Thinking and Feeling Understanding Temperament in Relationships and Recovery

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register@Allce.com Counselortoolbox you I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on relationships and recovery, thinking and understanding. The temperament dimension we're going to briefly review. Since not everybody has been here for the prior presentations, we're going to briefly review temperament and examine how knowing your temperament and the temperament of those around you, including your children, your co workers, your clients, can help you improve communication, enhance relationships, and reduce stress. In this particular presentation, we're going to explore in depth the thinking feeling dimension, which when I talk about temperament and when I talk about recovery and I talk about trying to conceptualize what we're talking about, thinking and feeling is really motivation and how people are making sense of their world, what they are using in order to make their decisions. We'll identify potential conflicts between thinkers and feelers. And it's important to remember and I'm going to say this multiple times throughout the presentation because I think both sides kind of get unfairly judged because we tend to look at it as all or nothing or better or worse, and it's really not. We're really talking about something clinical terms. We would look at it as the difference between laws and ethics and you have to use both of them to make good decisions. And we'll examine potential ways to help people on opposite ends of the spectrum collaborate. Remembering that temperament is a relatively stable set of traits. Referring to people's preferred environments. We talked about that in extrovert versus Introvert and I shouldn't say versus because it's not one against the other. It's one or the other and it's a continuum. Learning and problem solving styles and methods. We talked about that yesterday when we talked or Tuesday when we talked about sensing versus intuitive, your broad strokes versus your detail oriented. We will look at ways of conceptualizing and approaching the world and our philosophical approach to the world today. And then on Tuesday we're going to look at people's time management styles. Temperament occurs along a complementary continuum and this is really important. Just like you can have three patients with depression and all three patients may have different symptoms. I mean they all have the general lack of pleasure most days than not. But not all of them are going to have eating disturbances, not all of them are going to have sleeping disturbances. So we want to look at the characteristics of what people are bringing to us more than just lumping them on one or the other. And saying you're an introvert or you're a thinker or a feeler, People are going to have characteristics of both sides on a continuum. We just want to know a little bit more about what that looks like. And we also want to understand how we can help them come more towards the middle, which, you know, some will call psychological flexibility. And I think a lot of us can really become more flexible and perform in environments that are not necessarily in harmony with our temperament when we're under less stress. So, you know, reducing other vulnerabilities and freeing up some of that energy, if you have to do something that is against your temperamental style, is a good way to help clients learn how to deal with life on life's terms. I mean, there's some things that you're just. You're going to have to do, and they are not your thing. So understanding that before you go into it helps people reduce stress so it doesn't end up draining them of all their energy. As stress increases, people gravitate toward their preferred temperament dimensions. I'm a the type of person, I need some quiet time each day to get my thoughts together. I love being around people, but when I get really stressed, I definitely need to have that quiet time. When I worked in residential, the clients that I worked with who tended to be more introverted definitely needed to have that quiet time each day because they felt like they were kind of on edge. And I mean, three days out of detox, I'd be on edge too. Additional stress and vulnerabilities can be mitigated through awareness of your personal preferences, awareness of the preferences of those around you. So if you know that the other people in your environment, work or home, tend to like more active environments or tend to thrive in situations that are very detailed, then they will. They may be a little bit more stressful to be around because you're like, okay, there's so many details. Let's look at the broad strokes. I like to look at the broad strokes. And we talked on Tuesday about how to combine both of those preferences. So through all this, we're going to create an understanding of how to develop an environment that supports everybody's individual preferences. We're not always going to be on the same page, but we're always going to be in the same book. So thinking. And we're going to go through these characteristics kind of in general thinking. People like words like principles, standards, analysis. They tend to be more dichotomous in the way they look at things. It's right or it's wrong. A lot of law enforcement officers and you know, lawyers and people who make those kind of legal justifications for things tend to be more thinkers. Now it doesn't mean they don't feel they react to things very intensely. They just do it on a different, in a different way than feelers. And we'll get to the feelers in a minute. They can be frustrated by feelers lack of decisiveness or inattention to the facts. And on the next slide, we're going to talk a little bit more about what that looks like. But it's important to understand if you're, if you've got two people, one's more feeling oriented, talks about feelings and anger and depression and happiness and then you have somebody else who's not quite so comfortable with those words and it's just like, okay, here's the facts, let's make a decision. Bada bing. Those two people can butt heads. Sometimes thinkers can be swayed by arguments about how something is the right or logical thing to do in given the evidence, because they are very passionate about doing the right thing, whereas feelers are very passionate about doing the most compassionate thing. But a lot of times you can make that work together. Thinkers value objectivity above sentiment, doing the things that are right, that are objectively. You know, you make a list of right or wrong, true or false, pros or cons, and whatever list is bigger is the list is going to win. Feelers will look at and they'll weigh, they'll add weight to each one of those things to see which one carries more weight. Even if there are more things in the pro column that are objectively supportive of the idea, there may be more things in the con column that are compassionate and caring that have carry more weight with the feeler. Feelers like words such as care, compassion, mercy, harmony. We focus on ethics. We want to be beneficent. We want everybody to feel happy. We want to create community and communication. A lot of times we tend to be more middle of the road because we don't ignore. And I say we because I'm much more of a feeler than a thinker. You know, I don't want to go against laws, of course not. But I want to find something that meets the needs and is the fairest and most compassionate way of doing things based on the laws that I've got to work within. Can be frustrated by the thinkers adherence to the rules, seeing things as all black and white. And I'm sitting there going, but let's consider, you know, yeah, it may not be necessarily the rightest thing to do, but wouldn't it feel so much better? And the thinkers just rolling their eyes at me can be swayed by arguments for why something is the most compassionate or merciful thing to do. And sometimes tough decisions come down to there's a right and the wrong, and sometimes the right thing is the most compassionate, but it doesn't feel the best. For example, and I hate to use this one, but it's, you know, kind of poignant if you're having to put down one of your family pets. It feels awful. And nothing is going to make anybody happy but figuring out what's the most compassionate thing for the animal versus necessarily for everybody in the household who really wants to hold on to that little creature. So that's one of the areas where thinking and feeling can kind of come together and figure out what's the best thing to do in the big scheme of things. And feelers tend to value sentiment above objectivity. You know, what was the best thing that happened when you were in recovery instead of how many days were you in recovery? The thinker is going to look at really objective, tangible things. We feelers are going to tend to look at more conceptual things. So what does that mean? Potential conflicts. You get thinkers and feelers together. There can be conflicts now, whether it's in group therapy or at work or parenting. In the case of parenting, Sally gets an F on her report card, and if she's grounded, she's going to miss prom. So Sally brings her report card home, and since I'm the feeler, Mom's going to be the feeler in this case. And, yes, she needs to be punished, but I would hate for her to miss prom because that is such a big event in a child's life. And if Sally's dad is a thinker going, well, the rules are she gets enough, she's grounded, and she's grounded from when she brings it home. So, bada Bing, that's the way it's gonna be. Then there can be a discussion about what needs to happen here, because the parents, the thinker, and the feeler are going to disagree at this point. So this is the time when obviously the parents excuse themselves, because we don't want to be sitting there in front of Sally having this discussion, but we talk about, what is it that we're trying to achieve? What lesson do we want her to learn, and how can we make this happen? The feeler would probably make their case based on why prom is important and more important than necessarily Initiating punishment right now and you know, they would have a discussion. So that's one place where you can have a disagreement of what's the right thing to do. Choosing a house and the practical choice for the house, the one that is closest to work, closest to the shopping, closest to whatever, has good value for the potential to increase in value. Or choosing the house that keeps the children in the school with their friends. And this is something that a lot of families face when they have job changes or whatever. You know, do we stay in this house so junior can stay in the same high school with his or her friends until graduation, or do we move so mom and dad can be closer to their jobs, etc. So figuring out what's more important, the choice that makes the children and everybody, not necessarily everybody, but makes the most people in the family happy. Whereas the person whose job is 30 more minutes away may not be as happy or moving to be. In the more practical situation. It's going to be a judgment call and it's going to be based on what that family's needs are at that particular point in time. There's not a right or wrong answer. Finances are tight, but a friend needs a loan. The objective person would say, finances are tight. We got to pay the bills. We just barely got enough to get it. What if, you know, the electric bill is $200 more this month than we're expecting? We can't afford to do a loan. And the person who is less on the objectives says, well, you know, we have the ability to make this loan right now. We don't know that the bills are going to be more expensive. And if something happens, maybe we could put it on credit card or whatever. So one person is arguing for the compassionate choice. Yes, it's going to stretch us a little bit, but the stretch is worth the outcome versus we need to do what we need to do for our family, and we just can't afford to do that right now. The person who is arguing not to make the loan is not that they don't care about other people, but they care very much about their family and they want to make sure that everything is going to work. The person who's arguing for the loan is not that they don't care about their family, but they care about this other person too. Recovery. And this one comes up a lot. And it just breaks my heart renting a room to someone who's just gotten out of treatment, but you've only been out of treatment for six months now. I won't say research shows Because I don't know that any research has actually been done on it. But clinical practice, clinical experience shows, and you can ask, you know, just about any counselors that have worked in addictions field. You really don't want two people who are in early recovery, and that's less than two years working, living together. Because generally the risk of relapse is so high that it's likely that one is going to relapse and could bring the other one down. It's a dangerous place to be. Does that mean it doesn't happen? No, not at all. But it's important to understand that the logical thing is to say no, it's not safe for my recovery to have someone who is, you know, two weeks out of residential living with me. But the compassionate side as well, if they don't live with me, where are they going to live? Are they going to go back to an environment that is just infested with drugs or whatever their addiction was? So you can argue both sides of it. Work, reporting a co worker who is regularly late and smells of alcohol. The right thing to do would be to report them. The compassionate thing to do would be, you know, maybe to hope it would go away, to try to work with them, to try to help them figure out how to get help. Deciding what's best for the company, what's best for you as an individual. It is going to be a decision that each individual has to make. But again, it's important to understand that neither one of these arguments or sides of each argument is necessarily wrong. It's figuring out what's right for that person or that couple or that family the most right. Because it's rare that things happen that there's one single, 100% right answer. So interventions we can compromise, obviously appeal to each other in their preferred language. So if you're appealing to a thinker, then you want to appeal in terms of why is this logical? In what way is this logical and safe? You know, is it likely that this will end well if we do it this other way? Write down a pro and con list and then talk about what each pro or con means to people. Involve all interested parties. Now, in the case of Sally, who wanted to go to prom, it might not be appropriate to involve her. We don't necessarily want to get her involved in the discussion between the parents. But it's important, you know, when you're talking about moving houses to make sure you at least get input from everybody who's involved in that decision. You know, maybe the kids are going to Say, no, I don't really care about staying at the school. Or they're going to be like, yes, I'm just going to die if we have to move anywhere. Very different reactions. And we don't want to assume that we know what our kids are going to say. And it's also important to remember that not everyone is comfortable with feeling words. And we went through so many years of counseling and I remember my first semester of counseling class, we had to participate in scenario work, which was great. We got used to paraphrasing and all that kind of stuff, but we were not allowed to use the word happy words. Happy, mad, sad, glad or scared. We had to find something more creative than that. And she wanted us to get outside the box and find the depth and the emotions. But not everybody is comfortable with those. I've worked with first responders for almost 20 years now, and there are a lot of first responders who don't want to necessarily start talking, especially in front of other people, but to someone they don't know about feelings. If you ask them how do you how did you feel about that? Or what were your feelings? They might may look at you with this blank stare. Whereas if you say what was your reaction when that happened? Now that means something to them. So listen to how they talk, pay attention to what kinds of words they're comfortable with, and remember that both thinkers and feelers are very passionate about their decisions and they're very passionate about doing what they perceive as the right thing. It's just a matter of coming to a middle ground on what's the rightest. Thinkers want to apply objective principles to solve problems and can assess logical consequences, which is great. Feelers want to apply values and ethics from multiple perspectives and we're good at assessing the human impact. So if you've taken ethics for your renewal, you've probably reviewed the process of ethical decision making and the ethical principles that we adhere to so you can understand what the feeler is going through applying these values of fidelity and non malfeasance and beneficence. And of course the general population doesn't refer to it like that, but. And the thinkers are applying the laws and they're going, this is what we have to do. Whenever I start a new program, one of the first things I do is get out the statutes and crosswalk our policy and procedures manual with the statutes to make sure we have everything in order to. And that's one of the ways I kind of tend to go towards the thinker side of things. I just Love writing manuals, which I think there has to be a diagnosis for that. But when we're talking about problem solving, sometimes the choice that has the best human impact is not the most logical choice. So encouraging people to figure out what is the outcome we're striving for, you know, this is the problem. You know, we can define the problem, but what is the outcome that we're striving for? Feelers sometimes have difficulty being assertive and communicating their points of view because we talk about things that are values driven ethics and they can be somewhat more esoteric than the objective laws and rules. And this is the way it is. Sometimes it's harder to get our point across to people who tend to be more rule driven. Thinkers, on the other hand, because they are more rule driven, can appear to be overly dominant. Sometimes they're like, these are the rules. This is the way it's got to be. And it can feel more military, like, if you will. It's important to understand how to, you know, make all of those things work. Interventions the resolution of most problems requires a compromise between what's logically the most correct choice and which decision will have the best impact on the system. One way when I'm working with, one way I'm working when I'm working with couples is encourage them to do the values activity. And depending on the couple, we may call it the epitaph activity. What are the three values you want to be remembered for? If you were to have three things written on your epitaph, what would they be in order to identify which what values are most important to each person as a couple, they're going to respect one another, that's true. But they're also going to have decisions that they have to make together. And it's either going to feel like one party is always losing or they're going to make a compromise. And sometimes, you know, go back to Sally and the prom. Maybe mom wins on that one, you know, maybe the feeler wins because, you know, Dad's convinced that, yeah, it's not the way I would do it, it's not the way the rules are set out, but I can see the value in letting this happen. So sometimes, you know, it's one person is going to feel more passionate about something than, than the other person and that person is going to sort of steer the decision making. But it's important they understand what are we striving for. The feeler needs to present logical arguments. In what way is Sally going to prom? You know, going to a. Not undermine her punishment for getting an F, but B benefit her in the long run and C be the right thing to do. The thinker can present from the perspective of how the less logical choice might impact the couple, family or system. So looking at how people are viewing this choice, because you come to a decision about I think we should do X and then you talk about is this going to be the best decision? Look for the logic in the feelers decision because a lot of times there are, there are logical consequences. When I would do assessments for people and maybe they. On the ASAM or whatever tool you were using, we used the asam, they qualified for residential treatment. You know, no doubt they qualified for residential treatment, but their decision was for IOP treatment or self help. Now that wasn't the logical choice and probably not what I would consider the right choice to make from a clinical standpoint. But you want to look at in the big picture based on their values and what's important to them. If they went to residential treatment, what impact would that have on their family, on their job, on their finances, on, you know, all those other things. And then it may become clear why, you know, IOP or you know, self help programs may be the right thing for that person at that particular point in time. Even though objectively on a score sheet, residential is where what the placement they should have had. So decision making guide, stop and think, clarify goals and values. So when something happens, encourage both parties just to stop and think, okay, what's going on? What is the best resolution of this? Because sometimes the knee jerk resolution isn't always the best one. What is the best resolution? What do I want to happen out of this? Clarify goals and values, determine the facts in the situation. Maybe. And I keep going back to Sally because that's an easy one to pick on. Maybe Sally got an F because she was taking advanced chemistry as opposed to, you know, English 101. And it was a really challenging class. And you know, there were a few other mitigating factors. You know, I won't hypothesize right now. So maybe there were some other facts that went into it that contributed to her failing the class. So develop options. What are the potential resolutions of this? What are the consequences for each resolution? And then choose make that decision. Now with Sally, there's not much monitor and modify, she's going to go to prom or she's not. But in terms of, you know, if you decide to let somebody move into your guest house when you're in early recovery and they just got out of treatment, you May make that decision and it feels right at first. And then three months down the road you're going, oh, this might not be right for my recovery because this person is starting to relapse. Examples. And you can have people discuss these kinds of examples in group, in individual sessions, in couple sessions to help people learn how to communicate their points of view. Now the Hans paradox is the one that we were always given. If you remember, Hans wife is really sick and he can't afford the medication. It's illegal to steal the medication obviously, but if he doesn't get the medication, his wife will die. So what should Hans do? Feeding the homeless. There was a big hubbub. Oh, I don't remember how long ago. A couple years ago in one city they made it illegal to feed homeless people. And there was a lot of outcry from the grassroots organizations who made a activity of going out and making sure the people who were homeless had enough food. So they ended up setting up this table and ordering pizzas and feeding all the homeless people anyway and they got arrested. So what was the right thing to do? Continue to help the homeless people who needed food get food or obey the law. Sometimes decisions will come, like committing a parent to a long term care facility versus moving the parent in with the family. Lots of pros and cons, lots of objective and subjective things to be assessed there. Purebred versus rescue dog, home school versus public versus private school. Those are other common things, themes that come up in just day to day family relationships. Controlled use. This is one that comes up in treatment addiction, treatment a lot. Is there such a thing as controlled use? So are we talking controlled use versus abstinence? And you know, what does that look like, is it possible, etc. And each person is going to have to come to their own understanding of this in terms of treatment and recovery. And if you're talking about some behavioral addictions, you know, sometimes abstinence may not be the ultimate goal. If you're talking about sex addiction, eating disorders, binge eating, that can be. You can't not eat, engaging in known addictive behaviors or using a non preferred substance. So if somebody is in recovery, they're an alcoholic if you will, but they are using marijuana recreationally. So are they clean? Are they actually in recovery? And those can be decisions that, that obviously each person is going to make. But those are also decisions that impact recovery, they impact probation and parole, they impact a lot of other things. So you know, those are just some different hypothetical dilemmas that may come up that you can propose if you're trying to do a group on this. Thinking people respond most easily to people's thoughts and issues. They got a problem. Thinking people, let's figure out how to solve it. Feeling people respond most easily to people's values and emotions. So you got a problem, I'm going to validate how you're feeling and empathize and you know, we'll get to the problem. When thinker hears a problem, he or she hears the problem and tries to fix the problem. Which, you know, that's. They hear the problem, they respond to the problem. That's the way it happens. Unfortunately, people who tend to be more feeling sometimes feel invalidated. They're like, all I wanted you to do was say, yeah, it sounded like you had a crappy day, not try to figure out whether I should change jobs. When a feeler hears a problem, we hear how the person feels and try to help the person feel better. You know, we're not necessarily getting in there to try to solve the problem. We're sticking with what's being presented right then and there. Thinkers often don't see the point in this. They're like, okay, you're upset, let's figure out how to get you un upset. So what do we do in these particular situations? Help clients learn how to learn and practice active listening. Understanding what the other person is saying is so crucial, but not putting your own stuff in there. So if I'm upset and you know, I'm a feeler, I just want somebody to say, you know, you've had a crappy day. Yeah, I have. And let me tell you, because I'm perfectly capable of solving my problems. But sometimes it's good to have somebody just validate, which is, you know, what we're good at. So as clinicians we can get used to kind of expecting that and we want to help understand the other person's process. When I'm dealing with a problem, I need you to validate my opinions, help me solve the problem and or listen so I can clarify what I need to do to solve the problem. And some people will choose one, some people will choose two, and some people will choose all three, but in a very specific order. But opening up this line of communication so the other person can understand what the person wants. Because a lot of times we don't know how to say, well, I just wanted you to understand how I felt. That's not a conversation I hear. In normal day to day activity, we want to engage with the person in terms of what they respond to. Thoughts versus Feelings. My partner is very thinking oriented. So when there's a problem, you know, I say, all right, what is it we need to need to do to solve it? When I have a problem, he validates how I'm feeling and kind of lets me de escalate. And then he goes, okay, now what's the next step? What do you need to do? And, you know, I can come up and brainstorm those problems. So we want to help people understand. What is it that the people in their life need? One of the things that when I was working with emergency responders, I usually teach is when you go out to a scene and somebody's upset, whether they're a thinker or a feeler, if somebody is really, really upset, a lot of times if you start out just validating how they're feeling, they will start to de escalate, and then they'll tell you what they need from there. We want to be careful not to assume the feeler is asking for something when all they want is acknowledgement. Thinking people may think that those who are sentimental take things too personally. Those ASPCA commercials, oh, my gosh, they break my heart. I can't even be at the gym and have them on the TV up there. I'm just like, please don't show me that when I'm working out because I can't see those little puppy eyes. It just breaks my heart. I tend to be a little bit overly feely, especially when it comes to babies and animals feeling. People may think that those preferring objectivity can be insensitive. And again, as I said at the beginning of the presentation, I don't want to put either one of these groups into containers and say, this person's insensitive and this person's overly sentimental. A lot of people are middle of the road, but some feelers tend to be more emotive. Feelers tend to have more flushing of the face. They tend to have sweatier palms. We tend to have a more physiological reaction when we feel anything. If we get excited, we have a more physiological reaction than thinkers a lot of times. So it's just more obvious to the whole world how we're feeling, as opposed to the thinker who isn't. Just like putting it on a neon sign. This is how I'm feeling about stuff. So the problems are one can be. One person can be perceived as hypersensitive, whereas the other person can be perceived as insensitive. Thinkers are very passionate and they feel things very strongly. They just don't emote it quite the Same way thinkers may believe that feelers waste too much energy getting upset. My daughter, I mean, she's a very compassionate young woman, but she just kind of shakes her head and she's like, mommy, do I need to turn off this show or are you going to start? Are you going to start boo hoo crying? I'm like, no, I'm not gonna start boohoo crying. She isn't as emotive as I am. Good for her. But thinkers can think that feelers waste too much energy or they can become uncomfortable. If feelers are too emotive, feelers may get exasperated that thinkers don't take things so personally. I'm like, how can you watch that commercial and not just have a tug at your heartstrings? And it may, they just may not be putting it out there so much. It's all about communication. Working with humans requires a balance of logic and compassion, you know? No. Well, there are very few adults who are actually truly Spock like. And if you know Star Trek, you kind of have an idea about Spock or Data. Everybody has reactions, everybody has feelings to things. And we all have passions that drive our decision making. It's just a matter of what fuels those passions. Logic or, you know, compassion and togetherness and that stuff. The feeler needs to learn to see the thinker's perspective as one of deep caring about what he or she perceives as right or wrong. Now, it doesn't mean that we need to take that on and go, okay, so I'm going to see things your way. But we need to respect their perspective. The thinker needs to explore the feelers perspective in terms of the right thing, being the most compassionate thing, and understanding how we can find things that are maybe not the most right logically to be the correct choice in our eyes because of compassion. You know, I do a lot of animal rescue, so, you know, no surprise. Occasionally, you know, the right thing would be to not take on another litter of foster puppies because I got too much going on right now. But the most compassionate thing is that I don't want them going to the shelter where they could get sick and all kinds of other stuff. So we end up with a house full of seven puppies that need to be bottle fed. So you can see logic versus compassion. Neither logic or compassion always wins. It takes compromise. And like I said, when you're dealing with a relationship with couples, it's going to be probably who feels more passionate about something in a work environment. It may be who has more power in the work Environment. If your boss says, well, the logical thing to do is this, I don't care. Care what everybody thinks about it, you may have to figure out how to negotiate that, but you can still argue your point. There was a situation in one of the places I used to work. They decided to install surveillance cameras. And a lot of the clients took issue with that for obvious reasons. They felt like their confidentiality was being violated and all kinds of stuff. But the logic came down from above that it reduced a lot of reliability by having those cameras available to see who came and went from group rooms and stuff. But there wasn't any sound to them, it was just a visual. But the compassionate thing, the thing that made our clients more comfortable, was to have the cameras, at least the majority of them in sensitive areas of the treatment facility, go away. So initially we had to adhere to the logical and what was. Deemed to be the best in terms of reducing liability for the facility. But eventually we were able to present a compelling argument that identified the clinical impact, which was sort of the compassion, if you will, the clinical impact of what was going on. Which ultimately comes back to a logical argument of we're going to lose money if people don't feel like they can get good treatment here. So sometimes you've got a balance and sometimes one has to win while the other one kind of regroups. But it's about compromise and presenting it the information in a reasonable sort of way that the other person can understand. Thinkers are very sensitive, but they often jump past the emotional expression into problem solving. They try to fix it. You know, the dryer broke, let's try to fix it. The dog is sick, let's take them to the vet. We're not going to get all concerned about or caught up and being stressed about the dog being sick. We're just going to take them to the vet so we can stop being sick and, and you can stop being stressed. And that's the logical thing, and that's how they function. And that's what it comes down to, is how we function. A lot of our temperament is innate. I mean, some of it's been shaped through environment and all that stuff, but a lot of it is innate. And some of us function differently than others, and it doesn't mean better or worse. We need each other to balance each other out. Thinkers may argue both sides of an issue for mental stimulation because they like to think. They like to look at the pros and cons of everything. And it's really exciting, which is why they make great lawyers feeling People often want to agree with those around them. They want to get consensus. You know, it's not necessarily just blindly agreeing, but they want to get consensus. So in relationships, you can have people who want consensus. And then if there's a thinker in there that wants to argue both sides of everything, the consensus builder may feel frustrated because it's like, well, you always. Why do you always want to argue about everything? In recovery, the feeler may want to agree with everyone around them, which is not necessarily the best thing. If you're in, especially in early recovery and you're agreeing with everybody, you're trying to build consensus, but you're still immersed in an environment with a lot of people who are still struggling with their own stuff, then you may not be agreeing to what's right for you. And recovery is important. We say recovery is a selfish program or a selfish act, if you will. And we mean that. Not that it's a hateful act, but we mean that people need to pay attention to what they need. A lot of times, addicts, alcoholics, and even people who are codependent or grew up in addicted households need external validation, and they struggle to build consensus, and they would rather build consensus than stand up for themselves. And we want to encourage people not to rely exclusively on external validation, but be able to say, this is how I feel about this. Thinkers need to validate the feeler's perspective so he or she does not feel bullied. So if you want to argue both sides of this thing, start by saying, let me play devil's advocate, or I'd like to look at both sides of the situation. It doesn't have to be something that's argumentative, but sometimes giving the feeler the heads up that, hey, I want to just try to look at this from a couple different angles. Feels less like you're being bullied than if the thinker just launches into, well, let's look at this side and let's look at this side. Thinkers can take the feeler's point and argue it, encouraging the feeler to argue the other point so you can swap sides. You know, if you're pro one thing and you know, against the other thing, then try to argue against it. Just see what it looks like to stand in the other perspective. Feelers need to be aware of how they feel and learn how to validate and accept without necessarily agreeing. If something makes me unhappy, I can be aware of that and I can validate how someone else feels, even if they don't feel the same way. And I don't necessarily have to agree with other people. I can feel how I want to feel. And helping people establish healthy emotional boundaries comes along with the thinking feeling dimension, where it's okay to feel sad even if the people around you don't seem to feel sad. It's okay to feel happy even if other people are having a bad day. But understanding how to communicate is what's important. Thinkers need to be careful not to talk over the feeler. I don't know why you're asking me. You seem to have already made the decision. So it's important that the thinker says, how do you feel about this? Or what is your perspective on this? Whatever words they feel comfortable using before they launch into this is why we're going to go to Colorado for our vacation this year. Get the feelers input. What would make you happy for vacation? What would you like to do for vacation? Thinkers and feelers have many difficulties in relationships because of their differences in motivation and communication. It's not that they can't be overcome. I mean, a lot of times, like I said, they balance each other out really, really well. But it's important to understand that there are differences. Counseling can help both parties clarify their individual and shared values. When you get together, you're two distinct people, and you may never have the exact same value system. You may have a lot of the same values, but you may. You know, I've known people who've had very drastically different political approaches, very drastically different religious affiliations, but they've done well as a couple because they understood that there were certain philosophical differences that they both that they had, and that was okay, and they agreed and respected that. But it's important to know what are your values and where are we alike and where are we different? When faced with the conflict, both parties can try to brainstorm a solution that most clearly fits the values of the couple. What is it that we can agree to? What is it that is most important right now? And again, if whatever the decision is is something that's really super important to one party and not as important to the other, then you may kind of go with decision making based on that other person's values because it's so important to them. Feelers tend to be more physiological, reactive to emotions, which makes them seem more sensitive, but they're not. You know, feelers are very resilient, and thinkers are actually very intensely reacting feeling people. We just display it differently. We're both quite adept at handling our own problems. Thinkers often want the problem acknowledged, while feelers want their Feelings acknowledged. It's just how, what they see. When you see a problem, when you see picture, what is it that you first see? And this is another activity you can do with your clients is show them a landscape of something. And you know, someone who's a feeler might say something like, oh, I see a beautiful landscape. Picture something that's more subjective. Whereas the thinker may say, I see a field with a bunch of trees and something, something, it's very pretty. But they, they see different things. In recovery, feelers can fall victim to being too compassionate or guilt ridden with others and may need to make more logical decisions based on their recovery. And one of the questions I always ask my clients is, can you help anyone else if you relapse? You know, this may, you may really want to do this right now, but in the big scheme of things, three weeks, three months from now, is this going to do more to enhance or hinder your recovery? In recovery, thinkers may have difficulty identifying other people's feelings due to fear of getting unloaded upon. What do I mean by that? A lot of times, not always prior to coming to recovery, if they had talked to someone, you know, a family member, and said, it seems like you're angry, that family member may have unloaded on them and been like, I'm angry. Oh, I'm so past angry. You did this, you did that, you did this, you did that. Just unloaded on all the done me wrongs from the addiction. So a lot of times, thinkers are kind of gun shy from identifying especially negative feelings in other people because, because they're afraid there's going to be backlash. It takes time for them to work through this and time of living in recovery. Thinkers need to get in touch with their emotions, feelings and reactions. So their problem solving efforts are focused on the end goal. What is it that we're working toward? You know, there's this immediate crisis, but what is it that we're working toward? In the end, feelers often need to develop distress tolerance skills to prevent active relapse. And this is true whether we're talking about relapse into depression, generalized anxiety, bipolar addiction. A feeler tends to be very physiologically responsive. So helping them understand that and helping them develop distress tolerance skills so they're not going from 0 to 126 times a day and just wearing themselves out. Because once they start to get tired, you know, thinking about vulnerabilities, they're more at risk for relapse of their mental health or their substance abuse issue or both. Each person is a Combination of some not introverted, extrovert thinking and feeling characteristics. Knowing your own preferences can help you reduce your own vulnerabilities. And knowing that of your friends, family and co workers can help you understand more about how to interact in harmony with them. Not everybody is going to want to discuss the values and the meta concepts. Just like two people with depression have different symptoms, two people who are thinkers may have very different thinking perspectives. Whoops. So we want to look at what it is that makes people tick. What is it that helps them make their decisions, and what is it that gets them motivated. If you present them a logical argument about why this would be useful, do they get really excited or do they get more excited? If you can present this argument about how much better it's going to make life for all these people out here. And you know, I said before I used to write grants and it was always a balancing act, because when you're submitting a grant, you're submitting it to humans and you don't exactly know what their take is going to be on stuff. But you do know that you've got to present a logical argument for how you're going to spend the grant money, but you also have to present a compelling argument for how you're going to improve the lives of people and how your grant is the best solution as opposed to any of the others that are competing for the same money. So it was always about a balancing act. Finding that middle ground between people. Let's see. Do feelers have a greater risk of relapse? Is a question that came in. Honestly, I would say no. And the reason I would say that is because feelers, while they're more emotive and they can be more emotionally physiologically reactive, sometimes thinkers are focusing so much on logic that they miss the feelings underneath it. They're doing the next right thing and doing the next right thing and doing the next right thing, and then suddenly they relapse and they're like, well, what happened when you are doing the next right thing? Were you happy? Is the next right? Was there anything in there that was fulfilling to you that made you feel joy, that made you feel love, that made you feel anything? I mean, yes, you were doing the right things and that's great. However, there has to be an element of reward to it. And what was the reward you were finding in it? Thinkers tend to be very by the book and not every recipe fits every person. So I think they both have a risk of relapse. The key thing is for them, my little Soapbox is that the key thing, regardless of their temperament, is to be mindful. How am I feeling emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and environmentally? What's going on around me that could be stressful? Am I aware of all of these things? And what stresses people, stresses feelers out, if you will, is going to be different than what stresses thinkers out. So they need to be aware of their particular situation. What are the stressors, how can they be minimized or mitigated? And how can you make an environment that's as conducive to recovery and happiness? And again, this is true for depression or anxiety too. You want to make sure that people have enough energy to be happy and that people are making choices to do things that are going to get them towards that ultimate goal of at least contentment. I mean, some people are like, I could never be happy. And I'm not going to argue with them, you know, that's pointless. If they made up their mind that they can never be happy. Alright, what can you be? What are we working toward? Because that's the end goal. What is it that you're doing? And how is following the rules or how is doing, making the choices you're making getting you there? Let's see. And somebody else said, can they choose to let Sally go to the prom and impose grounding after the prom? And you know, that would be my solution, but it would be between the parents about how passionately the person who was rule oriented felt about imposing the rules right away. I mean, that's definitely a pretty significant punishment to take away a once in a lifetime event. So you know, I can't say how, how it would turn out. It really depends on the family. But you know, that, that would have been my choice. How does mental health diagnosis affect one's ability to move on the continuum such that there can be a compromise on an issue? And if somebody's depressed really depends on the diagnosis. If we're talking about schizophrenia, that's going to be a whole different ball game. If we are talking about uncontrolled schizophrenia, if we're talking about depression or anxiety, we need to look at what's causing those symptoms for that person. If somebody's really depressed, they may feel, you know, that hopelessness and helplessness is there. So the logic, they can see the logic in it, but everything just seems to hurt and we need to address that. But it doesn't change how they feel about situations. If they're, they're driven by compassion, they're still going to be driven by compassion. And I Don't. My personal experience is that depression or anxiety, especially at the level that we see on an outpatient basis, doesn't affect people's decision making or communication ability. They can compromise should they want to. It's a matter of helping them figure out what's going to. What's important to them at this point in time in order to help them be as happy as they can be. If we're talking about bipolar disorder, and again, if uncontrolled, bipolar disorder is a whole different ballgame. One thing I did do with a client that I had, which seemed to work really well, she was in our pregnancy and postpartum. And before I finish this, if you've got to go to your next session or you've got a client or whatever this is just post class Q and A. It's not on the quiz. You can feel free to log out, but I'm going to stay here as long as y' all are wanting to chit chat. People with bipolar disorder can compromise. I worked with a lot of clients in residential with bipolar, and the one client that I did have that was on our postpartum unit, she checked in when she was still. I think she was six months pregnant when she checked in. And the doc wouldn't prescribe her any mood stabilizers, so she was completely unmedicated for her last trimester, plus the first six months after giving birth. So she was having some pretty intense episodes, you can imagine, with all the hormone changes and everything else, in addition to being coming off the drugs that she was taking. When she would go into a. She would go into hypomanic episodes, but she would be so revved and her. Her thoughts would be all over the place. So we eventually figured out that if we took her into a group room where we had a great big whiteboard and we would talk about something and if she started getting off topic, we would write it on the whiteboard and say, okay, we'll talk about that in just a second. Let's go back to this main problem. So it validated that I heard what she was saying and we weren't going to forget about it. We get back to it in a minute. But we needed to come back here. And it helped her learn how to get herself refocused. But whenever she was in a hypomanic episode, it really was important for her to write things down. And she would carry around a notepad with her after that. And if she was in a house meeting or something else where she had to be somewhat focused, she was able to write down things that came up, whether they were related to the topic at hand or not. She was able to write those down so she didn't feel stressed about, I need to talk about this, and I need to talk about this. So if somebody's got bipolar disorder and they're in an active episode, they're relatively uncontrolled, obviously paying attention. Are we talking manic or depressed? If they are in a manic or hypomanic episode and they're having a hard time focusing, that can make it more difficult to come to any sort of compromise because they can be kind of all over the place. Helping them figure out how to get focused, whether it's writing it down or taking some time, or having small, small discussions. Ten minutes instead of trying to have this big, long discussion and solve a problem all in one sitting can help. Again, even in bipolar disorder, their decision making may be more towards pleasure oriented. They may be more intensely goal driven and understanding. That will help you understand kind of what interventions to use with them. But they can also make logical decisions. I mean, assuming it's not uncontrolled to the point where they need to be under care, where they need to be hospitalized, we're assuming that they can make the best decisions or good enough decisions to exist, you know, like everybody else, to live in their house and to function normally, and that there's always a little bit of a question. When someone is in a. Or getting ready, you can see an episode getting ready to happen. They're getting really stressed, getting tired, getting worn out. Once they are stabilized, obviously, you know, they can make the decisions that are based on their values and everything else. There's no cognitive impairment in the bipolar disorder. It's just a matter of helping them control their thoughts. Once they're stabilized, they can compromise. There's nothing keeping them from doing that. They may be driven or have a harder time making decisions, especially on sort of. Well, on either side. If they're on the depressive end, they may have a more depressive, a more need to relieve the depressive symptoms. So that may dominate any of their decisions. What is it that, that we're doing right now? And do I even have the energy to deal with this? They may not. I mean, think about if you've ever been depressed or really, really sick even, and somebody came to you with something, example of, you know, you're really sick, you're in bed and your kid comes into your room, and they're like, hey, mom, can we build a fort in the backyard? And you're just like whatever, don't hurt yourself. I don't have the energy to really argue all the small points of this right now. That could be something that's going on. I mean, without knowing the specific situation, I don't think that I can really speak specifically to the bipolar. But anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, any of your mood disorders are affecting the mood, not necessarily how they inherently are motivated and make their decisions. One last note on the question of feelers and thinkers who has a greater risk of relapse and remaining mindful of what's going on, whether it's depression, anxiety or addiction. Relapses don't come from out of the blue unless there's, you know, some tragedy that happens that just completely overwhelms somebody's ability to cope. But generally it comes on over a period of time of not being mindful of, not eliminating vulnerabilities, making sure you get enough sleep, all the general take care of your stuff self stuff that we tell people to make sure they do that Maslow bottom, bottom level of the pyramid and making sure not to be on autopilot. Autopilot is great in an airplane. We're not airplanes. People need to pay attention to how they're feeling. And a lot of times I found people that I've worked with, with mood disorders or addictions have been on autopilot for so long. Which is why their, their depression or anxiety or addiction got to the point where it was because they were just, they just kept getting up and going to work and coming home and going to sleep and getting up and doing it again the next day, trying to push through it and trying to ignore it. So now we're saying stop ignoring, start paying attention. So they need to get back in touch with who they are, what they want and need and making choices in accordance with that. All right, if you don't have any other questions, you can always send me questions@supportlce.com otherwise I am going to end the meeting right now and I will see you on Tuesday. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. 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