Tuesday 15 December 2020
Refining Mental Health | Somatic & Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
Refinning mental health
Mental Health today is a very expansive concept and there are a plethora of ways to work with the mind ranging from psychotherapy to mantra meditation to herbs to mindfulness ,pranayama and yoga to exercise to nutrition to hypnosis to entheogens to reiki to quantum healing to dance therapy to sound therapy etc etc etc…. the list goes on.
Its therefore no surprise if we get overwhelmed and fall into something called decision fatigue where we don’t know the best way forward for us. Also within the list above there are many nuances and sub types of all the methods listed….for instance in therapy we have somatic therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, psychoanalysis, Hakomi…under yoga we have power yoga, Ashtanga yoga, Iyengar yoga, the choices and types are ever growing . . .there are thousands of medicinal herbs and substances that are being marketed from açai berries to moringa powder as well as numerous schools and modalities of meditation from Vipasana to Kala chakra empowerments . . . . so what’s the best thing for us?
Often taking care of the Self requires a multifactorial, holistic approach which stimulates us on a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels. So one would need to work with oneself in a balanced and disciplined way that is intelligible to one’s own psychophysiological constitution. What I mean is the right type of exercise, the right type of meditation, right type of food, right amount of rest etc. for oneself . . Otherwise our efforts are counterproductive and we have limited results. As we say in Ayurveda that one can eat like a king, but digest like a beggar if one’s gut flora or digestive fire, known as Agni is not working properly. What is meant by this is that one can avail of the best groceries, trainers, yoga studios but if its the wrong type of practise for us in whatever field, we will not be able to contain it in our bodymind and will not receive the benefits from it. So if a very skinny person decided to do an intense cardiovascular work out then it would be extremely destructive for their nervous, endocrine and immune systems . . . similarly if someone who intellectualises and rationalises defensively undertook solely CBT they would not learn to recognise, feel and work with their emotions in the body. Hence it is extremely important to see what suits us . . . so this leads us to exploring our Prakriti or constitution. I now mandatorily conduct Prakriti analyses with my clients in order to complement their therapeutic process by giving them the sui generis nutritional, lifestyle and self care advise that is suited to them.
Online Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Cognitive & Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Mumbai, India
Somatic Psychotherapy
Therapeutic interventions for anxiety, depression, anger management, mood disorders and the whole gamut of DSM 5 disorders, in essence, should be multifaceted. Since the human being is a complex process, psychotherapy is enjoined upon a deep inquiry into our fight and flight responses, our childhood history, our subconscious minds, our lifestyles, our diets, our social relationships, our dreams, our movement patterns and our energy levels. In short, to work with anxiety and depression or any DSM 5 disorder effectively, the therapist should take a holistic approach that engages the subtle and gross aspects of the self. So where would one start in this jungle?
The body. The body is what holds the various strands of our life experience together. Working any psychological issue demands a deep delving into the mystery of the body. Since the body is the subconscious and storehouse of repressed memories, thoughts, emotions and experiences. The body is pregnant with implicit meaning. Life literally inscribes and imprints itself on our bodies through our posture, our gestures, the tone of our voice, the quality of our eye contact and the grip of our handshake.
The body is the temple of our consciousness, the ground of our experience and the barometer of our felt sense. We know ourselves and the world through our bodies. We experience pleasure and pain through our bodies. Since its inception, somatic psychotherapy has emphasised the import of the body mind connection. Today we are reaching even more subtler understandings of the interconnected nature of the psyche soma in the world of psychotherapy, where Cognitive Behaviour therapy and other talk therapies are acknowledged to not be as effective as body oriented modalities. Ground breaking discoveries in contemporary medical research regarding the enteric nervous system, the gut -brain connection, polyvagal theory and psychoneuroimmunology have underscored that we have more information coming from the body to the brain then from the brain to the body. Bearing this in mind, any psychotherapeutic modality that does not take the body into account is limited in its efficaciousness.
I teach all my clients how to settle, ground, feel and reconnect with their bodies and to bring psychological awareness to their muscles. Somatic awareness in combination with Dialectical Behaviour and Cognitive Behavioural techniques along with insights from Existential, Psychodynamic and Transpersonal psychology influence my therapeutic repertoire. Ultimately, I believe that psychotherapy in itself is an art form at the end of the day and is not a one trick pony phenomenon. Different individuals have different needs as one size does not fit all. Having said that, I have found, in keeping with current understandings of the body-mind, that for most clients, the first place to begin is by engaging the physiology of our bodies so as to facilitate the unleashing of the power of the unconscious. Working with the body is a powerful phenomenon that facilities the client in their own healing process. Ultimately, when clients can begin to feel their bodies more they get more insight into their histories and experiences and in turn improve their cognitive, behavioural and relational outcomes.
Online Psychotherapy, Counselling, Mental Health Treatment, Dialectical and Cognitive behaviour therapy in Mumbai, India
Contact Online Counselling, Psychotherapy, Jytoisa & Relationship Astrology in Mumbai, India
Workshop on Understanding Āyurvedic Constitution, Mindfulness and Stress Management in Mumbai, India
Understanding Your Āyurvedic Constitution
By understanding your Āyurvedic constitution, you are learning how to manage the subtle bio-energies that comprise your body-mind and consciousness. As one develops an awareness of the elemental structure of oneself, one simultaneously becomes skilled at balancing one’s health, vitality and immunity. Moreover, ensuring the prevention of lifestyle-related illnesses, accelerated ageing and chronic stress. This workshop teaches participants how to identify their Āyurvedic constitution, learn about their innate tendencies towards imbalance and create holistic self-care regimes for optimally maintaining themselves in a stressful and polluted world. Ultimately leaving clients with a clear sense of their bioenergetic processes and how to harmonize them.
Conscious Eating
Our gut is our second brain and our digestive health affects our mental health as much as emotions affect our metabolic processes. In today’s pressured world, we are eating unconsciously, as eating has become a life activity fraught with one’s emotional states and stress levels. Obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease stem from unhealthy eating habits. By learning how to eat consciously from an Ayurvedic standpoint, participants will appreciate the relationship between their well-being and food. Participants will be guided to observe how their cravings for a particular taste such as sweet or salty reflect the state of their bio energies and being-in-the-world. Further, the nuanced relationship to hunger and the many different kinds of hunger one experiences will be highlighted. Emphasis will be placed on the practice of mindful eating skills and becoming aware of mindless eating to ensure better digestive, immune and mental health.
Mindfulness and Stress Management
Mindfulness is the antidote to the stress response. Mindfulness is an ancient meditative technique and can be understood as the art of being nonjudgmentally present. Practised regularly, mindfulness can alleviate stress levels, blood pressure, improve sleep, moods, memory, concentration and sharpen one’s cognitive processes. In this workshop, we will learn how to work with and deactivate the stress response through mindfulness. Using the breath and body as tools of self-awareness, we will learn what stress is, how to identify and work with the stress responses in our body-mind. Instruction and exercises will integrate contemporary understandings of the body, mind emotions and evolutionary theory. Participants will leave the workshop with mindfulness practices that can be done anywhere and anytime.
Balancing your Chakras
Chakras are vortices of bio-energies that affect us on multiple levels and their imbalances can be felt in our emotions, instincts, desires, illnesses, habits, behaviours, cognitions, social interactions and relationships. When our chakras are out of balance, we experience disturbing feelings and feel dissatisfied with dominant areas of our lives like work, health, finances and relationships. To ensure that one remains happy, present and relaxed, it is important to know how one cycles and expends energy in the world through one’s chakras. By integrating ancient Yogic and Tantric understandings of the chakras with contemporary psychotherapeutic insights, this workshop guides participants to balance their chakras. Participants will hone their self-awareness about what is distressing them subconsciously and consciously and be empowered to practically initiate changes in these areas.
Online Jyotisa & Vedic Astrology in Mumbai, India
Jyotiṣa or Vedic Astrology is the study of 'Jyoti,' which, means light in Sanskrit. Jyotiṣa, then, is a quest to understand how the light of the sun, moon and stars illuminate the self through the lifespan.
Light illuminates us and is simultaneously obscured from us at the time and place of our birth. The celestial light on our nativity has a profound bearing on us throughout our lifetime and informs the attitudes we will take in our life to wealth, desire, ethics and spirituality. The positions of the celestial luminaries in the sky at the moment of birth influence our body, mind, health, intelligence, relationships, family, finances, career choices and religious preferences. As such, “we are born at a given moment in a given place and like the vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born” (Jung).
Jyotiṣa kindles our self- awareness to our subconscious patterns and the archetypes we are embodying and offers us remedial measures to balance the bhūtas within us to ensure we face the mysteries of our lives with harmony. As an esoteric science, Jyotiṣa has traditionally always concomitantly been practised with Āyurveda to restore the balance of the bhūtas that inform the well-being of the mind, body, senses and consciousness.
Jyotiṣa readings
I draw on Jyotiṣa as a powerful tool to support the atma jñāna or self-knowledge of my clients. Jyotiṣa is an essential adjunct to the psyche-therapeutic process as it illuminates subliminal tendencies clients have but are not aware of. Moreover, in keeping with tradition, Jyotiṣa is an indisputable source of diagnosis to any Āyurvedic treatment.
I do not use Jyotiṣa as predictive, hoary or electional astrology, instead, I elaborate and emphasize the archetypal foundations of my clients psyches’ making them aware of the unconscious habitual predispositions that inform them and how planetary movements affect them personally. In essence, a Jyotiṣa reading is an unraveling of the subconscious mind as the astrological chart is map of the psyche and the way it works.
Ayurvedic Therapy, Diet and Treatment for Women’s Menstrual and Menopausal Health
Āyurveda is an ancient form of mind-body-spirit healing that originated from South Asia. 'Āyur' means life and 'Veda' is knowledge.
Āyurveda is the knowledge for the maintenance of life. Āyurveda integrates the individual and the cosmos in its definition of well-being and holds an alchemical understanding of the body-mind as it is constituted by the five elements or bhūtas.
Āyurveda is for anyone who is interested in self-care and wishes to empower themselves with the alchemy of preventative and behavioural medicine. It is a form of medicine that counteracts the body from pre-maturely decaying, ageing, falling victim to diseases and propels one towards a state of svastha (i.e. to be established in oneself mentally, physical, emotionally and spiritually).
Chikitsa
Āyurvedic therapy or chikitsa is intensely personalised and recognizes that no two people are alike as each individual has his or her unique bio-energetic signature.
The body-mind is understood as a bioenergetic system with tangible and intangible layers whose health is premised on the vitality of the digestive fire or agni . The myriad layers of the self get out of balance and are disrupted by stress, bad lifestyle, industrialised diets, negative thought patterns, travel, harmful radiations and environmental pollution (in short, by almost everything that underlies the digital times we inhabit).
The focus in Āyurveda is to holistically heal the body from the core to the periphery, from our digestive processes to every other part of our being. Thousands of years ago, Āyurvedic wisdom recognized that the health of our gut lining is vital for our mental and overall health. Mental health and digestive health go hand in hand and conversely, our psychological imbalances are mirrored in our digestion. By taking care of our microbiomes, we simultaneously nurture better digestive health and calmer nervous systems.
Online Psychotherapy, Psychiatrists, Psychologist, Psychotherapist in Mumbai, India
Known conventionally as psychotherapy, I like to refer to my practice as psyche-therapy as a way to de-pathologise our need to manage mental health.
Psyche is an ancient Greek word translated as mind, soul, spirit, prana, chi or consciousness. Psyche is what animates us and breathes life into us and helps us make sense of the surrounding world. Conversely, the psyche is also what can trouble and disturb us.
Psyche-therapy, then is a therapy that soothes the distress of the mind, body, senses and consciousness and equips an individual to skilfully navigate their internal landscape and external world of social relationships and professional responsibilities. By confronting one’s inner malaises, intruding memories, disturbing emotions and traumas, one moves beyond a state of being plagued to that of harmony. Working with the psyche is an alchemical process where one transforms the dark lead of one’s pain to the wisdom of illuminated awareness symbolised by the philosopher’s stone.
The psyche-therapeutic process
My practise blends eastern wisdom traditions, such as Yoga, Āyurveda and Jyotiṣa with my repertoire of western psychotherapeutic approaches such as Hakomi, Somatic Experiencing, Integral Somatic Psychology, Existential Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.
I believe that without the balance of the bhūtas of the body-mind, an individual cannot reach their optimum well-being. Psyche- therapy integrates personalised nutrition, lifestyle, movement and contemplative practices in therapy for the individual to catalyse a holistic healing process.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Online Psychotherapy, Jyotisa, Vedic Astrology and Mental Health Treatment in Mumbai, India
Sonera Jhaveri PhD is a holistic psyche-therapist trained in San Francisco, California
Her interest in human subjectivity developed at the University of London where she completed her undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees in anthropology. Thereafter, she completed her masters in Integral Counselling Psychology and her doctorate in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her dissertation was titled “Unconscious Ecological Alienation and its impact on the Psyche-Soma,” and the research was conducted between 2011 and 2012 in Mumbai.
Since 2014, Sonera has been actively pursuing the Vedic healing arts. She is a Yoga Alliance Certified Yoga teacher since 2017 and since 2018 has earned the titles of “Jyotiṣa Snatak” from the Komilla Academy of Vedic Studies, California and “Āyurvedic Practitioner” from the European Institute of Vedic studies, Switzerland. More recently, she became certified as an Āyurvedic Health Counselor in 2020 and has studied at Vaidyagrama. Sonera, till date, continues her pursuit of Jyotiṣa and Āyurveda and is also currently, embarking on learning Vastu Shastra. Her study of Jyotiṣa today is under the tutelages of Shri Komilla Sutton and Shri Pandit Sanjay Rath, under whom she is studying the foundational text of Brhat Para Hora Shastra and under Dr Andrew Foss who is supervising her study of the Jaimini Upadesa Sutras.
Sonera’s practice emphasizes the unity of the body, mind and consciousness. She specialises in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Existential and Somatic psychotherapy. She is trained in several body-oriented modalities such as Hakomi, Bodynamic therapy, Somatic Experiencing and Integral Somatic Psychology. Sonera integrates her therapeutic approach with Yoga, Jyotiṣa and Āyurveda to give clients a more nuanced map of their subtle bioenergetic structures. Her therapeutic approach weaves in diet and lifestyle guidelines and combines east and west, body and mind, digestive health and mental health. Sonera engages clients on how to unravel blocks to their personal growth and enhance their wellbeing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. She works with individuals and couples and also facilitates therapeutic groups. Sonera has conducted workshops and trainings for corporations, private organisations and institutes. She lives between Mumbai and Copenhagen and undertakes online, telephone and in-person sessions. Sonera is a consultant psychologist at the Nanavati Hospital, a Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society and is a Counselling Affiliate to CiC- EAP, UK.
Online Pyschotherapy, Relationship & Depression Counselling in Mumbai, India
Tuesday 1 December 2020
Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Low Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Often we think that relationships, especially, personal, intimate and romantic one’s, would nurture and nourish us and in turn boost our self-confidence. However, sometimes, this is not the case, if we have inadvertently spiraled off into a destructive or passionless or simply dead and boring relationship quagmire. What drives one to persist in (and with) a painful and unsatisfying set of circumstances, in what was once a romantic relationship that was supposed to give you pleasure and joy? As when we get into a relationship, we are generally not signing up for prolonged physical, emotional and sexual neglect or abuse.
What then could be the motivation to subject oneself to the agony of continuing to be willfully involved with a violent alcoholic or a sex addict or an emotionally unavailable workaholic who just does not have time for you? In other words, what is that kernel within ourselves that enables us to remain, consciously and unconsciously, in self-damaging situations with a dysfunctional partner while staying frozen in a maladaptive relational pattern?
How we embody low self-esteem
On some level, the reason why we choose to persist, and I would reiterate the choice in the matter, is perhaps, on some deep level we believe that we deserve no better, having a low opinion of ourselves and our capacities to be an independent and likable individual. These kinds of negative assumption of ourselves tantamount to a subliminal form of self-hatred. Latently or even manifestly, the voice of one’s inner critic, ensures that we remain embroiled in emotional anguish ad nauseum, while we continue to live our lives as gluttons for punishment as we feel that we deserve to be slapped, cheated on or mistreated because we might be ugly, fat, old, stupid, unattractive, unintelligent etc.
We make excuses about why we cannot leave a painful and harmful dynamic which is anything but romantic because we have a fear of being alone, that we are financially dependent, that we have children with the person who abuses us or that we nurse a fantasy that our partner will change. However, over a period of time, these assumptions show themselves as examples of self-defeating delusions and fears that undermine ourselves. Bluntly put, the foundational core for these emotionally unintelligent assumptions is low or very low self esteem that sabotages us from living a better life and fashions a self-fulfilling prophesy of victimhood. Low self esteem is a requirement to tolerate unpleasant relationships because in some sense one is habituated to being treated badly and may at other times actually be a license for one’s partner to treat one shabbily.
Reasons why we develop low self esteem
Perhaps we grew up with an absent or an emotionally unavailable parent or experienced damaging developmental trauma that destabilized our sense of self or we were simply bullied at school. Admittedly, there might have been pain in our lives but to blame ourselves for bad things that happened to us or to wallow in them indefinitely and play the victim is self-destructive. Often the roots of low self- esteem lie deep in a wounded child within us who feels “not good enough.” As children we feel accepted only to the extent we feel unconditionally loved and supported by our parents. If we felt conditionally accepted or constantly criticized by our caregivers we started believing that we were not adequate and begin to develop an inadequate sense of self.
The persecuted child grows up into a battered adult who stays paralyzed in the face of abuse, retarding her sense of agency or self-efficacy, which is the ability to take control and transform one’s life. The crux of the low self esteem issue is that when we let ourselves remain in a situation that harms and destroys our last remaining shreds of our self, health and well being, it reflects a great deal about how we feel about ourselves and about how we let ourselves be received in the world by others.
Psychophysiological Consequences of Low Self Esteem
Over a period of time, continued low self esteem and sense of victimhood will grind us down both psychologically and physiologically pre-disposing one to suffer from clinical depression, high anxiety, and stress. Chronic low self-esteem may lead onto more severe mood disorders ensuring that one has very low life satisfaction.
Since the mind and body are intimately connected from a psychobiological perspective, prolonged relational stress will wear down our immune system, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system, neuroendocrinological system and set us up for potentially harboring carcinogenic cells or auto-immune reactions. Apart from taking serious tolls on our mental and physical health, low self-esteem prevents us from living the life we would want which is a happy well-adjusted life with a partner who loves and cherishes us.
How to work with Low Self-Esteem
If you identify yourself as having low self-esteem, which in turn keeps you, locked in an unhappy romantic situation start doing something about it immediately! It is good to begin to create scenarios and experiences that give you a sense of self worth. Below is a list of activities that help bring up one’s self esteem
1) Cultivate an attitude of self acceptance and self care
2) Take some space and time away from your partner
3) Create independent activities with your friends or start socializing sometimes separately from your partner
4) Make new concrete life style shifts in your life – – e.g. start exercising, loose weight; become healthy; get a job
5) Create a new self image by changing your hairstyle and fashion sense
6) Develop your hobbies
7) Practice yoga and meditation
8) Travel alone or take a holiday with friends
9) Create new social outlets such as joining a book club or a NGO or even a dance class
All the above suggestions are to allow and curate a sense of self- confidence and enjoyment where you feel good about yourself and validated and appreciated by other people. However, despite trying all the above suggestions, you do not feel better because of overpowering feelings of helplessness, it is beneficial to speak with a qualified therapist or mental health professional about how you can either emancipate yourself from the relationship or shift your emotional reactions in or to the relationship.
Since low self-esteem is in fact a psychological problem to deconstruct low self esteem one needs to pursue psychotherapeutic interventions that create cognitive and behavioral shifts. By doing psychological work one can trace and ultimately dis-identify with the wounded inner child and discipline the inner critic within one’s thought processes. Where one learns to replace negative thoughts with more self-affirming ones, and where one learns to create boundaries against abuse as a form of self-care.
I, personally, feel a combination of psychotherapeutic work with self-awareness practices works best with my clients with low self-esteem. By supporting them in their mindfulness practice and psychodynamically engaging and challenging their unconscious core beliefs and assumptions about themselves, clients are able to eventually dis-identify with their negative assessments of themselves. Conversely, they generate more self-acceptance and self-compassion for themselves and in turn translate this into wholesome actions in their lives and relationships.
Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Low Self Esteem in Romantic Relationships
Often we think that relationships, especially, personal, intimate and romantic one’s, would nurture and nourish us and in turn boost our self-confidence. However, sometimes, this is not the case, if we have inadvertently spiraled off into a destructive or passionless or simply dead and boring relationship quagmire. What drives one to persist in (and with) a painful and unsatisfying set of circumstances, in what was once a romantic relationship that was supposed to give you pleasure and joy? As when we get into a relationship, we are generally not signing up for prolonged physical, emotional and sexual neglect or abuse.
What then could be the motivation to subject oneself to the agony of continuing to be willfully involved with a violent alcoholic or a sex addict or an emotionally unavailable workaholic who just does not have time for you? In other words, what is that kernel within ourselves that enables us to remain, consciously and unconsciously, in self-damaging situations with a dysfunctional partner while staying frozen in a maladaptive relational pattern?
How we embody low self-esteem
On some level, the reason why we choose to persist, and I would reiterate the choice in the matter, is perhaps, on some deep level we believe that we deserve no better, having a low opinion of ourselves and our capacities to be an independent and likable individual. These kinds of negative assumption of ourselves tantamount to a subliminal form of self-hatred. Latently or even manifestly, the voice of one’s inner critic, ensures that we remain embroiled in emotional anguish ad nauseum, while we continue to live our lives as gluttons for punishment as we feel that we deserve to be slapped, cheated on or mistreated because we might be ugly, fat, old, stupid, unattractive, unintelligent etc.
We make excuses about why we cannot leave a painful and harmful dynamic which is anything but romantic because we have a fear of being alone, that we are financially dependent, that we have children with the person who abuses us or that we nurse a fantasy that our partner will change. However, over a period of time, these assumptions show themselves as examples of self-defeating delusions and fears that undermine ourselves. Bluntly put, the foundational core for these emotionally unintelligent assumptions is low or very low self esteem that sabotages us from living a better life and fashions a self-fulfilling prophesy of victimhood. Low self esteem is a requirement to tolerate unpleasant relationships because in some sense one is habituated to being treated badly and may at other times actually be a license for one’s partner to treat one shabbily.
Reasons why we develop low self esteem
Perhaps we grew up with an absent or an emotionally unavailable parent or experienced damaging developmental trauma that destabilized our sense of self or we were simply bullied at school. Admittedly, there might have been pain in our lives but to blame ourselves for bad things that happened to us or to wallow in them indefinitely and play the victim is self-destructive. Often the roots of low self- esteem lie deep in a wounded child within us who feels “not good enough.” As children we feel accepted only to the extent we feel unconditionally loved and supported by our parents. If we felt conditionally accepted or constantly criticized by our caregivers we started believing that we were not adequate and begin to develop an inadequate sense of self.
The persecuted child grows up into a battered adult who stays paralyzed in the face of abuse, retarding her sense of agency or self-efficacy, which is the ability to take control and transform one’s life. The crux of the low self esteem issue is that when we let ourselves remain in a situation that harms and destroys our last remaining shreds of our self, health and well being, it reflects a great deal about how we feel about ourselves and about how we let ourselves be received in the world by others.
Psychophysiological Consequences of Low Self Esteem
Over a period of time, continued low self esteem and sense of victimhood will grind us down both psychologically and physiologically pre-disposing one to suffer from clinical depression, high anxiety, and stress. Chronic low self-esteem may lead onto more severe mood disorders ensuring that one has very low life satisfaction.
Since the mind and body are intimately connected from a psychobiological perspective, prolonged relational stress will wear down our immune system, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system, neuroendocrinological system and set us up for potentially harboring carcinogenic cells or auto-immune reactions. Apart from taking serious tolls on our mental and physical health, low self-esteem prevents us from living the life we would want which is a happy well-adjusted life with a partner who loves and cherishes us.
How to work with Low Self-Esteem
If you identify yourself as having low self-esteem, which in turn keeps you, locked in an unhappy romantic situation start doing something about it immediately! It is good to begin to create scenarios and experiences that give you a sense of self worth. Below is a list of activities that help bring up one’s self esteem
1) Cultivate an attitude of self acceptance and self care
2) Take some space and time away from your partner
3) Create independent activities with your friends or start socializing sometimes separately from your partner
4) Make new concrete life style shifts in your life – – e.g. start exercising, loose weight; become healthy; get a job
5) Create a new self image by changing your hairstyle and fashion sense
6) Develop your hobbies
7) Practice yoga and meditation
8) Travel alone or take a holiday with friends
9) Create new social outlets such as joining a book club or a NGO or even a dance class
All the above suggestions are to allow and curate a sense of self- confidence and enjoyment where you feel good about yourself and validated and appreciated by other people. However, despite trying all the above suggestions, you do not feel better because of overpowering feelings of helplessness, it is beneficial to speak with a qualified therapist or mental health professional about how you can either emancipate yourself from the relationship or shift your emotional reactions in or to the relationship.
Since low self-esteem is in fact a psychological problem to deconstruct low self esteem one needs to pursue psychotherapeutic interventions that create cognitive and behavioral shifts. By doing psychological work one can trace and ultimately dis-identify with the wounded inner child and discipline the inner critic within one’s thought processes. Where one learns to replace negative thoughts with more self-affirming ones, and where one learns to create boundaries against abuse as a form of self-care.
I, personally, feel a combination of psychotherapeutic work with self-awareness practices works best with my clients with low self-esteem. By supporting them in their mindfulness practice and psychodynamically engaging and challenging their unconscious core beliefs and assumptions about themselves, clients are able to eventually dis-identify with their negative assessments of themselves. Conversely, they generate more self-acceptance and self-compassion for themselves and in turn translate this into wholesome actions in their lives and relationships.
Understanding the Dangers of Depression
Depression
Understanding the Dangers of Depression
Our lives are colored by numerous textures of feeling ranging from deep joy to being down in the dumps with many shades of grey in between. It is but natural to feel sad at the death of a loved one, or to be melancholic to be leaving a familiar place or to be upset when we have disagreements with people or get laid off from work.
In fact, there are many instances in life where we feel the blues and this is but natural. However, what is not psychologically healthy is to remain in a perpetual state of dysphoria, which could be described as a “profound state of dis-ease, unhappiness and dissatisfaction,” day in and day out.
According to the DSM V, the following symptoms would help you identify Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia) in yourself or a loved one:
Depressed mood for most of the day, for more days than not, as indicated by either subjective or observation by others
Poor appetite or overeating
Insomnia or hypersomnia
Low energy or fatigue
Low self esteem
Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
Feelings of hopelessness
If a person embodies having a “depressed mood for most of the day” day after day with two or more other symptoms one can be said to be clinically depressed. Being clinically depressed, in turn, will have negative consequences on one’s health, well being, relationships, work, productivity and bring down the overall quality of one’s life. Research has shown, that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been found in the blood stream of people who identified being depressed, this in turn reduces immune function and makes any pre-existing medical disorder worse or may perhaps even create new ones. What we can gauge from this is that depressed people are more likely to be easily stressed and in turn, people who have a low threshold to stress are more susceptible to becoming depressed.
If an individual is in an intimate relationship or has small children their having depression would impact their loved one’s in very harmful ways. There is a progressive diminishing of real interpersonal contact and closeness since the depressed person is no longer present to anything other than overwhelming feelings of sadness. Spouses of depressed individuals report very low relationship satisfaction as depressions gnaws away at the fabric of intimacy where emotional connection, sexuality and simply having fun together is greatly reduced or becomes non-existent. Studies have also shown that children of depressed people have a higher risk of being depressed themselves, as well as having a vulnerability to addictions and exhibit behavioral disorders.
It is extremely harmful to the self and to one’s loved ones to ignore constant negative ruminations and feelings about one’s life, as they could transition from being pathological to fatal, where individuals driven by disturbing thoughts and emotions could end up taking their life. Another alarming point regarding depression is that it has a propensity to recur once a person has suffered from it before. Depression, in essence, is a thinking dis-ease, which is premised on habitual negative thinking, perceiving and evaluating one’s self and the world. This tendency to think pessimistically, in turn, creates neural pathways in the brain, literally grooves in our psyche, which get easily activated when certain triggers are present. Over a period of time, even small mundane disappointments may set off disproportionate feelings of anguish and hopelessness.
Although, ironically, depression is extremely common, with 20 percent of the population suffering from it at any given time; literally, one in every five people experiences depression, it remains, unfortunately, ignored, undetected and untreated. While awareness is increasing regarding the importance of mental health globally, in India, historically and perhaps even to some extent today, psychological issues have been ignorantly stigmatized. Individuals are made to feel ashamed of themselves for having life traumas and upheavals and are marginalized for seeking help. Contemporarily, this is a very unfortunate set of circumstances, as historically in ancient India, dukkha was greatly acknowledged by all philosophical traditions as a profound existential state. Especially, highlighted by the ultimate healer and therapist, Gautama Buddha, who stated that “Life is Suffering.”
If you or anyone close to you is depressed it is extremely important that you seek professional psychotherapeutic attention. While exercise, yoga, mantra, meditation and good nutrition are useful adjuncts and supports, they do not go the whole way in dispelling depression, which is a deep rooted psychological pattern. What the depressed person really needs is a facilitation to cognitively and behaviourally re-frame and dis-identify with negative thoughts and to develop the ability to tolerate distress and work through disturbing affects felt in the body. Depression does not automatically alleviate itself or diminish with family support nor disappear with self-affirmations to be happy, it needs to be confronted and worked through psychosomatically.
Working with Depression in the Body
Working with Depression in the Body
Part of being human is to experience difficult emotions such as sadness, depression, anxiety, frustration, disappointment etc. Yet these emotions do not make us feel “good” and so we have an unconscious tendency of not wanting to feel whatever we are feeling. We might brace, not breathe deeply and develop ways and means to numb ourselves and not feel. Commonly, this is what births addictions that range from food, alcohol, drugs, TV watching to excessive exercise, shopping, sex, and over working to name a few. However, these methods, at best, provide short-term relief, and at worst, create other issues for us, while lodging the disquieting feeling deeper into our psyche-soma, allowing it to eat away at our soul.
These obsessive self-numbing activities are called in psychological terms, “defenses.” In some cases, we are even lauded for being defended against our true experience, especially, if we wear the mask of productivity as a “workaholic” or have a great body because we are a “fitness freak.” Yet beneath that veneer, we chronically don’t feel so relaxed and much to our chagrin, nobody realizes our underlying state or empathizes with us.
Most mainstream psychological treatments for depression involve talk therapy, like psychoanalysis, which is known as the speaking cure or laced with some cognitive and behavioral interventions like CBT. While talk therapy, definitely has its relevance, sometimes, it maybe more palliative then corrective. The emotions will arise again and again and don’t really leave our system, unless they are fully felt, digested and processed through. Somatic therapy is a novel way to work towards a more permanent release of distressing emotions by increasing our capacity to really feel and tolerate troubled emotions in the body. In somatic therapy the understanding of what an emotion is expanded to psycho-motor holding patterns, like a permanent ache in the heart at the loss of a loved one or a knot in the throat due to not following one’s true calling, indicating a profound sadness that needs to be alleviated through the very physiology of the person.
These trying emotions are akin to muscular knots that need to be released. We are aware of the discomfort when we have a muscular knot in the neck; we often massage and stretch that part of the body to release the knot. Similarly, emotions metaphorically get knotted up and stuck in the body in half digested ways and need to be energetically discharged. Working with a somatic therapist allows one to truly embody, endure and expel difficult emotions in a self-regulating capacity. As the only way out of a distressing emotion is literally through it.
Psychotherapy and Counselling
Psychotherapy and Counselling
I am often asked about the difference between psychotherapy and counselling. While these words are used interchangeably, there is a difference between them and it is vital to be cognizant of the distinction. Counselling generally implies a short term, very specific and targeted facilitation. There are many types of counsellors and varied topic-centred types of counselling, such as marital counselling, drug and alcohol counselling, career counselling, health counselling etc. The list can go on . . what is important to know is that counselling designates facilitation around very narrow criteria’s restricted to the theme the counselling is pivoted around.
So a marital counsellor will focus primarily on marital issues and will have restricted therapeutic skills in other areas of mental health, such as trauma work, attachment issues or chronic pain. Tangential issues that could come up in the context of marriage, that go beyond the nominal marital issues, are out of the scope of the counsellor and counselling. For instance, if there are sexual problems in a relationship, due to one of the partners being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, it would be hard for a counsellor alone to tackle such a case since childhood sexual abuse elicits deep trauma work. Counsellors are restricted to mostly working on the communication styles of the partners and regulating the behaviours of each member of the couple in the context of the marriage.
Psychotherapy or rather integral psychotherapy is a more expansive and holistic method of therapeutic work which integrates a vast panoply of areas from developmental, social, spatial, temporal, existential, behavioural and transpersonal vectors as they inform the subjectivity of the client. Here childhood misattunements with primary givers are given importance, as well as a range of other factors, some of which could be medical conditions, cultural conditionings, learning disabilities, traumas, stress reactions, dreams, fantasies, anxieties, memories, relational patterns, addictions, depression, tics, phobias etc. that impact the individual. A psychotherapist is trained in one or more modalities that are oriented towards harmonising psyche and soma like integral somatic psychology, psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, dialectical behaviour therapy, somatic experiencing, Hakomi to name a few.
Like there are many different kinds of counselling, there are many divergent types of psychotherapies. It is good to inform oneself about the many kinds of psychotherapies available and then to choose what is most appropriate for oneself. If you are someone who is very into the imagination and has vivid dreams a Jungian analyst might be the right match, if you are oriented towards uncovering unconscious psychological roots of childhood experiences you might want a Freudian or a Kleinian, if you want group work a Bionian, for psychospiritual work a transpersonal psychotherapist, for somatic work a somatic therapist and so on . . .
It is best to know well your own sui generis therapeutic needs and then to find a psychotherapist or counsellor that will be able to work within your ambit and with your very specific, tailor-made therapeutic goals.
Drives, archetypes and sub personalities
Drives, archetypes and sub personalities
As human beings seeking a therapeutic process we often believe that our cognitions and behaviours or the way we think and act in the world is what has been causing us disquiet. However, this is only part of the story – we are, unbeknownst, to us, informed by subtler subconscious processes that colour how we feel, interact and take in the world. In other words, the way we think and act is influenced by unconscious processes or habits that we are not really aware of. These processes govern us and run us and through the practise of these unreflective habitual behaviours we constantly hit dead ends we seek psychotherapy.
These unconscious processes can be said to be linked to energies that are felt in our bodies. Freudians refer to them as drives, Jungians as archetypes while those following Assagioli referred to them as subpersonalites. They can all loosely be understood as forces within us that organise our sense of self, other, time and space and mould our personalities, predisposing us to think, feel, behave and sense in particular ways. Often, these drives disrupt the peace in our minds and we are seeking external objects or experiences to gratify us,
Managing Intense Emotions with DBT
Managing Intense Emotions with DBT
Sometimes life feels very difficult, almost unbearable and we are left desolate and helpless. Dealing with the intensity of one’s emotions can be challenging and this might lead one to take extreme measures by over consuming alcohol and drugs, having a lot of sex, self harming, having suicidal ideation and loosing our boundaries with other people, to the point of one’s own self destruction. In such instances, we cannot handle the sensations and feeling that are coursing though the bodymind and we don’t want to feel them. Our nervous system is fraught with arousal and we do not have the necessary psychological skills to self soothe and self regulate. We attempt to drown out or change the feelings we experience be it anger, jealousy, sadness or frustration, often with very unproductive and temporary methods. Yet, while tragically these coping strategies bring us limited relief, the underlying problem continues to be with us, haunting us and goading us to continue in our self destruction.
Often cases of trauma constrain an individual’s ability to tolerate distress and the DSM V psychological disorders known as Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar disorder and other Mood disorders that show a constraint in managing grief or rage effectively have traumatic experiences underlying them. In such instances, it is extremely important to get the right psychotherapeutic support where the therapeutic work does not remain at the level of talk only. It is important to be able to tolerate emotions by feeling them in the body and being mindful of our experience where we can balance our emotions with our thoughts, our mind with our body, our internal world with the external world and ourselves in relation to others. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a therapeutic modality to work with intense emotions and low levels of affect tolerance to enhance mood management, prevent self harm and promote well being. DBT was founded by Marsha Linehan and is, at its a core, a set of self soothing and self regulating skills that help individuals gain their equilibrium in the most trying of circumstances. It is noninvasive and medication free, premised on refining an individual’s self awareness, reframing thought processes and birthing new wholesome behaviours.
DBT is a progression from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy where the contemplative side of the individual is engaged through integrating a mindfulness practice along with cognitive and behavioural therapeutic practices. In its essence, DBT consists of 4 dominant skills- distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. It teaches one to live in the present moment while moving through very disturbing and difficult emotional states. DBT primes individuals to draw on their higher minds and radically accept circumstances they cannot change while not feeling victimised by them. My clients who have persevered with DBT show remarkable progress in managing the stresses and contingencies of their life, it is not that they do not feel sad or angry or hurt anymore but they have the ability to make space for these emotions and utilise their energies in ways that are productive and beneficial as opposed to ways that are self destructive and malefic for themselves.
Refinning mental health
Refinning mental health
Mental Health today is a very expansive concept and there are a plethora of ways to work with the mind ranging from psychotherapy to mantra meditation to herbs to mindfulness ,pranayama and yoga to exercise to nutrition to hypnosis to entheogens to reiki to quantum healing to dance therapy to sound therapy etc etc etc…. the list goes on.
Its therefore no surprise if we get overwhelmed and fall into something called decision fatigue where we don’t know the best way forward for us. Also within the list above there are many nuances and sub types of all the methods listed….for instance in therapy we have somatic therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, psychoanalysis, Hakomi…under yoga we have power yoga, Ashtanga yoga, Iyengar yoga, the choices and types are ever growing . . .there are thousands of medicinal herbs and substances that are being marketed from açai berries to moringa powder as well as numerous schools and modalities of meditation from Vipasana to Kala chakra empowerments . . . . so what’s the best thing for us?
Often taking care of the Self requires a multifactorial, holistic approach which stimulates us on a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels. So one would need to work with oneself in a balanced and disciplined way that is intelligible to one’s own psychophysiological constitution. What I mean is the right type of exercise, the right type of meditation, right type of food, right amount of rest etc. for oneself . . Otherwise our efforts are counterproductive and we have limited results. As we say in Ayurveda that one can eat like a king, but digest like a beggar if one’s gut flora or digestive fire, known as Agni is not working properly. What is meant by this is that one can avail of the best groceries, trainers, yoga studios but if its the wrong type of practise for us in whatever field, we will not be able to contain it in our bodymind and will not receive the benefits from it. So if a very skinny person decided to do an intense cardiovascular work out then it would be extremely destructive for their nervous, endocrine and immune systems . . . similarly if someone who intellectualises and rationalises defensively undertook solely CBT they would not learn to recognise, feel and work with their emotions in the body. Hence it is extremely important to see what suits us . . . so this leads us to exploring our Prakriti or constitution. I now mandatorily conduct Prakriti analyses with my clients in order to complement their therapeutic process by giving them the sui generis nutritional, lifestyle and self care advise that is suited to them.
Somatic Psychotherapy in Mumbai, India
Somatic Psychotherapy
Therapeutic interventions for anxiety, depression, anger management, mood disorders and the whole gamut of DSM 5 disorders, in essence, should be multifaceted. Since the human being is a complex process, psychotherapy is enjoined upon a deep inquiry into our fight and flight responses, our childhood history, our subconscious minds, our lifestyles, our diets, our social relationships, our dreams, our movement patterns and our energy levels. In short, to work with anxiety and depression or any DSM 5 disorder effectively, the therapist should take a holistic approach that engages the subtle and gross aspects of the self. So where would one start in this jungle?
The body. The body is what holds the various strands of our life experience together. Working any psychological issue demands a deep delving into the mystery of the body. Since the body is the subconscious and storehouse of repressed memories, thoughts, emotions and experiences. The body is pregnant with implicit meaning. Life literally inscribes and imprints itself on our bodies through our posture, our gestures, the tone of our voice, the quality of our eye contact and the grip of our handshake.
The body is the temple of our consciousness, the ground of our experience and the barometer of our felt sense. We know ourselves and the world through our bodies. We experience pleasure and pain through our bodies. Since its inception, somatic psychotherapy has emphasised the import of the body mind connection. Today we are reaching even more subtler understandings of the interconnected nature of the psyche soma in the world of psychotherapy, where Cognitive Behaviour therapy and other talk therapies are acknowledged to not be as effective as body oriented modalities. Ground breaking discoveries in contemporary medical research regarding the enteric nervous system, the gut -brain connection, polyvagal theory and psychoneuroimmunology have underscored that we have more information coming from the body to the brain then from the brain to the body. Bearing this in mind, any psychotherapeutic modality that does not take the body into account is limited in its efficaciousness.
I teach all my clients how to settle, ground, feel and reconnect with their bodies and to bring psychological awareness to their muscles. Somatic awareness in combination with Dialectical Behaviour and Cognitive Behavioural techniques along with insights from Existential, Psychodynamic and Transpersonal psychology influence my therapeutic repertoire. Ultimately, I believe that psychotherapy in itself is an art form at the end of the day and is not a one trick pony phenomenon. Different individuals have different needs as one size does not fit all. Having said that, I have found, in keeping with current understandings of the body-mind, that for most clients, the first place to begin is by engaging the physiology of our bodies so as to facilitate the unleashing of the power of the unconscious. Working with the body is a powerful phenomenon that facilities the client in their own healing process. Ultimately, when clients can begin to feel their bodies more they get more insight into their histories and experiences and in turn improve their cognitive, behavioural and relational outcomes.
Understanding my Practice as Bhūta vidya
Understanding my Practice as Bhūta vidya
The blueprint of my psyche-therapeutic practice lies in my interest in the anthropology of consciousness. Initially, as a student of anthropology, I was very impressed with how pre-modern cultures and civilisations always looked at the meanderings of the stars to understand their destinies and observed the seasons of nature to heal their body-minds. Over time, the ancients came to delineate clear patterns in the sky and on the earth that spelled health and illness, fortune and misfortune.
Deeply impressed with the wisdom of the deep past, I can describe my practitioner’s journey from being a young intern at a methadone support clinic in Tenderloin, San Francisco to my present private practice in South Mumbai, as one of wanting to personally create a working therapeutic modality that integrated Western psychology with the Vedic arts of Jyotiṣa and Āyurveda.
I feel Jyotiṣa and Āyurveda have afforded me great depths to expand my psychotherapeutic tool kit to observe bio-energetic patterns: patterns in myself, in my clients, in nature, and in the world around me. Over time, I have come to appreciate that the patterns in a person’s life affect the bio-energetic configurations of their body, mind and consciousness.
The extent to which the patterns in an individual’s life synchronise with the rhythms of nature predicates the scope of their well-being. It has been my observation that for most of us living in an urban environment with trash, noise, overcrowding, and all kinds of pollution, we are most clearly out touch with the natural world and our deepest selves. We are in a subconscious state of eco-trauma, where we are dealing with the brutal pain of witnessing the assault on the biosphere.
Registering the world around us be potentially taken over by COVID-19, environmental degradation and socio-economic injustice imparts a sense of desolation. It might make one self-harm, overeat, overconsume, feel depressed, anxious, stressed, or angry, smoke, drink, take sleeping tablets, browse meaningless websites, flip from one social media platform to another, dissociate on gadgets and subliminally struggle with the latent existential insecurity of falling into the dark abyss of the void.
Whatever we are entertaining in our minds, the likelihood that we will continue to entertain that is very strong, unless we bring awareness to the energetics of what is arising in our body, mind and consciousness. Here, I feel learning Bhūta vidya could be a valuable tool to safeguard oneself from the perils of dis-ease, mentally, physically and spiritually.
Bhūta vidya, then, is about linking one’s personal story to the story of the cosmos by learning to understand oneself as a bioenergetic process that is also an "environmental interaction" (Gendlin). It’s about learning to know how one’s mental and digestive health are interrelated, as is one’s experience of time and space, psyche and spirit, day and night, pain and pleasure, nature and culture. Bhūta vidya is about cultivating an awareness of when we are out of balance and learning the tools to bring us back into harmony. What imbalances one, balances another, and there are no hard and fast rules here. It’s about knowing what’s right for you. Once you understand what idiosyncratically imbalances you, you learn what balances you—what herbs, what foods, what movements, what times, what thoughts, what feelings, what moon phases, what fragrances, what asanas, what pranayamas, what activities, what company, what seasons, what colours . . . and you learn to choose only that which balances you. In this way, life becomes a dance where we are constantly bringing ourselves back to balance when everything around us is trying to imbalance us.
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