SOUTH TAMPA THERAPY FREE RESOURCES BLOG
How to navigate the transition from the 20s to the 30s
This month Supervised Therapist Kaitlin Lowey was featured on WFLA’s Bloom. She provided tips on how to navigate the life stage transition many people undergo during their 30s. You can watch the full segment here. Below is a summary of the clip.
This month Supervised Therapist Kaitlin Lowey was featured on WFLA’s Bloom. She provided tips on how to navigate the life stage transition many people undergo during their 30s. You can watch the full segment here. Below is a summary of the clip.
Typically at some point in their 30s, individuals move into the middle adulthood stage of their lives. Between ages 18 and up to age 40 in some cases, people work through what famous psychologist Erik Erikson called the intimacy versus isolation stage, which is about finding and forming fulfilling romantic relationships and friendships. This stage can be completed at different times for different people, but the main task associated with intimacy versus isolation is forming close, enduring relationships.
Erikson called the stage after this generativity versus stagnation, and it’s all about developing a sense of purpose, caring for others, and contributing to the world. In this stage, individuals – having developed strong relationships with others – may focus on their work, raising families, or contributing to their community. While Erikson generally felt this stage should start by age 40, many people begin to shift their focus on these contribution-focused tasks earlier, often in their 30s.
So, how does one successfully complete the task of learning how to care and contribute to the world in a way that brings them meaning during this phase of life?
Developing a sense of purpose: In Erikson's stage of generativity versus stagnation, individuals must find meaning and purpose in their lives beyond their own personal needs and desires. To successfully navigate this transition from intimacy versus isolation, individuals must begin to explore and cultivate their own sense of purpose. This could involve pursuing career goals, volunteering for a cause they care about, or developing a hobby or passion that provides a sense of fulfillment and purpose.
Building and maintaining relationships: Intimacy versus isolation is all about developing close relationships with others, and this remains important in generativity versus stagnation. However, the focus shifts from romantic partnerships and friendships to broader social connections, such as their community. To navigate this transition successfully, individuals must continue to invest in their relationships and develop new ones, while also learning to balance their own needs with the needs of others.
Leaving a legacy: In Erikson's stage of generativity versus stagnation, individuals must begin to think about the mark they will leave on the world. This could involve having children and raising them well, contributing to their community in meaningful ways, or leaving behind a creative or intellectual legacy. Individuals must begin to think about their impact on the world and take actions that align with their values and goals. This may involve taking risks, trying new things, and stepping outside of their comfort zone in order to make a meaningful contribution to the world around them.
Counseling top tip: Identify your values
One powerful exercise you can do to ensure you are spending their time on meaningful, generative, and purposeful activities during this stage is to identify your values. In order to complete the exercise, find a list of values (there are several values lists online as well as values card decks for purchase). Sort the values into 3 piles: very important to me, kind of important to me, and not important to me. Then, select your top 5 values from the very important to me pile. Map your activities onto these values to determine how closely what you are spending your time on aligns with these values. This enables you to make a better-informed decision about living with intention during the middle adulthood years. Just think: 30 years from now, you’ll be able to look back on this time of your life and know you made the most of it!
WHAT IS SOLUTION-FOCUSED THERAPY AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
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Most types of psychotherapy involve exploring feelings, being validated, finding explanations, exploring wishes and dreams, setting goals, and gaining clarity. Every therapist has unique ways of working with clients, based on his or her personality, training, and views of how people change.
A solution-focused therapist is likely to do the following:
1. Instead of going over past events and focusing on problems, the therapist helps you envision your future without today’s problems.
2. During the course of therapy (often as few as 3 to 6 sessions), the therapist helps you discover solutions.
3. The therapist encourages you to identify and do more of what is already working.
4. The therapist guides you to identify what doesn’t work and to focus on doing less of it.
5. The emphasis is on the future, not the past.
6. SFBT therapists believe that the client is the best expert about what it takes to change his or her life.
7. The therapist’s role is to help you identify solutions that will remove the barriers to having the life you want.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a process that helps people change by constructing solutions rather than dwelling on problems. This type of therapy tends to be shorter-term than traditional psychotherapy. Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg of the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee are the originators of this form of therapy.
The SFBT therapist helps the client identify elements of the desired solution, which are usually already present in the client’s life. The client learns to build on these elements, which form the basis for ongoing change. Rather than searching for the causes of the problem, the focus is on defining the changes and making them a reality. The two key therapeutic issues are: (1) how the client wants his or her life to be different, and (2) what it will take to make it happen.
Creating a detailed picture of what it will be like when life is better creates a feeling of hope, and this makes the solution seem possible. The therapist helps the client focus on the future and how it will be better when things change. It is important to develop a set of specific, detailed goals. These goals drive the therapy process and keep it focused and efficient.
Why SFBT Is Usually Short-Term
SFBT therapists don’t set out to artificially limit the number of sessions. A good brief therapist will not focus on limiting sessions or time, but rather on helping clients set goals and develop strategies to reach those goals. Focusing on the client’s goals and the concrete steps needed to achieve them usually takes less time than traditional therapy, in which the client typically spends many sessions talking about the past and explores reasons and feelings. SFBT therapists aim to provide clients with the most effective treatment in the most efficient way possible so that clients can achieve their goals and get on with their lives. As a result of this focus, the counseling process often requires as few as six sessions.
Types of Problems That SFBT Addresses
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is an effective way of helping people solve many kinds of problems, including depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, relationship problems, and many other kinds of issues. Since it focuses on the process of change rather than on dissecting the problem, more serious issues do not necessarily require different treatment. The SFBT therapist’s job is to help clients transform troubling issues into specific goals and an action plan for achieving them.
In The Miracle Method, authors Scott D. Miller and Insoo Kim Berg describe how to create solutions with these steps:
1. State your desire for something in your life to be different.
2. Envision that a miracle happens and your life is different.
3. Make sure the miracle is important to you.
4. Keep the miracle small.
5. Define the change with language that is positive, specific, concrete, and behavioral.
6. State how you will start your journey rather than how you will end it.
7. Be clear about who, where, and when, but not why.
Signs That You Should Consider Seeing a Therapist
There are several ways to know when you would be doing yourself a favor by finding a licensed, professional therapist to work with.
1. You’ve tried several things on your own, but you still have the problem.
2. You want to find a solution sooner rather than later.
3. You have thoughts of harming yourself or others.
4. You have symptoms of depression, anxiety, or another disorder that significantly interfere with your daily functioning and the quality of your life. For example, you have lost time from work, your relationships have been harmed, or your health is suffering. These are signs that you need the help of a trained, licensed professional.
MANAGING STRESS IN YOUR LIFE & RELATIONSHIPS
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Learn to Have Healthy Relationships
This subject could fill an entire book. In the limited space of this newsletter, let’s look at the key components of this stress-reducing strategy.
1. Identify the sources of stress in your relationships. Write about them in a journal. Make a list of people who cause you stress and explore what the issues are.
2. Resolve the underlying issues. For each of the situations identified in step 1, assess what needs to happen to resolve it. Make a list and design a plan to improve the situation.
3. Learn skills to improve relationships. Relationship skills are learned. We are not born knowing how to get along well with others, and most of us learned only limited skills from our parents. Identify the skills you need to develop, and make a plan for yourself. You can learn these skills by reading books, taking classes, or working with a therapist.
4. Avoid toxic people and situations. Some people have a toxic effect on you. If you can, limit the amount of time you spend with them. Look for opportunities to decline their invitations. When these people are family members, remind yourself that you don’t have to feel guilty about avoiding anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself. In work situations, look for ways to rearrange your schedule or your workspace to avoid interacting with such people.
5. Seek out positive people and situations. This step is the reverse of the previous step. Look for opportunities to spend more time with people and in situations that make you feel good. Think about people who make you feel good about yourself and look for ways to increase time with them.
6. Watch what you eat. Some substances amplify the stress response. These include:
· Caffeine stimulates the release of stress hormones. This increases heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen to the heart. Ongoing exposure to caffeine can harm the tissue of the heart.
· Refined sugar and processed flour are depleted of needed vitamins. In times of stress, certain vitamins help the body maintain the nervous and endocrine systems.
· Too much salt can lead to excessive fluid retention. This can lead to nervous tension and higher blood pressure. Stress often adds to the problem by causing increased blood pressure.
· Smoking not only causes disease and shortens life, it leads to increased heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.
· Alcohol robs the body of nutrition that it might otherwise use for cell growth and repair. It also harms the liver and adds empty calories to the body.
During times of high stress, eat more complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, whole breads, cereals, and beans).
7. Get moving. The human body was designed to be physically active. However, in most jobs today, people are sitting down most of the time. They hardly move at all except when it is time for coffee break or lunch. When faced with stressors, we respond with our minds, not our bodies. It is no wonder that many of us have a difficult time responding to stressful events.
Exercise is one of the simplest and most effective ways to respond to stress. Activity provides a natural release for the body during its fight-or-flight state of arousal. After exercising, the body returns to its normal state of equilibrium, and one feels relaxed and refreshed.
8. Look for ways to let go of tension and anxiety. Meditation, hypnosis, and progressive relaxation are valuable ways to regenerate and refresh yourself. You can purchase meditation and relaxation audiotapes or record your own. This is especially important because your health and long life depend on minimizing stress and achieving a sense of balance and well-being.
101 Affirmations and Positive Suggestions: A Workbook Utilizing The Power of Journaling and Self-Hypnosis
by Dr. Elizabeth A Mahaney
Link: http://a.co/0SzD9hN
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