What Have You Tried?
I begin counseling by inviting people to share with me the problems that lead them to seek help. Take depression, for example. I would ask you to describe what it is like when the depression is there. What are your thoughts? What are your feelings? What are your behaviors? How are all of these allowing the depression to take control? Next, I would invite you to share all the ways that the depression is impacting your life. What is it taking from you? What is it adding to your life that you don’t want? What directions is it giving to your life? How do you feel about all these costs of depression?
Another very important question that I ask is all the different things you have tried to overcome your depression. The answer to this question is usually quite revealing, because most people will share a variety of strategies to gain control of the depression. People talk about trying to keep the depressive thoughts and feelings at bay, or they try to replace them with more positive thoughts and feelings. Others will talk about trying to figure out why they are depressed. They will analyze, study, read, look at their childhood or other events in their lives; if they can know why they are depressed, then they will know what they need to do to overcome it. This is a powerful moment in therapy when people realize all that they’ve tried and how it hasn’t really helped conquer the depression.
Quite often, at this point in the session, I will introduce an imaginary exercise that comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I ask them to imagine that I am their depression, so they can picture me any way they want. Between us, there is a deep chasm. Each of us is holding on to the ends of a rope. And the tug of war begins. Sometimes we will actually act out the struggle, tightening our arm muscles and pulling. Eventually, I will say, “Ok, now I am beginning to win, and you are edging closer to the precipice. What do you do? Come up with as many options as you can.”
People are very creative. They will mention digging in their heels even harder. They will recruit other people to help them. Some say they would eventually give in and let the depression pull them over the edge. All of these are examples of doing all they can to beat the depression.
Dropping the Rope
What is interesting is that very few people come up with the idea of dropping the rope. When I introduce that option, many of them will view it as giving up or losing. But then I point out that the depression hasn’t gone away; it’s still there. Instead, they now have a different relationship with it, a relationship that doesn’t involve fighting and struggle.
Sometimes we will play with the image a little longer. Let’s say you are in the middle of the tug of war and a friend comes up and wants to have a conversation with you. How would it go? Most of them can say, “Well, not very well.” All the things in our lives that give us meaning are hard to enjoy when we are always involved in a tug of war with the depression.
It is an imaginative way to experience how trying to control our depressive thoughts and feelings doesn’t really work. I invite you to play with the image as well. You may discover, as I often do, that there are many times during the day when it makes more sense to say, “Drop the rope,” and see what difference that can make.
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