Eros

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Book comments part 2

This second set of comments come from my Facebook page on the book - Working with suicidal individuals.

Comment 4

The teenager presents a special set of circumstances when it comes to assessing suicide risk. They are one of the more difficult groups to make an accurate assessment of their current level of suicidality. People kill themselves for a variety of reasons. With the truly suicidal person their primary intent is to kill self but there are others who will end their life where that is not their primary intention. Due to their still immature thinking style and lack of life experience the teenager presents a special case in suicidology in that they are less predictable than the mature adult.

Comment 5

My personal circumstances illustrate how teenagers are a special case when assessing their suicidality. The truly suicidal person is the one who has made the “Don’t exist” suicide decision in early life. I have not made that decision. In my life script, suicide is not an option. In my adulthood there have been times when life circumstances have been very bad. Not often but there have been times. In those times the ‘solution’ of suicide has never even entered my mind. It is simply not part of my life script and hence is not considered by me when times are tough.

As I say in the book in my late teenage years I attempted suicide twice. I could have died in those instances if things had not worked out as they did. Thus we would have had a teenager who died by suicide but who has not made the suicide decision. The mindset of the teenager allows for that to happen whereas with the adult it is much less likely to happen.

Comment 6

In the psychological sense the truly suicidal person is one who has made the suicide decision in childhood. When this happens the person decides that suicide is a viable option or possible solution to problems and this decision then sits dormant in the psyche. If life events should develop where the person finds them self in bad circumstances then the decision becomes activated and the person starts to consider suicide as a solution to their problems. These problems could be financial collapse, marital problems, loss of reputation and so forth.

Whilst not all people suicide because of making such a decision this represents a significant group and they are quite a high risk group. Determining if a person has made such a decision is not a difficult task and I show a variety of ways this can be done in the book. It does not take long nor is it dangerous or particularly painful and it can be done in groups. This could be used to screen significant numbers of people especially those in areas where suicide is more likely such as in combat zones or other very stressful circumstances. High stress is another time when the suicide decision could become activated.

Comment 7

Whilst the truly suicidal person has made a suicide decision in childhood there is another by which the child can develop a suicidal aspect of their personality. In the Child ego state the person makes the decision that at some point suicide will be a viable solution to their problems. This decision once made remains dormant in the Child ego state. 

Of course as the youngster grows its Parent ego state also develops. The Parent ego state develops by modeling parents and introjecting them into their Parent ego state. If mother or father are suicidal then the youngster will model on that and it will become part of their Parent ego state. If the parents talk about suicide, the youngster sees them engaging in suicidal behaviour or at times the youngster may be the one who calls the ambulance or resuscitates the parent in some way. When these types of things happen the youngster will introject the suicidality into their own Parent ego state and thus become potentially suicidal at some time later in their life. Just as the early decision remain dormant in the Child ego state the suicidal introject (model) remains dormant in the Parent ego state until circumstances arise in adulthood and these aspects of the personality become operational.

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New link

The new link for the next book can be found here.



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Suicidal ambivalence

Monologue by me about the concept of suicidal ambivalence that I discuss in my book - Working with suicidal individuals. What it is and how it can be used in therapy with clients.





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Group & individual therapy

Irving Yalom was the messiah of group therapy. He wrote many classic articles and books on the topic. At one point in his research he isolated the ten most important psychological functions of group therapy which provides an interesting list indeed. Any group therapist can easily facilitate most of these which are listed below.

Of course some of these can be done in individual therapy as well. For example number 2, 5, 7 & 10. Indeed individual therapy can provide therapeutic advantages that group therapy can not or will be less effective in doing. Individual therapy allows for more focus in the transference and is better for attachment building between the client and the therapist. In a group therapy setting the client’s transference reactions tend to be more diffuse or spread amongst the therapist and other clients in the group. This generally speaking makes the transference reactions less intense. If the therapist is wishing for the client to develop a strong transference reaction to the therapist then individual therapy is obviously better for that.

If the therapist is wishing to reduce the intensity of the transference from the client then group therapy is the better way to go. Sometimes the issue presented can be the determining factor for individual or group therapy. Most group therapy sets up a family situation in the client’s mind. The therapist(s) become the parent figures and transference is said to develop and the other group members become the siblings where one has the sibling transference reactions. 

Of course this is not always the case and at times group members can have quite strong transference reactions between each other when one member reminds another member of some aspect of their mother or father. This often happens when one group member is quite parental in their attitudes and presentation. But generally speaking the group members will see each other as sibling type figures and let me reassure you that can stir up very strong emotions at times.

I have dealt with clients who have expressed very strong feelings of jealousy, anger, love, competitiveness and so forth in reaction to another group member. This of course can be a determining factor in the choice of group therapy. If a client presents a ‘sibling’ issue as the problem then group therapy is an excellent way of addressing that. There may be problems with their actual biological siblings or they may present a problem with friends or perhaps co workers where there is jealousy, competitiveness, feeling less worthwhile than others and so forth. 

If the client comes from a family where the parents did favor one child over another or did play the children off against each other or they did get the older sibling to parent the younger siblings then these types of problems are also suited for the group therapy approach. They will inevitably surface and then played out in the group setting and therefore can dealt with by the therapist.

I have run many different types of groups over the years and have always done individual therapy as well. For the vast majority of clients some combination of both does seem to produce the best results. However there are some clients who simply refuse to do group therapy for a variety of reasons and thus only individual therapy can be used. I have clients who refuse to do therapy with even one other person in the room most often the spouse. They are not comfortable with it for some reason so it does not happen.

Different personality types also have different needs for group or individual therapy. The clients who can have difficulty forming an attachment of course would benefit from individual therapy and these can include the avoidant, schizoid, antisocial and the narcissist personality types. Other personality types can as well but it is these ones in particular.

Group therapy with these can also be of assistance but for different reasons

 1. The narcissist can benefit from group therapy if the therapist can use the other members to work through their primary narcissism problems. Children learn they are not the only one who is important because the parents treat their siblings with the same importance as they have. The therapist can do the same with other group members and the narcissist can learn about the value of others. The primary narcissism gets resolved.

2. The schizoid has an indifference to relationships and seeks out solitary activities so as you can see group therapy would have its uses with this kind of person. The indifference can result from just feeling different and perhaps a fear of others and relationships. There is another type that is sometimes known as the superiority complex. The schizoid views others as less than. He may see them as being governed by their primitive animal urges or having mundane and banal lives that they just live out and then die.

The key is for the therapist to illustrate to the client what they are missing out on which can be hard to do. If they feel reasonably comfortable with their own company why should they want to be any different. The other feature of the schizoid is they have retarded emotions. They present as having and experiencing few emotions which means the Free Child is significantly restricted and it is this that can allow for the changes to occur. If the therapist can facilitate the experiencing of emotions the Free Child gets energized and then the desire for relationship can be re energized, then the group therapy becomes useful.

Firstly group therapy provides an opportunity to meet like minded others. Of course one is not wanting their therapy groups become like an introduction agency but I have seen many long and special relationship develop between people who first met in group therapy. Second the schizoid will be quite defended against meeting and being in relationship which can be brought out into the open and worked through and this is where some of Yalom's points comes into play

Learning how I come across to others

Other members honestly telling me what they think of me

The group’s teaching me about the type of impression I make on others

Feeling more trustful of the group and other people

The therapist can facilitate and manage an exchange between the schizoid and another group member on matters such as these in order to get through the schizoid’s defenses against relationship.

3. The avoidant is in someways easier to deal with than the schizoid. Whilst both usually have few social relationship, the avoidant wants to have them whereas the schizoid does not. The avoidant personality has the motivation there to start with which makes group therapy quite useful at some point. They usually have strong fears of being criticized, looking foolish, not being liked and so forth. This is why they avoid relationships. As with the schizoid the therapist can orchestrate an exchange between the avoidant and other group members such that these fears can be brought out into the open and dealt with such that there is a positive outcome.

4. The antisocial is similar to the narcissist in many of the ways they relate to others. Others have little meaning for them and hence they can be used and abused. Others in the group can feedback their reactions to the antisocial about such things. Whilst this is a good start and a positive use of group therapy, this person will often have a strong and well defended system of justification such as:

“No one ever cared for me so why should I care for others”.

“I was used and abused as a child so that’s the way life is”.

(And often they were never cared for and they were abused as children)

The therapist somehow needs to break through this defence system which can be hard to do. 

Trust in relationship is particularly important for the antisocial. As children they learnt to never trust others and usually with good reason. In some way getting the antisocial to a point where he can trust another group member would be a useful thing to do. Again the antisocial may be highly defended against doing such a thing.

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The Be Perfect driver - editted

KYLady asked a good question that anticipated the next part of this post I was going to do.

Perfectionism is most often found in conditions like depression, OC and eating disorders.

Perfectionism can have both positive and negative outcomes and has been shown to be associated with adjustment, academic achievement and self-efficacy.

Perfectionism can be

Self oriented perfectionism

Other oriented perfectionism

Socially prescribed perfectionism

Self oriented perfectionism endeavors to avoid self criticism (I’m not OK)

Socially prescribed perfectionism endeavors to avoid the criticism of others (I’m not OK)

Other oriented perfectionism involves having unrealistic standards for others (You’re not OK)

The six principle components of perfectionism are

Personal standards

Organization

Concern over mistakes

Doubts about actions

Parental expectations

Parental criticism

Most have two or three of these areas which they feel driven to be perfect in. Interestingly enough the Be Perfect driver person will often have a particular place in their life where it is chaos, disorganized and very ‘imperfect’ such as a room, a cupboard, their car, their paperwork or the like.

Perfectionism and performance

As mentioned before perfectionism can have positive consequences in that it can result in an increase in performance at work or at school. However this needs to be considered in more detail as perfectionism can also result in a reduction in the level of performance.

The graph shows the average person will have a satisfactory level of performance. Those who are subject to the Be perfect driver will initially have an increase in performance as the degree of perfectionism increases. The job at hand gets done better the more ‘perfectly’ it is done. The more perfectly done the more energy has to be expended on the job compared to the person who does the job at an average level.

As the degree of perfectionism increases it reaches a critical point where the level of performance starts to decrease. This can be seen to occur in one of two ways.

1. If one is writing an assignment at school on the different perspectives about feminism in the currant millennium the average person would write it and that would be that. The Be Perfect student would write it but consider more people’s perspectives and consider each perspective from many more perspectives and different people’s perspectives on each of those perspectives. As you can see a point is reached where the need to be perfect makes the assignment worse because each and every variable are considered. Hence the level of performance decreases than if it had been done in an average way.

 2. The more perfectly a job is done the more energy is required. The student given the assignment knows how he operates in doing such tasks. Most importantly his Child ego state knows the level of perfection required by his Parent ego state and he knows that reaching that level of performance is exhausting and very tiring. As a result the Child ego state starts to avoid doing the task and hence we end up with one cause of procrastination. He delays it for as long as possible because he knows how much he will suffer whilst doing it. As a result the level of performance goes down because jobs don’t get done or only get done at the very last moment.

However this situation can go even further. In some cases the degree of perfectionism can be extreme and when that happens one can end up with a thought disorder and other psychotic behaviour. A common one is the thought disorder known as overdetailing. When the person talks they go into so much detail that it becomes incomprehensible. In their thinking they constantly consider many different perspectives, factors and permutations such that eventually the thinking becomes disordered to the extent that the person is not capable of looking after them self or performing basic day to day tasks. At this point the person can only achieve a very low level of performance due to the degree of perfectionism.

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Book comments

I now have a new Facebook page for my book - Working with suicidal individuals. I have made a few comments about the book on it and I thought I would put them here as well.

Comment 1.

Its funny how things work out. What I thought was one of the more insightful things I have written about in the book no one has ever even mentioned. They have mentioned other parts but never that one. 25% of suicidal people never tell anyone of their suicidality prior to a serious attempt. I discuss how one can begin to identify and work with this highest risk of all suicidal people. Has never even got a comment! Not that I am complaining or anything.

Comment 2.

The suicide pact is an interesting phenomena that occurs more commonly than most suspect. There is also the notion of the surreptitious suicide pact involving a suicidal individual and a collaborator. Living with a chronically suicidal person is a very difficult thing to do. After months or even years the collaborator is usually drained or very burnt out. The Free Child ego state of the collaborator wants it to end and knows the most realistic way it is likely to end is if the person completes a suicide attempt. The Free Child then, in part, has a want for the person to suicide and hence we have a suicide pact. The collaborator may realize this consciously or may keep it hidden from his conscious. Yet at some level the suicidal person and the collaborator communicate the secret agreement with each other.

Comment 3.

In suicide risk assessment schedules the person is often asked if they are single or married. Research shows that single people are more likely to suicide than married people, however this is not really getting to the point of the matter. It is not so much about being married or single but about human attachment. People who have a sense of being in an attachment with another are more psychologically robust and healthy and thus less likely to suicide. If people have a sense of belonging with another and a sense of being in relationship with other they are in a better psychological state than those who do not. For the suicide risk assessor it makes less sense to ask if the person is single or married but to enquire about the attachments in their life, Do they have a sense of attachment, belonging or a sense of relationship currently in their life? They may or may not have this if they are single or married.

Beauty

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