Depression can rob our clients of the full, thriving lives we all hope for.
And so often, a depressed client will avoid the very people, places, and activities that once gave them pleasure.
In the video below, Steven Hayes, PhD describes a woman who suffered from both depression and anxiety. She started avoiding the business that she owned . . .
. . . until he gave her a simple, unique, almost playful assignment.
Take a look – it’s about 5 minutes.
To hear more strategies from top experts on how to work with depression, check out our full-length course: Overcoming Barriers to Healing Depression
What ideas are you going to use with your patients? Please leave a comment below.
Talk to 3 different people every day.
I totally agree with Dr. Steven Hayes about connecting clients to their porpuse, meaning and values. And help them to disconnect from the Egocentric mind. I love it. Thank you for sharing
When I was so poor all I could do was pay rent and sit in my space, I found a big box of food on my doorstep and someone running and getting away in a vehicle. It was that joy in giving anonymously (by a Mormon group) that set me off on my adventure. Years later I had just sold a mobile home and had a few extra bucks, and in line at the bank teller window next to me was a young mother with infant on her hip who was counting out pennies and change trying to cover her overdraft. I slid a note to the teller, saying I would deposit a few hundred dollars into her account. After her transaction was done, the teller gave her the slip with her account balance as I was walking away. The girl fell into tears and almost dropped her baby! It has also been a wonderful adventure as I go to new churches just to encourage others, not waiting for them to be friendly to me or say hello. I have welcomed newcomers on my first day in the pew. LOL
Thank you a great way to allow the client to do something that come naturally and feel great about the awareness of wholeness which is non judgemental.
I am going to weave this concept in with the work I am doing with an adolescent female … the gentler approach to exposure to one new thing a new along with the one kind thing a day that connects to values and others has the potential to be the thing that moves her forward.
I’m going to use this with my patient to help him be able to focus on himself more for important self care he needs to start doing. Thank you ?
I have colleagues who can benefit from this approach to helping them take joy in what they do during their days. I found this one of many very helpful experiences came from reading your postings and the videos within them.
Perfect intervention as it causes the embodied constriction and stuckness of depression to open up and have movement, to create the space for doing the one new thing. And once the old pattern gets broken, with practice, the newly created action of doing the meaningful action with kindheartedness, it slowly becomes embodied and the old constriction becomes part of the past. Love it!
I will take the concept shared and offer this to a client whose life has been forever changed after the tragic loss of a child. I will offer it as a way of memorial for the child who had been one to offer small kindnesses (the client) in the past.
Wow! Thank you for this. “Fear of Judgement” can get in the way of who we are.
My main takeaway from this was to remove the element of competition rooted in the desire to please others that seems to plague not only myself, but from what is currently going on, multiple generations.
In my opinion, this cycle of people pleasing only ends up feeding what I see as an addiction to affirmation and recognition. It stops being about the act of kindness and becomes this social transaction.
So I’ll give the following a whirl:
Give joy freely and anonymously.
My 2¢
Have listened to many of Ruth’s programs, and this is at the top of the list of good ones. As a person who had a charmed life with a wonderful woman for 61 years but lost her after 24 years of caring with her for the dementia and its derivatives which finally killed her I have experienced severe depression for the last 16 months. The suggestions the gentleman in this video gave were excellent. I am not a psychologist however thank you for the insights.
The non judgement and doing a kind non-applaud thing everyday
Dr. Hayes’ scenerio described one of my client’s symptoms perfectly. I am going to encourage her to show one (secret) kindness a day to herself or others.
And I love your comment about sharing what works with others! Thank you for that and for sharing videos like this one. It makes us all better helping others!
I’m thinking now of posing an idea of a “secret act of kindness” club for my client in a school where bullying has been a problem. He is 11! Also, he might try it to show love for his mother who is the sole privy and home maker for two boys. I think he may get into the idea and it might help his sense of self worth as we have been exploring his feeling that “nobody understands me.” I love this idea!
Love the idea of act of kindness everyday. I have a client who “does not want to do anything” but may be able to do this.
I love turning away from the problem, the roots of the problem and the playful idea of doing everyday something new which brings me closer to my values. Watching nicabm videos is just the thing for me! A short time of studying without stress brings me forward in my practice and with my clients. 🙂
I’d love to find a way to frame this for aspiring millennials in the workplace, who have been so clocked and tracked and graded that they sometimes seem to find it hard to feel like they’re succeeding without ‘beating’ others to the levels and accolades they seek so actively.
I’ve felt badly for some of my younger colleagues, who seem to lack this experience of secret kindness, or secret/internal anything. I’ve seen folks who are so hungry to be witnessed that they’ve done damage to those around them, but they still don’t seem fed or confirmed even when they ‘win’.
Given rules like these, and a set goal to achieve, might be just the ticket.
And what about receiving kindness? How do we react when we receive kindness – or anything else – and don’t know whom to thank?
Well, we coukd simply feel grateful and cared for and maybe even enjoy the mystery. One of the beauties of the anonymity is that it removes the ability to feel beholden or to feel pressure to return in a tit for tat manner. There’s no one to repay when you do not know who chose to bless you with kindness. Thus, it also removes any sense of control over outcomes, teaching us that good things can just come to us without earning or repaying being a part of the picture as well as that we do not have to control everything!
It is often more comfortable to give than to receive because we retain some eense of being in control as the giver, but there is indeed much blessing in learning the art of receiving!
Apologies for typos –my screen won’t go bigger for this site, and the type is teensy!
I like the idea of being kind and not getting caught so will be considering this as a strategy for some clients that I think it might resonate with.
Great video. Thank you.