Posted by noa on May 10, 2003, at 7:53:44
In reply to Re: Is anyone familiar with choice therapy? » judy1, posted by Dinah on May 9, 2003, at 23:55:23
It sounds very existential (just based on the posts I am reading here--I haven't read the article). Which is fine, as I think that most people could use to be a lot more conscious of all the choices we make in our lives, and to take responsibility for what we do have some control over. However, I think that when it comes to mental health treatment, this choice approach is probably more suited for the so called "worried well" and even minor depressions and anxieties, perhaps, or overcoming reactions to life circumstances, or general life coping skills issues that could enhance mental health.
But with brain disorders, which many of us here have, I think it has MAJOR limitations.
That being said, I think, at least to some extent, it does seem like something that could be useful if a person with a brain disorder is stabilized and in remission, as part of therapy, but not exclusively. To build life skills and coping skills that either never developed, or were degraded, by the mental illness.
For me, I know that there are certainly ways in which thinking existentially in terms of choices is useful, but there are also so many factors beside conscious choice that are in play. For example, I cannot choose for my amygdala to be less reactive, but if medication can help control that, then over time, I can learn to recognize situations that trigger the flame up, and learn and practice strategies for changing how the reaction proceeds, and to soothe myself better and put a different "spin" on it all. But this involves: 1) biological treatment to try to reduce the propensity for the strong reactions, 2) education to understand the way the biology affects emotions, 3) some psychodynamic work to understand early influences in how I interpret situations and my biological responses, 4) cognitive work to identify triggering situations, break down the sequence of the reactions and identify ways to intervene by reframing, and self-soothing. THEN, perhaps, once I have a better handle on this and am able to put it into practice with some degree of reliability, THEN, perhaps the question of conscious choice seems useful.
Or, once in remission, I have had to look at a lot of my lifestyle and life skills issues that totally fell apart during my more severe episodes of depression, and to relearn some of them, and to examine factors that itnerfere with relearning them. Here, choice work is useful to some degree, integrated with other approaches. For example, if I am trying to relearn how to manage my time, then examining the choices I make with how I spend my time, is very useful. (But not exclusively. It is also important to understand what influences how I choose to spend my time, etc.).
Anyway, I haven't even read the article, so perhaps I should before I opine any more!!
poster:noa
thread:225498
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030407/msgs/225544.html