How do you heal psychologically?

Psychiatrist, meds, acupressure, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, Wellness course, Yoga (the breathing is vital and I use it daily), PT, exercise, chiropractor, massage, gardening and Milo.

Really @gailcalled, Milo is all you need.

I deal with stress through exercise and meditation.I used to deal with anger by using a punching bag…until I broke it.Boy,was I pissed!

@chyna: The memories of therapy came in handy last week when I had to take Milo to vet’s for an enema. The gift that kept on giving during the 40 min. ride home.

I think time is also a great healer psychologically. I’m not saying leave it to time alone if you need medication for awhile or for life. But over time you can think straighter and see events from different perspectives.

That is a tough question to anwser, speaking as someone who has issues with selfesteem, anger, bdd, and an eating disorder, you never really heal pyschology you just learn to cope and make things a little bit easier each and everyday. Although that doesn’t mean that one can’t heal fully, it all really depends on your psychological state.

@gailcalled ewwww

I distract myself with work, mostly, and taking care of my dog.
But you can only set aside your feelings and issues for so long, so when I’m ready to face them head on, I usually have help from one friend in particular. I was fortunate enough to find somebody who actually gave me advice that I could comprehend and apply to my life in an effective way and could actually do so with any issue I had. Those people are hard to find. I got incredibly lucky.

I’ve done the therapy and medication thing before, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me. I never truly started healing till I ditched both.
I tried to heal in some not so healthy & temporary ways, but had some guidance to get me on a more appropriate track with alternative coping mechanisms.
With that said, to answer your initial question it would be keeping busy and friends.

As @gailcalled points out there are many ways a person can get help to heal psychologically. Sometimes things are so bad that professional help is required. Therapy is not a “one size fits all” remedy. The same is true with medication or any of the complementary treatments.

For some reading the right book may be sufficient to get things under control. People have the ability (most times) to choose what will work best for them.

I wish you all good psychological health.

meditation, yoga, accupuncture..search around & you’ll find what works best for you. Awareness is key to the healing process.

Exercise works for me. I’ve been hitting the gym a lot lately.

Move on. Let the past be the past. Feel your pain, but don’t dwell. Can’t say I’m good at it but its what I try to do. Resentment and I have a lot of issues.

Personally, time. Just wait it out.

I did try a bit of home video yoga it does help. Other than that I am ashamed to say I don’t deal with it. You got me thinking now.

Support and time.

The key is prevention, because healing is far less effective. We exercise and eat healthy food because we don’t want our bodies to get sick. The same needs to be done for our minds. Here’s an approach I use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology and my experience is very positive.

Swimming, yoga and meditation do it for me…Meditation allows me to explore my stressors and see things from a different angle often offering solutions anger and frustration may have otherwise blocked.

One technique that has worked well for me is (ymmw) to take some time out and try to reframe my beliefs about things that are bothering me (such as for example past mistakes).

I think about the problem, and see what my mind is saying about it by writing down what my mind is telling me (for example “that problem was my fault”).

Then i try (as dispassionately as possible, sort of like brain storming) to find other possible interpretations (“i had no choice but to act the way i did”, “i acted the way i did because i didnt know any better at that time” etc).

When i feel i’ve exhausted the amount of possible interpretations (usually about 10–20 or so), i look at what i’ve written and i ask myself two questions. “How well does my current belief work for me, make me a better person?” “Could one of these other beliefs be more beneficial to me?”. That usually pops the light bulb that i’ve been thinking about something in the wrong way, and that another perspective would be better for me.

On the other hand i think many people (including proffessional psychologists) are too focused on bringing up past problems and worries. I believe many problems are most effectively dealt with by simply accepting them and then forgetting and moving on.

@nisse:On the other hand i think many people (including proffessional psychologists) are too focused on bringing up past problems and worries. I believe many problems are most effectively dealt with by simply accepting them and then forgetting and moving on.

That’s a nice idea but unfortunately the human brain is hard-wired and doesn’t alway respond to wishful thinking. Sometimes you need a really good mechanic to repair things. Often he/she will give you your own tool kit for future work, however.

@gailcalled To clarify my line of thought:

I believe that alot of the ideas that have been promoted mainly by Freudian psychotherapy, most vidvidly the idea of deeply rooted past traumas that have to be dug up, penetrated, analysed and solved with the aid of a professional is not a good strategy for dealing most of our daily problems.

This idea have permeated our culture so deeply, to the point that most of us are taking it for granted without sceptically questioning it. I think a healthy dose of skepticism is valid, and that we should invidually question the validity of the idea that past problems need to be dug up and analysed (again “how well does this work for me?”).

For me the conclusion was that this type of attempted solution brings more grief than good. I urge everyone to ponder this, scrutinize your beliefs in the Freudian idea and see if it still holds for you.

The other suggested solution, simply trying to forget and moving on works great for many of my day to day problems.

With that said, i am not saying that all psychological problems can or should be dealt with on your own. As the question was phrased i don’t think that severe psychological trauma was the topic of discussion. If you have a serious issue, or don’t feel like you can handle it, see a proffessional.

@nisse: I had and I did and we didn’t do much with archetypical Freudian psychoanalysis. And I had no need to dig up past traumas; they were front and center in my memory core..

We didn’t so much as solve them (since traumas are unsolvable) as figure out better coping mechanisms for me. I am content, lead a fulfilling life, function well and would not be this way without a smart and eclectic psychiatrist as a partner for several years.

@gailcalled: I’m glad that it works for you, perhaps we are not speaking about problems of the same magnitude.

I found myself sort of liberated when i realized that no one (except popular culture) was forcing me to brood over my past problems, and that it was actually permissable to just let them go.

@nisss: My issues were not chemical or internal but the tragic, accidental or self-inflicted deaths of three people very close to me. Nothing related to the pop culture…can you give me an example of what cultural issues made you feel broody?