Therapists have given out way too many bandaids. Here are examples of bandaids:
- books
- articles
- listening forever and saying, “Awww” to complaints and problems
How many of these have actually created changes in the reader, listener, or participant? Changes that last?
The answer is none and this is the reason why: When you give out a bandaid the following conditions are true:
- They must be general because articles and books can’t be specific enough. Authors try. I tried. I wrote a best-selling book, but still, no matter how well you describe somebody else’s situation, it’s somebody else’s situation. The reader can’t possibly take away enough meat from that to be applicable.
- Even if the reader gets all excited and wants to try out the thing that he’s reading about, he will never know without outside help if he’s executing it properly.
- Even if he may be executing the new activity properly, he will never know if that’s really what he needs. Maybe he thinks his problem is “communicate your feelings more” and so he does, when really the “communication” problem he’s suffering from is not being a good enough listener. Without the objective third party who can properly evaluate the situation, he will not know.
- If he goes to a therapist who doesn’t want to just say “Awwww,” or “Umhm,” but actually wants to give him the tools he needs because she can accurately see what it is that is missing, he may not “buy” into her ideas. When people go to a therapist, they believe – correctly – that they’re in the driver’s seat. They bring up what they want to talk about. And if they don’t feel like doing the homework, they don’t do it. So even in the course of good therapy, good therapy may not have room to happen. And then the therapy sessions can easily degenerate into bandaids.
This is why change is infrequent and doesn’t last. I did it for years – give out bandaids – so I know what I’m talking about. Way back in the 90’s, when my oldest son was in high school, he said, “Mom, you need a website!” and he proceeded to make me one. In those days, there was no blog app or blog on websites yet. You posted articles using html and then they got viewed by the public as regular text. He kept translating my articles into html and I started to feel guilty for all the time he was spending so I learned html. That was how far I went to give out bandaids. I have hundreds of article on this blog. I wonder how many people have made lasting changes in their lives because of them. Don’t get me wrong – I love writing bandaids and I feel terrible not giving them out.
You see, from the therapist’s perspective, when we write an article that gives people “a few suggestions” as to how to handle a problem it makes us feel good. Yes, we’re human, we therapists, and we like to feel good. And what lights our fire is helping others. *That’s* what makes us feel good. So we sprinkle bandaids on everything and we can pretend we did something.
Except that is not living in reality. And I won’t do it any more.
If you want to make changes, real changes to your life, then you have to do it the hard way. You’ll have to be willing to learn new skills that are tailor made for people in your situation and you’ll have to be willing to hear feedback from me as to how you’re doing and what you can do better. Will I cheer you on? Absolutely. There’s a world of difference between listening to a stream of how depressing your life is and saying, “Awww” to make you feel better – which it doesn’t – and listening to your steps in the right direction and getting up on the table and shouting “Yaaay!” to encourage you.
So if you want to really learn, really grow, be the best self you can be and have the marriage you want, then book a call at https://drdeb.com/book