As someone who makes my livelihood helping folks clarify issues, and often giving advice, I have been reminded recently that this is not always effective in my personal life! I got a reaction the other day from my partner that reminded me to examine my approach here. I was basically told to ‘back off’ when I offered solutions, and while hurt by this, it was my opportunity to look more closely.
In fact, when someone is anxious or depressed, they may not want me to throw out some solutions to the perceived problem. They are already overwhelmed by their own confusion, or maybe they are hopeless about things improving, or they feel they are incompetent. Anyone telling them what would work better, is actually worsening the situation! Have you ever heard- “I don’t want you to fix this, I just want you to listen!”
One of the approaches that works more effectively is to validate emotions coming up, and ask the anxious or depressed person how you can help them. Even though they may not be clear about this yet, they may surprise you with the answer. Most of us do better with someone listening to us vent, or a gentle touch, than rattling off a shopping list of rational solutions right away. Because low self esteem is part of the problem with depression and anxiety, jumping in and trying to solve the problem for someone is actually rather demeaning, and presumes that they don’t have the capacity to do this for themselves.
The form of therapy I often use (DBT or Dialectical Behavior Therapy) is based on the belief that we are all good enough people who are doing the best we can, AND that we can learn how to be more effective in our lives. Being mindful of this philosophy is helpful.
In my DBT trainings, I emphasize that learning coping skills can increase your stress resilience and fill our tool-kits for life’s challenges. Those who are depressed and anxious need to restore their faith in their own competency to solve problems.
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