No rejection here. :-) I sent a link to your video and this article to a bunch of my friends.
I guess I'll have to get the book, too.
Dreams have been described as dress rehearsals for real life, opportunities to gratify wishes, and a form of nocturnal therapy. A new theory aims to make sense of it all.
Verified by Psychology Today
Recent studies have demonstrated how a simple mind trick can significantly reduce the emotional distress we feel when reflecting on painful experiences or memories from our past.
Ozlem Ayduk from the University of California and Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan conducted a fascinating series of studies which investigated the factors that distinguish adaptive from maladaptive self-reflection (read about the surprising dangers of brooding here). They discovered that the perspective via which we recall an experience determines how much pain its memory evokes.
When we replay and analyze painful experiences in our minds, our natural tendency is to do so from a first-person or self-immersed perspective—where we see the scene unfolding through our own eyes. Using this perspective usually elicits significant emotional pain, as it makes us relive the experience.
Ayduk and Kross instead had participants replay emotionally painful memories from a third-person perspective—which involves visualizing ourselves within the scene as if we were watching it from the perspective of an outside observer.
The difference between the two types of perspectives was profound. Participants reported feeling significantly less emotional pain when they envisioned the memory using a third-person perspective than when using a first-person perspective. Further, utilizing a psychologically distant vantage point also allowed them to reconstruct their understanding of their experiences and reach new insights and feelings of closure.
The results were even more impressive because in addition to eliciting far less emotional pain, third-person perspectives also caused significantly lower activation of stress responses and participants’ cardiovascular systems—participant’s blood pressure rose less than those who reflected on painful experiences using first-person perspectives, and it returned to its normal rate more quickly as well.
Lastly, follow-ups one week later indicated that people who used third-person perspectives when reflecting about painful experiences brooded about them far less often and felt less emotional pain when doing so than people who used first-person perspectives when reflecting on their experiences.
How to Change Perspectives When Reflecting on Emotionally Painful Experiences
Update: Read about the strong reaction to this article and the steps I then took to address that reaction here: NLP Experts Speak Out.
For more techniques for overcoming emotional pain, check out my new book, Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies for Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt, and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries as well as my TEDx talk.
Copyright 2013 Guy Winch
References
O. Ayduk, & E. Kross, “From a distance: Implications of spontaneous self-distancing for adaptive self-reflection,” Personality Processes and Individual Differences 98 (2010): 809-829.
No rejection here. :-) I sent a link to your video and this article to a bunch of my friends.
I guess I'll have to get the book, too.
Some of mans theories are very fascinating when in fact Homo Sapiens did not begin its existence on this planet. Other then that little detail, not to far off.
War in heaven. Who do you think lost? Heres a clue, you arent in heaven right now are you?
This post immediately suggests a very close parallel with one of the central tenets of mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation involves the meditator shifting from a curious observational stance towards everything which he experiences, towards everything which falls within his awareness, to the same curious observational stance of observing himself observing his experiences. The meditation moves from the direct experience by the meditator of sensations, feelings, images, sounds etc, to that of noticing himself notice the experiences, witnessing himself witnessing, allowing himself to allow those same sensations, feelings etc. This fosters the emergence of a very subtle experience of one of the 3 pillars of Buddhism - that of Anatta, or no-self.
Yes, the notion of using 'psychological distancing' to foster 'emotional distancing' underlies both practices.
I tried this; tried visualizing some of my most traumatizing, terrifying or embarrassing/shaming life experiences as though I was the camera-operator filming a documentary.
It still felt really unpleasant and uncomfortable to imagine witnessing such things; and in a way, it was worse. It felt worst to imagine that someone might have been observing my situation but doing nothing about it, or that an observer might even be feeling embarrassed or disgusted by what was happening to me, or even passively enjoying it, like a voyeur.
I don't know; maybe this sort of thing might work in a therapist's office, but just trying it on my own doesn't seem to be working for me.
Hello Annie
I was waiting for Guy perhaps to respond to your post and imagine that he feels he is the author of a post in PT and further directive comment on his part may involve ethical considerations he would wish to eschew.
I am not so constrained and would like to invite you to 'consider' an alternative understanding of the purpose of what Guy has suggested. If I have understood his post, his prescient suggestion is offered TO REDUCE EMOTIONAL PAIN. From a CBT perspective, this is often a useful intervention when people find it useful.
In your case, it seemed not to have 'worked. May I gently invite you to continue being the camera-operator, filming a documentary, but, like a camera operator, to have no expectations of feeling 'better' (I use 'better' because you spoke of feeling 'worse'.
You also talk of it 'not working'. The mindfulness approach continually emphasises no expectations, no clinging to outcome, no wish to feel 'better'. It is always about being a curious, alert camera operator witnessing, observing and allowing, with great curiosity and equanimity.
If you notice that you feel some anger towards me around my somewhat trite and blithe suggestions, be curious about that too. Please feel really Gary and just notice your anger. If you feel any other feelings, feel them too.
You speak of really unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings imagining scenarios. From the conventional standpoint, I i guess those feelings could be excruciating and I hope that you feel from part of my response that I may have some empathy for you in your discomfort. From a different perspective though, may I gently offer that I am delighted you feel uncomfortable. That is your place of healing. Be open and curious about your response in reading of my delight.
Kind regards
Mike.
Because this is an open, public forum and we are strangers to each other, I have no idea if you are being serious with me or are having some kind of joke at my expense. I have no context in which to interpret your statement that you are delighted that trying this thought-experiment has caused me emotional pain.
Attempting to passively observe my own traumas feels like... an obscenity. Like... participating in make child porn. It feels re-traumatizing to me.
And yet, strangely enough, it also feels sort of like dissociating, which I actually do have a problem with already. Detaching from my emotions, "numbing out" or "going away" in my head was my coping mechanism to survive my abusive childhood: raised by a mentally ill mother who was prone to inflicting emotional abuse, physical abuse, and even a kind of sexual abuse on me.
So, for me, engaging in this thought-experiment feels like I'm participating the emotional and physical torture of a child, by passively observing and allowing it. To me, those who witness abuse but passively hang back and do nothing about it, are just as bad as the perpetrators.
Perhaps this is something I might try again with an experienced and compassionate therapist at my elbow, a therapist who is experienced in treating those with PTSD generated by long-term, frequent, intense childhood abuse and trauma.
Perhaps this exercise or thought-experiment might be useful with overcoming short term, mildly upsetting experiences, but at least for me, I don't think I care to try it again, at least on my own.
Hello Annie
Your reply filled me with sadness. You obviously experienced some dreadful abuse at the hands of your mentally ill mother and your memories clearly are deeply deeply painful as you relive some of the traumas in your mind. Your reply is a wretchedly painful and agonising cry from the heart and I was moved by so much of what you wrote.
Yes, PT is a public forum where strangers are free to post and apart from the fact that there are all sorts of people posting, an at-arms-length series of posts is always open to different understandings.
My response obviously hurt you in some way and for this I would like to apologise. It is, of course, clear that you would have no context in which to interpret my statement that I am delighted that this thought experiment has caused you emotional pain. Most assuredly I was not having a joke at your expense. My post was an attempt to intellectually clarify points you had originally raised and, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have reworded my post. I am really so sorry that my words caused you such pain. I really get that.
You might seriously consider talking with an experienced and compassionate therapist 'at your elbow' (a touching image), who can gently hold your hand as the two of you traverse your terribly traumatic past and you can begin to experience your memories differently and also have the experience of an 'other' who is caring, dependable, unconditional and present to you.
With kind regards
Mike
I was in therapy and my therapist used a method called EMDR. It was very helpful to me. If you haven't already, you might want to have them try this. Good luck and healing to you.
feel for ya wrote:I was in therapy and my therapist used a method called EMDR. It was very helpful to me. If you haven't already, you might want to have them try this. Good luck and healing to you.
EMDR came about directly as a result of NLP...and it is very effective in detraumatization. Unlike NLP, Francine Shapiro set about 'proving' the effectiveness of EMDR through scientific study.
N.B. Francine Shapiro worked for Dr. John Grinder (one of the originators of NLP) and asked him now to help a friend who had been brutally raped. He suggested having her recount her trauma with her eyes fixed in visual (recollected and created), Auditory (recollected and created) and self talk positions but NOT to let her re-experience it with her eyes in kinesthetic.
The trauma went away and "EMDR" was born...
Yes, exactly! I CANNOT simply stand and “mindfully” watch myself get damaged, just as others simply stood and intensely watched while it happened.
... particularly not with embarrassing situations or indeed any which look worse from the outside. And with anyone prone to worrying about what others think of them, it's even less likely to work.
There may be no simple technique which works for you but try this:
1. Google "most embarrassing celebrity moments".
2. Next to that image of you looking embarrassing, add images of the singer from Black Eyed Peas accidentally urinating on stage and 5-10 more of others that seem particularly embarrassing to you.
3. Realise that embarrassing things happen to the best of us -- it merely makes you human.
4. Go back to the image of yourself and play around with it as if you were a movie director. Feel free to change it. You could give yourself an award for being human. Or change how you act in response. It won't delude you as to what really happened but rather give you more flexibility in whether you perceive it comfortably or not.
5. When you are happy with the movie, step into it. If you find yourself unhappy with any of it, go back to step #4.
Good luck!
Hi Annie,
It's unfortunate that the article didn't point out that the study was conducted with "healthy" subjects who had neither been diagnosed with a pre-existing condition nor had experienced severe trauma. Please seek out a qualified hypnotherapist who is trained in NLP techniques. They will be familiar with how to help you with the PTSD. They will use an NLP dissociation technique (one of many) like this one, but better, combined with hypnosis to ensure your experience is most appropriate for you. You will not have to relive it to release it nor will you be re-traumatized like when trying to do it yourself. If mental illness or agony could be solved by yourself at home, alot of health professionals would be out of a job. If I knew your area, I could recommend someone or if you were in my area, I would say come see me. For now, I wish you well.
I’m having the same type of experiences, which are getting worse as I use this technique. How many months or years does it take before they start getting less bad?
Hello, I wonder if this is a bit like dissociation, only in a positive way in that you are distancing yourself from the situation but looking at it instead of looking away? I employed dissociation during extreme bullying in highschool, pretending to be in existence only a single cell inside my skull that could zip away so as to avoid feeling the humiliation and especially extreme physical pain of being hit over the head by students who lined up in a classroom to smash books over my head while the teacher looked away, week after week, while still trying to maintain an A+ grade - and failing. The only trouble is I have been able to use this technique that you describe with all other incidents, but not this one. It seems impossible for me to be anyone but the person who sat in that desk being smashed over the head and feeling the darkness and pain. I can't stop seeing myself being hit and feeling it. I would very much like to "hover above" this incident, but I can't seem to. All other situations are better for it, as you say. And time and additional history is a great healer also. But some scars remain. Perhaps I will try it pretending it was someone else, but not sure I can stomach it. Will try though.
It's basic Sub modality work and Perceptual Positions, nothing new about this.
Agreeing with the person above me.
This is a 40 year old NLP pattern.
Try to keep up with people.
This has been around since I was born! Why put money into "recent studies" to cover what is already widely known in the field of NLP?
Oh, this is such old news it is ridiculous. Richard Bandler and John Grinder noted this difference in their work in the 1970s. It's absolutely a joke that CBT and other disciplines should claim it now.
This is a useful tool among others in treating PTSD, which many codependents suffer from. Thanks for the reminder.
Darlene Lancer, MFT
Author of Codependency for Dummies
www.whatiscodependency.com
I'm also thinking dissociation is the least painful scenario when managing the aftermath of trauma. I can see the benefit of 3rd person's voice in the moment and even holding over into the future -somewhat - physiologically. But, the long term is complicated. On the other hand, it's hard to envision being able to sustain the 3rd person narrative of the trauma without slipping into 1st person at least some of the time, and throwing some 2nd person in there as well. How can you not? And if you are not slipping at all, we are likely dealing with serious dissociation that affects everything. In trauma, dissociation is often self preserving... until it's not. That's again for the thought provoking post.
Your feedback is always thoughtful and much appreciated.
Dear Sirs,
I am glad you present this article about an NLP process well known and describe in the NLP field, and even published in several books; the first one Frogs into Princess, Real People Press 1979. I would like to suggest to give credit to the original work; replicate it and proof it effectiveness or the contrary is a welcome process in science to update models, but not giving credits is call plagiarism. I am sure the author does not pretend to do so and may be he or she was only unaware of it existence.
Following up on DR. Juan Francisco Ramírez Martínez' comments, this technique or framework within which techniques, such as have been outlined in the article, have existed literally for decades.
NLP has always been faulted for its reliance on peer reviewed journals, but its never been accused of not giving credit where credit is due.
I can't remember how long ago it was that Richard Bandler (one of the three originators of the field, including John Grinder and Frank Pucelik) provided a fairly simple formula for falling into our to of love.
I'll reproduce a 'variation' of it below.
Falling in love process:
1) Relive every loving interaction with the other person from an associated perspective.
2) Relive every negative interaction with the other person from a disassociated perspective.
Falling out of love process.
1) Relive every loving interaction with the other person from a disassociated perspective.
2) Relive every negative interaction with the other person from an associated perspective.
Dr. Winch I invite you to avail yourself of the ORIGINAL studies into this unique framework which you seemingly, through no fault of your own, have attributed to one very recent paper.
Please contact me if you wish to be directed to some of my colleagues who are gathering primary research on the field of NLP (Properly attributed).
You can reach me at hugh (at) nlpworks.com
All the best,
Hugh
Regarding:
Hugh wrote:NLP has always been faulted for its reliance on peer reviewed journals, but its never been accused of not giving credit where credit is due.
Apologies - meant to say NLP has been faulted for its lack of interest in 'proving' anything; rather letting outcomes speak for themselves.
More likely than not, 40 years on, people are beginning to 'discover' things which were properly documented and existed though not in an academic context.
My only 'ask' is for these new 'explorers' to properly attribute the originations of the techniques to the field of Neurolinguistic Programming.
Annie, I would like to add my heartfelt sympathy to those already expressed earlier. As someone who has been using these techniques in NLP for almost 40 years I can tell you directly that your experience is common and is something we know about and work with regularly. What you have in this article is a simplified version of a basic technique, without context or elaboration on what else to do when an experience like yours comes up. We also solved this well over 25 years ago with more advanced procedures, aimed directly at the issue you describe. The most well-known, and thorough, of these is called Reimprinting, and was developed by Robert Dilts in the mid-1980's. It is described in the book: Beliefs: Pathways to Health and Well-Being. If you decide to read about it, you'll immediately find that it should be done with professional skilled guidance, with an NLP Master Practitioner or Trainer.
My best wishes for your ongoing healing.
With respect - You clearly are already aware (as in "you meant to say") that NLP has been faulted for not "proving anything" and "rather letting outcomes speak for themselves".
My only ask is that since you are already clearly aware of this you cite these sources (even if they don't follow mainstream Phychology archetypal protocol). In the future for the sake of accurate reportage instead of leading people unaware of these matters to believe that this is a brand new discovery you have made, to which which you have already confessed yourself, is anything but true please would you place due credit upon the aspects of education that you are well known to have "borrowed" ideas from. Anything else is a discredit to this publication.
Best wishes.
I agree accurate reportage is important which is why I took steps to remedy the situation. However,I never indicated the above technique was one I 'discovered', nor did I 'borrow' any ideas and claim they were my own. I simply reported on an article.
Since you're concerned with accurate reporting, MY only ask is that you make sure your own statements are accurate first.
Does "Recent studies..."??
(..have demonstrated how a simple mind trick can significantly reduce the emotional distress we feel when reflecting on painful experiences or memories from our past) Spell it out for you? I'm know you are intelligent but "Recent Studies" alone makes your entire article a misleading fallacy. Good night.
Did you see the note at the bottom of the article? Did you read the new article he just posted? He went to the trouble of not only crediting NLP but inviting experts to submit their techniques and putting them on this site! You're criticizing his accurate reporting? It doesn't get more honest than that--you're being ridiculous--admit you're wrong or just be quiet.
Anonymous wrote:Did you see the note at the bottom of the article? Did you read the new article he just posted? He went to the trouble of not only crediting NLP but inviting experts to submit their techniques and putting them on this site! You're criticizing his accurate reporting? It doesn't get more honest than that--you're being ridiculous--admit you're wrong or just be quiet.
None of the article is "New" yet was claimed to be so. That was my point. So yes he was forced into a position by the backlash over his original claims whereby for his own reasons he felt it was now necessary to include "UPDATE: Read about the strong reaction to this article and the steps I then took to address that reaction here: NLP Experts Speak Out"
So no, I will not apololgise to a fan nor will I shut up, nor will I reduced the comments section to name calling. If polemics is your preference, grab yourself a pen.
Yet you have it in quotation marks. The technique was claimed to be "New" by the authors of the article Winch was reviewing--your complaints should be directed to them, not the person who took responsibility and actually made things right.
He was not forced into any position as people write comments about articles on this site all the time and no one ever goes to the trouble Winch went to.
Again, your beef is accuracy, yet you lack it entirely. I think that's called 'projection'.
Enjoy your glass house...
This has been turned into a "he said, she said" ( so to speak)
argument. Stupidity is the first thing that comes to mind. Let's get back to what this article is supposed to be about and put your petty egos aside.
This did not work for me due to the fact that they are all good memories that I did not want to end although they did..
I've been living with memories that I don't want to forget yet it has prevented me from moving forward. Many things have happened since then but I am very said because a once fulfilling life has turned into one of complete lonliness...
If your trying to actually help, get off your high horses and contribute something that may actually help. Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought this was the purpose of this forum!!
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