101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

My 28 year client felt like she was not getting enough from her boyfriend. The client said, “My boyfriend is understanding and caring – so, why do I feel unloved?”

Since this was something she said was happening repeatedly between her and her boyfriend, I asked the client to explain to me what exactly happens between them in detail which leads to her feeling unloved. 

This is what she described – 

• The client has a need or an urge to tell her boyfriend to stand next to her, to ask him to do something for her or to hold her hand.
• However she stops herself from expressing these needs. 
• Her boyfriend, sensing that she is going through something, asks, “Do you want something?” and her reply is always “No”.
• And since it seems like she’s okay, her boyfriend shifts his attention to his other friends which is when she suddenly feels even more perturbed and shows her frustrations on her boyfriend.
• At this point she expresses her needs, complaining about her dissatisfaction and she expects her boyfriend to make some changes for her to feel better. 
• Later, she feels guilty that she has behaved rudely and is critical of herself and ends up with sleepless nights. 

Once she listed down what was happening, she realized that she was following an unhealthy pattern. I asked her at which point she thinks she should interfere with the pattern. She said she’d like to change the part where she has an outburst and expects him to make changes to suit her needs. 

I shared my opinion and said that maybe she should express her needs in the beginning when he asks her if she wants something. She agreed to that and when I asked what would be different if she did that, she said, “I will be able to avoid unnecessary drama between us”.

From here, we went on to figure out why the client has difficulty in expressing her needs in the first place? 

When the need arises,the client feels confined and bound and I asked her to notice where she feels this confinement in her body. She said she felt a heaviness in the chest area – I asked to feel this sensation without meaning it as “heaviness”. After a few moments she said, “I am always being Ignored.” This was a belief she held about herself right from childhood – that she is not taken seriously by her parents and friends, hence she always felt a hesitance to express her wants. Keeping it within was safer than expressing and feeling neglected.

At this juncture, I intuitively felt like using a NLP method by Steve Andres would work well and I requested the client to write down her belief on a piece of paper.

“I am always being ignored”

Now I asked her to write the same sentence in a vertical line, one word below the other. She wrote it as shown below :

I

am

always

being

ignored

After writing the sentence there was a shift in her face. She said now the sentence is becoming a question. It was, “Am I always being ignored?”

I asked the client to be more curious about it, “am I being ignored ALWAYS?” –  she thought for a while and said, “No, there are times my parents and friends have understood and respected my needs.” Now her heart felt a little lighter and the restriction to express her needs slowly began to disappear.

Conclusion:

When we are chained or bound to our methods/processes. we become slaves to our habits. When we gain strength and insight to rearrange our methods, we become the masters of our habits.