Today’s snippet of insight is on an analogy that a client shared in a session. This is a client with whom I’ve been working with for a while. Along with a number of techniques integrated from different approaches, we eventually began to focus our work on REBT – Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Having spent a number of sessions disputing our attitudes, beliefs, learning to think more rationally, to act in self- helping ways; in this session we were discussing some reasons we may still find it difficult to try to ensure we don’t tolerate disrespect or violation of boundaries. We may often face a tiff within ourselves about what we think we deserve.
Mid-session the client explained it to me like this: when I look at it from the point of view of my higher self (she meant while she was thinking rationally) she has the clarity that she deserves to be treated with respect. Using this analogy suddenly made a lot of sense to her, because what it did, was that it helped bring in perspective! We often use different kinds of perspectives in therapy for a variety of reasons, whether it is to understand something better, see something from different viewpoints, reason better or anything else.
What kinds of perspectives has your therapist introduced to you, that helped you in some way?