When " Skills don't work for me" !
Skills don’t work
- everyone
There is not a day that goes by in my office that I do not hear the phrase “skills don’t work for me.”
If you found this post while feeling frustrated, discouraged, or defective because “for some reason” you cannot get all of these behavioral therapy skills to make an impact on your mood, I am here to say IT IS NOT JUST YOU.
Here is a secret - skills work but you have to know HOW TO WORK THEM (or more accurately, WHEN, to work them.
Often times when skills are taught they are presented as a list of things to go do when you feel anxiety, depression or negative behavior urges and they will work (or they won’t and try something different). What often gets missed is the understanding that anxiety, depression, and urges exist on a spectrum of intensity and impact. When we realize that mood and urges are more analogous to a dimmer switch then it opens up the idea that skills are, too.
What now?
1- Consider how you experience mood and urges
Start being observant of how you experience anxiety, depression, and urges. Start identifying key points on your dimmer switch. You will be surprised to find that anxiety is not just an on or off experience but that there are points of lesser intensity worry to full intensity dissociation.
2- Keep track of physical experiences and cognitive experiences
As you broaden your experience of mood and urges, you will likely find there is a point when cognitive thought is not as accessible because the physical experiences have taken-over; you are caught up in nausea, tunnel vision, shakiness, or dissociation. This is a key turning point in identifying skill integration. Skills that work really well with changing thought patterns, are not going to be effective when thoughts are not accessible. Fact checking your tunnel vision is going to make you feel like skills don’t work which leaves you frustrated and hopeless, reaffirmed in the belief that your are too much (which is not true).
3- Identify skills that work with your experiences
Take these new insights to your team and start to plug in where the skills you already know will be effective. You might realize that all you have are a bunch of cognitive challenging skills (which are great) but have a lack in skills to manage physical presentations that you experience more often. If that is the case, work with your team to learn NEW SKILLS that match your experiences and fill out a broader range of coping.
Want to work together to learn new skills and ways of using the skills you have?
Reach out or book a session!
Melinda Lericos, LPC is a licensed therapist in the state of Kansas specializing in eating disorders, complex and attachment trauma. Melinda practices with a Body Trust, Health at Every Size, and IFS lens while incorporating behavioral strategies, body integration, and mindfulness techniques. She has experience at several different levels of care for eating disorder treatment and now practices in an outpatient, private practice setting.