Dr. Shawna Roberts
Website available at www.DrShawnaRoberts.com.
Website available at www.DrShawnaRoberts.com.
BLOG.DRSHAWNAROBERTS.COM
Summer Fun
Thank goodness we are seeing some great weather here. When you are noticing old thought patterns that interfere in your life, it can be a great time to enjoy some nature, go for a hike, or plant some flowers. We can find ways to guide our own brains. I find it helpful to choose a small healthy goal during those days that you are struggling.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month
We can all do our part! Find ways to support parents who may be struggling in your neighborhood. Call me when frustration levels are high. Use Metro Crisis Services (888) 885-1222 for free over-the-phone crisis intervention. Parenting can be the most stressful job, and we all can support one another.
Community
Thank you for all the comments and ideas that people have made to make this blog fit better with everyone's needs. Stay tuned for some upcoming changes towards improvement. This blog is about helping each other excel in relationships, careers, and in the community. Keep the suggestions and comments coming, and I will do my best to respond to as many as I can.
Ineffective Thought Patterns
Cognitive Distortions
We all tend to think in extremes...and when traumatic events happen we think that way even more. Here are some common cognitive distortions. Take a look and see if any of them are getting in your way.
All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. You maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
Mind reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you and don't bother to check it out.
The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out badly and feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."
Emotional reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
Should statements: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
Labeling and mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him, "He's a damn louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible.
From: Burns, David D., MD. 1989. The Feeling Good Handbook. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Are you or someone you love struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?
There is a subgroup of individuals with OCD that appear to have symptom onset triggered by streptococcal infections commonly referred to as strep throat. These Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders associated with streptococcal infection (PANDAS) must also receive treatment for the infection in addition to other interventions. Sometimes the obsessive compulsive behavior will remit after the infection is treated while other times further intervention is needed.
Many people spend their days obsessing on things. Our brain is great at bringing up information that we may not want to attend to. Often times when we have gone through a conflict then our brain will bring up this conflict over and over. Our brain wants us to heal from the conflict or solve the problem that created the conflict. Our central nervous system which includes our brain can change and improve when we allow it to and when we use this system in a healthy way. There are some people that struggle with overactive frontal lobes that may have persistent ideas, thoughts, or impulses that are not relevant to learning. These ideas are senseless and when attended to do not create positive change in the brain but only reinforce the pattern of attending to senseless ideas. For example, a child may have learned that it is important to wash his hands to get rid of germs and instead of learning this and using this method in a healthy way he may instead begin washing his hands repeatedly to avoid germs. His brain may take the information to the extreme.
Common rituals for people struggling with OCD include feeling a need to repeatedly check things, count things, or touch things (especially in a particular sequence). Many people with OCD struggle with common obsessions that include frequent thoughts of violence and harming loved ones which are considered as distressing. People with OCD may have difficulty throwing things out and may hoard unneeded items.
Adults struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder view their obsessions as intrusive, senseless, or time-consuming and experience increased anxiety in the presence of these obsessions. However, children often do not have this insight since their behavior may be more troubling to others than to themselves. These obsessions and impulses interfere with performance and relationships. Attempts to ignore these thoughts or impulses have failed, and repetitive and excessive behaviors are done to prevent discomfort. This creates a dysfunctional cycle that is difficult to change.
Strategies for Obsessive Thinking
There are many strategies that are helpful in dealing with obsessive thinking. Try these strategies if you are struggling with obsessive thinking. It is important to remember that the Central Nervous System does not benefit from trying to control your thoughts. When people try to control their thoughts, they may feel more anxious because it is not possible to subtract a thought from your Central Nervous System. It may be important to redirect your thinking when needed. Do some activities that use large muscles (e.g. arms and legs). Take a walk! These activities help your mind refocus due to engaging your five senses. If you can notice your five senses as you walk, then this offers information for your brain to refocus on. For example, during a walk you may notice the smell of flowers, the sound of your footsteps, the feel of the breeze, the sight of fluffy white clouds, and perhaps the taste of the drink of water that you brought along for your walk. These techniques help ground you into your experience of the walk.
It may help you to remember that thoughts are different from actions. Thoughts do not have to be followed by actions. It is important to value the privacy of thoughts. We all have many thoughts throughout the day. These thoughts are based on our learning experience, so people with OCD may have many unwanted thoughts throughout their day due to their overactive frontal lobes. You are not to be judged by your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. It is important to attend to the actions that you would like to engage in, choosing behaviors that are healthy for you.
It is important to care for yourself. Thoughts tend to be worse when you are tired or have not eaten a balanced meal. You need to rest and eat healthy. If you have tried these strategies and cannot find relief from your obsessions and compulsions, then it may be important for you to receive treatment from a psychologist who specializes in treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.
Treating the OCD Cycle
There are many ways that treatment can help a child or adult no longer engage in the OCD cycle. As you can see by the cycle depicted, when Anxiety is experienced, persons with OCD engage in Obsessions that lead to the Compulsions. For example, a boy may worry that germs may kill people and obsess about the dangerousness of germs. This obsession leads to him having to make sure people are safe by washing his hands. After this compulsive behavior, he may experience a brief period of Relief but this is soon followed by Anxiety due to reinforcing his obsessive ideas. He may think that since he washed his hands that no one got sick in his family so he then has to continue this cycle. Usually over time without treatment this cycle gets so reinforced that the compulsions increase in frequency over time. For some children and adults, families may change their lives and routines in response to the obsessions.
It is important for the family to work with a professional to learn to live their lives without the family member’s obsessions guiding their behavior if this is a problem. A gradual agreed upon plan can be effective to help the entire family learn to live a normal, satisfying life again. This can be effectively done in family therapy. Criticism, hostility, high expressiveness, or emotional over-involvement in the family can contribute to OCD symptoms. If this is occurring in your family, then it is important to participate in family treatment in order to change the family interaction style. It can be important to resolve key life or family conflicts and the emotional stress that fuels obsessive-compulsive behavior patterns.
For treatment to be effective it is important to reduce the time involved with obsessions and compulsions and increase the time involved in behavior commitments. The behavior commitments are based on the person’s values and life goals. Treatment can be effective and works to develop the ability to function daily with minimal interference from compulsions.
Remove Worry Worksheet
I hope this worksheet can be a valuable resource for you. My hope is to offer tools to help your life. If you need more support then give me a call or send me an email. Let me know what type of information you would like to see on this blog.
These questions can help you remove worry from your life. Answer these questions whenever you feel worried or anxious. Especially when you're worrying about a problem you can't stop thinking about. The ones that keep circling around and around in your head all day and all night.
Here they are...
1. What is the problem?
2. What are you worried about?
3. What is the cause of the problem or worry?
4. What solutions do you suggest?
5. What is the best solution?
Once you have the answers to all these questions decide on the best possible solution and get busy making it happen. Once you decide, don't look back. Keep moving forward on the plan of action you have set. This is the key to removing worry in your life. Make a decision and stick with it.
Here is another remove worry worksheet to help you solve your worry problems.
1. Ask yourself, What is the worst that can possibly happen?
2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.
3. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.
Also get the facts. Here are the steps.
1. Get the facts.
2. Analyze the facts.
3. Arrive at a decision and then act on that decision.
Once again when the decision is made stayed focused on the outcome. Worry creeps back into your life when you feel indecisive and unfocused.
So here are some more questions to help you reach the best possible solutions
1. Write down precisely what you are worried about.
2. Write down what you can do about it.
3. Decide what you are going to do.
4. Start immediately to carry out the decision.
Welcome to our office.
Come in to a place of healing and hope.
Welcome to our office
What a beautiful day in our office backyard!
Postpartum Depression and Anxiety
Coping Strategies for New Baby.
Recognizing Signs and Symptoms.
Recognizing Signs and Symptoms.
