Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes explains contemplation, the stage where people recognize a problem and feel torn about changing. She uses a pool analogy to show ambivalence, then offers concrete exercises: list five times your symptoms disappeared to spot what helped, and reframe barriers as challenges instead of roadblocks.
Hey there, everybody, and welcome back to the Addiction and Mental Health Disorders Treatment Manual. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. This is unit one, part 16, stages of readiness for Change. Today we're talking about contemplation. In the last video, we talked about pre contemplation, when the person says, either there's not a problem or I'm completely unwilling to change the problem. Contemplation, just like it sounds, the person is starting to think about, okay, well, maybe I need to make a change. In contemplation, you've realized that there might be a problem and are contemplating that need for change. In contemplation, the person is starting to feel distressed, but also overwhelmed, but by what they may have to do and unsure what the next right step is. A lot of times I use the analogy of a hot summer day and getting in the pool. In pre contemplation, the person is just lounging on their chair. They are not hot. They don't see a problem. No big deal. They're not going to move. Contemplation. They're starting to get a little hot, but they're overwhelmed because you know when you get really hot and you go jump in a pool, it's like ice cold. And it can be overwhelming to have that strong of a change in temperature. So you may think, is this really something I want to do? Do I really want to jump in the pool right now? And that's what we're talking about. Is the person ready? What is it we need to do to help them increase their motivation to start addressing the problem? Spend about 30 minutes thinking about how you can increase your sense of commitment to both the change process and those things that are important in your rich and meaningful life. If you're contemplating change, then you probably have started to see how the behavior or the issue is keeping you from having the life that you want. So how can you increase your commitment to change, even though it's going to be hard as well as to those things that are important in your life? How can you increase your sense of control over yourself, your recovery, and the things that are important in your life? As we mentioned in other videos, you're not going to have complete control over everything. But how can you increase your sense of control, increase your sense of I got this, if you will, over the things that are important in your life? And how can you increase your sense of challenge when facing difficult choices or discomfort instead of seeing barriers or problems? It's like, oh, gosh, can, can't go there. Can't do this, See it as an obstacle, see it as a challenge and think, all right, there's something in my way. How can I get over it, under it, around it, or through it? It's important to remember that your issues are not present 247 365. Highlighting exceptions can help you identify things to do in your recovery. When you weren't using, when you weren't depressed, when you weren't raging, what were you doing? Increase that if you find that when you are outside playing with your dog, you don't feel as depressed. Okay, good. That's a tool. Let's do more of that Think Thinking back to times when you weren't symptomatic, we'll say what was different? Maybe you weren't watching the news as much. Maybe you were living somewhere else or you had a different job. What was Different? Spend about 20 minutes and list five times when you have not been having the following issues and I want you to look at each one of these, because everybody has these things sometimes. So I want you to think about five times when you were not depressed, what were you doing and what was different? Five times when you are not feeling anxious, what were you doing and what was different compared to when you do get anxious? Do the same thing for anger, addiction, and physical pain.
