5. Session
Session Content and Flow
- A. Participants were asked to give feedback on what we spoke about last week. How was your week? Did you have a hard time doing the breathing exercises?
- B. Last week, we talked about automatic thoughts regarding anger and the answers to the questions of “How can I come up with alternative thinking? And how can I change my existing feeling?”.
- It was explained that changing something that we have done over and over again for a very long time is a painful process. It was explained that when we continue to exercise and come up with alternative thoughts despite this painful process, our mind will also automate this. It was explained that our emotions, which emerge when our mind cannot come up with alternative thoughts, affect our behavior or even our body physically.
- Participants were asked to keep a full glass of water with them before the session. I would like you to hold the glass in your hand while I tell you about it and not get support from anywhere (showing an empty glass). Let’s think of this as the first year of your life. Completely empty … When you look at other species, every newborn reaches for the milk, while the only living being that milk comes before is the humankind. Hence, we are born in need. With every knowledge we have, we begin to fill this cup. Family, education, social and emotional relationships, starting a family and special children… each experience fills our glass. (meanwhile participants start to say that their arms are sore.) and we continue to carry this full glass. Now, from the moment you grap it, the glass’s own weight has not changed, but as time went on, the glass began to feel heavy. Just like with the glass, when we accept burdens in life and begin to carry them, it begins to weigh on us both mentally and physically. For this reason, the exercises that we only try to do mentally are insufficient. Apart from that, we also need to learn to relax physically.
- The progressive muscle relaxation technique is applied and how to relax by mindfully stretching and loosening certain muscle areas from head to toe is taught. Doing this every night before bed is given as homework, as it will help with learning.
- C. Later, learned helplessness, which is at the bottom of automatic thoughts, was explained. The partcipants talked about where they experience this emotion in their lives and the effects of automatic thoughts. The thinking of “You have committed a sin, so this happened to you.” which is rooted in their past was discussed by the participants and alternative thoughts were sought instead of this thought.
- D. They were told that everyone can make mistakes with the negative feelings they have and that nobody is perfect. For that reason they were told to show self-compassion and to be easy on themselves.
- E. To find an answer to the question of “How can I be happy?”, they were asked to love themselves first. They were thought to value themselves before waiting for others to appreciate their value.
- My makeup’s not beautiful, I’m beautiful.
- It’s not a nice outfit, it looks good on me.
- The hairdresser didn’t cut my hair beautifully, this hair looks good on me.
6. Session
Session Content and Flow
- A. Participants were asked to give feedback on what we spoke about last week. How was your week? Have you encountered a difficult situation during the week?
- B. “Burn’s Depression Scale” was applied to assess the mental state of the participants. Questions were read during the session so that everything was understood about the questions. They were asked to answer questions considering the past few weeks.
- C. At the end of the session, they were asked to identify the issues they needed to plan and to ask questions more actively during the session so that the upcoming sessions would be more helpful in the following weeks.