Psycho in Brief
One of the conditions I negotiated in the severance was the workplace health cover, because essentially I am in the midst of treatment and that would be difficult to rearrange on the fly. I am covered for the notice period anyway, but I was able to extend it a little further so I could see the psychologist a couple more times and, start brief psychotherapy in January. I have no idea whether it will help me in any way, but as you can imagine, I am interested in the experience of it, as behaviour is one of my key areas.
There are lots of little things that nudge us this way and that, and we might not even notice the changes. For instance, one of the things you may or may not have noticed in the last few days since I set up my computer again, is that my spelling has changed. Previously, I worked for a company with a lot of US colleagues, so even though I was dealing predominantly with the EMEA region, I spent a lot of time with the US also. Because of this, I changed my behaviour to behavior.
Such a small thing, right?
Well, yes and no. I have written in British English all of my life, so it came naturally to continue on that way. The reason I changed was because I had to share a lot of my content and because their spellchecks were in US English, my work would come up with a lot of red lines under it. Yes, they could work it out of course, but that wasn't the point, because when we see red, we automatically have a response to it - especially the people who are a bit longer in the tooth and remember getting hand-marked tests back from teachers.
Red means stop.
It also means wrong.
So, I made the conscious decision very early on to switch my grammar tools over to the US variations in order to reduce cognitive load on the audience. Such a little thing to do for me, but it probably had some effect on their experience, even if they didn't know it. One of the problems with risk mitigation that stops something from happening, is that the lack of it not happening doesn't make an impact.
We don't feel the close calls we never knew about.
This means that we also don't feel the times where things were easier for us than they could have been. For the most part, we only really remember the highlights, the lowlights, and the ends of experiences, and even then, we don't necessarily remember these well. This is also why so many people think that they are self-made, because all of the middling experiences that facilitated progress, just isn't recallable. Firstly, it didn't make a big enough impact on the memory to stick, and then, there is just so much of it that it is impossible to bring it all into the awareness at one time.
Did any in the US notice over the last years I write in US English?
I know that there are people in Europe and Australia who have asked occasionally over the years, because for them, my spelling is wrong, so it stand out, even without a wavy red line underneath it. However, with most spending time across multiple information sources these days, perhaps it doesn't make as much of a negative impact as it would have earlier, when I would write decentralization, or decentralisation.
The first looks wrong to me - but it is the way I have written it a lot.
Spelling is just an illustrative example of many aspects of life that make an impact on our feelings and behaviours, but largely go unnoticed, or are quickly forgotten. But, they do have an impact on us and perhaps because they don't touch our awareness, they might have quite profound impacts, because they influence without us having the chance to catch them and make a choice on what we will do. All of these nudges add up.
To what, I am not sure.
I don't really know what to expect from psychotherapy for me, but I am going to go in with as open a mind as I can manage these days, and see if there is something good that comes out of it. I haven't met the therapist yet, but when setting up the first appointment, I said that at least she will probably find my case interesting to deal with. A lot of attention is put on "neurodivergence" over the last few years and as a result a lot of people are self-diagnosing and even getting treatment based on what might actually be neurotypical brains, driven by their consumption habits. However, I guess that I am now in the divergent category, and have the brain scans to prove it.
Anyone here had psychotherapy?
Did it do anything?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I hope the therapy works out well for you. I think many of us would probably benefit from it if we could cast away the stigma. That being said, not every professional is a good fit for everyone. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, and that is okay. As long as you keep trying. I hope whoever you end up with is a good fit for your personality and is able to help you unlock some insights moving forward. At the very least, I hope they give you some good content for future posts!
The person was recommended by the psychologist I have been talking to for a while, so hopefully it is a good fit. It is a bit of a challenge for these things though, as they need to be able to speak English well also. One of the reasons I was unable to get speech therapy after the stroke, was because there was no one able to do it in English well enough (in their opinion) - perhaps I would have ended up with a Finnish accent! :D
Ah, that is good! I hope it works out well for you! Interesting about the speech therapy after your stroke. Makes sense now that you talk about it, but I never would have taken that into consideration.
Oh my gosh, learning American English and living in England now, imagine the fun I have talking English with strange American words in it.
Glad I am not the only one!
It definitely gets weird!
My daughter has a mix of English accents too - some words she has learned from an American friend of ours, and she throws the pronunciation in without a second though :)
Since I am disabled sometimes I have to spend about month in day hospital. One of activities where is group chats with psychologist. I don't really like talking with people but the silence where becomes awkward so at times I do say something. Mostly about art. Perhaps those talks do have some effect but to be honest I would rather spend that time creating something. I dislike going to the day hospital(mostly because it takes away about half a day) but that can't be avoided. At least there I learned making art from dots. So later I was able to make these pieces at home:
They are great! Do you still paint like that sometimes?
Thank you very much. So far I only did those two pieces. And this I made in the day hospital:
But I intend to play with dots more if(when?) I will become digital artist.
Not me, but my friend had it. He said there were strange looking people waiting in the line. When it came to his examination, doctor said look at the people in the line and you will see you are okay :)
:D
Yesterday, I mentioned to the psychologist a guy covered in face tattoos I saw walking past as I entered the building - he seems to have a life still :)
I have noticed that you don't use the work "whilst".
Psychotherapy can help, but the therapist has to be very good, and a good match for you. Otherwise, it's a waste of quite a bit of money. Just remember, your therapist is every bit as screwed up as you are, often even more so. If you have any doubts, get out and try someone else.
I would love to use whilst more!
Talking advantage of the work health on this :)
This has always been my position. Every optometrist wears glasses too.
In the US, psychotherapy is minimally covered. Most decent therapists don't even accept it. It's not unusual to pay more than $300 a session. For nothing. I was payimg that much at one time, and the guy just kept falling asleep in my sessions.
Don't get me started on optometry. Every time I get new glasses, my eyesight improves in one regard, but gets much worse overall.
I never had psychotherapy by myself, but only in a group context. I was in the beginning, when I was diagnosed with MS. The purpose of the group was to gather some information to a research program related with psychological "modifications" connected with demyelinating diseases, and I might say that placed a great perspective about myself. I've contacted with other patients who had much more marked physical limitations than I did at the time. I confess that I'm a little reluctant to seek psychological support, but I think I should have done so in a context of individual support.
Yeah, I hear you. I probably should have taken more time off after the stroke and then also spent more time working out what has changed in me and how to deal with it, before forcing myself into work again. Hindsight is useless though, isn't it? :)
Hindsight is important, not so much for the therapeutic approach, but to give context to your decision-making at the time. You thought and felt it was the right thing to do. Maybe you wouldn't have done it the same way today, but surely there's no-one who doesn't regret it or who doesn't think they'd change anything they've done to date. Best wishes, mate
I never had psychotherapy. As a child I had hypnotherapy and it seems to have helped with an issue I had at the time.
Interestingly I have not noticed the switch to British English :) I originally learned British English, but since I have been in America for 28 years American English is more natural for me.
Glad it helped.
Most in Finland learn Br English too, but because everything comes from the US, they often speak with an American accent. I am sure that for some time, I am going to write a mix of spellings :)
This is why I never use red to offer corrections on my students' work. I typically use green or purple, depending on the type of feedback I'm giving.
Of course mate! I knew you were Aussie, so assumed you learned British. But I was happy that you left off all the extra vowels. I think you had an article a while back where you touched on the difference between analog and analogue, as well as among and amongst. US wants no business with those extra letters, which dates back to being cheap (fucking capitalism) and wanting to make things easier with the old-school printing presses.
Welcome to the club! I've seen a few psychotherapists, but it never really did much for me because they were all preoccupied with me smoking less weed. None of them ever gave me a clear diagnosis either, because they would tell me that my daily weed use was making it too hard to distinguish my "medicated" state from my natural state. Clowns!