Deborah Helsing

July 26, 2017 at 3:02 pm #3166

Hi Sara!

Yes, sure… The pinch sort comes from Learning as Leadership: http://learnaslead.com/

They have a book called Ego Free Leadership, and this tool is described there. Coincidentally, on the ITC Linked-In group, someone just posted a link to Shayne Hughes’ (author) podcast on the impact of ego in organizational culture:

https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/englers-angle/shayne-hughes.html#.WXjFeFjByS8.linkedin

For learning conversations, we use the Difficult Conversations (Stone, Patton & Heen) book.

Our premise is that tools like these, when practiced as described/intended, help individuals reflect on their own meaning making and take greater responsibility for their own contributions to charged situations. So we link them explicitly to developmental transformation (from more Socializing capacities to more self-Authoring ones).

Deborah Helsing

February 9, 2016 at 8:42 am #2629

That sounds quite interesting, Johannes! To find out more about how to “give a voice to it” and “build up your self” according to the Gestalt perspective, what should I read or investigate further?

Deborah Helsing

October 30, 2015 at 9:25 am #2406

I have been noticing that some leaders (maybe especially women?) who possess these types of relational skills (good listening, handling a tough conversation delicately) may know they have those skills but tend not to think of them as specific things they should be helping others learn and expecting others to master. It’s like they don’t tend to think that is part of a leader’s job is to help others develop those skills. Have you noticed that too? They are much quicker to think about how to help someone else learn other types of skills (e.g., strategic planning, priority-setting) that are more task-oriented. I wonder how much of their reluctance is due to: a) not seeing these things as learn-able skills but as personality traits; and/or b) seeing this stuff as less explicitly valued and honored by others in their work settings; and/or c) seeing these things (consciously or unconsciously) as “women’s work” and not something to expect from men; and/or d) having no idea how to teach others how to do these things.

Deborah Helsing

October 30, 2015 at 9:15 am #2405

Very intriguing! I notice that I feel kind of frustrated when I read the type of questions a coach might ask. They feel very vague to me — and I wonder if that has to do with my own tendencies not to pay attention to the physical experience (and so not even know how to think about responding to those questions) and/or if clients have that experience too. Are there questions you guys ask that seem to allow for breakthroughs with your clients? I’d love to hear about some specific examples of how a client responded that allowed things to shift…

Thanks!

Best,
Deb

Deborah Helsing

June 7, 2015 at 4:18 pm #1954

Here is a test idea…:

There is an interesting chapter in David Burns’ book (Feeling Good) called, “Your Work Is Not Your Worth.” He argues that this type of drive for success is similar to an addiction, that we then need more and more doses to get “high” because once we achieve a certain level, we just set our expectations higher. The assumptions he sees operating underneath this addictions are things like “I assume the way to happiness is to succeed. I assume that if I am a superachiever, I prove that I am more worthwhile, special, better than others. I assume that if I don’t have an amazing career and life-style, I must be second-rate as a person (and can only have second-rate happiness).” One of his clients (“Josh,” who had had to scale back his career for mental health reasons) tested his assumptions were by using a “Pleasure-Predicting Sheet.” Burns writes:

“Each day he agreed to schedule various activities that might give him a sense of pleasure, satisfaction, or personal growth. These activities could be related to his consulting business as well as hobbies and recreational pursuits. Before each activity he was to write down his prediction of how enjoyable it would be and mark it between 0 percent (no satisfaction at all) and 99 percent (the maximum enjoyment a human being can experience).

“After filling out these forms for several days, Josh was surprised to find that life had just as much potential for joy and satisfaction as it ever had. His discovery that work was at times quite rewarding and that numerous other activities could be just as enjoyable, if not more so, was a revelation to him. He was amazed one Saturday night when he went roller-skating with his girls friend. As they moved to the music, Josh found he began to tune into the beat and the melody, and as he became absorbed in the rhythm, he experienced a great sense of exhilaration. The data he collected on the Pleasure-Predicting Sheet indicated he didn’t need a trip to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize to experience the ultimate in satisfaction — he didn’t have to go any farther than the skating rink! His experiment proved that life was still filled with abundant opportunities for pleasure and fulfillment if he would enlarge his mental focus from a microscopic fixation on work and open himself to the broad range of rich experiences that living can offer” (pp. 350-1)

I once ran a similar version of this test about 4-5 years ago (just keeping track of what were the “peak” emotional moments during a 2 week period) and was surprised to find that one of the peak moments was watching TV — granted I was watching a pretty beautiful movie (Colin Firth’s performance in A Single Man), but I never would have predicted that TV would be a peak emotional moment….! 🙂

Deborah Helsing

June 3, 2015 at 6:58 am #1948

Thanks Simon!

One more interesting resource to add to this discussion….

I just came across this article (Gilbert et al, 2014): Fears of happiness and compassion in relationship with depression, alexithymia, and attachment security in a depressed sample in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology.

In such cases, the inner critic could lead one to fear positive emotions, believing that they are untrustworthy/won’t last. Interesting implications for what might show up in column 3 that would initially look noble but have a non-noble, self-protective underlying basis. Here is an excerpt from the start of the article:

“Fears of positive emotions

“While the fear and avoidance of ‘negative’ emotions has been well studied, with some
exceptions, the same cannot be said for the study of ‘positive’ emotions. However,
increasing evidence suggests that positive emotions, such as joy, happiness, kindness,
love, and safeness may not necessarily be experienced as pleasurable and can also be
feared. For example, rather than being unable to experience pleasure and happiness
(anhedonia), some depressed individuals may have an actual fear of experiencing positive
emotions (Gilbert et al., 2012; Hayes & Feldman, 2004) or unwillingness to experience
positive emotions (Beblo et al., 2012). Some years ago, Arieti and Bemporad (1980)
suggested that some depressed patients have ‘a taboo on pleasure’ and can be fearful of
positive emotions; for example, the person who says ‘happiness never lasts’ or ‘when I
feel happy I am always waiting for something bad to happen’. In a recent student study
exploring these types of beliefs, Gilbert et al. (2012) found that a fear of happiness was
significantly correlated with alexithymia, self-criticism, anxiety, and stress, and especially
depression (r = .70). Other authors have found that the suppression or dampening of
positive emotions is associated with more depressive symptoms (Beblo et al., 2012; Raes,
Smets, Nelis, & Schoofs, 2012) and other psychological disorders (Eisner, Johnson, &
Carver, 2009). Fear of positive evaluation (feeling good about one’s achievement or
believing that others feel good about one’s achievements) has been linked to social
anxiety (Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008; Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, &
Norton, 2008; Weeks, Norton, & Heimberg, 2009). This is linked to fear of success
(Weeks, Jakatdar, & Heimberg, 2010). Fear of success can be linked to fears of envious
attacks by others or rejection.

“The reasons why positive emotions become feared require further research. Some
possibilities include: cases where children have been threatened or punished at times
when they were enjoying themselves and/or in states of positive affect (Gilbert, 2007;
Shaver & Mikulincer, 2002). Following classical conditioning theory (of emotions that
fire together can wire together), positive affects can come to trigger negative affects
(Ferster, 1973; Gilbert, 1992). Children who enjoy themselves in the context of an
unhappy family or a very ill parent can experience guilt at their own good fortune or
pleasure (Arieti & Bemporad, 1980). In schema therapy, fear of positive emotions may
be conceptualized by the development of early maladptative schemas (Young, Klosko,
& Weishaar, 2003). Possible candidates are defectiveness and shame with the possible
feeling of not deserving to be happy; subjugation and emotional inhibition are the
schemas that suggest that someone might suppress their own happiness or needs.
Hence, there may be many routes to the suppression or avoidance of positive
emotions.”

Deborah Helsing

May 22, 2015 at 8:45 am #1927

Thanks Simon,

These look like great resources — I am eager to check them out further. Two quiz items seem to tie directly to the Socialized mind stage:

I have a hard time feeling OK about myself when I’m not acting in accordance with my childhood programming.

I feel bad because I can’t be what my family or culture expects of me.

While the others seem more widely applicable. I was also interested to see how many of the items ask directly about a person’s relationship to food. Is the idea that eating is a very common way that the inner critic shows up?

Best,
Deb

Deborah Helsing

May 5, 2015 at 8:08 am #1866

Really interesting, Johannes. I agree that the critic can take different forms. For the cynical one you describe, how is that a form of self-protection? Kind of like being sure that the worst will happen protects me from disappointment? Or protects me from dreaming big dreams that may not come true?

Deborah Helsing

May 5, 2015 at 7:07 am #1863

Thanks for all these fascinating posts — I don’t know enough about the Enneagram to have ever been able to see these connections.

Another resource I’ve used with clients comes from Kristen Neff’s site (go to the Practices page):

http://selfcompassion.org/

There is a great list of exercises for renegotiating the relationship to the inner critic.

I think it is also common that the inner critic is not internalized from the family but from the larger society, in the form of stereotype threat. (E.g., The inner critic in a girl might be sending her harsh messages about what she should look like or how nice she should be, not make waves.) In Carol Gillgan’s (and related work), the most dangerous developmental periods for internalizing these messages and developing the inner critic comes in the transition toward adolescence… the 2-3 transition in Bob’s theory.