Optimise Psychology

Being Human

admin — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 22:55:28 +0000

Our past experience impacts us like tectonic plates moving under the earth – the pressure builds up. In my work as a clinical psychologist, many people consult with me about earthquakes or eruptions of lava (substantial past pain, imbalance, and stress always come out eventually – in relationship problems, anger, anxiety, depression, unhelpful behaviours, overcompensation etc). Others seek strategic support earlier, when they notice the ground getting shaky and starting to impact them or those around them.

Of course, there is no wrong time to act on getting self-support. However, understanding how humans work and accepting our own human-ness can motivate proactive action to enlist professional self-support. Doing this with the right professional is an empowering process, which manages risk and optimises opportunities.

The post Being Human appeared first on Optimise Psychology.

20 Shades of Anxiety

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 01:36:36 +0000

Anxiety sucks, here’s how:

1. Situational anxiety
2. Internal anxiety
3. Constant anxiety
4. Sudden anxiety
5. Contagious anxiety
6. Future anxiety
7. Past anxiety
8. Anxiety about health
9. Anxiety about depression
10. Anxiety about anxiety
11. Cumulative anxiety
12. Social anxiety
13. Performance anxiety
14. General anxiety
15. Specific anxiety
16. Money anxiety
17. Status anxiety
18. Anxiety about change
19. Inadequacy anxiety
20. Success anxiety

Any one of these anxieties can make your life hell, and they usually hunt in packs. As with any health condition, the first and most important thing is to get help and to understand what is happening. So reach out and ask for help from a qualified and experienced clinical psychologist. A clinical psychologist can help you learn about anxiety and learn about you, so you can take action to manage and overcome anxiety and live a fulfilled life.

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Mental Health at Work – Problems and Solutions

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 14:00:27 +0000

Work is great! If we’re working, we are far more likely to be mentally (and physically) healthy than if we’re not. This is because work provides social connectedness and meaning and purpose, which are both really good for mental wellbeing. However, for many people work is not a good place, and mental ill-health in the workplace is an increasingly serious problem for individuals, their colleagues and families, and for our society and the economy as a whole.
The big question is, where is the solution? Is it at the individual, organisational, family, or societal level? The answer is simple, the solution is with the self – that’s you, the “individual”. The buck stops with you, and this is a good thing because if you own challenge and change, you grow as a person. And if you grow as a person your life can improve. It is also essential for workplace managers and leaders to understand this, so that individuals can be supported and empowered to help themselves.

The problem

In a nutshell, the problem is stress, disconnection, and vulnerability. Work is becoming increasingly stressful and socially unpredictable and disconnected, and this is leading to our natural human vulnerabilities being triggered. Take for example the corporate worker who is experiencing sleeplessness, muscle tension and pain, and frequent feelings of panic with racing thoughts. He says that in his organisation there is more time spent restructuring than more stable non-restructuring time, and his colleagues, role, desk, and managers are constantly changing. Then he says he wants to understand why he is experiencing these symptoms of mental ill-health. Chaos has become normal for millions of workers, yet chaos is extremely stressful, and stress can be dangerous.

The Impact

While we need some positive stress to motivate and drive us, the chemical effects of sustained negative stress build up in our system and can become toxic, leading to burnout, breakdown, and mental illness. As humans we have a limited amount of energy, and we can tolerate a limited amount of stress. Limits are different for everyone, but everyone has a limit. I see this in my work with some of the most successful people in our society when sustained high work demands, along with other stresses both at work and home, lead to the triggering of vulnerabilities and mental illness. These vulnerabilities to stress are part of being human, but they have different patterns and pathways for each person because of our unique genetic inheritance and life experience.
The core vulnerabilities we all have relate to the basic set of negative emotions that were designed to help us survive as individuals and a species. These are fear/anxiety, anger, and sadness. Stress can change these from occasional normal feelings into frequent uncontrollable feelings, which are the symptoms of mental illness.
An example of individual patterns and pathways of vulnerability is a client who became severely anxious when her professional integrity was formally questioned by a colleague. In her early life this client had separated herself from her dysfunctional family by focussing on study and work achievements, and her sense of worth and identity was enmeshed with her work. Leading up to the anxiety there was family friction at home and a death in her family of origin. This personal stress accumulated for the client and was tipped over into debilitating anxiety by the questioning of her professional integrity. The impact was so strong because the existing family stress was close to her stress-limit, and then her deeply entrenched vulnerabilities from the past were triggered suddenly and subconsciously, taking her way over her stress-limit very quickly.
This type of unmanaged stress can greatly reduce at-work effectiveness, or lead people to take leave or stop working altogether.

The Solutions

Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the first and most important tool for mental health, in the workplace and at home. There are three stages to self-awareness:

Learn how humans work
Understand and accept that you are human, and the opportunities and challenges that come with that
Learn about your own unique human-ness

Learning how humans work (in the functioning, not the occupational sense) can increase perspective and inform better relationships and decisions.
Understanding and accepting your own humanity seems obvious, but so many people are so very hard on themselves they forget that they are not alone, and that life is challenging for everyone.
Learning about your own human-ness enables you to be strategic and sustainable in your work and your life. It’s a challenging lifelong journey, but it’s REALLY worth it.
Communication
Talking about being human takes courage. Getting support for yourself is essential if stress is high or vulnerabilities are triggered, and getting support early increases the chances of faster, lasting recovery.
Action
Nothing changes if nothing changes. If something is wrong, do something right, do something positive for YOU. Small is fine – exercise, go somewhere, see someone, write something, relax, join a group or a class. Take action even if you don’t feel like it. Take action even if there isn’t something wrong. If you do nothing else, do something!

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Step by step

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 13:59:58 +0000

This week I saw an interview with bestselling author and speaker Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl has come through a lot of challenges in her life, and she was asked “what to you is resilience?”
She answered “The only way to get anywhere is step by step”. I thought this was a brilliant response and a wonderful answer to a profound question. It is so true that life happens step by step, moment by moment, effort by effort, and decision by decision. Every achievement arises from countless tiny steps.
But when times are hard and life is a struggle, it is hard to believe that step-by-step will get us through, and we often want quicker, easier solutions. It is understandable that we feel this way, but it doesn’t change the fact that Cheryl is right – overcoming and recovery is gradual and difficult. We need to just do what we have to do (including getting support) and step through hard times, so on the other side we can reflect and learn this simple and powerful lesson.
And to get somewhere that feels genuinely right, rather than just “anywhere”, we also need to understand the big picture. We need to step back from the step-by-step and define who we are and what is truly important to us. Step by step is HOW we live, but as Simon Sinek says the most important thing to know is WHY we live. This is easier to do than it sounds, and it’s a topic for another post …

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