g. Control 101
e first step in recovery is to start teaching the client how to get control of their own mind again. And if they’ve never had it, that’s all the more reason to teach them. Essentially this means getting control of their underlying emotional state.
Here the key factor is intensity. MPD peoples’ psychological self-control skills are insufficient to withstand intensity of feeling and maintain an integrated self throughout the day or however long.
This section following is from
The <A HREF=”http://www.univerdsaldebriefingsystem.com“>Universal Debriefing System which is a stress management self-run training program I wrote after a series of seminars with Police Officers from the second worst posting in the state.
In this seminar we explored what their stresses were and how to reduce them at a psychological level.
So we start with controlling the way the brain represents reality to the client. You can’t get more basic than that!
To master teaching these skills you need to try them on yourself. If it helps, you can ask someone else to read the instructions to you.
The main virtue of having someone else do the instr ucting for you is that if you do it by yourself then sometimes the part of you running the show doesn’t do the skill (it’s doing another skill) and so doesn’t get any result. This can be misleading.
Taking Care of the Details
The use of Sensory Detailing
Get a list of 5 top pleasurable and-or compelling visual memories and adjust these details to find which ones reduce the pleasure the most and remember you don’t have to have a crystal-clear vision of it. Just a sense of looking at it in your mind will usually do it.
SIZE
tends to relate to how IMPORTANT the memory is
make picture number one 1/2 size and notice how that affects the strength of good feeling
now make it 1/4 size and check the feeling
make it smaller still
adjust it to the point where it feels least pleasurable
DISTANCE
tends to relate to IMMEDIACY of the picture – a tiger close to us will produce a different response from one viewed far away
So look at number one and notice if it seems at arm’s length or in your face or further away and then push it away to twice the distance – check the effect on your feeling
repeat until the feeling is adequately diminished
BRIGHTNESS
tends to regulate INTENSITY directly rather than through the importance or immediacy of the subject so
Look at the picture and turn down the brightness and check the feeling
Adjust the brightness to the level that frees you from the pleasure
These three details are the most commonly effective for adjusting the degree of attractiveness of a picture
Now do this with the other 4 memories
And there’s more!!
Yes further details of the way in which we remember things can affect us more deeply if necessary
Try this
Color or Black-and-white
If picture one is in color then change it to pastels
Then B-W
What about changing it to all grey?
Use which one works the best for you – the one which takes the “color” out of the memory and helps you see the other in “Black and White”
What if you’re in Color and the other in Black and White?
What about Dimensionality?
Is the picture 3d like real life or is it 2d like a newspaper photo?
Usually making it 2d instead of 3d takes the emotional “depth” out of it
Now
Movement vs. Still picture
usually a Still frame is less compelling than a moving picture. It’s usually less emotionally “moving”
So go over the 4 other memories and find out what works best for you
Here are some more possibilities
Detail vs. Sketchy
If you see lots of detail in the picture change it so you just see the outline
One Police officer said people never stressed her and when I investigated further I found she would think of people as a sketch. she would see a sketch of the person in her mind. And in crisis work such as policing, people can’t afford to take the time to think about things too much since the crisis would be over by the time the situation could be fully understood. the trouble with what I saw of her though was that she was not all that sensitive in the way she related to other people who weren’t criminals victims or witnesses. She had difficulties with love. The point once again is to be flexible. Whatever you find works well to achieve your outcome will not necessarily work well in other situations.
Open or Framed
is there a border around the picture?
Put one there
Put a double frame around it
One of t hose over-ornate picture-frames
Gold rococo style
this option can be very useful when you need to remember the information but don’t want it to take over. the frame seems to contain and limit the effect of the emotional response.
Another Police officer told me about a picture he couldn’t get out of his head.
He had been going through a public toilet block late at night, pushing open the doors checking for undesirable possibilities such as dying junkies and when he pushed open one door a man inside, who obviously took his privacy seriously, pushed a gun in the officer’s face.
This was the picture he couldn’t get out of his head.
“It doesn’t bother me but ..”
So he couldn’t afford to forget about such things since his life was on the line daily but once he put a frame around it his face and shoulders relaxed and he said :”It’s just a picture now.’
Now do these exercises again except change any negative memories into more negative feelings. Of course if the negative memories are too powerful already then you won’t need to. Perhaps you are already in enough pain to propel you out of love. Some people find that reducing the pleasure is enough to free them from the compulsive nature of being in love and to give them back their self-control. You can still use possible future pain (enhanced with this detailing) with that person to help you keep away from them.
SO WRITE DOWN THE NAME OF 3 PLEASURAB LE (AND IF APPROPRIATE 3 PAINFUL) MEMORIES AT LEAST PER DAY AND DO THIS EXERCISE AT LEAST TWICE PER DAY FOR THE NEXT WEEK
Of course you can do more than 6 each day. It depends on how fast you want to change.
Some thoughts are more difficult to control then others so you could start with the less powerful to make the skill stronger and then move on to the difficult ones .
At the beginning of each exercise write down the strength of the feeling – give it a score out of 10 and after the exercises write down the value out of 10 from your new perspective.
This will give your feedback on how well you are going.
Each new day review the intensity of feeling for each event to ensure that the change has stuck with you and if it hasn’t then repeat the process with these same events. After you find the process working and “sticking” with each thought then you can move to another.
So list the thoughts whether memories or hopes or fears and look at them from a new perspective
This is just an example of how easy it can be to change thoughts.
Think of the mind as limited.
The more intense and BIG thoughts are, the harder it is to move them around – like lots of very fat people in a lift.
Of course the next step is to alter the relationship between thoughts eg negotiating between selves.
