Tag Archives: Misconceptions

So what??

Basic & General, Treatment Approaches, ,

What is your first reaction when I say a “So what?” attitude?

Was your reaction quite negative or positive? (Assuming that it can’t be totally neutral)

What if I say, it’s an attitude the grandfather of cognitive therapy, Albert Ellis, said we shall all adopt? Yes, he said we shall all live with a “So What?” attitude.

What do you think?

(I started all 4 paragraphs with the letter “W”, so what?)

I can’t do this, so what?

I look so anxious, so what?

I can’t sleep, so what?

I failed my exam, so what?

Nobody likes me, so what?

What do you think? How would you benefit from adopting such an attitude?

I might not benefit from it, so what?

Seeing clients and students in the west (including those Asians who have lived in the west) vs those who live in Asia (mainly Chinese, Malaysians, South East Asians), I noticed that the first receipt of such an attitude can be quite different, although eventually all accept it and see and experience how much they benefit from having such a “I don’t care” attitude.

But for many Chinese and Asians, their first reaction is almost like, “this is rude”, “this is not what I would do”, “this is wrong”, “this is not part of our cultures/values” etc

Of course we are not talking about people should not care about their life, their studies, their family, their hygiene, their job etc. But it’s when you care too much and it doesn’t help (and often this care makes things worse). This is especially so in social situation and interaction. We worry too much about what others might think, how we look like, we stop being in our experience and connecting with the environment and the world because we focus internally worrying too much.

Try to apply the lens of “so what” in your social interaction and see how it goes?

Is being a perfectionist good/bad?

Anxiety Disorder, Clinical Case Studies,

She’s only 15, and has been doing great academically in all the subjects all her life. It’s probably not wrong to say that she is one of the top students in her country, that’s also why she received a scholarship to receive better education in a different country.

Now being in one of the top colleges in the world, she is struggling to still be the best. But she doesn’t give up. She sacrifices her sleep just so she can catch up. After all this is a very different education system from the ones she was in.

After 6 months of persistent trying, she still doesn’t see much of any results. She cries. She feels like a zombie. She wants her family to be proud of her. She needs to be the best. She wants to be perfect, in all subjects, in her writing, in her presentation, in every piece of work that she produces. But it’s not happening…

She told me “I never see perfectionism a bad thing. I always thought it’s good. Why is it bad?” She believes she’s where she is today thanks to her perfectionist trait, or she wouldn’t have worked so hard and strived so hard.

But over time she starts to see that this trait is pulling her down, is creating a lot of self-doubts and criticisms in her mind, is affecting her work, is stopping her from functioning properly, is preventing her from enjoying studying that she always loves, is making her depressed and feeling hopeless.

I guess for many of us, we were all once there, weren’t we? I remember how I was like in high school, the lucky thing is I managed, and that’s mainly because I wasn’t studying in the top school in the world. But many students who do very well but come from an underprivileged background struggle when they receive scholarship and get into a top school. It’s hard for them to see that being top in their country might not mean anything once they are here. Some people give up, some people try persistently; some people see some results, some never.

Most people are usually rewarded as a perfectionist, at least initially, like in the first one or two decades of their life. So it’s natural that we see and experience the benefits and sense of achievement being one. But it’s either now, or later in the university, or when we are in the society, that we see how academic results don’t matter, how being a perfectionist alters your worldview and reduces how you could have enjoyed life and things along the way.

For the perfectionists, only the results matter. But life isn’t like that, because the ending of life is always the same, life is about the processes. Still, you can strive to be excellent, strive to become better than yourself yesterday, but not to be flawless…

But, will young students see that?

帮我忘记这个人

Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy, Issues & Debates, , , ,

作为催眠治疗师（确切地说，是认知行为催眠治疗师或催眠-CBT治疗师），我时不时遇到来访者提出这种目标。通常，他们想忘记某人，一段感情，或完全忘掉一段记忆（通常还是与某个特定的人有关）。

自然地，基于科学和我们对人类思维的了解，理性的大脑会告诉我们这实际上是不可能的，对吗？然而，当涉及到催眠和催眠疗法时，人们通常会“失去理智”，在催眠领域里，似乎能实现在其他任何地方都不可能实现的一切！？

这同时是正确和错误的。的确，我们可以通过催眠来成就许多大小事，我们更自信地生活，我们变得更加敢于表达自己，我们更快乐，我们能面对最大的恐惧，我们更加按照价值生活，我们戒掉各种不良习惯，我们更好地享受生活，我们达到我们最大的潜力，我们可以更好地处理危机和压力，我们可以管理以前无法承受的痛苦和创伤，我们……忘记某人？

我经常向他们解释，只要我们相信，我们就可以通过催眠实现很多事情。确实，头脑的力量是巨大的。但是这个目标是唯一的例外。不幸的是，我们的思想和记忆并没有像我们期望的那样发挥作用。它们与书橱上个别存储各种文件的文件夹不同，可以经常参阅和置放却不会被影响（就像您在动画 Inside Out！中看到的那样）。

在动画中，记忆“球体”像文件夹一样独立摆放在架子上。

我们的大脑（心），身体，情感，感觉，行为和思想都相互关联，我们的记忆也相互关联。每次您回忆起“上学第一天”时，您都会更改记忆中的一部分（取决于您回忆时的心境和状况等），并且加强与之相关的一些其它记忆链接，并削弱一些不相关的记忆链接。

想象一下，如果您想忘记这个男朋友，一段外遇感情或一个不幸逝世的孩子，而我能够用催眠将它带走，那么与之相关的其他回忆，与之相关的人和事件又如何呢？怎样填补没有了记忆的岁月和时间？也许我可以在催眠里自由“补充”些什么…？

是的，就创造虚假的记忆而言，催眠是一个很好的工具，这是有大量科学研究根据的。您可能会在催眠过程中“回忆”一些比真实感觉更真实的东西，但是那不是真实的……您可以在以下视频中观看更多：为什么您的记忆不能被相信 （需要的话，你可以点选中文字幕自动翻译）：

没错，我们不能删除记忆，而创建虚假的记忆来代替它们是不道德的（毕竟所有催眠治疗师都不是上帝，谁来决定您的生活故事并随意地改变它？但是不可否认的是，有一些催眠疗法会这么做，这点也许我们下回再讨论）。

但这并不意味着催眠治疗师或心理治疗师将无济于事。 我实行循证催眠疗法，我可以使用催眠治疗来帮助您学习接纳这个人或记忆或婚外情等作为您“人生历史”的一部分，让它对您的影响变小，学会与之共处并继续前进，而不会干扰您的日常生活。 我也可以使用催眠来促进适当的总结这段关系，告别这段关系和记忆。 试想想，如果它不再对您的生活造成多少影响，对您来说仍然是一个问题吗？

I want to forget someone

Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy, Issues & Debates, Treatment Approaches, , , ,

As a hypnotherapist (to be exact, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, or Hypno-CBT therapist), I get clients with this sort of goal every now and then. Usually they want to forget a specific someone, a relationship, totally get rid of a piece of memory (again usually to do with a specific person).

Naturally our rational mind would tell us this is actually not possible, based on science and what we already know about human mind, right? Yet when it comes to hypnosis and hypnotherapy, people generally “lost their senses”, everything that seems impossible elsewhere, seems possible when it comes to hypnosis.

This is right and wrong at the same time. Indeed we can achieve great things with hypnosis, we live more confidently, we become more assertive, we are happier, we confront our greatest fear, we live more according to value, we quit smoking and bad habits, we enjoy life better, we reach our fullest potential, we handle crisis and stress better, we can manage pain that we couldn’t bear before, we … forget someone?

I often explain to them, we can achieve a lot of things with hypnosis when we believe we can. Indeed the power of the mind is great. But this goal being the only exception. Unfortunately our mind and memories don’t work the way we want it to be. They are not like folders on your shelves that are stored individually, and can be accessed and discarded separately without affecting each other (just like what you saw in the animation Inside Out!).

In “Inside Out”, memories are stored individually as if documents on the shelves.

Our mind, body, emotions, feelings, behavour and thoughts are all interconnected, and so are our memories. Each time you take out the memory of “first day in school”, you changed some part of it (depending on the mood and condition you are in when you think about it etc), and you strengthen some related links connected to it and weaken some other.

Imagine if you want to forget this boyfriend or an affair or a lost child, and I’m able to take it away just like that, what about other memories and people and events connected to it? What is going to fill up the emptiness of these years? Perhaps I can make up something there…?

Yes, hypnosis is a great tool in terms of creating false memories. There have been plenty of research showing that. You might “recall” something during hypnosis which feel more real than what’s real, but it just isn’t real… You can watch more about it here in this clip: Why your memories can’t be trusted-

So right, we can’t remove the memories, and it’s unethical for us to create false memories to replace them (after all hypnotherapists are not god, who are we to decide your life stories and simply change it? But undeniably there are some hypnotherapy approach that do that, and we shall discuss this perhaps next time).

Yet it doesn’t mean we can’t help. I practice evidence-based hypnotherapy, I can use hypnosis to help you learn to accept this person or memory or relationship as part of your history, let it affect you less, learn to live with it and move on without having it interfering your life. I can also use hypnosis to facilitate proper closure and goodbye for the relationship and memory too. So, is it still a problem for you if it no longer has so much an impact in your life?

你相信陰謀論嗎？

Issues & Debates, ,

首先，什麼是陰謀論？

“在其他解释更有可能的情况下，将事件或现实情况解释成邪恶而又强力的集团或个体在背后密谋。支持者一般相信行为者具有政治动机”－維基百科。

從2020年初2019新冠病毒疫情的開始，就常聽見許多不同的陰謀論，包括病毒的起源，包括真實的染疫和死亡數據，包括一些國家的目的，包括馬來西亞出現第三波疫情的原因等等，好多好多，而且我身邊就有這樣的朋友，偶爾聊天就會在討論這種論說。

我記得初期我會說，“我不是個會相信陰謀論的人，除非很明顯的事實證據擺在眼前。否則這麼相信和猜測並沒有意義。”

“可是你看，這麼巧先發病的國家是他們，但….，有可能咩？ ” 或者 “這麼巧出現第三波，然後國家進入緊急狀態，所以…，好像很奇怪喔！”

當陰謀論的倡導者得不到他們想要的反應時，就會開始呈現許多的“證據”…

要知道，這世界上的許多事情，你要硬是把他們牽連在一起，甚至連成因果，是完全可以輕易做到的，畢竟人的大腦，常常在做這樣的事，我們的神經，每天都在連結和溝通。

可是，研究學家發現：

想想也是不難解釋的… 只是很多時候這些陰謀論的信徒，卻很篤定自己就是因為“批判性思考”才會相信陰謀論… 你覺得呢？

被压抑的创伤事故？

Anxiety Disorder, Issues & Debates, ,

在中国做培训的时候，发现学生蛮常喜欢问关于“创伤” (trauma) 相关的问题。过去几十年，创伤是心理学里一个很“夯”的课题，许多抑郁、焦虑、人格障碍 (personality disorder) 等心理与精神疾病，都会被与创伤事故做联想，并以此角度去谘商与治疗－－这其实没有太大问题（虽然在认知行为的角度，我们更多去关注“维持因素”，而不是问题的起因）。可是随着心理知识通过网络、自助书籍等的普及化，现在连一个7、8岁的孩子，到没有受过高等教育的70、80岁的长者，都会开始说自己“受到了创伤“。换句话说，“创伤”这个词，开始被“滥用”，不适当的应用。这就有些类似好多年前开始，“忧郁”被滥用一样，后来“我有点强迫”也开始被普及化，然后现在，“创伤”也是。

当然对我来说，心理知识，尤其有科学依据的心理学知识的普及化，一点问题也没有，它增加了社会对患有心理相关问题的意识、的关注，并能让人们提前寻求帮助，以及减少偏见和歧视等，这并没有问题。问题在于，传统上，弗洛伊德派系（Freudian) 的理论，相信人们的大脑在经历重大创伤事故时，会启动防御机制(defense mechanism)，比如抑制(repression)，把不合理的信念、痛苦的记忆等，在你无意识、不自觉的情况下隐藏它们，以期完全忘记它们。

而这才是我今天想要关注的主题：这种被压抑、被忘却的创伤，存在吗？

我想不少心理学家都会异口同声说：“当然存在！” 以前的我也是。可是这里，我想提出几个“疑点”，让把它看成理所当然存在的人，稍微的再考虑一下下…

（一）以过去许多经历较为重大事故（如：战争、被性侵强奸、地震、911事件、恐怖袭击、攫夺等）的人过后出现闪回(flashback)、失眠等症状而被诊断为创伤后应激障碍(Post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD)，这些事故其实被更强烈的记住，并不断在脑海里“重播”，所以才会导致情绪激动、焦虑等症状。这似乎显示：经历创伤事故的人，是会更强烈的记得这些事故，而不是忘却它、压抑它？

（二）有些时候，这些创伤事故发生在我们懂事以前。在孩子还未懂事前（4、5岁之前），他很可能根本不以为意，并不知道这是“创伤性的”，或许带来一些不舒服、不自在的感觉，但是后来随着时间的飘逸过去了，多年后长大了，可能因为一些环境或电影情节，再次想起，这时候才了解当时那是什么，但在不懂事的情况下，这能算是“被压抑的创伤”吗？

（三）与（二）相关，婴儿遗忘症(infantile amnesia)，显然也不是“被压抑的创伤记忆”。因为在我们未懂事以前，几乎所有经历都没有被编码 (encode) 进入我们的长期记忆 (long-term memory)，那就没有所谓的无意识压抑了。虽然其实近几年有些研究似乎发现，学语言以前长期记忆的编码方式，与逐渐掌握语言后的编码方式不同，而导致我们在学会语言后，无法“复取”(retrieve)旧有编码的记忆。

（四）许多所谓的创伤事故，多年后在治疗，尤其催眠过程中被“记起”。在美国，这甚至导致家庭关系的破裂、引起诉讼，与家人对薄公堂。可是这里的问题是，记忆的可塑性很强，它不是文档，可以每次打开来看却还保持一样，我们的日常经历、听说的故事、看过的电视电影情节、做的梦、幻想的事情等，都会影响我们的记忆。记忆并不是事件本身，记忆是加入了许多我们的经验、想法、情绪、知识等的事件，可以与原本的事故相差甚远，甚至，毫不相关，完全是虚构的。许多研究已经证实了这件事：我们可以虚构出“事实”，并强烈相信它就是事实。所以，如何“证实”这些被发现的压抑创伤事故的虚实？？

您怎么看呢？

注：我无意淡化遭遇创伤事故的人的痛苦，这篇的内容主要在谈论“被压抑”后“被发掘”的创伤经验。临床上，我还是有在针对大小创伤事故做治疗的。