EPISODE EIGHT

Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore there may be some minor grammatical errors.

Dougie Jackson
Welcome along to tickety boo with me Dougie Jackson and our mental health clinician, Andy Griffiths. On this week’s show.

Andy Griffiths
Whenever there is an unwanted behaviour within a human, there’s normally an emotion driving it. We’re pretty simple, really. That’s how we work. A lot of counselling, spends a lot of time going over all the stuff that didn’t go right in your life.

Emma
Hi my names Emma, a few years ago, I was struggling with stress at work. Andy helped out with some of his hypnosis and self care techniques.

Dougie Jackson
This is the podcast that says it’s okay not to be okay. And today we’re talking about people’s attitudes towards therapy, thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, expectations, and reality.

Andy Griffiths
Some of these expectations and realities and the way that people think about them, put people off doing stuff about their mental health.

Dougie Jackson
Right, I’m going to stick my neck out here and suggest that one of the biggest turnoff for a lot of people will be having your past life unpicked by a stranger over God knows how many highly expensive one to one sessions.

Andy Griffiths
Sometimes there’s something to be gained by looking in the past but the answer doesn’t lie there. A lot of counselling spends a lot of time going over all the stuff that didn’t go right in your life, you know, you come in this room, and we spend an hour talking about everything that’s gone wrong for you, you ain’t gonna feel great. There’s this fine balance between taking a quick snapshot of the past so we can get an understanding of what’s happened. But then being very future focused, changing the beliefs that were set up based on what’s happened in the past, but not spend so much time there that you feel rotten psychoanalysing every event, drama, trauma, emotional period, there’s not a great deal to be gained from that.

Dougie Jackson
So for someone already in the thick of an emotional crisis that would really be a rabbit hole with the potential too upset, confused and bewilder them even further. But that’s what happens when certain kinds of therapy isn’t.

Andy Griffiths
Yeah, I was working with a counsellor a couple of years ago. And she explained to me that she would spend twelve to thirteen sessions with a client looking at their past. So that’s 13 hours of analysing all the things in your life that haven’t gone right. In my opinion, that is not the way of making yourself feel better. As you said, you go down this rabbit hole of psychoanalsing all the things that have gone wrong in your life, there is definitely a place for understanding what’s happened. But then taking that information and reengineering it and driving yourself out of that place. But not spending hours and hours doing that.

Dougie Jackson
So what you’ve just said will bring a massive sense of relief for many people listening to this podcast right now. sorting out those thoughts, feelings and emotions that are currently bothering and upsetting, you won’t cost a fortune doesn’t have to tie you up in emotional knots, and needn’t take an eternity to fix.

Andy Griffiths
Some people find spending that much time talking about stuff, very therapeutic. There are some sectors that have built a business model, out of 13 sessions, and that model doesn’t deviate, you’re gonna get 13 hours looking at your life. Before we move on to chapter two. I’m pretty confident if you’ve got good skills, within an hour, you can get a pretty good idea of what’s going on with this person and what they’re believing.

I just personally come from the camp of get a quick understanding of what’s happened in the past when was life last, good. When did it change? How is it affecting you today? Quick timeline. Let’s look at that. Let’s take action. Now.

Dougie Jackson
That sounds great. It sounds positive, proactive and immensely doable. But we’re not talking about fast food here. I mean, you’ve said in past episodes that in therapy, there is no one size fits all.

Andy Griffiths
Somebody may have quite a complicated backstory of multiple traumas for the therapist to get a handle on that, see how all the dots have joined up everything is linked. That might take more than an hour that might take two or three sessions but what I will say with absolute confidence is that does not Take 10, 12, 13 sessions of therapy to get there. You can get there within a couple of hours. And I’ve done it. You know, I’ve pieced together somebody’s story in an hour and a half. Okay, I can see how you’ve ended up where you are today.

Dougie Jackson
All right, so let’s talk about the information gathering process that you would use to find out about someone’s backstory. What are you looking for?

Andy Griffiths
During that investigation? I’m looking going, what’s happened. What are they feeling in order for them to start using all those unhealthy coping mechanisms. What is that bottle of wine doing for them, it’s taken them away from that feeling of guilt or loss. Whenever there is an unwanted behaviour within a human, there’s normally an emotion driving it, we’re pretty simple, really, that that that’s how we work.

Dougie Jackson
So and out with of the obvious at the moment, the pandemic, why I’m more and more of us toiling with our mental health,

Andy Griffiths
Social media, this constant strive by influencers and gurus, that the only emotion worth experiencing is happiness, and fulfilment, and you must feel like this all the time. But in order for you to try and feel that everyday, you end up feeling unhappy, because it’s not sustainable. You know, over a period of a day, we should have a range of emotion, we should feel happy, sad, excited, bored, worried, there shouldn’t really be one dominant emotion.

Dougie Jackson
Other than contentment. I see. I mean, for people who have so much when you compare us to folks in less affluent parts of the world, we are very discontented people.

Andy Griffiths
How how many times have you fallen into that trap have been totally focused on something you don’t want to feel, I don’t want to feel stressed I don’t want to feel depressed I don’t want to feel anxious, and you get so wrapped up in that, that you forget to be grateful and think about all the things that you do have you know, that maybe a roof over your head or food in your belly, but you’re so wrapped up in the feeling you don’t want that you just write off all the things in your life that are right, our expectations over how our mental health should be create massive stress, this broad range of conditions, just like physical health covers everything from the common cold, through through to cancer, but our expectations when they don’t match up to our reality, we start to create all of these unwanted feelings and behaviours. And that’s why I think this conversation about expectations and reality is so important because it’s like, what should we expect to feel what is realistic for us to consistently feel. Because when we’re open and frank about these things, when we are struggling, we’re able to take advice, go and see people and do something about it. We’re so obsessed with not feeling sad or angry or anxious because we label emotions as good and bad. They’re just labels, we’ve attached to emotions. There’s no such thing as a good or a bad emotion. There’s just emotions.

Dougie Jackson
And on the subject of asking for advice when we’re struggling, let’s take a call.

Emma
Hi, my name is Emma, and I’m a nurse. I work for the NHS. I previously met Andy a few years ago, I was struggling with stress at work probably about anxiety as well, just the things in my personal life. Andy helped out with some of his hypnosis and self care techniques.

Dougie Jackson
Tell us about what’s what’s going on just now.

Emma
So at the minute probably some of the coping strategies that Andy has helped me with before like going for a run, watching a box set, as you guys know, that’s something that you can’t do when you’ve got a five month old baby and also at the minute challenging times in lockdown, like the support groups and all the baby classes everything is online.So it was just to see if Andy had any ideas of how you can switch off and chill out in just suppose because we are so restricted at this time.

Andy Griffiths
My two have grown up. Now I’ve got a 20 year old and a 16 year old but I do remember what those times were like and yeah, with a five month old glued to your hip. It does make things a little bit more challenging, especially if you’re partners at work during the day. But it is really important that you do find those moments where you can do some self care and recharge your batteries. Because if you don’t as you know you’ll burn out quite quickly. So you know you need to get as much sleep as you can. You need to try and eat healthily you need to hydrate you need to get your exercise in and I’m pretty sure you just like a few moments to enjoy a shower. A really great way of doing it something called the 5-20 rule. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. But basically what you do is you and your partner both write down five activities that you would like to do that take approximately 20 minutes or less. So you know, watching a favourite TV show, taking a quick bath, doing a yoga session chatting with a friend, reading a book, listening to a podcast, whatever it may be, and you list those five things down, both you and your partner. And then you pick these activities, and try and schedule them. So your husband knows that at 6:30, you’re gonna go and do your yoga or whatever, he steps in and takes responsibility for them. And the challenge is to try and get as many of these across the day as you can. So you get those little opportunities, those moments where you can get away for 20 minutes and recharge your batteries. 20 minutes at the moment will probably be bliss because I can understand it’s quite demanding.

Emma

20 minutes would be great. That’s good advice thank you.

Andy Griffiths

And the challenge is to try and cram as many of those 20 minutes segments in during the day. So if you get two or three of them, you found 40 minutes an hour during the day to kind of steal back. And most importantly, you and your partner are getting that as well. So you’re not missing out on everything. So yeah, the 5-20 rule, try it, see how you get on with it. We’ll be interested to hear if, if you are getting away and recharging those batteries.

Dougie Jackson
As far as your profession is concerned, you’re involved with the NHS. Are you at the coal face just know or are you still off on maternity leave?

Emma
I’m still on maternity leave and that finishes the end of June. I’m going to probably try and go back a bit less hours at start building it backup until we get on top of things. It’s gradually get nearer but hopefully lockdown will be over. I’m feeling OK about going back to work. It’s now I have stepped away from working so hard that I now can re-evaluate my life I was a bit of a workaholic, so probably now looking at things kind of differently so it will be interesting when I do go back and look at things that I think will be for the best put it that way. And i’ll keep listening to the podcasts as well.

Dougie Jackson
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