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| Meet Dr. Blonna |  | |
Hello,
I am Dr. Richard Blonna, the editor of the Healthy Stress Newsletter. I am a nationally certified Coach (CPC), Counselor (NCC), and Health Education Specialist (CHES) with over 25 years of experience helping people just like you manage their stress.
I am the author of a best-selling college textbook and two self-help books in the field of stress management.
Besides teaching stress management in college I work with people at-a-distance using telephone and web-based instruction and coaching.
In addition to stress management I specialize in motivational coaching; helping people get unstuck and live their lives based on their values, goals, and dreams.
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| What's New? | |
I am putting the finishing touches on a new stress management home-study course entitled; "Seven Steps to Conquering Your Stress." The course will include information and strategies derived from my books and newsletter. It will contain nine modules and have over 50 exercises that will teach you everything you need to know to manage your stress. The course will be offered with options to connect with via e-mail or telephone for personal coaching related to the modules. I will send out a special e-mail announcing its release.
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| Volume # 2011, Issue # 6 August 2011 | |
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Dear Subscriber,
Last month I received an interesting post on one of my websites regarding how Naikan and Morita therapies can be used with ACT principles and practices. I will address this in this month's article which is based on my recent emotional roller coaster regarding my mom's death and my 90 year old dad moving in with us.
My dad and I have had a rocky relationship throughout our life. In my mind, since adolescence, I've felt that he has not been very supportive, has been verbally abusive, and in general not been there when I needed him.
I've recently performed Naikan self-reflection on my dad and have used Morita Therapy techniques and ACT to co-exist with my dad-related troubling thoughts and painful emotions. I've shifted my attention off of these unhelpful thoughts and feelings and onto what needs to be done to help him get over my mom's death and to move on with his life.
I know many of you therapists who read this newsletter are critical of sharing such intimate personal information. This is one of the reasons I am drawn more towards coaching. I believe direct sharing of personal experience can be very helpful in assisting clients and students in working through their stress.
Dr. Richard Blonna.
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| Integrating Naikan Self-Reflection, Morita Therapy and ACT to Manage Stress |
If you recall from past newsletters, Naikan self-reflection is used to develop grace and gratitude and help you change your stressful perspective. It is especially helpful in changing the way you view people who are associated with your stress.
To perform Naikan you answer three questions:
1. What did this person do for me?
2. What have I done for this person?
3. What pain have I caused this person?
In answering these questions about my dad I realized that despite his shortcomings, the list of things he has done for me, and the pain I had caused him over the course of his life have far outweighed what I had done for him throughout the years.
These Naikan-driven insights helped me develop "new relational frames" about my dad, our relationship, and the values-driven actions I needed to take from that point on. While I still had many painful memories about my dad and the things that went on in our past, I defused from them by stepping back and realizing that these outdated personal scripts no longer had to dictate our future together.
This led me to take the following values-congruent actions:
1. Spending more time helping dad meet his basic needs. such as shopping, taking care of bills, appointments etc.
2. Spending more time cultivating a new relationship with him based on the present moment and future directions, and not outdated scripts.
3. Inviting him to live in our house where his remaining days will be more comfortable and secure.
None of these steps have been taken without me experiencing troubling thoughts and painful emotions. It has not been fun, or easy.
My Morita mentor, Gregg Krech from the ToDo Institute in Vermont calls this type of action "doing what needs to be done." ACT would call it "taking values-congruent action." Basically this involved shifting my attention off of my unhelpful thoughts and feelings (based on outdated relational frames ) and onto action steps that are designed to develop new, more helpful "dad-related" relational frames. In time, these will help me reduce my troubling thoughts and painful emotions I have about my dad as we re-learn what it means to be father and son.
I hope this is a helpful explanation of the intersection of ACT, Morita, and Naikan.
I am going to post this on my new blog and on the ACBS website.
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| StressBuster Tip # 19: Looking for Intersections |
One of the things I love to do as a teacher, coach and writer, is look for the intersections of ideas and techniques. The above example of the relationship of ACT to Morita, and Naikan is once such intersection.
My tip for you regarding looking for intersections is threefold:
1. Know your theoretical frameworks. Some ideas and strategies go together because they are based on similar theoretical frameworks. Few things in life are brand new. If we look deeply enough we can often see the shared underpinnings.
2. Free yourrself from turf issues. Many people are wary of looking for intersections because they want to defend their turf. Most of this turf defense is based on insecurity and over-identification with a particular type of therapeutic approach, clinical training, or professional credential.
3. Free your mind from outdated personal scripts. teachers, coaches, and therapists all have their own historical bias based on their experiences and professional training. Sometimes this creates unhelpful relational frames that keep the blinders on and make it difficult to look for the intersections. It is ok to take the blinders off occasionally and see what the world looks like without them.
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