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The analysis of outcome studies, referred to as meta-analyses points towards the following characteristics as the consistent mindsets of clients who found satisfaction in their psychotherapy.

1) A Profound Sense of Necessity:

“I knew I’d had it. I couldn’t live like that anymore.   I hated what I had become.  I felt like I’d lost my voice and soul.  I was a dead man walking.”

“I had long known I was picking impermanent partners because.  I knew I had to get honest with myself, and no one was going to take that step for me.”

In general the most common prompt for change is pain.  It motivates.  Whether it’s a dull ache from loneliness, a sharp one from sudden loss, or the absence of joy and passion in a long marriage the shift from blaming others to rallying all of one's resources for “turning the battleship” of our life's compass heading embodies this essential sense of necessity.

2) A Willingness to Experience Fear, Anxiety or Tedium:

♫ ♪ “Feelings, nothing more than feeeeelings…” ♫ ♪

“When I first came here I wasn’t going to expose any of my weaknesses or insecurities to anyone.  I felt shame and would get defensive, ready to build a case for my innocence and victimhood.  Now, I’m much more willing to face myself and others and suspend my first impulse to lash out or repel the confrontation.”

“I find after putting myself in the hotseat of honesty I lost my fear of my feelings.  For some reason I thought they would destroy me, go figure.  Now I can experience them without the surrounding ugly and hateful scripts I learned from mom.  It’s like I still feel them but with compassion and tenderness, rather than scorn.  This objectivity makes my life so much more bearable and it prepared me to face my part in the choices I kept making in love.”

3) A Defining Awareness of the Problem

“I kept thinking the problem was about our communication, then I realized she had been saying the whole time.  I want out of this relationship.  I had never let up the guilt and pressure to see the writing.  I don’t take hostages anymore.”

“This is still a mystery to me, but I’m far more willing to consider possibilities other than my first impression.  I’ve come to realize those first flashes of “insight” my really be first flashes of insanity.  With a bit of patience I can allow alternative explanations and solutions to follow.”

[See ED’S FISH]

Attachments require the mutual calibration of two original attachment systems.  Recognizing how yours is biased, emotionally primed and pre-scripted can radically alter the alter the interpretation and/or approach we take with conflicts, opportunities and across the board on the way we make or break bonds.

4) Active Confrontation the Problem(s)

“I used to think when I was fighting back and digging my heels in that I was confronting the problem.  Now, I find confronting means first examining the way I distort things, then asking my mate how they see things.  Funny how those few first steps can make such a difference in the way the story ends.”

[see Softened Start-up]

5) Commitment to Provide the Effort

“The only effort I knew to perform effectively was to look good and have fun.  I’d buy lots of things, take spendy vacations.  The big money fix.  Now I find I’m not so quick to cut other’s off.  I can hang in there longer and unblock my feelings.  They’re often molasses-slow in coming but they eventually come if I make a conscious effort to hang in there.  Once I see what’s really going on with me I find I can actually come up with a loving way to deal with things.”

Identifying where, what and how to place some effort is vital for effective change. 

[see Journal forms]

6) Choosing Social Support

"Evidence is accumulating that human beings of all ages are happiest and able to deploy their talents to best advantage when they are confident that, standing behind them, there are one or more trusted persons who will come to their aid should difficulties arise." John Bowlby, The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds, Routledge Press, page 103."

“I was my social support.  I didn’t get that other people could be a part of that process.  I saw myself as the sole agent of my own sustenance.  Now I actively seek ways to break my isolation.  I call friends to go for walks, I reach out, I monitor the stress in my shoulders.”

“It’s been my assignment in life to fix others.  I would never ask for help, instead I’d foist my help on someone who I knew needed my perfect understanding.  Then I’d feel brutally misunderstood all the time.  For me, the cop-out is socially acting together and privately struggling.  This ludicrous sacrifice has backfired so much.  I’m sort of getting this.”

[see Secure Base Group]

7) Continued Hope

“I held hopes that I would find an ideal relationship.  At the same time I knew my negative qualities and weaknesses would come out and they’d find I don’t have much to offer.  Now I understand when those feelings of unworthiness come up I can ignore them.  This confidence in my ability to notice what matters and ignore what doesn’t gives me hope.”

“My hope was in my staying distracted – go here, buy that, lay them – I don’t need anything.  This has all changed.”

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