How to stop your client's vicious circle of worry

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How to help your client separate the problem from the worry about the problem - by Mark Tyrrell

Someone with an emotional problem often actually has two problems: the problem itself, and their worry about having that problem. The fact is, emotional disturbances are entirely... normal.

A client recently told me how she felt she must be some kind of 'freak' because she felt so self conscious all the time. I gently reminded her that some self consciousness is actually essential to human interaction, because it means we have the capacity to enter the minds of other people and imagine how they might feel and think.

"Self consciousness", I suggested, "is the marker that shows we can exercise human understanding of others. It only becomes a problem when it starts to happen more than needed." I went on to admit that I occasionally feel a bit self conscious myself.

For this client the idea that self consciousness might be:

something that most people feel from time to time
not necessarily always a bad thing

was extremely comforting.

We want clients to feel normal because they are normal. Anything that a human being does experience is, by definition, part of what a human being can experience - and therefore 'normal'. Sometimes a large part of your therapy with your client consists of helping them to overcome the 'feeling like a freak' thing which blights so many lives.

So how can we stop our clients from going round the vicious circle of worry and 'normalize' their problems?

1. Remember normalizing is not minimizing

No one likes to feel that something which is seriously troubling them has been brushed aside as irrelevant or dismissed as just run of the mill. Helping a client feel normal about feeling as they do isn't about downplaying the intensity of their worries with an "Oh don't worry! Everyone feels like that!". This will only make them feel that you don't really understand.

We need to let the client know that we not only know but also understand how bad it seems to them. Until we have achieved this, any mollifying comment or interpretation we offer will just seem patronising. Spend time listening and sympathizing before you attempt to frame the problem as non-freakish.

2. Put the problem in context

If we can identify the problem as part of a familiar pattern rather than some shameful one-off weirdness, then our client gets a chance to see that they are not freakish and that their problem doesn't mean they are crazy - just human.

For example, one woman told me she thought she was crazy for suffering emetophobia (fear of vomiting). I spent some of the session talking about emetophobia in general - how other people experience it, how surprisingly common it is, how it normally develops and so on. I discussed other cases I'd seen of it. This allowed me to indirectly demonstrate that fear of vomiting is a part of the general human condition rather than a one-off freak aberration unique to her.

3. Identify the function of the problem

Every human psychological problem can be viewed as functional and adaptive in a particular context or to some degree. What does this mean?

Consider this list:

checking things once, twice, and even thrice is pretty useful when it really matters - such as that child's car safety belt
compulsively gathering food for winter is an example of obsessive behaviour that's vital for survival
worrying is useful sometimes if it makes us more careful (we had to learn to worry that there might be tigers outside the cave!)
we need to be addicted to learning and helping ourselves and others if we are to make progress in life
we need to use the imagination as an inventive tool in context - imagination only becomes a problem when it's uncontrolled (as in psychosis) or misused (as with jealousy or paranoia).

We can view psychological problems as 'attempted solutions' that can, ironically, cause problems. This neatly contextualizes even the 'weirdest' of problems.

obsessive washing could be an ineffective attempt to help a person feel secure and safe
terrible jealousy could be an ineffective way of trying to feel loved or secure in your relationship
depression is an attempt at shutting down energy for a while until circumstances improve
panic attacks are a way of erring on the side of caution by responding as if lots of things are much more threatening than they really are.

By discussing problems in context and looking at them as an attempt to address an important need, we can help normalize otherwise baffling experiences.

I might, for example, say to a man experiencing impotence that erections are supposed to disappear during times of stress. This is because stress is a danger signal, and when we are in danger our energies get diverted away from all non-essential activities - such as sex.

For every single individual who feels uniquely weird, mad, nuts or crazy there are thousands - perhaps millions! - of others feeling and thinking that they too are the 'only one'. But they never are.

Mark Tyrrell is a therapist, trainer and author and is the co-founder of Hypnosis Downloads, the web's busiest hypnosis site where you can get a cutting-edge hypnosis session for almost any situation.

You can train with Mark Tyrrell from anywhere in the world, on our distance learning therapy courses, in topics such as Learn hypnosis online, Lift depression fast and the Fast Phobia Cure.

You can learn How to Stop Anyone Smoking with Mark Tyrrell on our Smoking Cessation Training Course (online).

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