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Last week I was listening to a radio phone-in, on the subject of Agorophobia. It featured a girl with this condition who was trapped in her home because of her fear of leaving the house. She has a really good singing voice and by posting videos on You Tube she has become extremely popular in China. Despite this success she rarely ventures out of her home. After an interview with her, other sufferors of agorophobia called in with their experiences.

I was struck by a comment of one lady whose life has been severely restricted by this condition for many years; when she said that if she managed to find a cure now after all this time she would feel miserable about the fact that she hadn’t done something about it sooner.

I remember working with a client many years ago who told me that she had a fear of flying which prevented her from travelling the world with her husband. He wanted to travel extensively following his retirement. This lady wasn’t responding to the tools and techniques I usually use successfully with this type of fear; so after a few sessions I confronted her by asking how serious and motivated was she to overcome this problem. At this point she admitted that she didn’t really want to travel because she preferred to stay at home with her children but didn’t want to upset her husband. She only came to the therapy sessions because she wanted to show her husband that she was doing everything she could to find a solution. In psychological terms this is known as ‘secondary gain’ which means that it doesn’t matter how bad the problem is we might be deriving a benefit from having it and therefore have no real motivation for change.

I also remember a conversation with an Agrophobic who told me that she didn’t want to get better because her husband would lose his purpose in life and be unhappy as a result. Since retiring from work her husband did everything for her in relation to activities outside the home, such as the shopping, and caring for her became his sole purpose in life.

On the same day as the radio phone-in I heard a news item regarding suggestions by David Cameron that people incapacitated by obesity or alcoholism should no longer be entitled to benefits. How motivated is an alcoholic or an obese person likely to be to change their behaviour if they are being rewarded by a system that pays them to stay at home?

It is not just the person who has the problem who may benefit from it. I have come across many women who have wanted to increase their confidence, assertiveness and self-esteem. However, they have been prevented from seeking help from me by their partners who would have felt vulnerable if they were no longer able to benefit from dominating their spouse.

Are you benefiting from having a problem or do you know someone who is?

Apparently its ‘Action for happiness’ week according to a new campaign. What is happiness though and is it realistic or even achievable to be happy all the time? Also, how do you measure happiness, is it just the absence of sadness. As I write this blog I don’t feel happy or unhappy, I would call it a neutral state which I am in most of the time. Perhaps this state would equate to happiness for someone who suffers from depression.

‘Action for happiness’ follows on from last weeks news of the significant increase in prescriptions of anti-depressants over the last 5 years. Depression is often caused by what is known as ‘black & white thinking;’ for example, “I’m happy or sad, rich or poor, succeeding or failing etc. If we start categorising people as happy or depressed might we get to the stage that the absence of happiness equals being depressed?

Surely being happy is a state of mind at a particular moment in time as is anger, sadness or fear. I can feel happy whilst carrying out a pleasurable activity and within minutes feel sad because I have witnessed a disaster on the news or watching a sad film. Feeling sad at the time of bereavement  of a loved one or loss of a job, for example, is normal and natural and so I don’t condone the use of anti-depressants in this type of situation.

Maybe you shouldn’t aim for happiness because it is just a state of mind. What you could do instead is to focus on having your basic emotional needs met which will then lead to feeling happier more often. Those needs include the need for:

Attention –  Security  -  Autonomy & control –

Emotional connection - Friendship – Fun – Love & intimacy

Meaning & Purpose – Competence & Achievement

Involvement in the community

For example, if you give and receive more attention from and to other human beings you are likely to feel more optimistic and contented.

It was discovered by psychologists, 80 years ago, that attention is a vital nutrient. In 1927, The Hawthorne experiment at the Western Electric company in Chicago established that when supervisors and managers gave their workers attention and expressed interest in what they did, productivity increased.

A horrific experiment, carried out in the middle-ages under the orders of the German emperor proved that babies cannot survive without attention. The Emperor was curious to find out what language children would speak if they weren’t subjected to other people speaking in the native language. New born babies were removed from their parents and cared for by nurses who cleaned and fed them but then left them isolated. The nurses weren’t allowed to touch, talk or give them any attention. They all died before they reached the age when children usually attempt language. They were killed by attention starvation.

It is normal to want to stand out and be noticed when we do well or put a lot of effort into something. Children flourish when they are encouraged and praised and made to feel special when they perform well at any task. Even children who are shy and who avoid being the centre of attention wish they could enjoy it.

Think about how much improvement you could make to the relationships with the people that you love, your friends, colleagues and customers if you were to pay them more attention. Not just any old attention; although it’s probably true to say that bad attention is better than no attention, so make it good quality attention. Tell your partners and children how much you love, respect and admire them, encourage and praise your children and your work colleagues. If you own a business make sure that you pay attention to the needs of your customers and ask them what they want from you .Make them feel valued and worthy and listen to their needs. Listening is just as important as praising, you were born with 2 ears and only one mouth so pay attention and listen to people.

In return you get workers who are more productive, children who are more confident, lovers who are more loving and customers who are more loyal. It’s not rocket science, you just need to remember to do it and keep on doing it!

This is my contribution to ‘Action for happiness’ this week!

I am looking forward to the second Brighton Marathon on Sunday 10th April. I won’t be running but I will be watching as I did last year. It was such an amazing event that it has inspired many people to run it for the first time this Sunday. The crowds came out in force last year and so did the sun, so lets hope for a repeat this year!

If you are taking part then you should have done your planning, preparation and training by now to ensure that you are in the best physical shape possible but have you given any thought to preparing yourself mentally.

One of my clients had the foresight to ask me for some tips, strategies and techniques to help ensure that she is in the right frame of mind for running the marathon this weekend some of which I will share with you in this blog. A professional photographer, enthusiastic runner and friend, Paul Fletcher,http://www.paulfletcherphotography.co.uk/ will be taking part on Sunday and has also contributed to these tips:

• Believe that you can do it, because even if you are struggling physically your mind can compensate. ‘Mind over matter, what you believe and the mind can conceive, you can achieve’! If you need any inspiration try watching James Cracknell’s latest TV series when he runs a marathon in the desert in searing heat with a broken bone in his foot!

• If this is your first marathon turn your anxiety/nerves into excitement. A little bit of adrenalin will get you off to a good start, too much will result in a loss of energy and burning out quickly, too little may result in lethargy.

• Enjoy the event, ignore the pain and focus on pleasurable events going on around you and avoid expecting too much of yourself in terms of time and performance. Presumably, your main goal is to complete the course and if you have to walk some of the way don’t beat yourself up. Tell yourself that you are just running very slowly in order to re-charge the batteries.

• Forget about time and clock watching. When you think too much about time it tends to drag, yet time can go really quickly when you focus on other things. Instead of focusing on time and on how you and your body feels, focus your attention externally, observe the other runners in their silly costumes and observe buildings and landmarks as you go along. Soak up the atmosphere from fellow participants and be motivated by the cheering and clapping of the spectators.

• If you are running with a partner or a friend decide whether or not talking to each other whilst running is a good form of distraction or whether it adversely affects the rhythm of your breathing and results in a loss of energy and if it does tell your running partner before you start.

• Avoid thinking about how much further there is to run by setting yourself lots of smaller goals and mini-achievements along the way, say every 5 miles for example so that when you get to 5, 10, 15 or 20 miles you can congratulate yourself for achieving that landmark instead of thinking there is still 21, 16 or 11 miles to go. You could also reward yourself at these landmarks with a jelly baby or a fruit pastille perhaps.

• Utilise the power of positive self-talk. Encourage and praise yourself throughout the run (talking to yourself is not a sign of weakness) and do it out loud if you feel confident enough to do so. If it helps repeat a positive ‘mantra’ of your choosing to keep you focused.

• Avoid being influenced by others in terms of pace and running style. Keep to the pace, rhythm, and stride pattern that you feel comfortable with throughout. When you see someone running past you remind yourself of the tortoise and hare story.

• Visualise a positive outcome whilst you lay in bed at night, before and during the run; whether it be the achievement of your mini-goals or crossing the finishing line and feeling proud as you see your loved ones waving, cheering and clapping you on! To help access the visual part of your brain look upwards as much as possible. Long periods of time looking down at the ground in front of you is likely to make you introspective and more involved in thinking and feeling.

• Make sure you have strategies that prevent you from focusing on any pain or discomfort during uninteresting/boring sections of the course, when there are no landmarks or crowds to entertain you. Music on your ipod or MP3 can be really useful for this.

Whether you are a marathon virgin or an experienced runner  enjoy the occasion, focus on the pleasurable aspects and have fun whilst challenging yourself mentally and physically.

Does the government really care about the health of the nation. The answer is a clear no if the 2011 census is anything to go by. The previous government used to tell us how many portions of fruit and veg to eat each day and put health warnings on packets of cigarettes. They also introduced a ban on smoking in public places in 2007. They were often accused of creating a ‘nanny state’.

In the individual section of the latest ‘Household Questionnaire’ or the 2011 census, as it is more commonly known, there are 42 questions and only 2 of them relate to the well-being of the nation.

Question 13 asks “How is your health in general”? with 5 options from very bad to very good!

Question 23 asks “Are your day to day activities limited because of a health problem or disability which has lasted, or is expected to last, at least 12 months.

On the front of the census it states that the information collected will be used to help plan and fund services for your community, services like transport, education and health. Good, so now we know the NHS will be able to plan for the next 10 years based on the question ‘How is your health in general’?

This is such an unbelievably vague and subjective question never mind the fact that it doesn’t ask us to differentiate between physical, mental and emotional health. It would have been a great opportunity to find out how many of us smoke and how many would like to stop smoking, for example; or how many of us is obese or is taking anti-depressants or other mind/mood altering medication or suffering from insomnia etc etc.

Perhaps this kind of information is available from other sources but I don’t see how because know one has ever asked me these questions. I read an on-line article from the BBC recently which quoted a figure of  10 million people that still smoke in this country. There was no source given and therefore I assume it is just an estimate as many statistics of this type are.

I also read that the number of people using the NHS stop smoking services has reduced significantly since 2007 and this has been attributed to the assumption that people smoke more during a recession. Could the smoking ban have been a factor I wonder? The NHS spent a lot of money advertising their services prior to the introduction of the ban or could it be that the service provided by the NHS isn’t very good!

What difference, has the ban on smoking in public places, made to your life and what health related questions do you think should be included in a census?

How was 2010 for you? Was it the best year of your life? Was it the worst year of your life? or was it  just the same as any other? Are you looking forward to 2011 or are you racked with anxiety when you think of the future? Do you think of yourself as an optimist or a pessimist or perhaps you are a realist.

I used to be a pessimist but much prefer my life as an optimist and make no apology for helping to convert other pessimists into optimists and will continue to do so in 2011. It has been said that;

“The difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that an optimist would lend money to a pessimist”!

January always seems to get a bad press as being the most depressing month of the year for obvious reasons.  However, it doesn’t have to be that way. One of the ‘tools’ in my armoury as a therapist, is to utilise the concept of re-framing, when working with my clients. You may have a belief about something or someone that feels deeply entrenched in your psyche because the same thing keeps on happening time after time. For example, you might suffer from depression every winter and have done so for many years. This used to be the case with Josh who started to feel depressed about the onset of winter as early as the end of June as the days began to get shorter.

Josh was from Israel and hated his first British winter because it was so cold and dark and subsequently he anticipated that every winter would be the same and that he would have to suffer. This is where the concept of re-framing, worked really well for Josh because re-framing is about looking at things from a different angle or perspective. Josh used to focus on all the negative aspects of the winter months and was blind to the positive aspects. He now has a new set of pictures in his mind filed under ’positive images of winter’. If you want to hear more about how Josh banished those ‘winter blues’ visit http://www.thespencepractice.co.uk/stress

You could use the principal of re-framing to see the month of January in a more positive light, so let me start with a few ideas to get you started.

• If you are not happy with the way your life was in 2010, you might decide that January 2011 will be the springboard for the start of a new and more positive attitude to life.
• If you don’t like the cold weather you can focus on the fact that the days are getting longer and you are only 2 months away from spring.
• January is a great time to visit the travel shops and book your summer holiday.
• If you love to shop what better time to find bargains than the January sales.
• If you hate Christmas you are 11 months away from the next one and you might want to start planning a winter holiday for next year to avoid the festive period.
• Instead of complaining about the snow disrupting your life use it as an excuse to get in touch with the ‘inner child’ and get the sledge out, play with your children or enjoy the changing landscape for a few days.
• Physical exercise is one of the best remedies for depression so more visits to the gym will not only help you to lose weight it will also make you happier as you release those beta-endorphins and increase your serotonin levels.

I am sure that you can think of some more positives about the month of January and if you would like to share them with me I would love to hear from you.

After 15 years of providing solution-focused therapy in Brighton & Hove we are now branching out into the big city. Although clients have travelled from different parts of the country to see Andrew and benefit from his unique approach to problem solving we are now giving people more access by providing a Tuesday clinic in Central London.

The London clinic is at The Cavendish Health Centre, 53 New Cavendish Street, London (between Harley Street & Wimpole Street) http://www.cavendishhealth.nhs.uk/  and appointments will now be available in the afternoon and early evening. For appointments call 01273 509793. 

We will continue to provide a service in the Brighton & Hove area.