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Chapter One

Open the Door to Your Best Self

Behind the Therapy Door: Simple Strategies to Transform Your Life takes you on a journey into the inner sanctum of a psychologist’s office. From this unique vantage point, you will hear the intimate conversations between therapist and client, witness firsthand the benefits of mind and body strategies, and gain insight from the experiences of six women in the throes of transition. Their treatment within the therapy setting becomes your springboard for learning important life lessons. You will acquire tools and strategies that will help you develop more loving and sustainable relationships, and lead you to your best possible life.

As a psychologist and educator for over thirty-five years, I have listened to a multitude of women who discount their own value and fail to step into their personal power. They talk about feeling disconnected, unhappy, and unable to move forward with their lives. Yet when these same women are equipped with tools to nurture themselves and build stronger relationships and support systems, their feelings of alienation subside, and their lives begin to flourish.

The Framework for Behind the Therapy Door

I chose to use stories and the patient-therapist dialogue as the primary framework for this book. All human beings, particularly women, love stories. They help us make sense of our world and our experience in it. Stories create comfort and connection. Whether with friends, family, a therapist, or a group, women find it healing to talk about their emotional realities. When we are feeling supported, our physical, emotional, and social lives are enriched, and we gain the fortitude needed for times of challenge and transition.

Behind the Therapy Door tells the stories of women whose search to find greater meaning and love paves the way for readers to do the same. Each story depicts the common challenges associated with loss, loneliness, and alienation, and speaks to the desire we all share to create a full and gratifying life. By sharing their stories and integrating mindfulness and relational skills, these women overcome personal battles and find greater peace. Over time, each woman learns mind-body strategies that expand her capacity to tolerate painful emotions and create more loving relationships.

Emotional Set Point

Every person has a natural set point for feeling states, like a thermostat. Genetics, upbringing, and personality play important roles in determining where this set point lies. Some people tend to be more naturally optimistic, while others see life through a more negative lens. Life events sway the thermostat, but in most cases we return to our familiar set point. The practices delineated in Behind the Therapy Door show how to positively alter the brain’s chemistry and consequently boost this set point in healthy and lasting ways.

This ability to modify our “emotional thermostat” is a breakthrough in the field of psychology. In this book, the methods that help alter brain chemistry are presented in small, consumable bites that build upon each other.

Mind-Body Strategies and Contemporary Science

Mind-body strategies and ancient contemplative practices have become integrated into contemporary psychology and medicine. For example, learning to elicit a relaxation response through abdominal breathing, relaxation training, yoga, or prayer helps us become less susceptible to the negative effects of stress and improves our health, happiness, and productivity. It has been shown that abdominal breathing quiets the mind and calms the nervous system. Abdominal breathing builds the capacity to think with clarity and in the moment, rather than simply operating on automatic pilot.

By learning a simple meditation technique, we become aware of ourselves from the inside out. We bear witness to our internal experiences and do not simply react to thoughts and sensations as they arise. Meditation helps to manage stress, anxiety, depression, pain, loss, and compulsive behaviors. It also improves concentration, cognitive function, insight, intuition, creativity, and wisdom.

Modern science teaches us that our brains are malleable, or “neuroplastic.” This refers to the brain’s ability to reshape or reorganize itself by forming new neural connections as a result of our experiences. We can “train our brains” to be calm, optimistic, and compassionate. Self-hypnosis and visualization methods help to minimize negative thoughts and emotions while building and expanding a repertoire of positive thoughts and actions. With practice, we can learn to savor positive experiences so they become deeply embedded in our minds, bodies, and hearts.

Positive Psychology and Mind-Body Connection

The growing interest in the mind-body connection parallels the study and practice of “positive psychology.” Rather than focusing on mental illness, positive psychologists seek to cultivate the individual’s unique abilities and make everyday life more fulfilling. With positive psychology tools, people can build more positive emotions, amplify their strengths, and tune into their highest purpose.

Qualities like altruism, spirituality, creativity, courage, gratitude, wisdom, and the capacity to love and be loved can be gleaned through the stories in this book. You will notice that when the women in these stories combine their personal strengths and abilities with insight and mindfulness strategies, they begin to achieve greater joy and fulfillment, even in the face of loss and disappointment.

Women and Friendship

As human beings, we are all social creatures and we need strong, positive relationships to thrive. Those with robust social ties have fewer medical or psychological problems and recover faster from trauma and illness. Women have been shown to be hardwired for friendship.1 We have a powerful biological need to connect with each other, which is demonstrated by surges in our hormones when we gather. Friendships increase our sense of belonging and purpose and improve mood and self-esteem. Research shows that women with close friends live longer, happier, and more fulfilling lives.

According to Harvard Health Publications, social connections buffer us from many of the harmful effects of stress, which can impair the arteries of the heart, the immune system, gut function, and insulin regulation.2 Friendships help protect us from disease, decrease our perception of pain, and motivate us to recover from illnesses and injuries. These vital social ties also make life passages such as aging, divorce, trauma, job loss, and death of a loved one more tolerable.

In this multitasking, techno-crazed life, many people have forgotten the simple pleasures of being present with friends. Bringing the mindful, grounded self into the context of healthy friendships helps us to heal our wounds, nourish our souls, and strengthen our resiliency. Those nurtured by friendships have more positive energy for themselves, as well as for others whose lives they touch. Behind the Therapy Door is about finding happiness and purpose and cultivating loving relationships, so that no matter what challenges life sends our way we feel able to carry on.

Mind-body medicine, mindfulness, and positive psychology strategies lay the foundation for highly effective self-care and a strong inner core. When we center ourselves, we are poised to realize our potential, build healthy relationships, and make a positive difference in the lives of others.

The Impetus for Behind the Therapy Door

Several years ago, after attending the Massachusetts Conference for Women, I discovered that even as women have become more educated, financially independent, and competitive in the workforce, they have become increasingly unhappy. This downward trend is influenced by the stress created by the contemporary demands of the workplace, which have been layered upon the more traditional responsibilities of home and hearth. In combination with a greater sense of social isolation, these realities have generated distress and unhappiness for considerable numbers of women.

Many women have become detached from friends, neighbors, and families. When connections deteriorate, personal and communal lives suffer, as do physical and emotional health. Ironically, with advancements in information and communication technologies there seems to be even less time to reconcile the competing obligations of work, family, and self-care. Sadly, women tend to feel the resulting stress more acutely than men.

My intention in writing this book is to help more women become unwilling to settle for low self-esteem and unhappiness, and to empower them with strategies that foster greater inner strength and resilience. My wish is to help you answer the question poised so wonderfully by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Mary Oliver in her poem “The Summer Day.” She writes, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The Mission for Behind the Therapy Door

What do I really want out of my life, and how can I make it happen? How do I realize my deepest dreams and desires? How can I make a difference in the lives of others? The answers to these questions are more accessible than you might imagine. Through the wisdom found in these compelling stories, this book is designed to help you get unstuck, achieve your goals, and transform your relationships.

My hope is that the benefits derived from internalizing tools presented in Behind the Therapy Door will be life altering and, in certain instances, lifesaving. Learn from the universal struggles experienced by these six women and customize the strategies offered to address your personal needs. I encourage you to embrace and practice these techniques until they are integrated into your everyday life. You may begin to notice your own personal metamorphosis.

Consider keeping this practical guide accessible, referencing it often to review the strategies presented. These are tools that, with regular practice, will change your life in a lasting way. I encourage you to augment the knowledge you gain here with the online support I provide through webinars, online courses, podcasts, and other social media venues available on my website at www.DrRandyKamen.com.

1 http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/gender/tendfend.html (accessed January 4, 2017).

2 http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships (accessed January 4, 2017).