News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Habits of Highly Miserable People. Parent comment

Re:Habits of Highly Miserable People by DoreenMichele on Tuesday June 12, 2018 @12:01AM (#17290618)
It wasn't a negative experience. Therapy was effective. But at some point I realized that continuing to invest so much time in a negative past experience was giving over my present and future time to said negative experience and what I wanted was to invest my time in positive experiences, to pursue something enjoyable and life enhancing.

Long experience suggests that it won't matter how positively I frame it or how carefully I say it, some people will insist on viewing my statements and me negatively -- as has been discussed elsewhere in this very thread.

And I don't plan to discuss this detail further.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Habits of Highly Miserable People by ThePadawan on Tuesday June 12, 2018 @04:52AM (#17291727)
I agree and went through similar experiences.

I will however mention for the other readers that not all modes and schools of therapy see "digging up the past" as essential, in fact I believe this is a point of contention.

Methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Theory, I believe, focus much more on "OK, but how does that influence your behavior? Should it?"

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Habits of Highly Miserable People by DoreenMichele on Tuesday June 12, 2018 @05:08AM (#17291789)
I was in couple's counseling briefly with my husband. He also was very briefly in therapy on his own. He was extremely introverted. He hated telling all this private stuff to a counselor.

One day, I told him "You don't have to go to therapy. I don't care if you go to therapy or not. Therapy is a means to an end. Therapy per se doesn't matter. I only want our marriage to be better. I don't care how that happens."

So he quit both his own therapy and couple's counseling. And he was promptly and permanently a better husband.

There are many paths.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Habits of Highly Miserable People by loco5niner on Tuesday June 12, 2018 @07:38PM (#17299042)
Great point. As a fellow introvert, I think I would also be better off.
[ Parent | on HN ]