Labeling and overgeneralizing is a form of cognitive distortion. Cognitive distortion is a filter our brain creates that increases a person’s anxiety, frustration, anger, and low self worth. Cognitive distortions cause us to not view the world around us or ourselves correctly. Labeling and overgeneralizing are a form of cognitive distortions.

Labeling is when you place a negative label on something, someone, or yourself entirely, over one circumstance that turned out poorly. Example of this would be if you put in for a promotion at work and didn’t get it. This could be for a variety of reasons, but instead of rationalizing those reasons, or moving forward, you label yourself as a loser and pathetic because you didn’t get the job.

Overgeneralizing is when you take an opinion or circumstance and use that as “evidence” to make a decision on how you feel about an entire situation or person. An example of this would be if someone tells you an opinion that they have and you don’t like it. So you generalize that they are a bad or immoral person over that one opinion.

Labeling & Overgeneralizing is Not Good

If you find yourself falling into those mindsets and patterns, it is important to take a closer look at how you view yourself and the people around you. Negative circumstances, words, or opinions shouldn’t dictate who you are and who everyone else is around you. You don’t want to have a negative label for yourself and everyone else. It is important to break free from that mindset and become who you want to be. That is Evolution Mental Healths goal. We want you to have a positive and healthy outlook on life and yourself!

For More Information

Below is a video from our facebook page, where I go into further detail on this subject

Contact us

8211 E Regal PL STE 100, Tulsa, OK 74133

(918) 379-4431

info@evolutionmhs.com

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Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done. Shame is feeling bad about who you are as a person. Guilt is looking at a regrettable thing you’ve done and wishing you’d not done that thing. Shame is looking at a regrettable thing you’ve done and deciding you must be a bad person because you did it.

Guilt can be useful. Guilt means you recognize your mistake. A person who never experiences guilty feelings is probably a sociopath. You want to experience just enough guilt to learn from your mistakes. That’s where guilt can be useful, learning from your mistakes.

Shame, however, is never useful. Shame brings you down and keeps you there. Shame is what creates spirals. I see this so often with addiction. A person does things while they’re in active addiction that conflicts with their moral code, and naturally, feels bad about it. They don’t have the knowledge or the skills or the strength or the support at that moment to deal with that feeling so they drink or use more, which leads to more regrettable behavior, and the spiral continues. The same thing happens with harmful behaviors and harmful patterns other than just substance abuse. The point is, shame is not helpful.

Accept the guilt as long as you make it productive and learn from your mistakes. Ditch the shame.

If you’d like help ditching the shame, let us know. We’d be glad to help. evolutionmhs.com. Evolve. Be Who You Want to Be.

The post Understanding Guilt and Shame in Recovery and Growth first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

The problem with that line of thinking is that it WAS me. I did that thing. No amount of self-talk can change what has already happened. It WAS me. The reality is… and this is crucial to understand… the reality is THAT IS WHO I AM UNDER THAT SPECIFIC SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES. Everything that was going on inside me and around me came together to trigger that particular response. It was me. It was me under that specific set of circumstances. And as long as I’m in denial about that fact, I’m in danger of doing the same thing again.

The beauty of owning the fact that I did that is that I can learn from what happened and make sure I never do that thing again. As long as I’m telling myself, “That’s not me,” I can’t learn. I’m can’t grow. I’m disassociating myself from my behavior. How can I learn from something I’m not accepting as reality?

I think maybe the most beneficial thing a person gets out of counseling is self-awareness. We all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses we can get rid of. Other weaknesses may never fully go away. They’re just part of our makeup. That doesn’t make us bad people. It just makes us human. But if we acknowledge them and own them as part of who we are, we can work to make sure we minimize their effects. We can protect ourselves and others from our weaknesses. If we can say, “It WAS me. I did that thing,” we have a chance to evolve into a better version of ourselves.

If there’s a part of you that you don’t like or something you did that you can’t accept, contact us, evolutionmhs.com. Maybe we can help. Evolve. Be Who You Want to Be.

The post That’s Not Me first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

We want to set the least amount of restrictions and promote the maximum amount of
autonomy as we can for our team members and our clients while remaining true to our
mission, vision, and other core values.

It’s your life. Who are we to tell you how to live it? Who are we to prescribe values or
convictions? We believe that is not our place. We believe our job is to learn what is
important to you and help you evolve as you desire. How does that look in our daily
practices?

For our clients, it means we pursue the goals they set. We make treatment
recommendations based on our training and experience. It is up to the client to follow
those recommendations. We will not ignore or refuse to work with someone who wants
to try a different approach. We will do the best we can to accommodate those wishes. If
we determine that we are not a good fit for someone based on an incompatibility
between their goals and our abilities, we will happily refer them to someone we believe
will better serve them with no animosity on our end.

We also honor the values and belief systems our clients present and try to work within
those frameworks. We want our clients to identify for themselves what is most important
to them for their lives. We want them to set personal goals based on those values. We
believe it is our job to use our knowledge and skill sets to help toward that end.

The only exception to this practice is with regard to safety. If we believe a client is a
threat to themselves or to someone else, we will intervene whether the client wants us
to or not. This is one of the ethical standards we follow, and it is the law of the land.

For our team members, this value means they will not be micromanaged. Different
therapists follow different methodologies and use different techniques based on a
number of factors. We do not believe there is one perfect way to treat all conditions. All
we ask is that our therapists use approaches that are backed by research and in which
they have appropriate training. We want them to be able to explain why they are doing
what they are doing. If they can adequately explain why they are using a particular
approach and demonstrate they have the ability to properly execute their plan, we are
satisfied.

We also want our team members to be free to do their jobs in a way that works best for
them. We do not make people work set schedules. We do not insist that all services
take place in one, centralized location. We do not prohibit our staff from working for
multiple businesses. We want our people to be happy to be working for Evolution
Mental Health Services, and we believe freedom helps them be happy.

All we demand is that our team members operate within the laws that govern us,
maintain the ethical standards put in place by our licensing bodies, and remain true to the mission, vision, and core values of Evolution Mental Health Services.

The post Our Core Values: Freedom first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

We want every service we provide to be the best quality service possible.

Not much kills a business quicker than terrible service. We understand that providing
services that are poor quality will run off the clients you currently have and hamper your
ability to get more clients in the future due to the damaged reputation you’ve earned.
Obviously, we want to avoid that at all costs.

If we say we can provide you a particular service, we believe we can provide that
service as well as or better than anyone else. Our therapists have a minimum of a
master’s degree, are fully licensed, and have specialized training and experience in
their areas of practice. Any therapist we add to our team must meet these same criteria.
We would rather grow slowly than add therapists to our team who do not meet our
standards.

This same attitude applies to our other professional services. If the Evolution Mental
Health Services label is on training or workshop, it is being delivered by someone who
is qualified to educate on that subject. If we’re providing supervision or consultation, we
will be speaking from an informed, experienced point of view or we will tell you we don’t
have knowledge in that area and either find the answer or point you in a good direction
to find it.

If we don’t think we can do well for you, we will refer you to someone we think can. We
would always rather refer to a provider outside of our company than do a subpar job
ourselves. We want the services we provide to be on a level that will satisfy our clients and give them confidence in recommending us to others.

The post Our Core Values: Quality first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

We want people to feel good about themselves and their world so they can maintain the motivation they need to continually evolve.

This core value seems more crucial now than ever before, at least in our lifetimes. We
know that no individual person can change the world. However, one person can change
themselves and positively influence those around them. That’s what we are trying to
achieve with this value.

We firmly believe that every person has strengths and abilities Every person has
positive qualities. This is true even when people are struggling. If this is true of
individual people, it has to be true of the world, because the world is comprised of
individual people. The more we can acknowledge that truth and respond accordingly,
the better we will be.

We continually look for and promote the good in people. Whether it is with a client in an
individual therapy session, online in a social media post, or in an internal meeting with
our team, we want to emphasize and celebrate the good we all have to offer.
This does not mean we ignore negativity. The toxicity and pain people experience are
real and deserve to be addressed. We understand that people come to us because they
are struggling, and in order for us to provide the best services, we have to not only
acknowledge but embrace those struggles to some degree so we can properly
understand and empathize with our clients.

This value is not about minimizing the unpleasant things that occur in life. It is about
empowering and unifying people around the good. We hope that in doing so, we will
help people feel better about themselves, the people around them, and the world in
general so that they can be more motivated to make the positive changes they desire.

The post Our Core Values: Motivation first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

We want to make the most out of the least in order to give the most value to everyone.

Why spend two years in therapy if you can gain the insights and skills you need in three
months? Why spend 40 hours “on the clock” if you can see a comfortable number of
clients and make enough money in 20 hours? Why drive 30 minutes to an office if an
online session would be just as beneficial? Why maintain a big building if a few
individual offices will provide the space you need?

These are the types of questions we ask ourselves regularly to make sure we are
making the most out of the least. We want our clients to get the treatment they need so
they can manage their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors without needing to rely on
us for the indefinite future. To follow the old proverbial saying, we’re teaching people to
fish so they can eat for a lifetime rather than giving them a fish for the day.

We want our therapists and support personnel to live full lives outside of their job.
There’s no need to make them punch a clock and spend 40 hours a week in the office
just because that’s the model everyone is used to. We want our team members to
spend the amount of time they need to spend to do their job and do it well. Beyond that,
they have no further time obligation to the company.

We respect the time, finances, and other resources of everyone involved in our
business from the owner to the team to the clients. We want to spend that time, that
money, and those resources when and where they are truly needed. Anything else is wasteful.

The post Our Core Values: Efficiency first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

We want to continually expand the number of services we can provide and the number
of people, we can help while maintaining adherence to our mission, vision, and other
core values.

Currently, we are a small company. Because we are small, there is a limit to the number
of services we can provide. For example, currently, if we were to encounter a person
whose needs were severe enough that they would require ten hours of therapeutic
services per week, we would have to refer that person to another program. We do not
have the personnel needed to provide ten hours of services per week to one person.

Another example would be a person with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia. Right now, we
do not have anyone on our team who specializes in Schizophrenia so we would need to
refer them to a therapist who does have that specialty. We hope to be able to provide
those services and more someday. This will require adding people to our team.

Another effect of being a small company is that there is a cap to the number of people
we can serve. We want healthy therapists who provide quality services. We don’t want
our therapists getting burned out. This means our therapists need to carry manageable
caseloads. So, naturally, the more therapists we have, the more people we can help.

We know there are risks associated with unbridled expansion. Companies, agencies,
and practices that place growth above all other values often suffer where quality is
concerned. We will never bring therapists on board if we are not confident in their ability
to provide first-rate services. We will not keep therapists on our team if they are
consistently failing to provide first-rate services. We will not expand in any way if we can
see that doing so will stifle the evolution of our personnel, our clients, our community, or
our profession or if doing so will contradict our other core values: efficiency, quality,
motivation, and freedom.

We believe in our mission. We believe in our vision. We believe in our values. Our goal
is to spread our brand of mental health services to as many people as possible, and never to sacrifice that goal for the sake of expansion.

The post Our Core Values: Growth first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

I frequently use these instructions as an analogy with clients. Today, I’m thinking of how this analogy applies to therapists as well. We are in a situation that is unsafe for many people. COVID-19 is a threat to public health, economic wellbeing, social support, and much more. It is also a threat to mental health. People are experiencing all sorts of emotions including fear, anger, and sadness. Therapists are not immune to these feelings.

Lately, I’ve been noticing an increased amount of panic and frustration in the therapeutic community. This epidemic has been a real disruption to everyone’s practice. Clinicians are having to make tough decisions and work with new technologies. Insurance companies are modifying their coverage. Licensure boards are changing their rules. It’s a lot to keep up with. As if practicing therapy wasn’t challenging enough already, now all this is flying at us. It’s only natural for mental health practitioners to feel the effects.

There are two things we must keep in mind right now maybe more than ever before. The first thing is that our clients are still there, still have the same issues they had before COVID-19, and may have increased symptoms now because of COVID-19. In other words, our clients need our help. Additionally, there is a new crop of potential clients out there who are struggling to deal with any combination of the previously mentioned impacts of the virus. We are needed.

The second thing we have to keep in mind and the real reason I am writing this is that WE MUST TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES. When I look at those airline safety instructions, two things stand out.

1. “Stay calm” – We cannot help other people decrease their anxiety if we are flooded with anxiety ourselves. Our clients can read us. They often know when we are not doing well emotionally even when we think we are keeping it together. Plus, we simply cannot practice as well when we are emotionally overwhelmed. That’s just a fact. So, we have to be calm.
2. “Make sure that your own mask is on first before helping your children.” – There is a really important reason the airline gives this instruction. If you try to help someone else get their mask on before yours is on, you will pass out from lack of oxygen. Then, you will be unable to help anyone. You have got to take care of yourself before you can adequately care for someone else. This is hard for many of us to do. We all got into this profession to help people. It’s easy for us to focus on that and ignore our own needs. We have to stop that destructive habit.

WE MUST PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH. Think of all those things you use with and recommend to your clients to help them manage their emotions. Are you doing those things? If not, it’s time to start. Exercise. Get enough sleep. Meditate. Eat healthy foods. Practice yoga. Talk to supportive family and friends even if it is via phone or social media. Do enjoyable things with your family. Listen to music you love. See a therapist. USE THOSE THERAPEUTIC EXERCISES YOU LIKE TO USE WITH CLIENTS ON YOURSELF. Examine your automatic thoughts and core beliefs. Create new, productive thoughts and beliefs. Use those coping skills. Practice those grounding techniques when you feel yourself getting overwhelmed. You’re a mental health professional with all this education and experience. You know the path. Follow it.

Let’s do what we can to make the world, or at least our little part of it, a better place. That starts with managing ourselves. We can do it.

The post Therapists, We Practice What We Preach first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.

Now, does everyone NEED intense psychotherapy?  Probably not.  Most people are moving along through life therapy free, and a lot of those people are doing just fine.  Some are excelling even.  So, everyone does not need therapy, but everyone can benefit from the right kind of therapy.

I’m trying clear up a common misconception here.  I think most people think someone has to have a clearly identifiable problem in order to seek therapy.  They have to be severely depressed or be addicted to something or be psychotic or be heading for divorce or whatever.  While all those situations certainly merit a therapeutic intervention, therapy is not only for those people.

You don’t have to have a problem to benefit from therapy.  You can do therapy to maximize your life.  Say you make $50,000 a year, and you want to make $100,000 a year.  Therapy can help with that.  Say you have a decent relationship, but you want beautiful relationship.  Therapy can help with that.  Say there’s some big decision or some existential problem you’re trying to figure out.  Therapy can help with that.  You get the idea.  The benefits of therapy are endless.

I know I’m obviously biased toward the benefits of therapy because I am a therapist.  That’s not the reason I’m posting this though.  Well, okay, at least not the only reason and not the main reason.  The main reason I’m making this argument is that I believe the way we make the world a better place is by growing as individuals first.  So, just as I am trying to improve myself, I want to see others improve.  I want to see people live up to their full potential in every area of life.  I think therapy can help in that process.

Are you trying to improve?  Are you trying to become that person you want to be?  If so, maybe therapy could help.

Evolve.

ADDENDUM:  I’m not just talking about therapy with me.  I’m happy to refer to other therapists when I am not a good fit for the individual or situation.

The post Who Is Therapy For? first appeared on Evolution Mental Health Services | Tulsa Counseling Services | Tulsa.