Embark on a transformative journey with the wisdom of Dr. Lee Long and Lila Pond from Restoration Counseling, as we peel back the layers of the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP). If you've ever felt trapped in the relentless grip of chronic depression, this episode promises to shine a light on a path to healing, focusing on the power of establishing felt safety and perceptual connections. Dr. Long introduces us to the interpersonal discrimination exercise, a revolutionary technique that empowers individuals to challenge their preconceptions and recognize the consequences of their actions, opening the door to a world where they can alter their responses, not just the environment around them.
With clarity and depth, Lila Pond walks us through a practical application of CBASP's situation analysis—a life raft for those adrift in the turbulent seas of depression. She deftly illustrates how this method dismantles the destructive patterns of global thinking and mind reading, bringing into sharp focus the beginning and end of a situation, one's interpretations, and the actual versus the hoped-for outcomes. This episode isn't just about therapeutic approaches; it's a testament to the versatility of CBASP, its success stories, and a gentle reminder of the possibilities that lie in expanding its application to other mental health challenges.
In the crescendo of our conversation, we celebrate the evidence-based effectiveness of CBASP and its stature amidst pharmaceutical treatments. As you listen, you'll gain practical techniques to apply in your own life, aimed at enhancing self-awareness and offering a beacon of hope to ease the weight of depressive symptoms. The episode culminates in acknowledging the profound impact of therapy and the empowerment that comes with newfound problem-solving skills. Join us as we honor the individuals' journey from helplessness to standing tall with confidence, and stay tuned for future episodes where Dr. Long will continue to share empowering mental health strategies.
Embark on a transformative journey with the wisdom of Dr. Lee Long and Lila Pond from Restoration Counseling, as we peel back the layers of the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP). If you've ever felt trapped in the relentless grip of chronic depression, this episode promises to shine a light on a path to healing, focusing on the power of establishing felt safety and perceptual connections. Dr. Long introduces us to the interpersonal discrimination exercise, a revolutionary technique that empowers individuals to challenge their preconceptions and recognize the consequences of their actions, opening the door to a world where they can alter their responses, not just the environment around them.
With clarity and depth, Lila Pond walks us through a practical application of CBASP's situation analysis—a life raft for those adrift in the turbulent seas of depression. She deftly illustrates how this method dismantles the destructive patterns of global thinking and mind reading, bringing into sharp focus the beginning and end of a situation, one's interpretations, and the actual versus the hoped-for outcomes. This episode isn't just about therapeutic approaches; it's a testament to the versatility of CBASP, its success stories, and a gentle reminder of the possibilities that lie in expanding its application to other mental health challenges.
In the crescendo of our conversation, we celebrate the evidence-based effectiveness of CBASP and its stature amidst pharmaceutical treatments. As you listen, you'll gain practical techniques to apply in your own life, aimed at enhancing self-awareness and offering a beacon of hope to ease the weight of depressive symptoms. The episode culminates in acknowledging the profound impact of therapy and the empowerment that comes with newfound problem-solving skills. Join us as we honor the individuals' journey from helplessness to standing tall with confidence, and stay tuned for future episodes where Dr. Long will continue to share empowering mental health strategies.
Speaker 1:
Brought to you by Restoration Counseling. Today we're thrilled to have an enlightening conversation with Dr Lee Long, visionary author and founder of Restoration Counseling, alongside Lila Pond, a distinguished licensed professional counselor and supervisor at Restoration. Together they will explore the groundbreaking cognitive behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy, meticulously designed to address chronic depression. Join us as we uncover its origins, methodology and the profound impact it has on those battling persistent depressive disorders. Dive deep into the conversation on mental wellness with us. Your path to mental wellness starts here wellness with us.
Speaker 2:
Your path to mental wellness starts here. Well, lee, it is so great to be here today to talk about a theory and a method that is so impactful for folks who have been living with depression for a very long time. And it's an unusual name sea bass. So this segment of our podcast is going to be explaining what sea bass is, and it's definitely not a form of fish right With a little miso sauce on it. So why? I'd love for you to explain in very simple terms what in the world is CBASP and how is it different from other traditional cognitive behavioral therapy methods?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so. So thanks for hanging, lila. This is a lot of fun and I'm super glad to be with you today. Cbasp stands for Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy. So it's definitely a mouthful, and it differs from traditional cognitive behavior therapy in a lot of different ways. Behavior therapy in a lot of different ways. Cbasp is a learning acquisition model, and so what does that mean? Well, it means that we're as therapists, we're going to work for our clients to experience learning. They're going to learn skills.
Speaker 3:
There's two real goals of CBASP. One is felt safety. And so what does felt safety mean? Well, a lot of folks who grow up in tense or harsh environments as children don't learn to attach in a safe way.
Speaker 3:
So the theory is that you have what we call a transference hypothesis or a belief that the world is going to treat you in a very familiar way, and when someone comes in with stress or trauma from their past, they believe that the therapist they lump the therapist into that same bucket, if you will, of people that we're going to be treated the same way by this therapist that we've been treated elsewhere in the rest of our life. But the goal is felt safety is that the therapist works to help the patient or the client understand that the therapist is different than the significant other, the, the, the family member or whoever it was that they experienced this pain from. Okay, so that's the first goal. The second is a perceptual connection. And what does the perceptual connection mean? Well, it means that a lot of people who struggle with real, deep and chronic, unretracting depression that unrelenting yeah, unrelenting.
Speaker 3:
They look at life as it's groundhog's day, because what are the monikers of chronic depression or depression is a helplessness and a hopelessness. And so, in that helplessness and hopelessness. And so, in that helplessness and hopelessness, it's like well, I cannot be helped. Therefore, life is hopeless. And there is this constant theme of nothing will change. Well, in CBASP, one of the things that we work towards is helping that patient or client learn a problem-solving method that helps them see their own personal efficacy, their ability to make changes in their lives, their ability to set goals for themselves and achieve them. And one thing you'll hear in in CBASP is what was your desired outcome?
Speaker 2:
I would imagine most people would say for her or him to stop doing X, y, z right.
Speaker 3:
That's right. That's right, and we walk through with people that we treat that the the idea that this isn't about changing your environment. This is about changing your actions in the environment there you go and so that that's uh, that's kind of the.
Speaker 3:
The nutshell of how, uh, of what c-basp is and and how it's different from different cognitive behavioral therapies is that it's really taking an attachment theory and a behavioral theory and really pulling those two theories together that you learn how to attach in a very disciplined manner and a very professional and appropriate manner to the therapist so that you learn what a secure attachment, a healthy, secure attachment, looks like. And the, the behavioral piece is the understanding that I'm going to behave differently and what does what does that mean? What do I, what are my outcomes, what I want for me, and so. So I would say that that's how they, how it differs.
Speaker 2:
Okay, and that makes a lot of sense. I know that there probably got to be some pretty key components or techniques that help a person get to that place, or even the ability to the awareness that they could do, that they could get to that place where they could.
Speaker 3:
They could make those decisions yeah, that's a, that's a you, you're, you're spot on the. Uh, the goals of sea bass are are matched.
Speaker 3:
The felt safety and the perceptual connection, the, those two goals are matched with the techniques and the technique for, or the goal of, felt safety is matched with the technique of interpersonal discrimination exercise, and that tool again is the, the idea that I, as the, as the patient or the client, may have the sense that you, as my therapist, are going to treat me like my mother did or like my cousin did, or whomever I've experienced a pivotal attachment to. I believe I have this belief that you're going to be just like that and the interpersonal discrimination exercise. It's really sweet and it's a really beautiful technique that people experience this. Wait a minute, you're different. Epiphany for them is the possibility that others may be different too.
Speaker 2:
That is a huge epiphany. So can you just walk through a quick example of that?
Speaker 3:
a mistake, that what? What their attachment there are there, the the significant people that they were attached to in their childhood would have given them, as I like to say, up the river for it making that mistake. If they come to you having made a mistake, they're expecting that you're going to treat them poorly like, Like they forgot a session.
Speaker 2:
They didn't show up for a session and the next time they show up they're ready for an up the river.
Speaker 3:
Yes, you to give them up the river. What does river mean? It means you're going to tell them well, I can't believe you. You showed up, but you didn't show up. You missed it, you're. What's wrong with you?
Speaker 2:
They're wasting my time, that's right.
Speaker 3:
Don't be wasting my time. They're expecting that onslaught of of anger.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:
What they don't. What's so fascinating in all of this is that I've found is that they don't see that when I greet them you know, in this example, if I were to go out and greet them, they'd be like I know you're so angry. I'm like, well, actually, I'm not. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you in fact are. And when you sit down with them and walk them through an interpersonal discrimination exercise, what they begin to see is what?
Speaker 3:
Well, what was your mom's behavior? Oh, she'd have yelled at me. She would have told me how stupid I am. She would have you know. And she they describe what I call up the river, get getting up the river. And what did I do? And the first time, the first few times we walked through this with folks they don't know, they don't have a category or concept for me, what I did or what I didn't do. Yes, and they're dumbfounded by that Again, because our brain goes to that place of expectancy and so we fill in the blanks. But when you're asked to wait, look what is the blank saying what's filled in? An actuality.
Speaker 2:
Hey, there you go, Actuality Okay.
Speaker 3:
You don't they? They, when they see it, they're like, oh my gosh, so you're different than my parent, you're different than that significant attachment from my past. Yes, yes, beautiful.
Speaker 2:
It's a very, very beautiful experience yeah, it's one thing to hear that that's a technique, but then to hear it played out in real time of our real example, so to speak, um makes such a difference, it makes more applicable yeah, yeah, yeah, good, good.
Speaker 3:
The other goal of you know, the perceptual connection, is paired with what's called situation analysis. Okay, and that's where you take there's five steps that you go through and you talk through a, for instance, an instance that occurred, a, for instance, an instance that occurred, and you help them learn to to not see it globally, but just to see a beginning and an end of a situation. How did they interpret that? What was their behavior in that instance? They look at their, the actual outcome or the consequence of that situation, the ending spot, and then we look at what had we hoped would happen.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
Walk them through those types of situations and you know I always to to teach people how to do situation analysis or, as we call it, essay. But it's so funny when I say essay people think oh yeah, I'm writing an essay. Like say what?
Speaker 3:
no, it's s oh, thanks right I always walk them through and I say you know, um, I always use a silly situation that is is a joke, that I don't know the ending to it's. To a bar. The bartender was a frog. I asked the frog for a drink. He said we don't know the ending to it's. To a bar the bartender was a frog. I asked the frog for a drink. He said we don't serve your kind, so I turn around and I leave. And we walk through that type of a situation where what happened? What did I think? Well, everybody hates me, nobody loves me, I should go eat worms, right? Sometimes we see that as our interpretations. Well, what did I do? I walked into the bar, I asked for a drink and then I turned around and left. What was the actual outcome? He said we don't serve your kind and I left. What did you want to do? Well, I wanted to tell him that was rude, great, oh yes so then we walk through.
Speaker 3:
Uh, the remediation is walking. That's the elicitation, and then the remediation is what would we need to do, to, to, to get to that desired outcome? And I won't bore you with all those details. But what's really sweet is when people start seeing that they can get what they want out of a situation out of them. I got what I wanted out of me in this situation.
Speaker 2:
Well, and I would imagine that nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. Well, I need, instead of telling the bartender that was rude, please serve me a drink. I'm going to go eat worms. I could see where those three in thoughts or interpretations of the situation could lead me to a very depressive state.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Right, so it. It sounds to me like that part of the essay is extremely key to understanding where I go. Not every time that's not a good word to use, maybe, but quite often that's where I go when I'm in a situation where I'm not standing up for what I'd like to say or do, I'm not being assertive.
Speaker 3:
Yes, and it illuminates for us and for the person that is being treated. It illuminates where is my mind going and what are my beliefs here. Okay, there can be, you know it's everybody hates me. Well, does everybody? Is that grounded in this situation at the bar? Is everybody at the bar? No, no, that that? That is. That is a an over general, that's a globalization or an over. And so, honestly and so honestly, the, the founder of, or the, the, the author of the founder, the father of sea basp, is a guy named jim mccullough. He was a genius when he wrote this. He started this research in 1974, 50 years ago, wow. And he was an absolute genius in how he put all this together.
Speaker 3:
Because we deal with globalization not only in the first step, because we say what happened from the beginning to the end. You can't just keep going and keep going and keep going where that situation is so overwhelming that we cannot be informed by it. Then we move into our interpretations, where we look at how, what was I thinking about this? How did I? How did it land on me, if you will? And in these interpretations, we look at am I globalizing? Is this grounded in the situation? Am I mind reading, because we know that mind reading is man. Mind reading is so detrimental and I'm going to say it to every relationship.
Speaker 2:
I agree, agreed right here yeah.
Speaker 3:
And having to look at that and seeing how did this help me get to where I'm trying to go? No, it didn't. No, thinking in this way did not help me get where I'm trying to go.
Speaker 2:
thinking in this way did not help me get where I'm trying to go. So with that, those key components and those techniques, if you will, of CBASP, I'm sure this benefits a lot of clients, a lot of people who come in and say they are, they've been depressed for a very long time. Is it also effective on other mental health issues or concerns that a person has?
Speaker 3:
That's a great question and there's a lot of discussion in the CBAS community about that question in particular, mostly for chronic depression, and and chronic depression tends to lend itself to uh, an an avoidance of things, a theme of avoidance. We'll say it that way and it's you know, does it? Is there a possibility that it works for other um concerns? Yes, we don't have the research right now to back it up. It's been really focused on depression, chronic depression and the theme of avoidance.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so I hear that, and that is for someone who's not necessarily struggling with depression.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that very, very, very well stated in a wise statement at that. At that, I think that what Jim, what big Jim, as we call him, would say to that? Is sure, I just don't know if we're doing CBASP at that point.
Speaker 2:
Right, that's probably true. Good point. So in your experience with these amazing techniques with CBASP, how have they helped patients at restoration differently than other therapies?
Speaker 3:
I think that's a fantastic question. I think that the thing that I love, love about CBASP is that it truly is about learning. We are taking individuals, these amazing individuals who come in, who have lived a theme of avoidance and you think, well, go try it. But Lila, here's the thing is, oftentimes they don't know how to Now that's not saying anything negative about them as a person. To Now, that's not saying anything negative about them as a person. Where would they have learned it? I, I, when, when treating adolescents or the, the youngsters is, if you will parents come in and they say well, they should know by now. And the first thing I think is why? Who taught them? And the first thing I think is why? Who taught them? Right? And that's one of the things that I love about CBASP is we don't take anything for granted. I hear Big Jim in my head often saying don't take anything for granted. You don't know that. They know how to do that. Ask them if they know how to do that, walk them through the situation analysis and you will highlight how they don't know how to do that.
Speaker 3:
I was meeting with an individual just recently who said I don't know what I want. I know I don't want that, but I don't know what I do want and I thought that's right. Yeah, that's right. Who has ever given you that space to evaluate what do I want? Right? And that individual, their significant other. History was. You know the history with their significant other. Their significant attachments was very tumultuous and they were forced to be a caregiver in a lot of different ways. And you think about that. Where would they have ever learned? Well, the idea is, and the understanding of CBASP is we're going to teach you and there's not going to be any shame involved in you not knowing how.
Speaker 2:
And you've seen people actually improve over the course of time with this particular type of therapy, differently than other therapies that are designed for depression. You've seen improvement.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah, are designed for depression. You've seen improvement? Oh yeah, I mean we. We did a study at restoration not that long ago where, uh, all the, all the individuals in the study- yeah they all improved and we're talking long, chronic, long-term depression that were. The mean age of the average age of onset of depression was 12 years old 12.
Speaker 2:
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:
And the average age in the study was, I believe, 35. And they experienced depression. For what would that be? Almost 15 years and close to 15. We don't I don't do math, but they, uh, all of them experienced for the first time a relief or or remission from their depression. And then at the follow-up which this hasn't been published, but at the follow-up their depression was still in remission. So now they did not meet criteria any longer for early onset depression.
Speaker 2:
That is such good news and I would imagine that would bring tremendous hope to people who have walked through life very helpless and hopeless. That is incredible. So if I come into your office and I've been chronically or persistently depressed for many years 15 years like that what would a typical session of CBASP look like or be structured like? Of CBASP look like or be structured like.
Speaker 3:
Great question.
Speaker 3:
So, the first session and I will tell you, you know, by the book, the first session is going through your depression timeline. But I find sometimes people want, they want to come in and get a feel for you as the therapist. They want to understand what is the CBASP. You said it's not a. You said it's. It's not a seafood dish. Well then what is it? You know? And so they come in and want to know what it's about. And you don't have time necessarily to go through the depression timeline. Sometimes you do. But that's the first step is taking a timeline Cause, you know, the interesting thing in that is, first of all we want to know are you truly chronically depressed?
Speaker 3:
Do you have what we call double depression, where you're chronically in that persistent depression but on top of that you're in a major depressive episode? So you can have two types of depression in that. So we want to know what we're looking at. But it also is the first step in helping individuals tell their story, narrate to another person succinctly, with a beginning, the middle and then up to current day would be the end right Of what's my timeline been. So there's a lot of organization mentally that goes into that. That, I think, is really, really interesting.
Speaker 3:
So the second session, the second step, would be to collect a what we call a significant other history, and a lot of times when people hear significant other, they think their partner or their spouse. We don't mean that. We mean your significant historical attachments might be mom and dad, there may be, you know, siblings, other things in there, but that's what we want to understand. Who has left an impression or, as we call it in cbasp, a stamp on your life? What is it and and what sense have you made of that impression or stamp on your life? Like, what sense do you make of that impression or stamp on your life? Like, what sense do you make of that which lends itself to understanding what we call the transference hypothesis, or what does that mean? Well, it's the belief of. I believe this is how you're going to treat me. Therefore, that's all I see out of you. Okay, then the next step.
Speaker 3:
After that, we begin teaching them about the situation analysis or the essay. We take you through it and hopefully it's the third session, but it's the third step, right, we take you through it, we start going through this and then we, hopefully, we start talking about. This is how you get your desired outcome, and it takes. It takes a bit for people to start coming in with a desired outcome that's met where their actual outcome meets their desired outcome. But that's that step. And then when we run into those themes of in CBASP they're called a hotspot, which is where you expect you as the patient, expect me as the therapist, to act a certain way and I'm not acting that way and I want you to see that then we'll do what's called the interpersonal discrimination exercise, and so that that's how the whole of treatment is organized and looks like in cbass you know that, um, I have a saying in my own life that that sounds very simple.
Speaker 2:
However, simple does not equal easy, so I'm sure there is a lot that of struggle going through that, and yet the structure of it is what makes a complex issue simple, so that you can get to a desired outcome. You can get to an idea of how to make change in your life. That's great. What is the role of the therapist during a CBASP session?
Speaker 3:
Well, the role. I'm glad you asked because the role of the therapist in a c-basp session is very unique and truly it's like there's I really don't know of any other therapy that the role of the therapist is such a such the role of the CBAS therapist. Hopefully that makes sense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you're saying it's not your typical traditional role of holding a clipboard, sitting back behind the client. You know we got to have a little laughter here.
Speaker 3:
Laying on the chase lounge and saying green, tell me what you think of green. No, I'm kidding. No, it is different in the fact that you know, largely therapists are taught to to zip up, so to speak, and to be very tucked in, if you will, with the people that they're treating. And Jim wrote a book in 2006 called Seabass and Disciplined Personal Involvement, and that personal involvement with the person that you're treating looks like sharing their impact, the impact that they have on you. As a therapist, you would share that with them.
Speaker 3:
Now, focus on the term disciplined, because it's not saying oh well, you hurt my feelings when you did X, y and Z and now you're going to take care of me. It's not that at all. It's saying you know, when you say these negative things about yourself, I feel excluded from the conversation, I don't have room for me there, and so it really is sharing that impact, which is a not, it's not a typical of a psychodynamic approach. But the difference in that is is that I'm telling you how it affects me, because typically we would say I wonder how that impacts others. When you do this, I wonder are you making room for others? You're saying I feel like there's no room for me, and that that's a bit of a. That's a different role. The role would be one of warmth, one of kindness and one of of gentle confrontation I like that.
Speaker 2:
That that's uh. Sounds like you could bring about two degrees of a shift just by being warm present, but not just agreeing with everything that goes on right and in really gently confronting things right, you know, confrontation doesn't have to be bad. It actually can be very connecting and extremely um uh intimate. That's good. Well, so let's talk about the empirical evidence. What research supports the effectiveness or efficacy of CBAS?
Speaker 3:
Well, that's a great question. There is a lot of research out there and I would highly encourage everybody to go to Google Scholar and put in C-B-A-S-P and read until you fall asleep. I'm kidding, but the research shows that that CBASP is highly effective, highly effective for chronic depression. Again, again, there's just not been a lot. There's not, there's really been little research done on any other um struggle involving sea bass. But you know the the research is really prolific in chronic depression it it shows that outcomes are favorable.
Speaker 3:
Like I said earlier, the research we've done at Restoration, the outcome were highly favorable for Seabasb and depression. You know it has been put up against Lexapro and some other pharmaceutical medications and actually it actually held its own. And so, yeah, see, there's a, there's a lot of evidence for c-vasp uh being being very, uh, being being effective good, good.
Speaker 2:
And and also, though, how does that research, that effectiveness get measured in a clinical setting? I mean, that sounds like that would be a little difficult.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so one of the things that is used by a CBASP therapist, at least here in the States, because CBASP is used all over the world. Really, yeah, it is such. A Going to the different CBASP meetings is always so fascinating for me because they're all held up over Zoom, and this was pre-COVID, because you'll have people represented all over the world. It's so wonderful, um, and, and hearing their fantastic stories of of, uh, depression remission is just, it's super encouraging, um.
Speaker 3:
But one of the things that we use is the Beck depression inventory, the BDI, and the one of the things we look for is is your depression score going down? Is it dropping into a normal range? The other thing that we look for in the clinical setting how do we know when someone really has CBAS down? Okay, yes, their, their back depression score is dropping into a normal range. But the other thing we know, if we're going to be encouraging the termination of treatment is can you successfully do a situation analysis perfectly with no input from your therapist, two times in a row? If you can, then we're going to give the green light. You got this. Go give this a shot. Now I'll tell you in my own personal practice. Not everybody's ready to roll on their own. When they do that for themselves, they make the decision. I'm not ready to try this on my own, so we may just drop less frequent, or you know they decide at that point.
Speaker 3:
But when someone can effectively do a situation analysis on their own, then two times in a row, perfect. Then you know that they, that they at least have it down. And again, this is a learning acquisition model. We want them to acquire learning.
Speaker 2:
It's like you're taking the training wheels off, right, even though the relationship with the therapist is warm and gentle and kind of nudging. It's like they take on the agency, if you will, of saying to themselves this interpretation isn't grounded in accuracy in this moment and they can. It's self-correcting in a way. Okay, well, that that's very helpful. I can imagine that would be great. So for our listeners today who might be interested in just trying a CBASP technique at home and we're saying, hey, try this at home, what would you recommend?
Speaker 3:
I think there's two that I would say off the top of my head. I would recommend Okay. The first would be and this is only taking one point out of the situation analysis Okay. You go through a situation, and this is good, whether you have chronic depression or not. What do I want out of me? What's my desired outcome here?
Speaker 2:
What do I want out of me in this situation? Because usually we're looking for what I want the environment, the other people involved, how I want them to change Right, and if they only would do it this way, then I wouldn't struggle with what I'm struggling with, right.
Speaker 3:
That's right, and so that gives that sense of agency, as we say, or that sense of understanding. What is it I want out of me and a lot of people it's. They say to themselves wow, welcome to me. I've never thought about what I wanted. Like you said, I thought about every. I want you to be different. I want you to be different. I want to order the environment.
Speaker 2:
There you go.
Speaker 3:
And about us. We start thinking, oh, I want to be able to say this. I don't want to be. And what's funny is, sometimes people will say well, I want to say that I'm sorry, and I want them to accept it. Like well, you can't force somebody to do anything, so I want to say I'm sorry in a very genuine way. Yes, that's a great desired outcome. It's wonderful.
Speaker 2:
I love that. That is a great desired outcome and it's easier to leave it there with them, and I can see where that would help with depression because it can be very even chemically. We can experience a change in how we feel when we're trying to control how someone else is receiving what we're saying. That's right. So that's one technique. You said you had two.
Speaker 3:
Yes. So the other is thinking to yourself how is this person actually behaving and really observing them? You may look at that as a mindfulness moment, but it's the awareness of are they treating me how I thought they would and how I thought they would treat me? Is it the same or is it different? Are they are? Is their behavior the same or different than when I what I anticipated now that one could be a little tricky to you know, to do on your own, but again it's asking are they treating me the way that I thought they would, or am I? Am I giving them room to be different?
Speaker 2:
Okay, so it sounds like you're stepping back and observing, and not necessarily making an assumption about how you're being treated because of this predisposed way of interpreting things. Okay, so the first one.
Speaker 3:
It's my desired outcome for me.
Speaker 2:
Second one.
Speaker 3:
Am I being treated the way I thought, or do I need to give room for somebody to be different?
Speaker 2:
Okay, so how often should one practice that for it to really become beneficial? And I'm going to use this word organic in their way of doing things.
Speaker 3:
Boy. I'll tell you this the desired outcome I would think about that as often as I could. The differentiation idea of am I being treated the way that I thought, or is this person treating me differently? Doing that one? Be having that awareness when you're interacting with somebody. But the desired outcome do that as often as possible.
Speaker 2:
That is great. That is so good, because I think so much of the time we're not even aware of what our desired outcome is inside of ourself. It's always external, not internal.
Speaker 3:
That's right this c-basp is such a wonderful theory that helps people who really experienced deep, deep childhood trauma that has kept them from being able to attach to their environment and understanding this theory. Whether you or someone you know is struggling with this, it is a very powerful and very effective technique, so and Lee.
Speaker 2:
You know I've had so as in it's. You know that I've worked with Big Jim as well, and CBATH is part of how I conduct therapy as well, and I will say one of the most rewarding moments is to watch a client go through all of those steps, the arduous task of going through them and having these beautiful aha moments that my life doesn't have to continue the way it has been. It's, it is. I would say it's probably one of the most visual. You can visually see someone find relief. I don't know how to explain it. Yes, life changing.
Speaker 3:
Life changing. And you're right. The visual is you're spot on with that. You see someone walk in really curled into themselves yes, they've had a very, very tough life and then for them to shoulders back and realize that they now have not only the connection to somebody you as their therapist who's going to have their back, but they also start learning how to connect to other people in their community and build a community. They also have problem solving skills to learn how to think through that they just weren't given in all that chaos of their upbringing. And it is powerful and it is life-changing.
Speaker 2:
I love it. I love it and that's what we're about is changing lives, walking with people.
Speaker 3:
That's right, celebrating that restored freedom, and when you described it, you described that restored freedom.
Speaker 2:
There you go, yep, all right. Well, thanks again.
Speaker 3:
Thanks, it was fun to be together.
Speaker 2:
Was See you next time.
Speaker 4:
If you found value in our discussion and wish to uncover more about the fascinating world of mental wellness, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, where Dr Long will continue to delve into empowering therapies and strategies for mental wellness. Your journey to understanding and embracing mental health is just beginning and we're excited to have you with us every step of the way. Until next time, keep exploring, keep growing and remember to celebrate restored freedom as you uncover it.