tools for healing
Explore the Therapy techniques that I use to help people find peace, clarity, and meaning in their lives
ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY (ACT)
We all struggle with challenging thoughts, emotions and feelings at times. What ACT teaches us is, to Accept the challenges and do what really matters. ACT differs from traditional cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in that rather than trying to teach people to better control their thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and other private events, ACT teaches them to “just notice,” accept, and embrace their private events, especially previously unwanted ones.
Core principles
ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:
• Cognitive defusion: Learning methods to reduce the tendency to reify thoughts, images, emotions, and memories.
• Acceptance: Allowing thoughts to come and go without struggling with them.
• Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.
• Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is unchanging.
• Values: Discovering what is most important to one’s true self.
• Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.
Developed by Steven C. Hayes, Kelly G. Wilson, and Kirk Strosahl
IMMUNITY TO CHANGE
The Immunity to Change™ approach helps people accomplish sought-after behavioural goals by making visible to them previously unrecognized “parallel goals” (“counter commitments”) which are producing precisely the behaviours that undermine their aspirations.
For example, a person may very much want to stay on his anti-cholesterol medication. If we interviewed him, he might well be able to say what the drug does for him, why that is important to him, that he wants very much to comply with his doctor’s prescription, and that he believes he will. But after about nine months he may well have discontinued his use, and he almost certainly does not know the most important reason why. Our research suggests that “lack of discipline,” “insufficient motivation,” “lack of felt results,” “the inherent inability to reverse old habits “and” difficulty making the future as real as the present” are all poor explanations.
The failure to enact visible goals is often due to the “success” of enacting unseen ones. For example, this person may have an unrecognized goal “to not feel like a chronically sick person” (which being on a permanent prescription happens to make him feel) or “to not feel like an old person” or “to not feel like I need a crutch in order to get by” or any other self-protective goal. While his discontinuation is a kind of failure, with respect to his sincere and visible goal, we can now see that it is also a kind of “success” with respect to his unseen one. He knows he has “one foot on the gas” (the visible goal to stay on his meds); he doesn’t yet know “the other foot is on the brakes.”
This approach helps people take their foot off the brake.
Developed by Lisa Laskow Lahey and Robert Kegan
GROW MODEL
The GROW model (or process) is a simple method for goal setting and problem solving. It was developed in the United Kingdom and was used extensively in corporate coaching.
The word GROW is actually an acronym for Goal – Reality – Options – Will.
The GROW Model is an acronym standing for (G)oals, (R)eality, (O)ptions and (W)ill, highlighting the four key steps in the implementation of the GROW Model. By working through these four stages, the GROW Model raises an individual’s awareness of their own aspirations, a greater understanding of their current situation, the possibilities open to them, and the actions they could take to achieve their personal and professional goals. By setting specific, measurable and achievable goals, and a realistic time frame for their achievement, the GROW Model successfully promotes confidence and self-motivation, leading to increased productivity and personal satisfaction.
The GROW Model has proved successful all over the world to a diverse mix of people with a variety of backgrounds and experiences.
Significant contributions by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore.
SOLUTION FOCUSED BRIEF THERAPY
Solution-focused brief therapy is an approach to psychotherapy based on solution-building rather than problem-solving. It explores current resources and future hopes rather than present problems and past causes.
Questions and compliments are the primary tools of the solution-focused approach. The practitioner focuses on identifying the client’s goals, generating a detailed description of what life will be like when the goal is accomplished and the problem is either gone or coped with satisfactorily. In order to develop effective solutions, they search diligently through the client’s life experiences for “exceptions,” e.g. times when some aspect of the client’s goal was already happening to some degree, utilizing these to co-construct uniquely appropriate and effective solutions.
Developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg and their colleagues.
MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION (MBSR)
Definitions of Mindfulness
“Bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.” (Marlatt & Kristeller)
“Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn).
Mindfulness & Coaching
Mindfulness is a hot topic in coaching. Experts increasingly recognise that developing mindfulness skills is an effective way to improve performance, reduce stress, enhance emotional intelligence, increase life satisfaction, and develop leadership skills. These experts include such luminaries as Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, and Richard Boyatzis, author of Resonant Leadership.
The ACT model, with its emphasis on mindfulness, values and action, is ideally suited for executive coaching, life coaching, and sports coaching. Values provide inspiration, motivation, and direction. Mindfulness skills provide many benefits, including the ability to reduce stress, rise above self-limiting beliefs, improve focus, develop self-awareness, facilitate calmness, and handle difficult emotions such as frustration, resentment, boredom and anxiety. ACT interventions can be incorporated into other coaching models, or ACT can be used as its own self-contained model.
Benefits of Mindfulness in Life and Work
The practise of mindfulness enables you to:
• improve focus and concentration
• increase self-awareness
• reduce the impact and influence of stressful thoughts and feelings
• facilitate better relationships
• catch self-defeating behaviours, and substitute more effective ones
• become aware of self-defeating thought processes, and ‘let them go’
All of this boils down to 3 major benefits: improved performance, reduced stress, and greater satisfaction in work and life.
Influenced by Ancient Eastern Religions, John Kabat-Zinn.
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY & WELLBEING THEORY
Positive psychology is the branch of psychology that uses scientific understanding and effective intervention to aid in the achievement of a satisfactory life, rather than treating mental illness.
I help my clients invoke Five elements of well-being theory (the mnemonic PERMA).
Positive emotions include a wide range of feelings, not just happiness and joy. Included are emotions like excitement, satisfaction, pride and awe, amongst others. These emotions are frequently seen as connected to positive outcomes, such as longer life and healthier social relationships.
Engagement refers to involvement in activities that draws and builds upon one’s interests. Engagement involves passion for and concentration on the task at hand and is assessed subjectively as to whether the person engaged was completely absorbed, losing self-consciousness.
Relationships are all important in fueling positive emotions, whether they are work-related, familial, romantic, or platonic. Humans receive, share, and spread positivity to others through relationships. They are important in not only in bad times, but good times as well.
Meaning is also known as purpose, and prompts the question of “Why?” Discovering and figuring out a clear “why” puts everything into context from work to relationships to other parts of life. Finding meaning is learning that there is something greater than you. Despite potential challenges, working with meaning drives people to continue striving for a desirable goal.
Accomplishments are the pursuit of success and mastery. Unlike the other parts of PERMA, they are sometimes pursued even when it does not result in positive emotions, meaning, or relationships. That being noted, accomplishment can activate the other elements of PERMA, such as pride under positive emotion. Accomplishments can be individual or community based, fun or work based.
COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders.
CBT is based on several core principles, including:
- Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
- Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
- People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.
CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns.
I have witnessed incredible transformations in the lives of my clients. It brings immense satisfaction to witness individuals find meaning and purpose, embracing life with newfound clarity and resilience.
“Understood Myself”
Experience was quite good and now I am aware of my nature and to how to deal with my problems.Sir is always their to guide even after you have completed your sessions.
“Mindfulness Useful”
The Majority of things I do are on Auto Pilot, the mindfulness exercise was very useful. The session taught me to be more self-aware, understand the triggers and not react automatically.
“Quick Resolution”
Just needed two sessions to overcome blocks. Mrugank listens patiently and does not judge. I would knock at his door again if the need arose. Thanks a lot.