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DR. PAUL'S PSYCHOTHERAPYHELP NEWS
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"Start with the Basics" -- January 2005
Welcome to another edition of PsychotherapyHELP News! In
this newsletter, I will focus on a few basic skills to increase your emotional
currency for the new year: decreasing stress, managing reactivity and building
emotional currency. Achieve these goals and you're guaranteed a bigger
emotional paycheck in 2005.
IN THIS ISSUE
From Dr. Paul ...
Stress and Distress
Defusing Arguments and Yourself
Building Emotional Currency
Great New CD Program: "Instant Relief"
Announcements and Resource Links
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FROM DR. PAUL ...
Ah, the New Year. It brings promise ... the hope of starting
anew - future success? -
- a new job, home, bigger paycheck? Sounds good ...
But are you planning for an increase - a bigger paycheck -
in your emotional currency? Emotional currency is the core fossil fuel that
nurtures you and your relationships. High emotional currency is like a good
performing mutual fund: continuous growth in intimacy skills, stable gains in
relationship interest, and it works for you over the long haul. You feel good
about your self "worth" and your performance is stellar.
A deficit in emotional currency works against you: no gains
in relationship interest, a loss in intimacy skills, and performance is at a
stand still. The future performance of your emotional fund looks bleak,
unproductive, and uncertain.
Building emotional currency guarantees success and requires
focusing on the basics: decreasing stress, controling reactivity and increasing
your intimacy skills.
So, let's start with the "Basics" and build a
five-star emotional portfolio for 2005!
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STRESS AND DISTRESS
Stress is self-imposed in one way or another. You create
your life and your life is created by what is inside of you and the choices
that you make. You are responsible for every thought and feeling that you have.
No one else creates your life, nor is anyone else responsible for your
thoughts, feelings and choices.
However you choose to create stress, you can choose to
transform it. Positive stress is based on true creativity rather than
compulsive anxiety. Positive stress requires taking care of your self
emotionally, spiritual, cognitively, and interpersonally. Negative stress
creates distress – anxiety and suffering - and is driven by repressive defenses
aimed at keeping you from discovering your real self. Workaholism, a prime
example of negative stress, is a disorder based on “busy making” as a means of
escaping from your own denied, buried emotions.
To read the rest of "Stress and Distress", go to
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/relationshipprogram/Mofile=services&UID=93MM
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DEFUSING ARGUMENTATIVE PEOPLE AND YOURSELF
It does not have to take years of psychotherapy to get you
to handle provocative, defiant, argumentative people. You do not necessarily
have to explore your unresolved childhood traumas. The trick is to learn how to
control those rising, hot, angry reactions ... to change your feelings early so
that you do not go out of control and make the situation worse. It is best to
de-escalate the tension rather than heat it up by doing something that you will
be sorry for later.
The first step to defusing that upsurge of angry energy is
to realize that it is possible to be provoked into an argumentative situation
at any given moment. Defiant, argumentative people do not really want to hear,
listen or receive what you have to say. They are poised and ready to spring
into defiance and disagreeableness.
They are set to discount any, if not all, of your perceptions, thoughts
or feelings. They are rejectors and life with them is usually punctuated with
unpleasantness, fights and yes, even violence.
These are the people that you just want to punch and throw through a
wall. Real closeness and intimacy with
them is virtually next to impossible.
To read the rest of the article, go to
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/relationshipprogram/Mofile=services&UID=93MM
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BUILDING EMOTIONAL CURRENCY
The truth is you can have the most ecstatic personal
relationship, just by following some basic fundamentals.
Intimate relationships depend on extended time spent
nurturing, caring and loving one another. Everybody Wants to Win and Be a
Winner. Nobody wants to lose and accumulate losses. As in business, sports and
other activities, marriage follows the same rule; Everybody Wants to Win.
Sometimes it is very difficult discovering effective strategies for many areas
of life. But, a weekly commitment to scheduling in an Uninterrupted Attention
program is a sure winner. Your relationship has to be your No. 1 priority.
Don't squeeze it in between your other activities! It is the centerfold around
which all of your other activities must revolve. Your partner and your
relationship must come first, otherwise you and your partner will deplete the
Love Fund and kill the relationship. I tell you this, because it is easy and
very common to turn a Love Fund into a Hate Fund. If you do not believe me,
then check with all of those once loving couples, who now hate each other.
Go to http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/nss-folder/articles/ to
read "Touch and Affection"... For more information on "Sizzling
Relationships", go to http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/relationshipprogram/Mofile=services&UID=93MM
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INCREDIBLE NEW CD PROGRAM - "INSTANT RELIEF"
Eliminate tension and anxiety in just eight minutes!
Close your eyes and let Dr. Hannig's voice change how you
feel. Instantly, melt tension, anxiety, anger, fear, or any other negative
emotions that you're experiencing at the moment.
This breakthrough CD program contains two inductions: one
for at home use and one for use in the car while you are driving. Take eight
minutes out of your lunchtime and feel absolutely great at work! Why drive
feeling frustrated, stressed, and negative when you can arrive at your
destination feeling fabulously relaxed and positive.
For more information, go to
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/services/item.nhtml?profile=services&UID=93MM
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ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESOURCE LINKS
Learn more about the many different therapy models at
PsychotherapyHELP.com at http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/door/
Learn more about Mood, Anxiety, and Personality Disorders at
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/mood1anxiety1personalitydisorders/
Don't forget to explore our valuable "Resource Web
Links" at PsychotherapyHELP at
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/mood1anxiety1personalitydisorders/
NEW - Two Day United Kingdom Conference on Borderline
Personality Disorder - Feb. 24 & 25. Go to http://www.bpdworld.org/ for
more information.
Go to http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/newsletterstodownload/
for past issues of PsychotherapyHELP
News ...
Need answers? Suffering from a Personality Disorder or
involved with someone who has one? Then check out Dr. Paul's acclaimed manual,
"Coping with the Disorder" at
http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/services/Mpprogram/Mofile=services&UID=93MM
For more information on Deep Feeling Emotional Release
Therapy, go to http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/feelingtherapy/
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Best Regards,
Paul J. Hannig, Ph.D. MFCC