Rapid Relief From Emotional Distress

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Contents

INTRODUCTION.......................................................................1HOW TO GET RAPID RELIEF............................................................3KNOW THAT YOU CREATE YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN.......................................7KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHANGE AND CHOICE......................................11HOW TO BUILD INTIMACY..............................................................39LIFE AND LABELS....................................................................51SEPARATE THE CHOICE WORLD FROM THE CHANGE WORLD....................................63IDENTIFYING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL SELF IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD..........................69ACCOUNTABILITY.....................................................................83RELIEF FOR LIFE....................................................................93OTHER CONCEPTS THAT CAN HELP YOU GET RID OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN.....................101EMOTIONAL CRISIS MANAGEMENT........................................................105INFLUENCES ON YOUR ACCEPTOR........................................................115THINKING STRATEGIES................................................................129HOW TO CREATE WHAT YOU WANT........................................................139STRATEGIES FOR TAKING ACTION.......................................................163SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU ARE READING.......................179THE DILEMMA OF BEING DELUSIONAL....................................................183HOW TO PICK A THERAPIST............................................................187DEFINITIONS:.......................................................................189

Chapter One

If you suffer from hurt, dissatisfaction, jealousy, frustration, resentment, helplessness, hopelessness demoralization, anger, guilt, shame, anxiety, depression or are distressed over work, love, money, health, and a host of other problem, you are one of the walking wounded. You may be able to get up each day, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed, but are you in pain? If you are, or someone you love is, in pain, to learn the necessary steps that get rid of all of these life issues keep reading. [Check definition section.]

It is human nature to believe that you need conditions to change in order to get relief ("I need to have my job back"; "I need her to love me"; "I need to get myself to stop drinking"), but actually it's your "need" to change reality that causes your pain. Remove this "need" for self, situation [the condition one finds themselves in] or other [generally people in our lives that are important to us] to be different" and you eliminate the pain.

How a person loves, works, and plays depends on whether they operate from a system focused on the need for self, situation or others to be different or from a system where one creates what they want by means of choice, movement, or selection. Let go of the belief that you must change yourself, others, or the world, and you will eliminate much of your stress and distress. Once you decide to design your life by choice, you make a quantum leap into a richer, more satisfying life. This experience is available to you and those you care for when you incorporate the ideas that follow.

Rapid relief is possible! Psychological pain is optional!

Most people have major life problems: divorces, bankruptcies, deaths of loved ones, failed hopes and dreams. How quickly one switches out of their distress isn't based on to the perceived magnitude of their life problem, but rather to how quickly they can get into a state of acceptance, and out of a state of need (remember when one needs conditions to change, one has fewer choices available to them). Getting out of need does not solve the life problem immediately, but it does stop the psychological pain related to the perception of need. This is a good deal because it frees your mind from negative emotions, thus, allowing you to be more rational about the situation and allowing you to find a solution.

Some people with major losses (e.g., the death of a spouse) can eliminate their distress relatively quickly; others with minor problems (a job they dislike) may take much longer. But no matter what the emotional distress, once we begin to create our lives by becoming aware and making choices, we get relief from the psychological pain.

When I served as a psychiatrist for the Air Force in Puerto Rico, I had a glimpse of the possibility of rapid relief for some conditions. In my psychiatric residency at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, I had treated patients for one, two, or three years. In the Air Force, however, there was a need to make rapid decisions about a person's condition, and to provide a quick treatment for any problem that existed, so the service man could get back to work.

During this assignment I had a rapid recovery from an airman. For three consecutive nights he had been treated for panic attacks in the emergency room of the base hospital. On the fourth morning I received a call from the chief of the medical unit; they wanted me to work this airman into my schedule, because the nightly panic attacks were disrupting his work. I was booked solid that day, so could give him only a few minutes between appointments.

I skipped the formal psychiatric interview when he came in and simply asked what was bothering him. He said he felt extremely uncomfortable working indoors; I pulled out a prescription pad and wrote on it that he was to be given an outdoor job for the time being, and then I made an appointment to see him at the next available time.

When I did see him again, he was doing fine. After seeing the prescription, the airman's commanding officer had given him a job outside for a few days. Later, the officer asked the airman to work inside again, where he was greatly needed. However, he gave him the option of returning outside, if he felt panicked again. The airman agreed and returned to his regular job where he was able to work without difficulty. Becoming aware of his choices (to work indoors or outdoors) enabled him to accept the situation and make a choice (to work indoors). He stopped trying to control his anxiety, which actually escalated it, and he made a different choice instead; his panic attacks stopped.

If I had used Ativan, or Xanax, I would have felt they were causing his rapid recovery. More accurately, what helped him was the same event that caused the issue in the first place: The cognitive bombshell of "have to." Over time "have to" (when one tells self there are no options in the matter) has become more, and more, important to me as a cause of psychiatric disorders. Subconsciously, this, and other similar events, created for me a conceptual challenge as to what constitutes a "mental Illness," and how it should be approached therapeutically. Is this type of symptom deserving of a mental health diagnosis, or is it simply a normal product of a particular way of thinking? When the thinking is altered, it alters the symptom.

Rapid relief from emotional distress is possible, because both the distress and the relief come from the same source: you. Events, and people, don't cause your...