Types of Therapy/First Drafts/Incredible Novel

A subscriber recently asked me if I knew of a good resource that describes different kinds of therapy that are not talk therapy. 

The reality is that talk therapy, while a great option, is not for everyone. The other reality is that there aren’t great resources when it comes to helping people decide which therapies are right for them. So much of finding the right approach—and the right person to deliver that approach—is pure luck. 

Good Therapy has been a helpful resource for me in the past, and their list of therapy types is one of the best I know. Includes links to descriptions, and each therapy description has a list of references at the end.

I’ve shared drawings from Sketchplanations before because I think they do a good job describing interesting concepts with simple images.

This one spoke to me. I’m a perfectionist, and I hate it. I know that nothing can ever be perfect, yet my brain tells me I should seek perfection. What has always worked better for me is to just focus on making progress.

As the image shows, your first draft is always perfect. Why? Because it’s a draft! You started! You got something down. All finished works, from projects to art pieces, must start with a first draft. This simple reminder was a soothing balm for my anxious mind.

Speaking of seeking perfection, there is a group of 20+ subscribers helping me out with a guided-journal project, and I’m struggling to decide where to go next after getting the first round of feedback. 

I’m trying to balance the project with recent life changes, and I’ll most likely turn it into a series of videos that describe my journaling approach.

The journal project started because of my interest in expressive writing, and this article goes into one of the most famous examples of the approach.

This article is by the co-author of a great book I shared recently, Expressive Writing: Words That Heal, and it’s about an intervention that was at the heart of seminal research that started the expressive-writing movement. Write about a traumatic event for 20 minutes a day for four days in a row.

A warning, don’t write about a trauma that has just happened. This should be something in the past.

I love The Daily podcast from The New York Times. Every day features a deep dive into a topic that is relevant and complex.

This one focused on the adolescent mental health crisis, and it is absolutely a crisis. When I worked at a pediatric practice, the number of teens dealing with anxiety because of social media was outrageous. 

Essentially, our brains were never meant to deal with the amount of information we are barraged with every single deal. Couple that with the developing brains of young people and the lack of information and structures for staying safe online, and you have a recipe for serious mental health issues.

This is similar to a site I shared on 8/9 called WindowSwap. 

That site lets you look out of people’s windows in different parts of the world. It was great for taking a different perspective, something that can lead to shifts in seeing your own reality, which, in turn, can change how you experience your mental health.

Today’s resource, Drive and Listen, lets you drive around various cities and listen to the radio stations local to those cities. There’s something about perspective-taking that leads to more compassion and understanding for your fellow human. Try this out. The video quality is so good.

I love, love, loved this book, and I rarely read fiction. But after reading this, I’m going to start again. My wife suggested I read this, and I’m so glad she did.

The cover pitches it as a love story about two young black artists in England, but it’s so much more than that. It’s one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. It’s poetic, and moving, and deals with issues of racial injustice and mental health. It’s also written in the second person, so you feel like you’re right there alongside the characters in the story.

I couldn’t put this down, and I still can’t believe this is the author’s first novel.

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