You might have some clients who are particularly struggling with despair this winter and at a loss on how to continue coping with the pandemic.
So how can you help them rediscover some of their internal resources for getting through challenging times?
In the video below, Miguel Gallardo, PsyD shares specific questions to do just that.
Ashley Vigil-Otero, PsyD conducted this interview with Miguel, and she’s already applied several of the ideas from this video with her clients. We think you’ll find them useful, too. Have a listen.
Many of them are Latinx community members. Historically speaking, we have internalized that when things are not going well in the world, there’s a deficit in us. There’s a way that the world makes it feel like we lack something, that there’s something insufficient with us for not being able to respond better or in a more appropriate way to the situation. So, part of what I do with a lot of folks is I try to help contextualize and separate out what the reality is in which we live and exist. I feel like a lot of times, people are having healthy responses to unhealthy situations. And yet, they are made to feel like their responses are the things that are not okay and unhealthy.
Really differentiating these processes will be helpful to people to not carry the entire burden of what they might be experiencing/internalizing/separating out. What is theirs? What do they have control over? What can they do something with? What is everything else out there that we can’t control that’s unhealthy? That is not something that we should accept as ours, and yet when we try to find a rhythm somewhere in that, I think we move from despair to being okay.
I think we have to separate out and differentiate between feeling hopeless from feeling helpless. I think feeling hopeless given what we’re experiencing now can be a very normal experience, but how can I help transform the feelings of helplessness to help the person do something differently as they’re moving forward?
Then, thinking about it again from a liberatory perspective, it’s like, “How do we take care of each other during this time?” I think it’s really interesting because there’s been a lot of research. Some research talked about how historically marginalized communities in times of crisis are thriving in many ways. Many of the community members that I work with are struggling and heavily in survival mode, but they’re also resilient. We also are accustomed to enduring and moving through very difficult situations, and we have for generations. There’s also something inherent about who we are. For example, for Latinx community members, who are primarily the folks that I work with, there’s something inherent around our legacy of surviving and thriving in the midst of chaos and crisis. When I talk about decolonizing, it is also a part of reconnecting people with those historical ancestral values and processes that, in many ways, have been lost and forgotten.
I may not always talk about it as ancestral or historical, depending on the client, but what I may think about is their own historical family processes in history. Trying to really contextualize their circumstances and situations within their own immediate family members and culture about what that looks like. There may be traumas in there, and in spite of those traumas, the individual sits before me in the office at that moment in time. Whether they’ve experienced the trauma themselves or whether the trauma is intergenerational historical trauma that they’ve experienced through secondhand stories, they’re sitting before me, and their families have moved through and endured many of those challenges.
So, what is there to be learned and gained from understanding those processes? What is there to be learned and gained that the individual can use at this moment in time to provide them with a sense of patience and persistence? We are not necessarily accepting that this situation is okay, but accepting the situation for where we are and what it is. We’re thinking about what they can do to change the outcome of the situation in a way that’s more consistent with what they want their life to look like.
I also think a lot about exceptions. I look for the exceptions of circumstances, scenarios and situations. So, I may ask someone, “When’s the last time you felt a sense of despair, or hopelessness, or helplessness, and you were able to move through it? What did that look like? What was different about that situation? What can we learn from those moments in time to help build at this moment in time and move forward?”
I think what happens is, a lot of times people become so inundated with what’s right before them and start feeling so overwhelmed with the situation that they have a short-term memory. They forget about things that they have done before and some of the skills that they have as internal resources, et cetera, that they can use. So, sometimes it’s just a matter of really just revisiting and understanding how to continue to use those types of internal resources and skillsets to deal with the situation at hand.
Now we want to hear from you. What stood out to you? How might you apply one of the ideas Miguel shared with your client? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
You might also like to see:
A Reading of “Lockdown” with Peter Levine, PhD
When the COVID-19 Pandemic Leaves Us Feeling Helpless
Feeling Stuck During the Pandemic: Specific Questions to Help Your Clients
How to Help Clients Process Their Fears about World Events
The Same Pandemic, Vastly Different Experiences
Well framed Miguel in providing a guide for shifting perspective, utilizing the internal and generational, cultural resources. A lot is a short space of presentation.
All of this is so relevant and a rarely seen presentation of Miguel Gallardo on how to give support, empower and help clients to become resilient in a social, cultural and community context. Thank you NICABM
Shifting perspective and at least examining the possibility of “outside” influence and healthy response is affirming and powerful to me. Also, the comments below are as instructional as the clip. Thank you!
I like this description of the “feeling of being wrong” when in reality the attitude and perspective may be a healthy and balanced one to what is an unhealthy societal event or situation. That is to say one feels so “wrong” that even an accurate perspective and response to an unhealthy situation is seen as wrong. I like to incorporate educating my clients on “self-regulation” in terms of the neurobiology processes. The three layers of the brain functions- fight or flight/amygdala, emotion/limbic and thought/PFC. If we understand that trauma was created by bypassing the PFC we know that language and “reasoning” will not help something that was not created by “reason” but by a visceral reaction. It gets trapped and needs to be worked out viscerally through relaxation, powerful spiritual experiences, yoga, mindfulness and meditation.
A message that came through this video is the importance to help our clients reflect on times that they were able to move through hopelessness… to move through feelings of helplessness. Those reflections on how they got through difficult times in the past can be very empowering to face challenging situations and difficult emotions in the present. These reflections help the individual to connect with their inner strengths and resilience. We can’t change the past… however we can reflect and learn from the past and also embrace the strengths we have demonstrated to move through difficult and challenging times. Thank you!
I am humbled by helplessness which in turn can transform into hopefulness. A very beautiful teacher once said, “when you meet the enemy, shake it’s hand and make it your friend, how an it be the enemy then.” Our resilience as human being lies in our innate ability to survive. The difficulty is in the moment, it feels like glue and we can get stuck. Our answer lies in the stickiness, it feels messy, and in that moment when we are in touch with the messiness we are connected to our resilience.
Marginal communities surely are strong in surviving and thriving traumatic situations. We have seen this many times in our community outreach work.
Talking to them about their previous way of coping a traumatic situation helps build their patience and persistence. They start moving from hopeless mode to helpless mode and start finding ways to bounce back.
I especially liked his emphasis on the difference between hopelessness and helplessness. He also showed clearly how to lead the person away from helplessness by asking how they may have endured other trials to give them hope and remind them of the courage and strength they have shown in the past . Thank you very much
Very Narrative Therapy
Positive comments & suggestions by Miguel & Peter Levine as always. I’ve have found that dealing with my own trauma past, that cognitive therapy may help a little to give support, but does little to resolve the trauma experiences for obvious reasons, mostly brain orientation & little body orientation, where most of the trauma results reside. From my experiences, trauma creates tension & shallow breathing in the body to repress/suppress those negative feelings that overwhelm the body & mind, & effect the nervous system, gut, respiratory system, etc., & the reason why energy therapies, such as EFT are found to be effective, depending on the severity in the patient, & the competence of the therapist & patient (on their own) to apply the Tapping points. Last & maybe the most important, in my view, is that when trauma creates shallow breathing, it reduces the amount of oxygen & blood flow throughout the body & brain, & thereby limiting both to function in normal emotional & mental capabilities. I am hearing more lately about the importance of addressing the shallow breathing syndrome, which is easy to do, by consciously breathing deeply through the nose, expanding the lower stomach, & breathing out through the mouth. Do in the morning when first waking up, at night before going to sleep, & any other times during the day, especially if you are feeling tired, depressed, lonely, or any other negative emotion you are aware of. If you become aware of your shallow breathing when reading, talking with someone, or any other situation, it is obvious that your mind & body are not in sync with each other & lessens your functional ability, which happens probably to most of us to some degree.
Jim Lentz…thank you for your informative comment—it was very helpful.
I found differentiating hopelessness from helplessness and helping my patients review their hx of overcoming challenging experiences in the past as ways to identify additional resources they may use now very helpful. Thank you for sharing this piece.
Wendy Hinch, LCSW
Several things stood out for me as very useful. First, the concept of a normal response to an abnormal situation. Also, differentiating helplessness from hopelessness and identifying resources, both within and without, that may give the client a sense of more control.
Yes as a client in therapy with multiple therapists now (all for different aspects of past and current traumas), I too found so much validation on how to be approached for successful ways I dealt with betrayals from years ago and how I can look to those things I did then to help empower myself to overcome the most recent betrayal (& trauma).
What resonates with me the most and gave me SUCH HOPE is that so many friends and family, though trying to be helpful, are upset at my response now with the betrayal, causal trauma, and grief because “I’m not being strong enough to just get over it.” This has been RE-traumatizing in that I’d started to internalize their judgments (wrongly). Pulling away from everyone now because I’m actually responding in healthy ways now by recognizing horrendous betrayal systemic tactics (unhealthy situations) during an already isolating pandemic, no longer listening to those insensitive judgmental blames, I’m now making a concerted effort to speak only to my therapists. Who keep assuring me—No this actually was terrible and you are actually responding the RIGHT way this time by saying No More.
I’m isolated like never before (even run off my social medias now), but I’m finally reflecting on how I managed so well before: on my own before Facebook friends, before Insta, before social media. Strictly with therapists and ON MY OWN. And that is empowering in itself. When you finally realize maybe I don’t need anyone else, family or friends, anymore to understand (since they can’t) that I have triumphed before on my own, therefore I CAN and will DO IT AGAIN.
TY for this much-needed message.
The comments here are as good as the presentation, especially Sara Brown and Joelle Zeidan. We need to all expand beyond our conditioning and training. We need, each of us, to reclaim our own authority. We need to unite psychologists, counsellors, coaches–the best and to become better yet together. United is not a glib word. It must be UNITED in TRUTH and LOVE and ACTION. Bless this kindred tribe. Thanks RUTH.
Totally agree, especially with females who need to know their power in life and in their ability to create miracles. Feel there is also a growing stigma surfacing with agism. Glad you are all working to stay united for truth, kindness and justice. People on here can make a huge difference on the lives of so many. Glad for all your hope in the future plus the wonderful miracles you have aided in your healing profession.
Accepting it is what it is, not fighting it and enabling client to think back to their own skill sets and resources that they and their historical families used to survive during adversities.
Spoken like a true social worker, as part of our curriculum focuses on human rights and social justice and how lack of, impacts mental and physical health.
I would like to add to Dr. Gallardo’s excellent and too rare insight and practice, that to a lesser extent this applies to most of us.
And ironically, although these were 99% white people, many who belong to racist groups, Dr. Gallardo can apply some of his philosophy to why we just had an attempted coup d’etat.
For too long our politicians and corporate news have manipulated the public and has indoctrinated them to believing that up is down and down is up, and all that matters are your guns, prayer in school and abortion is evil.
Not enough people are connecting our politics (and culture at large), to the reason why the US is experiencing an obesity and drug epidemic. Not enough people are connecting environment (home and politics), to depression, anxiety and inability to thrive.
Our culture (through psychiatry and pharma), says, just take a pill, and instead of massive massive education about neuroplasticity, exercise, relaxation strategies, most still linger on the disease model- even for addiction.
If you are LGBQ, an upper class woman who was just denied a raise unless she sleeps with her employer, a 50 y/o white home health aide, or struggling artist that has to work 2-3 jobs to get by, you too struggle with deregulated surveillance and corporate capitalism, that is literally killing our country.
Our culture is a very sick one, both physically and mentally, America thrives on numerous different types of violence, be it the violence of prejudice or the violent video games and movies, the equating of guns with being patriotic, resulting in massive shootings not seen in any other industrialized country.
I am so thankful that we can find voices like Dr. Gallardo, Gabor Mate, Robert Youdin, Lance Doddes, VanDeKolk, Davidson to provide a more in depth analysis and treatment for what is ailing Americans.
Thank you for posting strengths-based perspectives that remind clinicians to tap into clients’ resiliency. I love working with clients to find the “exceptions”. They are often able to lift themselves out of despair right before my eyes with this one paradigm shift.
Just one thing: thank you also for these words:
“Healthy responses to unhealthy circumstances”…
Humans are unfortunately designed to function in the survival mode so therefore kind of “short-sighted”.That is why we see the immediate future threat but not the ones that are always in our present lives. Same applies for human sources that could be fenefited further if we care to look all of the tragedies that happened in the past but handled by “taking good care of each other and compassion and collaboration. We need a real”global solution” for a real “global problem”
Good idea to look at the past to predict the future regardless of time. Thanks.
Dr Levine‘s exercise to ease despair is very helpful and useful.
It’s very helpful to look to history of clients and this way also to resources and skills they have. Sometimes in this covid 19 lockdown everything was focused on the things they
can not do.
I particularly appreciated the idea of helping a client discriminate between hopelessness and helplessness, not taking in the difficulty of the situation as personal. Drawing on past experiences of resilience (personal but also from the history of their community as part of decolonization if it applies) also stood out for me.
the cross cultural aspects of therapy in practice. My immediate reaction; we need to hear more from therapists of color who can contribute. Thank you.