Control of cognition

Two weeks ago I started a new therapy. Or rather, a (for me) old therapy, in a new form. I have previously been in cognitive psychotherapy (confusing, wait! I'll explain it all), individually. It was me and the cognitive psychologist (psychologist education, direction cognitive psychology). Now, instead, I am doing the same psychological "school", i.e. this cognitive psychotherapy, but as a group therapy.

We are 10 people in this group, lead by two psychiatrists (i.e. medical doctors with direction psychiatry). All participants are aged 18-25, and have/are suffering from some depression illness. The therapy is more like a course, with homework, active participance during classes, and breaks with snacks. I feel more or less cured these days, so I can't say I "need" the course in the acute sense. I have also gone through all these things we talk about in class now several times earlier in my individual therapy. But still, I feel very inspired by the course. It's a good repetition of all I have learnt before, with new examples/exercises to use the things in practice, and also a nice way to meet and get some faces of a few of those many people my own age suffering a similar disease as myself.

I am going to spread the brilliance of the cognitive psychology by writing a little something about the classes. This last time the task was to realise the very intimate interconnection between thought-feeling-action. Of those three (thought, feeling, action), the action is the easiest to manipulate, and by manipulating actions, you can in turn reach thought and feeling and change those, both for better and for worse. Part of depression patterns can sometimes be explained by an involountary (obviously!) negative spiralling event of negative thought, action and feeling. But brilliantly enough, and this is what the school of cognitive psychology is all about, the key to feeling good in general, and also in some cases alleviate states of sadness or depression.

Our homework this week is to make a list of 20 things that we enjoy/make us happy at times, and every day we mark with an X which of those 20 things we have done. On the list should be things that are easy to put into your "everyday" life (so not vacation, travelling or such). It must also be only things that you yourself can control, i.e. not involve others or things you don't have control over (e.g. winning the lottery, playing basketball). So only things that you can do on any day of the week, without involving anyone else.

My list is comprised by the following: draw, read novels, breathe nice clean air, crossword-puzzling, play/be with animals, shower/take a bath, gardening, give gifts, help someone, eat/cook a good meal, go to the opera/museum/theatre, peace&quiet, work-out, be with someone I like, enjoy sex, smile at someone, express my appreciation/love, fiddle with my plants, teach someone something, wear cozy clothes. For the past 5 days since this exercise started I have been able to manage to do 6-10 of these events each day.

As a separate task we also keep track of our general mood each day, on a scale from 0-7, and this we will later try to correlate with the amount of nice activites we have done each day. This to try to make us understand just how important our actions are for our well-being, and that you yourself and really no-one or nothing else controls the way you feel entirely. Of couse other things can affect you, but the ultimately, how you choose (automatically, or preferaby instead consciously) to react/respond to events will determine the outcome it will have on your feelings and well-being. So I guess to make us feel less passive victims of our lives, and that we actually can control our feelings and thoughts more than we might think. The exercise to list these 20 activites we like, obviously also strive to make us more self-aware of our likes and dislikes.

The course is just excellent, and really anyone/everyone would benefit from it, which is why I try to share it with as many as possible. I challenge you all to make a list of 10-20 things you really enjoy, that you are in control of (not too expensive or too dependent on others) and that can fit into your everyday, and try to make as many of them as possible each day for the upcoming 2 weeks. It is lots of fun! What makes you happy on an everyday basis?