The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer
Okay, do the blurb.

Donna Jacobs
Hi, my name is Donna Jacobs. And I am happy to be here today with Gordon, on the practice of therapy podcast. I thought today what I would talk about, I'd love to introduce people to my own therapeutic model called self integration model. And what I would call today in interest of time, is that I would just want to impart to people that it's not necessarily the external circumstance that causes us distress, but it's how we filter it. And I'll give you a brief brief description of my model to see how three of the unhealthy filters can really add to our distress.

Gordon Brewer
Well, hello, folks, and welcome again to the podcast. And I'm happy for you to get to know today. Donna Jacobs. Welcome, Donna.

Donna Jacobs
Thank you very much, Gordon.

Gordon Brewer
Well, it's so glad that we connected and I'm really interested in learning more about Donna the the model, political model that Donna developed called the self integration model. And as I start with everyone, tell folks a little bit about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed?

Donna Jacobs
Well, so yes, welcome to my life. So I've been in practice for over 40 years. And in seeing clients every day, every hour, as many of you have, and are, I started to collect what I thought were parts of self. And every client that came in, you know, brought me maybe a new part. And I started to look at my own parts. And what I developed and constructed was what I think now, there are lots of parts models out there, but what I think are sort of the defining parts of self. But this is just my model. There are many, as I say, parts models out there. So what I did was I started to look at different categories. And in each category, there are a few parts. And then what I did was I linked how the parts are interrelated. How the parents are filter part is important, because I use it in four ways. How was I parented because we really need to be curious about who raised us and our families of origin. Right, right. How do I manage myself? How do I treat myself? Well walk away, you know, in front of the mirror and say, Oh, my God, you look like, you know, like crap today, or you're still fat? How do I teach my treat myself? And the third part is if I have children, how do I parent, my children? And the fourth is what I want to talk about today, which is how do I filter? How do I filter my reaction to these external circumstances? And I'd love to give some, you know, examples of what people have come to me with and how they filter it, to demonstrate to you that sometimes 50 to 90% of our distress is actually caused by us and our internal filter. Yeah, that's really what I what I would love to do today.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes, that's, that's really fascinating, because it sounds what's what's nice is that I think I have been doing something similar but didn't have a label for it. Because I feel like that's a big part of at least the work that I do with clients is, I think you have to understand where you came from, and understand how you see the world and the filter that you run it through, and then think about how you want to change it. So yeah, yeah. So I think what what folks might be interested in is just a little bit about how you decided to develop a model and pull all this together and how that came to be?

Donna Jacobs
Well, it's an interesting question, Gordon, because I'm going to be a little self disclosing here. You know, I come from a family of incredible you know, in the olden days, we call it neurotics. Now we sort of politely call it anxiety. And my including the entire family was and I said, you know, I don't want to live like this. I don't want to live in fear anymore. And I started to understand what's driving the fear? Was it the external circumstances? Or was it me? So I started to look at those kinds of parts, and then linked the parts together that in the six filters, each filter creates a reaction and a feeling in what I do practice inner child work in, in our inner child and the child state and a child state doesn't mean we're immature or, you know, we haven't haven't developed what the child state means it's the house where we house our feelings, needs and wants. And each of the six filters is linked to some of these, each of these six feelings, these categories of six feelings. So I actually came up with Wanted, while one was the gift of all my clients who came in with various parts, and I kept sort of saying, well, that part seems to seems to be repeating itself. And she that part's really common. And that part seems to be really regular in people. And then I started to look at how each of these, these filter parts are linked to how we feel. And I started to do my own work. And as I said, part of it is the gift of my clients. I mean, they provided me with all this material, but it was also really starting to work on you know, what, I want to share this legacy of the Jacobs family of being a being nervous and anxious. And that's sort of how I did it. I started to work on it. And then I developed. I mean, this is a deeper dive. I'm not going to do this today. But I developed my six step healing. And that's using the part in order to get us out of distress to get us to happy and healthy and Susie Asik and joyful people. So that's for another podcast, Jordan. Yeah, it's a six step healing how to use the model to deactivate us and get us out

Gordon Brewer
of that. Right. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sharing that. And that, your vulnerability with that? Because I think, you know, what, one common theme I think for most of us in the, in this field of mental health and, you know, clinic, the clinical side of things as we go into it, probably with a few kind of self as motivations of working on ourselves. And really, and drawing from that. And I think, yeah, that's, that's one of the things that I think is really a gift for that I hear in you is recognize, okay, this, this is how I'm doing. This is how I'm processing all of this internally. How can I help other people learn this as well? Yeah, exactly.

Donna Jacobs
And that's how I developed the model, because it's a working model. Once you understand the parts, then you understand how you can walk yourself through the six step healing, to get to ease and relaxation, and happiness and joy and all of that. Yeah,

Gordon Brewer
yeah. Yeah. So well, so one of the things that you had had mentioned, and I think maybe a good this would be a good segue into delving into this, this concept of, you know, our internal motivations or internal thoughts and that sort of thing are really what create the stress and anxiety and things that we have in our life. You want to say more about that?

Donna Jacobs
I do. So what where I'll start is I'll talk about three, there are six filters, three are unhealthy, three are healthy. I'm going to talk about the unhealthy ones because this is how I want to make the point of each of these filters drives us in a way that augments our distress is not necessarily the external circumstance. So the first one is the critical which we all know the inner critic, right. So I call it the critical filter. And that's the one who judges and blames and demeans. And it and the the reaction in our child state because that's the handshake is it makes us feel angry and bad and self doubting and inadequate and shamed and guilty. So we have to know that that's the handshake and the link to that. The second one is the indulgent slash neglectful. I don't want to spend too much time on this. It's a little, it's more complicated, but it's indulging our belief. It's indulging our behavior. So any of the addictive behaviors well, I'll have another piece of cake I'll have my 16 drink, but I like I'll have my right. So I'll have another affair. It's that kind of indulgence, which is behavioral and indulgent belief, right is only bad things happen to me. And an indulgent stance would be grandiosity, I'm the smartest person in the room. So that's the indulgent, neglectful but why do I call it neglectful? Because if we are actually being parented, or parenting ourselves, or parenting our children, through indulgence, yeah, sure. Here's another 2000 bucks. I know you've got a whole bunch of parking tickets here. What it's actually neglectful parenting. So indulgent slash neglectful of the second one and the third one which is the most useful is catastrophizing and that I coined by the what if OHS and oh my god, well, what if they don't call back and what if they want to see me and fire me and oh, well, I just got a text from my boss and oh my god i right. So it's those are the three critical, indulgent, neglectful and catastrophizing. So I thought it unless you have a question, Gordon, I thought I would dive into some examples.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah. So I'm curious though, what are the three more positive?

Donna Jacobs
Which is that's what we need for the six step healing, right? So the positives are protective, nurturing, and guiding. So the protective and I'll do this really quickly, you know, who are we protecting ourselves against? Sometimes it might be an external force. It might be but usually we're protecting ourselves from our internal for Holter it's on our throats. It's telling us Oh, you're you're you know, you did so poorly today. What did you say, you know, Donna, what did you say in that podcast? That was ridiculous, right? That would be the critical what are we protecting ourselves from our, our unhealthy filters. Once we get that off her throat, then we move on with the mutual and the nurture. It's the simple one that a lot of people don't get, because a lot of people didn't have it. Right. And it's that warm pair of arms that encircled us and says, Hey, sweetheart, I got it validates it reassured that comfort and soothe. That's the job of a nurturing. And the job of the guide, I call the guide the therapist, because what does the guy do? It gives perspective, it helps us understand why we are getting triggered, what led to it, was it something that we learned in our family of origin? Is it based upon, you know, something, some sort of trigger that we had, or some adaptation that we use? So once we get through those three, then we move to the adults, which is that middle part of the model that moves it forward? Yeah, moves it forward, it does something more concrete. Most people when they get activated, what do they do Gordon, they move to the quick fix London to fix it. And I'm saying, Oh, my gosh, please, let's not move on. Remove all of that emotional therapy that we need to give ourselves and that's in those parts that I just

Gordon Brewer
mentioned. Right, right. Yeah. So yeah. So how do we get there that we're thinking about our clients and thinking about even ourselves?

Donna Jacobs
Okay, so let me give you a few examples of what people do and say, let me give you an example. client comes to me and she comes, you know, comes to session. And she's furious, because she's a couple of minutes late. Why is she furious, because she tried to get out of her driveway, and a truck was blocking her driveway. I understand that that's aggravating, and annoying. I'm going to be late. But what I have people do is on a scale from zero to 10, before we filter it, how, how negative was that? Or how reactive was that situation? I would say a truck blocking our driveway and we're going to be a few minutes late, is print maybe a two on a scale from zero to 10. Maybe two, but she came in so fired up. She had raised herself to return. So if it could proven reality, and by the time she filters within the 10, I say 10 to eight to two is 80% of her anger and her vitriolic language and for upsetting her annoyance in her irritation is actually caused by her. Because if she had gone through the six steps and brought on the protective and brought on the nurturing, and brought on the guide, she probably would have deactivated herself and sat and said, You know, it's okay. Yes, I know it. This is really, really, really anxiety producing for you. And this is so annoying that you're being blocked in. And you know what, sweetheart, it's okay. This is how we talk to ourselves. And maybe say, you know, we know you don't like to be late. And we know that maybe you were late a couple of times and you don't want Donna to get the impression that therapy is not important. You know what? When you get there, you'll explain it to us. Right? And your family of origin made you feel that being late was the worst thing because it was so disrespectful. Well, in this context, it's going to be okay. If she had done that she would have come in and said, You know what, I'm really sorry, I'm three and a half minutes late. There was a truck walk in my driveway. It was really annoying to me, but a complex stuff down and I'm here now as opposed to her coming in. And it was you know, 20 minutes of the session she was spewing. This is my point I want to make is that she called? Okay, so can I give you another example about how he indult that was the critical, you know, I can't believe what he did. He's parked in front in front of my driveway. What an idiot. That was the critical. Let me give you an example of how the indulgent might work. Lots of rain, lots of rain, lots of rain, lots of rain client calls me and I see that my client and he or she says my roof is leaking. Now, a leaky roof is a problem because you don't know how much damage it is you don't know and know how it's going to stress the walls and the roof and the integrity of the house. Got that roof leaking. I'll give that even a four on its own. So we can move can cause damage. The indulgent belief would be you know, it's been raining for two days. And I'm the only one whose roof was leaking. Only bad things happened to me. Well, that's pretty indulgent. Right? So when you indulge that it becomes a 789 when really it's a four. So again in this exam Replacing a leaking roof may be objectively a four on 10. By the time we feel through to that indulgence, we're in self pity we're in victimization and Oh, poor me and nobody else. That's an indulgent belief.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, makes okay. And I

Donna Jacobs
can give another one on the catastrophizing, but I'll leave that up to you.

Gordon Brewer
Okay. Yeah. So yeah, I love this, you know, what it reminds me of is something that I've, I've done with my clients and in is helping them move from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control. And so yeah, you want to, you want to say something about how you would do that with this model.

Donna Jacobs
So this is empowering people might the basis of my model is we actually possess all the necessary parts of the activator. But when we forget our parts, right, and we're always stuck on the unhealthy side of the model with a critical, indulgent, neglectful and catastrophizing. It's not going to end up well. Right? So the idea is, is that yes, like life, you know, by the time I think of my clients who are raising three kids, it's COVID, right? Their online learning, I would say, by 730, in the morning, they have had two dozen external events, affect them, this kid won't get online, they're late for work, they can't find their, you know, their, their airport, their air pods for their, their online learning, all of this. So the idea is, is that I when when, you know, it's, it is the same thing as external and internal locus of control, but I want to empower people by telling them that they already possess the parts if they want to use them. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that answered the question.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah. Yeah. And I was just thinking about, you know, when people are, you know, kind of emotionally flooded, or emotionally activated. In the different parts of teaching them the skills of okay, how do they ground themselves and be able to, oh, I need to, I need to be more nurturing to myself. I need to be. Yeah, yeah. Those kinds of things, you know,

Donna Jacobs
yeah. So so what I have people do is as soon as they get to the place where they're feeling activated and something, be it anger, be irritation, be in fear, be it anxiety, depression be whatever it is, right. Let's acknowledge that first that I call it you know, our little our little kid inside of us needs help. He she they are activated, it doesn't feel good. So what I have them do as soon as they're feeling bad inside, you know, I feel it in my gut. Other people feel that their jaw or their chests or their heads. I feel it. Oh my god. As soon as my gut goes off, I pull the alarm. What do I mean by what what it will pull the alarm? What do you mean by I am pulling the alarm to wake up my healthy part. Protective, nurturing, guiding, and adult. Those are the four feeling agents, right? Those are my parts that are healthy. They're in us all the time. And I want people to know that that protective, nurturing, guiding, and adults live within us all the time. But you know what, sometimes they're watching Netflix. Sometimes these parts are having a margarita. Sometimes they're lying on the beach or reading a book. They're there, but they're not always active. Until we pull the alarm. The idea of pulling the alarm is to activate these four parts to say, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Donna needs us she's in trouble. So they get ready. Right. So that's my first step. The second step is and we identify which of the unhealthy filters is on board. So if I'm in what if all oh my god, I mean catastrophizing. So we that we've done, then we move to the protective what is the who's the protective protecting us from our own parts our own catastrophize your to get it off her throat and leave Donna alone. Leave her alone. She's all upset because you're chatting to her about all this stuff about why she shouldn't be so anxious. Come Come with me. Let's leave her alone. Then the nurturing comes in, puts those pair of arms around me and says, you know, Donna, oh, that was really really anxiety producing. I know you feel anxious. I know. You're worried about that. Right? It's gonna be okay. We reassure only when we can really reassure and we we comfort and soothe so whatever we have to do in that we comfort and soothe. Then we move to the guide. Right, Donald? Why were you so anxious? Oh, I remember. I remember when I was a child, and this happened with my father, and he got so anxious. And I remember that this was one of the things was that I really got anxious, but because he got anxious about it, so we start to do the therapy work to understand what the associations are, what the links are and the triggers from the past. And then the adult comes in, which is Step Six of the six step healing. And moving forward, what might I do? Might I review my work? Might I call a friend? Might I go make myself a cup of tea? What's going to move it forward?

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's a, it's it this, this is fun stuff, just thinking about how we move has helped some, I guess, many ways, some metaphors of giving people the language, or what is going on internally, for them, and being able to be able to be able to grasp on to something to be able to ground themselves, and then be able to make that make that movement. You know, I know, I tell my, my, my patients, my clients all the time, you know, it, it's important to understand why you feel like you feel and how you got there. But it really doesn't create the change. So really, being able to integrate that adult parts of ourselves, is really where the change can occur.

Donna Jacobs
Absolutely. And the thing I want to add to that, Gordon, the adult part will move it forward and create change. As I said, before, a lot of people move from, oh, I'm activated, okay, I'm gonna fix it. And I'm saying, Okay, before we fix it, can we do that emotional work so that our, our child state can start to exhale? And then they move it forward? Because, you know, I mean, how many clients wanted to fix it? Right? You know, I see a lot of couples and, and often in a hetero couple, right? The she of the couple would come in and say, you know, he doesn't get it, he doesn't understand my feelings. I just want him to validate me and being like court and, and and have empathy, but he wants to fix it. My joke is, you know, I'll come back from from visiting my mother who's in a long term care facility with dementia, I'll come home. And I'm upset because it's been a bad visit. It's really upsetting to me. And I'll come home and I'll talk to my husband, who's adult. He's a fabulous guy. And he'll say, Well, why don't you visit her left? So I get to like, say, okay, hold on a minute, I'll figure out what I need to do. Thank you very much. I'm a big girl, I will find out how to fix. But I really need to work through the emotion of it. I'm really, really,

Gordon Brewer
right. Yeah, it's a matter of understanding rather than fixing,

Donna Jacobs
fixing, they need fixing a last somebody, but pretty much all know how to fix it. But I want the emotional unfolding. Right. Right.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Yeah. The other thing I would add to that data is, you know, helping people learn how to sit with the discomfort of negative emotions. You know, that's our, I think our go to is we want to eradicate the negative emotions or the stuff that is uncomfortable. And, you know, just not to get too far off on a tangent of the brain function of it. But that part of our brain, the amygdala, that's there to protect us and keep us safe. can't distinguish between what is dangerous and what is difficult. And I like, going back to what you said earlier about the scaling question of okay, you know, my brain saying that this is a 10. And we got to where emergency Danger, danger. But in reality, when you look at it, it's really only two or three. And so being able to under understand that,

Donna Jacobs
I love that distinction of dangerous versus difficult, right. I mean, we all want to help our clients tolerate discomfort, right. But I love that distinction is dangerous, because some are 10s. Right? It's a tornado coming and it just lifted up the house that preparedness. Yeah, right. Difficult is what we live with. Most of the time.

Gordon Brewer
Right. The roofs, the roofs leaking? That's difficult. It's not a 10 with the tornado ripping the roof off.

Donna Jacobs
Right, exactly. That would be a 10. Yeah, yeah.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Well, Donna, I need to be respectful of your time. And I'm really glad that we had this conversation. Tell folks about your course and your book where they can get in touch with you and all the stuff that you've got.

Donna Jacobs
That's great. Thank you. So my book is called becoming your best self by Donna Jacobs. And and it's available online. It's available on Amazon. So that will describe the model it will go in depth into the model it will talk about family of origin or adaptations triggers, and then it will talk about the six appealing how to deactivate ourselves and our clients. And then what I have done expense in the last six months videotaping my online course, which will be available on Udemy. In probably a month or so. So any information about if you're interested in the model or more information about it, the course is quite comprehensive. And you can reach me at Donna jacob.ca. And all of the information will be there.

Gordon Brewer
Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll have links here in the show notes and the show summary so that people can get a hold of fun that easily. So while Donna, it's been great to get to know you and I really enjoy these kinds of conversations, and I would encourage folks to go find you and check it out.

Donna Jacobs
Great, Gordon, thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure and good to meet you do

Gordon Brewer
Yes.