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Redge: Tell me about the steps that Success Therapy takes to help folks who are really
struggling with this. Michelle: There’s a few things that people
can be on. One is the actual Success Therapy process where we take a two-hour session and
help them to go through what we’d like to call their grocery list of issues. Most people
will at least have an idea of things that are bothering them throughout the day. It
might be things like, “My kids come home and the first thing out of their mouth is
an argument.” It doesn’t matter where we’re going or what we’re doing, all of
a sudden everybody is in a bad mood. When they come into their sessions, we have
this list of items. “Okay, so when your kids come home, what kind of things they tend
to argue about?” We start to work on and break down each one of these issues so that
instead of participating in the arguments with the kids when they come home, that you
can start to see them for what they are. Maybe it’s just teenagers being hormonal, maybe
it’s their having bad day, maybe they’re getting bullied at school and nobody is actually
hearing what they’re saying and listening to them because the adults in the room are
still caught up on their day and the bully at work, all of the emotional distress that
they’re going through. By taking the adults through a process to
be able to help them workout their issues one at a time, then that transforms into their
everyday life where they can start to deal with what’s really going on for the other
people in their lives. Now, in those two-hour sessions, what we’re looking out working
on is not necessarily the here and now of the teenager walking into the room, but why
when the teenager walks in the room and says what they say, that the adult, in turn, goes
off. Like why they get into their own emotional trauma and headspace; what’s really going
on for them that they’re not present and able to listen.
Redge: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Once you start to be able to unpack these things,
what are the next steps as far as what a person can do to start moving forward?
Michelle: The interesting part that I found with the Success Therapy process is that it’s
as easy as that. It’s as easy as going into the sessions because when we’re in session,
we’re actually getting to the root cause of what‘s causing those issues in the first
place and resolving them. I find that that’s one of the biggest keys that most therapies
from the past have lacked was they didn’t actually resolve the issue.
They do a lot of talk therapy. They do a little Gestalt and get it all out in the open, and
yes, that’s all great and all, but where is the resolution to it? in our sessions,
we actually resolve the issues in that moment for that particular grocery list that they’ve
brought to us that we’ve worked on or had time to work on in the session. The changes
in their brain are actually done. They’ll notice that when they get home that day and
even though the teenagers are doing the same thing, that they will actually respond differently.
Now, it might not be complete 100 percent resolution while they’re just sitting there
calmly listening to their teenagers, but they will notice a marked difference right away.
The shifts happen within those sessions, which is the great part. They don’t need to reinforce
anything. They don’t need to move on from there. It’s just a matter of, “Okay, is
there still some sort of tension and trauma going on? Okay, now, what’s our new grocery
list and what are we going to work on this week?”
Redge: Wow! That sounds like a real departure from the traditional sort of approach that
a lot of psychologists take. Michelle: Yes, absolutely. I know a lot of
people will come in to our office and they’ll ask us, “Okay, so how do I reinforce this?
What do I have to do now? What’s my homework?” There really isn’t any. It’s, “Go on
live your life, have some fun, and notice what’s going on for you and bring your list
back next week.” Redge: That sounds fantastic.
Michelle: Yes. We like it. Redge: What are the types of things … sorry,
go ahead. Michelle: No, that’s okay.
Redge: I was just curious, what are the types of things that a lot of people are coming
to Success Therapy to get help with? Michelle: A lot of them are looking at exactly
that. Their stresses of everyday life have just become too much and they need some help
to be able to unload them. That’s where they’re looking at coming to us. The harder
they get is where they start to come to us. Redge: Yes, that makes sense.
Michelle: Now, it could be in areas of their relationships, whether it’s with their spouse
or their kids or their social network. It could be business-related. It could be as
far as their employment goes, their relationships with their boss or their peers. It could also
be entrepreneurs who are having issues with their clients.
We don’t preclude that they need to be in a certain category in order to come and see
us. It’s just a matter of a lot of people with depression or some sort of stress will
come to us because it’s just gets the point where they can’t deal with it anymore.