Using Validation to be Assertive with Difficult People

Few things are more frustrating or anxiety-provoking than having to deal with someone who is, how should I put this, a tough customer. People who are more emotionally reactive can be set off at the slightest turn of phrase despite our best efforts to be sensitive or avoid conflict. Having to deal with these kinds of people on a regular basis can be exhausting, and over time, we are often totally burned out on them to the point that we no longer have any desire to maintain any kind of relationship with them. 

Validation is a skill Marsha Linehan developed (1993) to help her work with psychotherapy patients who had emotional reactivity problems. Dr. Linehan found that traditional therapy techniques were ineffective with people with hair-triggers. She determined that only by using a healthy dose of validation could her patients be receptive to cognitive behavioral therapy. Moreover, Dr. Linehan found that by relying on validation skills, she could be very direct with her patients, not feeling the need to tiptoe around sensitive topics or walk on eggshells. 

Validation is ultimately about helping communicate some level of understanding of the other person is thoughts or feelings. It is not necessarily about agreement, but more about acknowledging and legitimizing at least a kernel of truth in someone’s experience. Feeling understood often has the result of reducing emotional intensity and increasing psychological flexibility. If you think of conflicts as a kind of tug of war, usually, the harder you pull causes the other person to redouble her efforts and pull harder herself. Rather than escalate to conflict, validation is a bit like dropping the rope and getting on the side of the other person. All of a sudden, there is no reason for her to continue pulling because you’re on the same side. That is how validation works. 

Validation can be helpful in numerous ways (Hoffman et al., 2005). It can help to defuse anger in someone with a short fuse. Similarly, it is helpful in quickly resolving conflicts and building trust. Most importantly, it makes problem-solving and assertiveness possible with people who are ordinarily intransigent. 

Following is a list of different ways to validate:

• Be present: Pay attention, nod, and use eye contact. Show you are listening. 

• Reflect feelings: Identify her feelings, describing them without judgment. If you can, allow yourself to feel a little of the feeling yourself and communicate it with your tone of voice. 

• Restate the position: Summarize the other person’s perspective without judgment. Ask clarifying questions to ensure you understand the position and also to signal you care about understanding.

• Normalize the other person’s thoughts and feelings: Identify how her reaction makes sense given past experience or the present context. The basic underlying meaning of this kind of validation should be “Of course!”

• Match vulnerability with vulnerability: If she is being vulnerable, self-disclose your own vulnerability. The subtext with this kind of validation is “Me too!”

Using these ways of dropping the rope in the interpersonal tug of war can reduce the other person’s emotionality or rigidness and help you get your point across. You may just find that interactions with this person become less difficult or even… rewarding. If you’re (understandably) skittish and don’t want to test it out, throughout the day, notice when other people validate you. Observe how you respond. Wouldn’t it be nice if that tough customer responded the same way?

Click here for more information about how cognitive behavioral therapy might be helpful for you or someone you know. 

Hoffman, P.D. et al. (2005). Family connections: A program for relatives of persons with borderline personality disorder. Family Process, 44, 2, 217-225.
Linehan, M.M. (1993). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford. 

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation of a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Get Your Life on Track by Clarifying Values

Most of us find that we have strayed in one way or another from leading the life we want to live. This can mean a lot of different things, from spending too much time watching TV, finding we are in a career that is not fulfilling, not being the sister/husband/parent we want to be, etc. There are lots of forces that can derail us from moving toward what we value. Whatever the reason, if when you survey the landscape of your life as it is now and you find something missing, clarifying your values may be the first step in getting on the right track. 

Values can be thought of as directions to move toward, rather than concrete goals. For instance, if you have the value of being a more loving spouse, there are lots of goals you can attain along the way, such as spending less time at work each week, not multitasking while spending time with your partner, and engaging in acts of kindness more frequently. Goals are important in that they can give us feedback as to whether we are moving toward values. But unlike goals, values can never be attained. We can always find new ways to move us toward doing what matters. 

There is an exercise that comes out of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, in which you imagine the eulogies you might hear at your own funeral (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). This exercise is designed to help you cut through the clutter of all of the forces that serve as reasons for you to not engage in valued action and to identify what really matters to you. Give this exercise a try and see what comes up:
Imagine you’re able to watch your own funeral. Different friends and family members are eulogizing you, talking about the path you chose. Take a moment to write out a few of the things you’re afraid might be said about you if, during your life, you had backed off from what you wanted to stand for. Try this now.

Now, imagine what these people would have said had you lived your life true to your innermost values. Spending your life doing what matters rather than what was safe or easy. Take a few minutes to do this now. 

This task is designed to make clear, after all is said and done, what you want to be about, how you want to live. Thinking about how you want to be remembered is one way of identifying what you want to do now. Are you making choices that are helping you be the person described in the second eulogy, or more like the person in the first one? Regardless of which eulogy is a closer fit to how you are acting in your life now, you probably have a better sense of what parts of your life are serving as obstacles to the life you want and what steps, even if they are small steps, you could take to jump into the life you want. 
To make this exercise even more useful, identify one step you could take in the service of your values, and take that step today.

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K.D., & Wilson, K.G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavioral Change. New York: Guilford. 

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Restructure Your Thoughts by Recognizing Cognitive Distortions

The human mind is an incredibly efficient machine. Because of it, we can take in new information, store it, and synthesize it with other information to create new ideas. This complex process results in all of the marvels of human ingenuity, from the invention of the wheel to the electronic device you are using to read this article. In this way, the human mind is a kind of computer.
Like any good computer, the mind learns shortcuts over time. These shortcuts speed up the way we process information. For instance, you put a dollar in a vending machine, and it eats your money. We apply the shortcut descriptor “broken” to the machine, and we know not to put any more money in it. Shortcuts can work pretty well. 

Sometimes, cognitive shortcuts actually result in less efficient information processing. If we misapply a shortcut, we end up coming away with a faulty conclusion. Take for example, the person who interviews for a job and doesn’t get it. If that person applies the wrong shortcut, she may come away from the experience thinking, “They didn’t want me, so I’ll never get a job.” It’s the same shortcut as with the vending machine, generalizing from past experience. But in this example, it’s highly ineffective and will probably result in significant emotional pain. This kind of misapplied shortcut is referred to in the cognitive therapy literature as a cognitive distortion (Beck et al., 1979).

Cognitive distortions are patterns of thinking that lead to misunderstanding and painful emotions. Below is a list of common cognitive distortions we all engage in from time to time. Read through them, and take note of the ones you are especially familiar with. 

• Mind Reading: Assuming you know what other people think. “He thinks I’m unintelligent.”

• Personalizing: Thinking you deserve the majority of the blame for something while discounting others’ responsibility. “Because of me, we lost the game.”

• Fortune Telling: Making predictions that bad things will happen without actually knowing that this is the case. “I’m going to fail the exam.”

• All or Nothing Thinking: Thinking of people or situations in black-and-white terms. “If I don’t do it perfectly, then it’s horrible.”

• Catastrophizing: Believing the outcome of a situation will be so terrible that you won’t be able to handle it. “If I lost this job, I’d just fall apart.”

• Labeling: Assigning a one-word descriptor to the entirety of a person. “He’s a jerk.”

• Overgeneralization: Assuming something based on a limited amount of experience. “I’m late to everything.”

• Negative Filtering/Discounting Positives: Focusing on negatives while framing positives as unimportant. “I made an A on the test because it was easy, and besides, I failed one of the quizzes, so I maybe I’m not cut out for…”

We are all guilty of most of these from time to time. You may find that you engage in one or more of these distortions on a regular basis. If you find that to be true, the next time you are aware you are making one of these distorted shortcuts, you’ll be able to recognize it and consider a more effective perspective. 

For more information about cognitive therapy techniques, read this article about cognitive reappraisal. 

Beck AT, Rush AJ, Shaw BF, Emery G (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford Press.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Cure Insomnia Using Constructive Worry

If you have difficulty getting to sleep at night, one of the problems may be that your mind takes a bit too long to shut off. Long after your body has slowed down, your mind is spinning at its usual clip, oblivious to the fact that it needs to power down for the night. Often, this is because our minds are busy processing thoughts about important problems that need to be solved. Unfortunately, bedtime is not the time to solve problems. If you have made a habit out of planning, rehashing, preparing, or figuring things out when your head hits the pillow, these thoughts likely keep you up much longer than you would like, robbing you of much-needed sleep.  This thinking is ultimately ineffective, and is what is called unconstructive worry.

So, is there a cure, you ask? Why yes, there is. It is the opposite of unconstructive worry, and it is aptly named constructive worry. Constructive worry involves doing all of the planning prior to, rather than during bedtime. Here’s how it goes:

1.  Set aside time in the early evening (a few hours before bed) to do the planning/worrying you would normally put off until bedtime. Write down whatever problem or problem you are facing.

2. Write down the next step to get you closer to solving the problem. The next step need not be the ultimate solution to the problem, as many problems require a series of steps to come to a real resolution. 

• If you know how to fix the problem, write out the fix.

• If you don’t know the fix and need to consult with someone or do some research, write that out.

• If you realize it’s not really an important problem and you’ll handle it when it arises, write that out. 

• If it is an important problem with no good solution, meaning you’ll just have to accept it or cope with it, that is the next step. Write that out. 

3. Put this list on your nightstand before bed. When you begin worrying at bedtime, remind yourself you’ve already dealt with your problem as best as possible. You can even tell yourself you will work on the problem again tomorrow evening if you need to, but that trying to solve problems while half asleep will probably not yield any kind of solution. 

4. Turn your mind back toward sleep. 

There is research that shows this technique can help to cure insomnia and may even reduce your worry during the following day. 

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Stop Worrying... Or at Least Postpone It.

If you are a worrier, you probably find that worry can sour your day. Incessant worry increases anxiety and can crowd out other, more pleasant thoughts in your mind. You have probably tried to distract from worry, but if you’re like most people, trying not to think about something brings it back into your mind with a vengeance. There’s a reason.

Worry can actually serve an adaptive function. A healthy dose of worry or concern can help you prepare for something important. Without worry, you probably wouldn’t do as well on tests, you might submit a resume without double-checking it, and you probably wouldn’t ever visit the doctor. Although it may feel unpleasant, worry actually does a lot for us. 

The problem arises when worry begins to take over and no longer helps us prepare for anything. As worry reaches a fever pitch, it can actually get in the way of our effectiveness. It might seem like the solution would be to think about something else, but that’s easier said than done. Oftentimes, we worry about something because it seems important, and important things need to be thought about. We need to prepare for important things, remember?

One solution to this problem is called worry scheduling. Worry scheduling is a well-researched strategy to limit worrying to a certain time every day. Choose a 15-20 minute period near the end of the day to devote to worrying about all of the important things you have to worry about. When you have a worrisome thought during the course of the day, remind yourself you have an appointment with this worry later on, and postpone it. Then, you can put your mind on whatever you were doing before the worry appeared. If you need to, you can even make a note of what the worry was about so you can focus on it later. 

When the scheduled worry time comes, devote as much time as you feel the worry deserves. Some people use the whole 30 minutes, but most people run out of steam after 5 or 10. Oftentimes, you might find that when the worry is postponed, it no longer seems as compelling. If that’s the case, you needn’t worry about it at all. This also means there was never any urgency to the worry in the first place. By setting the time, it’s easier to give yourself permission to not worry the rest of the day, and by limiting the duration of the worry, you significantly reduce its impact on your overall mood. 

For more information on this and other cognitive-behavioral approaches to anxiety, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

5 Tips To Curb Procrastination

We all procrastinate to some degree, putting off tasks because there is something aversive about what we have to do, or would rather be doing something else. When procrastination stands in the way of our being effective, however, it can cause serious problems at work, in our social lives, and with how confident we feel in our abilities. Below are some steps that, when implemented, may help you do what you need to do. These interventions come from the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy protocol for procrastination. 

Identify Small Goals
Small goals can help reduce feelings of being overwhelmed by large projects. A project that will take a full week of work is much easier to avoid than a task that can be completed in 20 minutes. These small tasks accumulate, ultimately turning into a completed project. Many people report that just setting a goal to work on something for 10 minutes makes it easier to sit down and do it. Even better, most people report that 10 minutes easily turns into several hours of focused work. 

Create a Prioritized To-Do List
One thing that gets in people’s way when it comes to completing tasks is finishing lower-priority items at the expense of more important tasks. Most people juggle numerous responsibilities, making it necessary to put some off. A to-do list separated into three categories, “urgent,” “moderately important,” and “put off until later,” can help you make an informed choice on what things to put off and when, rather than finishing the easier things first. 

Use Your Natural Patterns to Your Advantage
If you are more alert in the mornings, schedule more difficult tasks in the mornings. Do you feel more desire to interact with people after lunch? Schedule lunch meetings or phone calls then. Is there a time of day you prefer to be quiet and withdraw into yourself? That may be a good time for organizing your desk or filing system. Chances are, if you don’t like doing a particular task at a certain time, you are more likely to put it off.    

Complete Quick Tasks Immediately
Instead of waiting for a client to leave to email them a document, do it while the client is there. This applies to quick phone calls, filing, and small data entry tasks. If you add smaller tasks to your To-do list, they can add up and become overwhelming. 

Increase the Pressure
Use an egg timer or an alarm on your phone to limit yourself to a certain amount of time to complete a task. If you’re the type of person who can spend 30 minutes editing a document for which 15 minutes would be adequate, this strategy can be helpful. It may make some people anxious, but the feeling of working against a deadline can serve to increase the contingencies moving you toward the completion of the task. 

Because procrastination is often a habit created over decades, so it can be difficult to reverse on your own. Working with a cognitive behavioral therapist is the most effective way of ending your procrastination habits. There are cognitive-behavioral treatments for procrastination that can be completed in as few as four to ten individual therapy sessions. Click here for more information about cognitive behavioral therapy for procrastination and completing goals. 

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Reduce Stress One Piece of Pie at a Time

Today, more than ever, there is intense pressure to be productive, multitask, and perform. All of this pressure can be a fertile breeding ground for feeling overwhelmed by stress and anxiety. Unfortunately, the more overwhelmed we feel, the less productive we are. Sometimes, juggling numerous responsibilities can leave us feeling helplessly paralyzed, avoiding what needs to be done rather than tackling it head-on.

There are numerous ways Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can address this all-too-common problem. One simple way is the pie-chart technique. Here's how it works:

1. Identify all the things causing you to feel overwhelmed. They can be projects, errands, or even difficult people.

2. Create a pie chart using each of the items you listed as pieces of the pie. For this, you'll need to rank which things are the greatest contributors to your stress. Then assign each one a percentage based on how much of your stress you can attribute to it. For example, if your pie chart has three items: returning phone calls, preparing for a presentation, and a difficult co-worker, they might be assigned percentages of 60%, 25%, and 15%, respectively. Make sure that it all adds up to 100%.

3. Identify the most stress-inducing problem and prepare to tackle it. Although this may seem like common sense, when overwhelmed, most people feel there are so many problems that it would be hopeless to solve. Consequently, they end up avoiding their problems while the problems get bigger. Focusing on only one problem at a time makes feeling overwhelmed and giving up less likely. By solving the problem that is responsible for the most stress, people generally feel much less anxious and more empowered to solve the rest of the items on the pie chart.

4. Break the identified item into steps. Oftentimes, one project or problem all on its own can trigger feelings of hopelessness and worry. Identifying all of the steps needed to solve the problem is a way of seeing in a concrete way how the problem does have a solution.

5. Complete each step one at a time. Focusing on one small step rather than ten or more steps makes the task feel more manageable. It works the same way as focusing on one problem from the pie chart rather than all of the problems at once. Additionally, because one step is easier to complete, it promotes confidence and mastery, making the rest of the project feel less difficult. With each step completed, solving the entire problem seems more likely. After completing one step, move on to the next.

6. Continue this process for the rest of the items from the pie chart. You can continue to work in this fashion until all of the identified problems are solved or at least more manageable. However, after completing the first few items from the pie chart, most people find they no longer need this approach, as they feel much more confident in actively solving problems.

For more information about how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Works, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Los Angeles

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Reduce Anxiety Quickly with Square Breathing

Cognitive behavioral therapy has hundreds of research articles in support of it as the most effective treatment for numerous psychological problems. It is helpful for everything from depression to relationship problems. One thing the research has shown time and again is that cognitive behavioral therapy is especially effective at treating anxiety disorders. Numerous CBT interventions target anxiety, including systematic exposure, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness training. The following technique is a form of relaxation training that can be used in conjunction with one of the aforementioned interventions or all on its own. 

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps people reduce the intensity of negative emotions. However, we cannot change our emotions by focusing on them directly. Otherwise, it would work when people told us to "calm down." What we can change, however, is our thoughts, behaviors, and, to some extent, our physiology. Because all of these components affect one another, CBT helps us to change emotions by changing the things that feed the emotions.

One emotion that CBT has been proven to be helpful for time and again is anxiety. As human beings, we all experience anxiety from time to time. It's natural. It's normal. And if we didn't, we'd probably get into a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, sometimes anxiety can become too intense and hinder our effectiveness (think going blank during a final exam). Cognitive behavioral therapy has numerous treatments for anxiety, and most of them are among the most effective psychological treatments studied by scientists. One that is easy to learn is square breathing, also known as relaxation breathing.

A note of caution: If you have any medical condition that might be adversely affected by slowing down your breathing or holding your breath, please consult with your doctor first. This can include cardiovascular problems, epilepsy, and asthma.

Steps for Square Breathing:

STEP 1: Find a quiet place where you can sit for ten to fifteen minutes without distraction.

STEP 2: Take note of your normal breathing pattern, and count how many seconds each inhale and exhale takes. 

STEP 3: Once you have a baseline measurement, increase the length of the inhalation and exhalation by one second, in essence slowing down each in-breath and out-breath. Once you have acclimated to the new, slower rate, increase the inhalation and exhalation by another second. If you feel uncomfortable or out of breath, it probably means you're slowing down too fast. Continue gradually slowing down your breath until you are breathing as slowly as you can without ANY difficulty. 

STEP 4: Once you are comfortable with a slower breath, experiment by pausing after each exhalation and each inhalation. These pauses can be short, lasting one or two seconds, or long, lasting up to ten seconds. However long the pauses last, just note you will probably have to adjust your rate of inhalation and exhalation to continue breathing comfortably without feeling the need to gasp for air. The technique is called square breathing because originally, the in-breath, out-breath, and both pauses were designed to be the same length; in the same way each side of a square is the same length. However, the ratio doesn't matter, as long as fewer breaths are taken each minute. 

STEP 5: Set an alarm and continue this for ten to fifteen minutes. Afterward, you will most likely experience an increase in relaxation and a significant decrease in anxiety. AMAZING.

This works in the same way that the half-smile technique works: Normally, when we are anxious, the result in our body is that our breathing rate increases, and we take shorter, shallower breaths. When we are relaxed, the opposite happens. By slowing down the breath, we trick our brain into thinking we are relaxed, releasing all of the relaxation neurochemicals. 

Research has shown engaging in this technique has immediate effects on the brain. More importantly, studies have proven that engaging in square breathing twice daily lowers overall anxiety levels long-term in people prone to excessive worry. 

Try it out to see how it works. If it's helpful, the next time you're freaking out in a doctor's waiting room, or biting your nails before a job interview, pull out your square breathing and take things down a few notches.

For more information on this and other cognitive-behavioral approaches to anxiety and depression, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Opposite to Emotion Behavior

Opposite to emotion behavior is a technique that comes from traditional behaviorism, but has been adapted to treat emotion dysregulation in newer science-based therapies such as CBT and DBT. The goal of the intervention is to cut the cycle of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that maintain negative mood states. By ceasing behaviors that fuel negative emotions, you can reduce the intensity and duration of the emotion. 

Emotions love themselves. The more we feel an emotion, the more we engage in behavior that makes us feel that emotion even stronger. When we're sad, all we want to do is curl up in bed for hours on end, usually not eating, not talking to anyone, listening to sad music... Sound familiar? The problem with this is the more we lie in bed, not doing anything, the more physiologically depressed we become. This then leads to us feeling even sadder, and eventually, we can be pretty demoralized when we look around and realize we've wasted the whole day.

To break this feedback loop, we need to engage in a behavior inconsistent with the emotion we're trying to manage. This is a technique called opposite-to-emotion behavior. To do this, identify the emotion (sadness), identify the mood-dependent behavior (inaction/isolation), and then do the opposite of that (exercise, social interaction, productive behavior). After a while, the feedback loop is broken, and you have successfully managed that painful emotion. This works for any emotion:

Anger: Instead of engaging in conflict, act opposite to that emotion by gently withdrawing, or even better, doing something nice for someone else.
Fear/Anxiety: Instead of hiding or avoiding, approach what you are afraid of with full commitment.
Unjustified guilt or shame: Instead of trying to keep something (that is not shameworthy or morally wrong) a secret, expose it with the spirit of acceptance.
Justified guilt or shame:  If you did something that was out of line with your values, do something in line with your values that overshadows that other thing.

Please note this is not intended to be a way of not feeling your feelings. Emotions are important cues that something important is happening. This technique is merely a way of managing emotions if you're afraid they might become too intense or last a little too long. Give it a try the next time you have an urge to hide in bed and listen to sad music. You might be surprised at how you can turn around what might have otherwise been a day wasted!

For more information on cognitive behavioral treatment of mood disorders and anxiety, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Los Angeles.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation of a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Treating Pain with Mindfulness Meditation

Chronic pain affects approximately 116 million Americans. Often, chronic pain is debilitating, both physically and psychologically. The typical treatment for chronic pain is pain medication, many of which can be addictive and lose their potency as our bodies develop a tolerance to them. While pharmacological treatment helps a significant number of people, for enduring pain, psychological treatments have begun to emerge as the treatment of choice, as numerous studies have come out showing new psychological treatments to be effective. The most researched of these treatments is mindfulness-based therapy. 

Mindfulness is a practice borrowed from Buddhism by cognitive psychologists due to its many beneficial effects on the mind and body, including reducing pain. How does it work, you ask? The short version is that mindfulness works by helping people simply notice their pain rather than get caught up in trying to eliminate it, which causes frustration and paradoxically, increased pain.

Usually, we try to distract from it, which is very, very difficult to do. When we're not distracting, we're spending all of our energy struggling with it - wishing it weren't there, getting angry at it, etc. None of this is helpful. It just adds additional suffering to what is already a painful experience.

The mindful approach is to allow the pain to be there. Rather than trying (somehow) to make it go away through sheer will, just notice it and make space for it. Dropping the struggle with the pain can provide a lot of relief.

While you're allowing the pain to be there, just sit with it, and notice it. Put words to the experience. Where is the pain? Is it tingling? Is there pressure? Where does it begin and end in your body? Are there warm parts? Cool parts? By describing the experience without adding a lot of catastrophizing and negative judgment, we experience the pain in a new way. A lot of people report that just the mere act of sitting with pain and describing it, eliminates the pain entirely. A friend recently used this approach when he was having his wisdom teeth extracted... without anesthesia. He reported he noticed pain, but relating to it in this way made it tolerable. Just another event in his body that he was noticing, like the hiccups or a yawn.

It definitely takes practice, but with a little effort, you can transform pain into something that is much more tolerable and creates much less suffering.

Click here to learn more about CBT for Chronic Pain. For more information about mindfulness-based interventions, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Los Angeles.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation with a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice.