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Brief Therapy Part One: Therapy For The Mentally Well Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. www.brettsteenbarger.

com

It is commonly assumed that the role of the psychologist is to help people with their problems. Lodged in the backs of our minds is the image of the patient on the couch, talking with a reudian analyst. In reality, applied psychology has come a long way from its beginnings as a !talking cure!. Indeed, many of the newer approaches, which ha"e been e#tensi"ely studied and "alidated through research, do not emphasi$e talking at all. Nonetheless, old assumptions die hard. People assume that you need to ha"e !a problem! in order to see a psychologist. In fact, insurance companies will not reimburse "isits to psychologists and psychiatrists unless they are pro"ided with a !diagnosis! of the problems being !treated!. Little wonder that the stereotype persists that there%s something wrong with you if you need to see a !shrink!. The reality is that the good psychologist is not a shrink, but instead expands people's minds and horizons. &he goal is not to treat problems, but to make changes. Psychology is about making changes in life. Sometimes these are changes in relationships' other times, they are changes in the ways we think, feel, or act. &o benefit from psychology doesn%t re(uire that you ha"e a problem. It does re(uire a desire to make changes. ) group of methods known as brief therapies are e#tremely promising, because they accelerate the process of change. I refer to the brief therapies as therapies for the mentally

well. &here are indi"iduals who ha"e chronic mental health problems. &hey are not the ones for whom brief work is appropriate* lifelong, se"ere problems often re(uire ongoing assistance, including medication help. &he mentally well, howe"er, are not beset with such problems. &hey are simply interested in making changes. Sometimes those changes are simply to e#pand their strengths* to become e"en better at what they do. ) trader who made + million dollars last year,,and more the year before that,,recently insisted on meeting with me before New -ear%s Day to identify areas for impro"ement and set goals,,and a path for meeting those goals,,for +../. 0is goal was to enhance his performance, not rid himself of personal demons. &hat is an e#cellent use of therapy for the mentally well. So how do you know if you can benefit from such brief work1 0ere%s a guide* Behavior is patterned. 0ow we think, feel, and act ha"e a pattern to them, and that patterning is what makes us who we are. &he sum total of our patterns is our personality. Sometimes our patterns interfere with our goals in life. &hey pre"ent us from being who we want to be or accomplishing what we want to accomplish. Perhaps there are times when you say to yourself, !I don%t know why I keep 2fill in the blank3. I wish I would stop.! -ou could fill in the blank with any of the following,,and more* !losing my temper!

!going into slumps! !winding up in bad relationships! !o"ereating! !beating myself up! !making stupid trades! !procrastinating! !pushing people away! !worrying! !choking under pressure! In each of these situations, we%re recogni$ing that there is some pattern of beha"ior that is not fully in our control. &he pattern has ossified* it%s hardened into a habit. If you can identify a pattern that is getting in your way, you can benefit from short,term applications of psychology. Brief therapy is about changing the patterns that no longer serve us well. &he second step in such therapy for the mentally well is to ask yourself* 4hat is the one pattern that is most holding me back from my goals, from being who I want to be1 So what%s the first step1 To know what our goals are. &o know who you want to be. Many people never travel the right path, because they never formulate their destination. So that%s where we%ll begin in the ne#t post in this series* iguring out where you want to go in life. &hen we%ll take a look at what might be holding you back. But first things first. Sol"ing a problem will not gi"e you a goal. uriously climbing the ladder of success won%t help you if it%s leaning against the wrong structure. Brief therapy doesn%t start with problems. It starts with

goals--and a vision for the future. 4ithout such "ision, we%re walking blind through life. &he therapy for the mentally well begins with the recognition that it%s time to open our eyes and de"elop our "ision.

Brief Therapy Part Two: The Vision and the Goals Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. www.brettsteenbarger.com In my recent post, I descri ed a set of chan!e techni"#es that I refer to as $therapies for the mentally well$% These rief, intensi&e approaches to chan!e are &ery different from the traditional tal' therapies that come to most people(s minds when they thin' of psycholo!y% In comin! posts, I will e descri in! some of the specific methods and how they can e employed in tradin! sit#ations))and any other life sit#ations in which performance matters% I also mentioned in that earlier post, howe&er, that these techni"#es are not the first steps in a chan!e process% *ather, it is crucial to establish goals for change: to know what it is you want to change in the first place. That is not so easy% We ecome so en!rossed in !ettin! y from day to day, with responsi ilities at wor' and home, that the i! pict#re of o#r li&es stays in the ac'!ro#nd% +ear after year we #sy o#rsel&es with wor' and ro#tines, only later in life to reali,e that

opport#nities ha&e passed #s y% o the first !uestion to address in a change process is, "#hat do you want to change$" %r, stated otherwise, "&ow would you like your life to be different$" The #s#al responses to this "#estion in&ol&e eliminatin! or red#cin! some ne!ati&e state of affairs: $I want to stop thin'in! ne!ati&ely-$ $I want to e less an.io#s$- or $I want to ar!#e less in my relationship$% /&en when there is a positi&e response, it is often so &a!#e that no one can tr#ly act #pon it: $I want to feel etter a o#t myself$ or $I want to e a etter trader$% The absence of concrete, actionable goals''and a clear vision for the future''is a main reason we stay submerged in daily minutiae, getting by but not necessarily getting ahead. If yo#r life is a can&as and yo# are the painter, what will the finished wor' loo' li'e0 Will it e a wor' of art, with a theme and inte!rity of its own, or will it e a random assem la!e of colors and shapes witho#t meanin! or si!nificance0 1 painter capt#res his or her &ision on a can&as% #hat is your vision for your life's canvas$ 2ere(s a #sef#l e.ercise that mi!ht help yo# answer that "#estion: Ima!ine yo#r death% +o# ha&e died, and on the !ra&estone is inscri ed an epitaph% What is written on that stone0 What does it descri e of what yo#(&e left ehind and the impact yo#(&e had d#rin! yo#r life0 (magine very specifically what you would like that stone to say%

3ow ima!ine that yo#(&e recei&ed the res#lts of medical tests from yo#r physician% 3o do# t a o#t it: yo#(&e !ot fi&e years at most left in yo#r life% There is no possi le c#re or remission for yo#r disease% Within fi&e years, yo#r epitaph will ha&e een written% #hat would you do during those five years$ Wo#ld yo# ma'e radical chan!es and do thin!s &ery different from what yo#(&e een doin!, or wo#ld yo# simply contin#e on yo#r e.istin! path at perhaps a more #r!ent pace0 #hat would you need to do during those five years to earn the epitaph you want at the very end of your life0 If what yo# wo#ld do to earn the epitaph is &ery different from what yo#(re doin! now, yo# "#ite li'ely are on the wron! path% )ou'll find your proper goals in the activities you'd stuff into those remaining five years: those, most li'ely, wo#ld contain the essence of what yo# wo#ld find meanin!f#l, what yo# wo#ld li'e to accomplish, what yo# wo#ld want to lea&e ehind% 4earnin! the techni"#es to ma'e life chan!es is really the easy part% The harder part is knowing which changes you truly want to make and keeping those topmost of your mind% Mar' Twain once ad&ised people to ne&er let their schoolin! interfere with their ed#cation% 5imilarly, it(s important to not let life interfere with li&in!% +o# don(t want to e that person, re!retf#l at the end of life, h#rtin! and ha&in! h#rt others% 1 can&as and a rich array of paints lies in front of yo#% 1ll that matters is what yo# ma'e of that opport#nity: to face the end with pride, f#lfillment, and the sense of ha&in! made a wor'

of art of the life yo#(d een !i&en%

Brief Therapy Part Three: Becomin! the Playactor of +o#r Ideals Brett 3% 5teen ar!er, Ph%6% www% rettsteen ar!er%com I was sitting in a waiting room reading a popular maga$ine, when I came across an interesting (uote from actor5director 6el 7ibson. &he inter"iewer pointed out that many of the actors in his latest film, )pocalypto, had no acting e#perience. 4as it difficult, the inter"iewer asked, to work with them as a director1 7ibson%s response was that it wasn%t all that hard. To teach someone to act, he insisted, what you need to do is show them how to breathe the emotions they are trying to portray. If actors can shift their breathing, 7ibson implied, they can enter into the emotional states demanded by their roles. &o be sure, I ha"en%t agreed with all of 7ibson%s comments of late, but this one struck me as particularly percepti"e. &here are approaches to short,term therapy that purposely increase a client%s an#iety, by confronting patterns of a"oidance, resistance to change, and defensi"eness. 8nder conditions of heightened emotion,,particularly an#iety,, indi"iduals gain access to memories, insights, and perspecti"es that they didn%t ha"e when they first walked in the door. By shifting a person s state of mind and body, the psychologist also shifts their awareness. &hink about the phenomenon of test an#iety. ) student can study hard for a test and know the material cold. 8nder conditions of performance an#iety, the student tenses up.

6uscle tension increases, negati"e thoughts intrude, and breathing becomes more shallow. In 7ibson%s terms, the student is literally enacting a panicked mode by adopting the mindset and physical state of the an#ious person. 9nce the state has shifted, the student no longer has access to what he or she already knows. This illustrates that the state we re in either facilitates or blocks access to what we know. Stated otherwise, what we know is relative to the state we're in. 4ithout reali$ing it, we are like actors, altering our breathing, our posture, our mo"ement patterns, and our thought processes to create a con"incing enactment. )ctors and actresses, howe"er, shift their states intentionally to generate their portrayals. 4hen we shift states, it is most often without our conscious awareness. ( submit that access to our implicit knowledge about markets and trading patterns is mediated by the states we're in during our decision making. If our bodies are relati"ely immobile, our breathing is shallow, and our thoughts are worried, we are hardly creating the conditions by which we would normally e#perience oursel"es as powerful, confident, and controlled. 4e fail because, unwittingly, we enact the role of the ineffecti"e indi"idual. #hat if we tracked the states of mind and body that we're in when we're trading effectively and then consciously made efforts to access those states through the trading day$ 4hat if we followed 7ibson%s dictum and enacted the mental and physical processes associated with success1 :uite a while ago, a social psychologist named ;elly in"ented a therapy in which he encouraged people to act out their ideals* to play,act the person they wanted to be. 0e e"en had them make up a

name, personality, and history of the role that they were to portray. !hat he found was that, as people played out their ideal roles, they began to get positive feedback. &his, in turn, encouraged them to continue the role enactments, which in turn pro"ided more good feedback. )fter a while, the roles became more natural* ;elly%s clients internali$ed the roles that they were playing. 4e often think that we ha"e to change oursel"es internally <our thoughts and feelings= in order to change our beha"ior. But what if we adopted "ery different beha"ior and >then> generated new sets of thoughts, feelings, and e#periences1 #hat if, to paraphrase *ietzsche, we became the play' actors of our ideals''and thereby moved closer to those ideals$ or those who ha"e de"eloped trading skills, perhaps success is ?ust a matter of finding the mental, physical, and emotional state in which access to those skills can be ma#imi$ed. &here is much room for self,e#perimentation for traders inclined to work on themsel"es.

Brief Therapy Part Fo#r: Pro!rammin! O#r Own /.perience Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. www.brettsteenbarger.com ) bit o"er a week ago, I described short,term applications of psychology as !therapy for the mentally well!. &he goal of such work is to make positi"e changes, not necessarily eradicate pre,e#isting deficits. or that reason, the first step in the change process is ha"ing a "ision of the changes you wish to make. By linking these positi"e changes to distincti"e emotional, physical, and cogniti"e states, we are able to become the play,actors of our ideals. )llow me to e#pand on a metaphor I used in the Psychology of &rading book. @onsciousness is like a radio dial, and we operate on many fre(uencies. Aach spot on the radio dial is a particular state* a blending of our e#perience of our bodies and minds. &he test an#ious student has a spot on their dial that combines negati"e thinking, increased arousal, shallow and rapid breathing, and diminished access to retained information. 9ther spots on the dial may combine much more positi"e thinking, alert concentration, erect posture, and fuller breathing. 4hen operating at those fre(uencies, the student has full access to the information studied and performance on the test is e#cellent. 4hat we know and who we are is relati"e to the fre(uencies of consciousness at which we%re operating. &he problem is not that some of the spots on our personal radio dials are programmed with negati"ity. +ather, the problem is that we lack full, intentional control over the dial itself. 4e change stations, so to speak, without intending to. 4hat the brief therapies accomplish is a greater control o"er selecting our own fre(uencies* they gi"e us a hand to turn our dials. &he idea, after all, is to become our own trading coach* to de"elop our own ability to reach our goals. 4hat creates the !radio stations! that make up our dial of consciousness1 &wo things* repeated e#perience that becomes habit patterns and powerful emotional e#perience that is processed as a trauma. Bust as some radio stations on our car radio dials are faint and others generate a powerful signal, some of our states are weak and some dominate the dial. The more repeated the e"perience--and the more powerful the e"perience--the more it becomes part of your spectrum of consciousness. )s I emphasi$ed in the Anhancing &rader Performance book, one reason so many traders fail is that they create repeated, negati"e emotional e#periences for themsel"es. Indeed, this is why I included self,help manuals for cogniti"e and beha"ioral change techni(ues as two chapters within the book. :uite simply, traders can find themselves operating on fre#uencies that they don t want to be e"periencing$ their dials change without their consent or control . )nd all it takes to shift our fre(uencies of consciousness, "ery often, is a simple shift in one element of

our fre(uency* a few negati"e thoughts, a change in our patterns of posture or breathing, a fleeting emotion. &hose become triggers that diminish our control o"er our own e#perience. 4hile the aforementioned cogniti"e and beha"ioral techni(ues are e#tremely "aluable, it is also important to be able to program our own new, enhanced spots on our dials of consciousness. The way to do this is to rehearse positive patterns of thought and behavior while you are in a distinctive emotional and physical state. &his is one of the (uickest and most reliable ways to generate change. or instance, let%s say your desired beha"ior is to hold onto winning trades longer. -ou might mentally rehearse market scenarios of holding onto trades,,emphasi$ing how e#cited, happy, and profitable you%ll be by achie"ing this goal,,while you are pushing yourself during a strenuous treadmill e#ercise. By setting the treadmill at an incline and a good speed, you will be ?ogging at a brisk pace and ele"ating your heart rate. !ith repetition, you will begin to associate the goal--and its emotional benefits--with your body s pumped up state. It will become an increasingly powerful signal on your radio dial. &hen, before trading and during trading breaks, all you ha"e to do is get back on the treadmill. Triggering your body's shift in state will trigger the desired shift on your dial of consciousness. -ou will access the beha"ior you desire by intentionally triggering the cues associated with the beha"ior. 6aking changes entails far more than simply engaging in positi"e thinking or getting positi"e images in your head. If you don t change your state of consciousness--and your ability to shift your own consciousness--you ll be listening to the same programming day after day. Learning how to shift out of negati"e states is a huge achie"ement. 4here dramatic growth occurs, howe"er, is in learning how to create new, positi"e states* in becoming the programmers of our own e#perience.

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