Stressrelated depression and values
Hello!
I´m treating a patient with stressrelated depression and she is having a hard time identifying her values. Beeing new to the ACT approach, I´m having a hard time helping her out...
Part of her problem is avoiding by being "good", so we started out with a lot of mindfulness and body awereness excersises. Now I feel that we need to get a hang of her values to be able to move forward. Problem is we are stuck. I´ve tried the celebration for an 80-year old and the tombstone, but she gets very upset and sais it all goes black. She feels that she is left with empty words that have no meaning to her.
Any suggestions on how to help a "good girl" listen to her own inner self rather than what the outside world tells her is the right thing?
Take care! Love Cecilia
Have you checked out no. 4
Have you checked out no. 4 in the DVD series, "ACT in Action"? It's admittedly an expensive item ($50 or $60 or so if I remember) but among its other goodies has a chapter with a long, intense session showing Kelly Wilson doing a mindfulness/role-play exercise with a therapist; the issue they explore together is the therapist's difficulty in connecting with & thus helping a very stuck, very "hard" depressed client. The exercise is helpful for the therapist - and at the same time it also seems a good demonstration of how sometimes getting in touch with the heavily avoided pain "beneath" our suffering can enable a sort of softening that in turn can lead to willingness for values work - that old ACT saw (if there is such a thing) about values being living inside our pain? At any rate it might suggest something to you -
Edit: Oops - sorry, I wandered into in the wrong forum category; I'm not a professional but a public member. But the DVD is still darn good, worth checking out.