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Hey everyone, I think that it would be wise and valuable if we were to share what books have aided us in our pursuit of self-knowledge. I think that it would be nice to have a summary of the book and the relevant parts, and share what you have gained from reading the book. Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw Shame is such a powerful emotion. It is especially powerful when we do not realize that we are experiencing shame. Bradshaw talks about the difference between healthy shame--accepting one's natural limits--and toxic shame--believing that we are fundamentally unworthy of love, me-plus. He takes the theoretical model of a shame cycle--we feel bad, we cope, and then we feel bad because we have coped, so then we cope more to relieve our negative feelings--and applies to real people. The antidote to toxic shame is love, and so much of trauma and dysfunction is the result of not receiving the love that we needed when we needed it. Reading this book and understanding shame has helped me clear up a lot of self-attack and generalized negative self-beliefs. I have been able to recognize that when I cope, it is because I am seeking comfort and love, and that to attack myself is just to further the pattern that was my childhood, a traumatizing and dysfunctional pattern. I really recommend reading this book, because in my experience toxic shame has been such a challenging emotion to identify, and the moment that I have been able to identify it for what it is is the moment that I have been able to start making progress and healing.

Are you thinking about trying therapy, but aren't sure or don't believe you can afford it. Well, you can! In this video, I talk about how you can find a therapist to work with in long-term, regular psychotherapy, even if you can afford to pay very little or even nothing at all! Check it out and please share! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgjhsMOoFYE Also, check out my website and blog!

Hey all, check out my latest blog post, in which I talk about how we tend to repeat unsatisfying patterns in our relationships and how to change those patterns.

Are you considering, or have you started seeing a therapist? If so, you may be wondering whether or not you need to be diagnosed and how a diagnosis may impact your ability to get good therapy. In this video, I share some of my thoughts on the role of diagnosis in psychotherapy.

Often, what we fervently believe to be true about people in general is the reality that we have trouble fully facing about people in our own lives. For more on this, check out my video here.

Check out my blog post about depression! In it, I talk about my perspective on the nature of depression and how to work through it in therapy, based on my own experience in dealing with it and more recently helping others through it as a therapist. Please share, if you like what I wrote. Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Emotional-Brain-Eliminating-Reconsolidation/dp/0415897173/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437409086&sr=8-1&keywords=unlocking+the+emotional+brain&pebp=1437409088489&perid=1D8PX6XESXTMFM741QS2 Hey everyone, this book has so far been the most interesting and informative thing in Therapy and Psychology I've read, so I wanted to put out a recommendation and overview here, as I'm sure a lot of you would find it very interesting as well. The book starts by providing an overview of the research that was going on over the last two decades, both in analysing psychotherapy in detail and neuroscientific findings about how emotional learning works and can be changed or erased (which was something that was thought to be impossible only ten years ago). After that the author explains the steps that are now known to be necessary to produce that change and then goes to show a lot of examples of how that worked in therapy. The main focus is on therapists using Coherence therapy, however, since there are quite a few therapies that unknowingly use that same steps to create changes, they also show how the same things looks like in some other therapy forms. The steps themselves are fairly simple in principle: (Re-)trigger the emotional learning to access its contents, then juxtapose/mismatch that content in order to erase the original learning. Obviously, in practice that can require quite some work, as the content of the learning is all subconscious and has to be unearthed first. The author is clear that there is no one single best technique to do any of those steps, which means, you can use the whole plethora of available techniques and see what works best for you (or your patient, if you're a therapist). However the steps themselves can be found one way or another in different therapies, although often without the explicit knowledge of the therapist about them, which makes it sometimes more a game of chance whether or not that patient can be helped effectively. Also it is important to note that so far this is the only process we know of that can actually change emotional learning. This works regardless of how deeply rooted the emotion or symptom is, or how intense or long it has been going on. This still relatively knew knowledge alone is quite a big breakthrough for Psychotherapy and anyone interested in self-knowledge/self-therapy, as it essentially changes the discipline like the atomic model changed Alchemy (trial and error) to Chemistry (an underlying explanatory model for how and why the process works). Anyway, I'm kinda bad at writing summaries and overviews for an audience, so I hope this gives you a good overview, but obviously ask if there's stuff you're curious about where I wasn't clear or if you have more questions about the content. Either way, I hope you're gonna check it out, it's really a great book with great content.

I never created an introduction because I didn't know whom to introduce. And although this isn't an introduction, it is quite revealing as that I am no longer who I once was--so says the wife. At this point it will do. When I first took the ACE I had a score of 4; then I took it after a few months of therapy and had an 8; now, it's a 9. And unless someone went to prison and never told me that should stand. I began EMDR in the Fall of 2014, using audible and tactile sensation alternating from one side to the other. Because I had been meditating since 7th grade this was quite enlightening as it enhanced my ability to focus. One of the first areas of focus was an event that happened in 2nd grade because I drew a bat. It was around Halloween when I saw a PBS documentary about how bats were useful and critical to an ecosystem. So, I drew a very large bat on a joint art work with a girl from my class. She cried. She was terrified by the artwork of a 2nd grader. The teacher was telling her that it was OK, not to be scared, and that "bats aren't real." The teacher and I had a shouting match about the reality of bats. I spewed forth everything learned from the documentary. She had me cover it up with a tree. No one came to my defense. Another altercation was in the library. A 6th grade bully took a record off the phonograph as I was listening to it. I threw a fit. The librarian came over, wrapped her hands around me, and carried me out of the library. I was kicking, screaming, and clawed her hands so viciously that it drew blood. "She had to wear bandages," my mother yelled. A third incident was when a teacher had her hand on my shoulder leading me to the principal's office for kicking a girl. We were seated Indian Style (PC crowd get a grip!), as I adjusted my leg, it popped forward because it had gone numb. I apologized profusely but to no avail. The teacher's nails were digging into my shoulder as I tried to squirm away from her escort. I reached up and grabbed her wrist, then pulled--executing a rather deft martial arts throw for being untrained--she rolled down a hill of large lava rocks. The report was that I "beat up a teacher." For one week I was kicked off the bus, so my mother hired a taxi to take me to school each morning and return me home. I was so embarrassed by this that I hiked the hills to get to school instead. These events all happened in a few months time. I was expelled from Happy Valley Elementary (irony?), then expelled from a special needs school, followed by the whole school district. At least this is what my parents tell me. I have contacted the school, they have no records of this--you would think that if all this took place there would be a real, and quite serious, permanent record of events--although I have my report cards that ask my mother to take me to a psychiatrist, twice. My parents sent me to Saint Catherine's Military Academy by Thanksgiving. And here comes the abandonment issues, but only to a certain degree because my mother was distant to begin with. She was quite detached as she had already lost three children: My eldest sister died 30 hours after birth; an older brother died at age 7; a still birth at 8 1/2 months. Also, I had another brother that was in a state hospital due to a broken chromosome issue. While sympathy, and even empathy, are not without merit, you don't leave an 8 year old to fend for himself to the point that he packs his own lunch and cooks his own meals. I could fix eggs by age 5. Although I have often noted that I learned to cook out of self defense because her cooking was quite bad (my sister taught me to cook!) I am now at this boarding school, seated on my bed, staring at my hands, and wondering "what did I do so evil?" I envision bars on the windows. There are no other students because I was dropped off during Thanksgiving break. The isolation still hurts. Although, sadly, no emotions at all toward my mother for leaving me there, even during EMDR. The first day of school, a Commandant decided that he needed to swat me with a paddle for not knowing left from right quick enough, and it gave him the "opportunity to work on his golf swing." Following that I was beaten by an 8th grader because he wanted to be first in line to the canteen for the afternoon snack. With blood coming from my nose, tears from my eyes, a nun told me I was just homesick. I replied, "that's the last place I want to be." How did I really get there? This is where I can thank therapy. During EMDR a pain in my chest began to stand out. A rather angry, spiked, black miasma with bright red eyes, inside a cage with runes on the bars to ensure he cannot get out, resides in the center of my chest. Also trapped within the miasma was a rare, male calico cat. The miasma was dubbed Chaos; the cat, Sherlock. Sherlock likes to sit on a bed in a very large library. He is stoic, knowledgeable, and can delve secrets from everything he sees, hence the name. Chaos is quite acerbic, will use knowledge as a weapon, and will fight back in pure rage (that poor librarian). Why the schism? Not long ago, during another EMDR session while talking to Chaos, my right hand went numb and I felt pressure on my throat. I wanted to vomit. Having studied enough psychology I immediately realized what had happened. During the time frame above, my older sister came into my room one night saying, "the guy that is watching us is in my bed and it is making me uncomfortable. Can I sleep with you?" Years later my step-father told a story about how he got rid of that same guy "threatened to call the cops and claim he raped our 12 year old daughter." I was shocked by this story. I immediately told my step-father about the night that my sister came into my room. My step-father was stunned. Wait, he didn't know? Recently, I asked my mother about that guy and she said that he had stolen jewelry from them and they chased him off. My mother has pieces of jewelry that could cover an ivy league collegiate education but didn't call the cops? Something didn't add up. This guy had access to the house. My sister came to my room. My step-father didn't know about it. This guy supposedly stole jewelry. The cops were not called. Was my mother not home that night? My mother was probably with my step-father where he worked as an entertainer. My sister must have told her what happened. My mother had my step-father chase off that guy. They couldn't call the cops because she would have to explain where she was. Also, this was during custody issues with my father and my mother couldn't let him win. My mother was that self-centered! It was more important to save her own hide than get proper help for her children. That is seriously demented. Now, after that last detour into the details of what caused the schism, I could finally address Chaos in that cage: He had a secret. One that he was not allowed to tell. I can hear my mother's voice through clenched teeth, "we do not talk of this!" This is why I watched PBS and read books at every opportunity. It was so I could think about, or talk about, anything but what had happened. The violent reaction that developed during this time came from being grabbed, pinned down and held by the throat--perhaps even a knife. And why I was not taken to psychiatrist. Because I was talking about it but no one would listen. A psychiatrist probably would have and my mother would have been exposed. Someone violated me in some sexual manner. No, I am not able to recall what precisely happened, nor do I wish to. But the good news is that Chaos is no longer in a cage; he even smiles when I talk to him. Sherlock could still use a bit of help because no one has ever shown him any love--especially not his parents who hate "those academic types." That aspect will take time but now that Chaos is happy Sherlock is sure to follow. It is truly amazing what you can discover about yourself from therapy and how much it can help you relieve a burden. Perhaps I should have an ACE of a 10; someone should have gone to jail--not Chaos.

I think this is exciting. I've been in and out of therapy for years and I've definitely found the most effective therapies to be some of the ones listed in the video such as IFS and Focusing. Does anyone have any experience with Coherence Therapy or any of the other ones listed?

Maybe you’ve seen some of my posts here on the self-knowledge boards. You may already be aware that I offer therapy over skype, but I also offer aid and consulting with journaling. Journaling has been the foundation to my happiness and gaining self-knowledge. As much growth and healing as I’ve experienced during therapy, I’ve gained so much more on my own in my journals. I know and understand that journaling is can be a very difficult and emotionally overwhelming process for some people, and I would like to offer my services and experience to help. To mention my skype therapy practice as well, I am available at a very affordable rate--especially compared to in-person therapists--and I have something that I believe most therapists do not; I’ve done the work myself! I began listening to FDR in 2008, started journaling in 2010, sought therapy in 2011, and have dedicated thousands of hours to diving into and understanding my own psyche. I’ve seen just how much I’ve grown and changed, and I’ve likely faced challenges similar to what you may be experiencing now such as: procrastination, self-attack, social anxiety, sexual shame, uncertainty about the future, distress over a toxic home or work environment, insomnia, isolation, loneliness, vanity, emotional disconnection, and compulsions/addictions regarding caffeine, video games, and sweets. If you’re looking for a therapist or need some help journaling, and you’re feeling curious--or nervous while reading this--then you can either contact me through PM over the boards or email me through a form on my website. I hope that you find what you’re looking for, Drew Woods

Hello all, I am a long-time listener of FDR who has just opened a psychotherapy practice where I see clients both in-person as well as over Skype. I started listening to FDR back in 2010, and it had a huge impact on my life, sending me deep into the study of psychology and self-knowledge. This study has been my major pursuit for over 4 years now. I am currently enrolled in a Clinical Mental Health Counseling Masters program so that I can get legit in the USA, but most of my education has come from other activities. Over the last 4 years I have around 2,000 hours of journaling focusing on understanding my deepest self, and over 800 hours in co-therapy with self-knowledge motivated aquintances. In addition, I myself completed 2-years of weekly in-person psychotherapy, over a year ago. I have also read widely on psychotherapy, particularly of the "humanistic" variety, and continue to study the works of other therapists, to the present. And now I am very happy to offer to others my capacity for empathetic understanding of the personal and difficult things we so commonly, but often secretly, face in life. As a therapist-in-training, I am offering my services at a real premium. Easily 25-50% the standard rate of practicing therapists. If think you might be interested in working with me, I offer a free initial consultation of 60-minutes. If you have more questions about my services, please see my website where I discuss many details of my service, including FAQs about how I do therapy. www.kylerchambers.com Looking forward to hearing from you. Kyle

My thoughts lately have been revolving around how much the framing of my own situation in my mind might be causing my problems more than I previously thought. I will often think of myself in incredibly negative terms, and then realize (at least intellectually) that these things aren't really true. An example, I often think of myself as worthless, or unable to provide value to others around me. Then I remember that I have in the past provided much value to people, even if it isn't as much or as often as I would like. I also often feel as if I just don't belong with humanity, and that there are no people that I can relate to or have any kind of relationship with. Again, I know this isn't true, as the single digit number of people I 'know' are nowhere near the entire world, and there are at least a few good people that inhabit it. So at least intellectually, I know that I am capable of and it is worth putting myself out there for other people to see, but I just can't seem to get over this block I am feeling that makes me want to continuing hiding from the world. This is why I am increasingly beginning to think that I am essentially making my own life shit. Another thing that I just realized today, is that I am subconsciously expecting other people to do the work necessary for my growth in my stead. Before I began this topic, I had been Googling how to find low cost or better, free psychotherapy. One of the most useful pieces of advice was to just start calling therapists in my area and telling them my situation, that I am desperate for help and I can't really afford it. Instead of doing that, I came here to make a topic that was going to essentially be "What are your opinions such and such therapy, and how can I get it for free?". I can't help but think this attitude is a major part of my isolation. Thank you for reading.

I thought the number was kind of high, he would have to have at least 40, but he says it's better to come every two weeks, so he could have 80. How many patients should a psychotherapist see per week? He said studies show it is better to have therapy once every 2 weeks for the patient. Is this true? I can't believe it, because I hardly get anywhere even in one hour once a week. Thanks for replying

Hello Everyone, I'm offering my services to any and all interested in seeking a counsellor. My journey into self-knowledge started four years ago when I was still living with my parents. During my journey, I have learned so much about myself, and now I'm ready to share what I've learned with others. I offer counselling over skype at a competive rate. You can send me a message through here or through my website if you're interested in a free 30 minute consultation. Thanks, -Drew Woods http://journeyinward.net/counselling-services/