Posted by Dinah on January 30, 2008, at 19:58:41
In reply to Re: I hope it went well » Dinah, posted by rskontos on January 30, 2008, at 19:13:32
Therapy is chugging along I guess.
Breathing exercises are good. I still use them often. There's also one where you tighten each set of muscles, then release. And guided relaxation. I've developed my own that suit me but that would be too idiosynchratic to successfully explain.
I do do this thing where I focus on the light and shadow behind my eyelids when I close them, and concentrate on forming them into the shape of my favorite black and white dog.
Grounding exercises I remember include curling your toes into the ground, or touching something in the room. I used to have a smooth rock keychain, and a tapestry purse. I would ground myself by rubbing the smooth cool rock, and the rough texture of the tapestry and really concentrating on how it felt.
Therapy can be hard. Definitely. But a lot of therapists prepare you first with a lot of coping skills exercises so that getting worse before getting better doesn't incapacitate.
My therapist assigned me a lot of exercises from the "Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" when we first started therapy. I also found Marsha Linehan's DBT workbook to have a lot of good anxiety reducing strategies.
poster:Dinah
thread:808852
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080126/msgs/809810.html