Life and Stress and Being a Good Therapist

Stress is part of our lives...everyday. I tend to channel my stress into muscle tension and participate in massage therapy to help relieve that stress. However, there was an article in Psychology Today that got me to thinking. It was about meditation. Then I remembered I had a book by John Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. titled Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. I bought the book for several reasons. First, mindfulness therapy seems to be coming into "light" and wanted to learn more about it. Second, I work with patients who suffer from chronic pain and depression. This led to the last reason...my clinical research project (similar to a dissertation).

I began reading the book this evening and came across a paragraph that was profound to me. Here it is:

"The problem of stress does not admit to simpleminded solutions or quick fixes. At root, stress is a natural part of living from which there is no more escape than from the human condition itself. Yet some people try to avoid stress by walling themselves off from life experience; others attempt to anesthetize themselves one way or another to escape it. Of course, it is only sensible to avoid undergoing unnecessary pain and hardship. Certainly we all need to distance ourselves from our troubles now and again. But, if escape and avoidance become our habitual ways of dealing with our problems, the problems just multiply. They don't magically go away. What does go away, or get covered over when we tune out our problems or run away from them, is our power to grow and to change and to heal. When it comes right down to it, facing our problems is usually the only way to get past them."

Wow! It makes sense. Now to learn to practice this myself. I think if I can do that myself, then I can be a better therapist to my patients.