This question was asked by a person on Quora. Two very important issues were brought up regarding therapy and how best to deal with medication issues. Here is how I answered the question: 

First, congratulations on having the antidepressants get rid of the symptoms of anxiety. You are one of the lucky ones.

Second, if the medications are working why even go there in therapy? I don’t get it as a person who helps clients overcome anxiety regularly without medication and through the use of hypnotism. I much prefer my clients not to be on any medications for exactly the reasons you raised. Their feelings are blunted making it harder to do the true clearing work that I do with hypnotism. I am not interested in subduing symptoms as meds do, I am interested in releasing the cause for the symptoms and with that, the illnesses are no longer present.

I guess it depends on what you want to achieve with your treatment. Only you can make that choice – stay on meds forever, or deal with the underlying cause of the problems even though your therapist would NEVER want you you to do that because – well, you are so well chemically managed so if you stop the medication you are going to get your symptoms back most likely and from their training that is putting you at risk.

It’s an intriguing question which if the pharmaceutical companies didn’t own the US medical system, people would be learning how to self-regulate their emotions including those of anxiety which is nothing more than a fear of something that has yet to happen.

Thank you for this question because few would have the guts to ask it.

I am going to be real honest with you and anyone who reads this answer because you deserve an honest answer to a honest question.

It is true that most people who come to work in mental health do so because they have come through their own difficulties, however, that is NOT what matters here in the least. What matters is whether or not they got the help they need to OVERCOME their deep emotional wounds.

One of the largest issues I have with these folks who believe that just because they have dealt with the trauma that makes them great candidates for doing this work. Quite honestly, I don’t know anyone above the age of 18 who hasn’t had some emotional issues in life to deal with because life is full of them be it dealing with parents who are too permissive and not giving guidance especially when it comes to figuring out what one can be doing with one’s life, because the parents were more interested in whatever they themselves were doing and gave little true emotional or practical guidance. Or, parents who were overly involved in their kid’s life to the point where the kid couldn’t do anything on their own because some unknown harm would occur if the parent ever lost sight of their kid – a huge problem in parenting after the kids of the 70s were brought up. These parents are known as ‘helicopter parents’ because their kids were never allowed to go out and play on their own constantly involved in adult-supervised activities be it sports, or any other type of activity.

Parenting is not an easy thing to do, however, kids do need to have age-appropriate autonomy, and the ability to make misjudgments and learn from them over time.

So, the point here is that whatever the issues are that a kid may interpret as trauma, including true trauma where they were abused in some way be it physical, emotional, or sexual, not until that person has healed whatever that issue was, because each person is going to have his or her own interpretation of what the depth of that ‘damage’ was, it is INAPPROPRIATE to get involved in doing any type of therapy for anyone else. The reason is that the patients that pay to use your services need you to be stronger than they are and NEVER be ‘triggered’ by similar situations in their lives as you had in yours. This includes women who came out of abusive relationships who love to blame males in their patient’s lives for all their patient’s problems when the fact is that if they never hear the other side they can not know as has occurred in many of my clients’ cases, that it was the woman who was the aggressor, maybe because of alcoholism or drug abuse issues – and NOT her partner who caused any of her problems – she had them before they got together. This is just one very common misguided notion of hurt women wanting to help another woman who is incapable of listening to a male perspective which by the way is keeping the woman she is supposedly helping a ‘victim’ instead of helping the woman overcome her serious issues.

I was in a business development group for all types of personal development professionals and I left it because the people who were there to receive business coaching needed therapy to deal with their own issues – too little time was spent on building businesses and too much time was spent on helping potential mental health professionals work through their own issues with being ‘triggered’ by their clients/patients or thoughts about what would happen if they were ‘triggered’ by those who were to employ them. If anyone is worried about being triggered by a patient or client they need to heal all those issues around those triggers FIRST.

So, get your healing done first and when you are no longer ‘triggered’ or even concerned by those issues of your past history, you are capable of helping others in a very strong and productive way.

Wounded healers wound others which is why so many people on Quora are disgusted by the therapist that they have employed. I know because I get their questions as to why it is so hard to find a capable and helpful therapist every day.

Healed Healers are the best people to help others learn to grow up and overcome their ‘triggers’ by helping them heal. Many people don’t want to heal – they want to complain endlessly about their wounds. When they get help from me we do the clearing work necessary and then they need to deal with how to shift their energy from ‘victim’ to ‘victor’ which means taking responsibility for their lives and trust me, many are not up to doing that – because it is much easier to blame mommy and daddy or maybe their ex-partners for all their problems – and that will NEVER heal them.

We need to understand that hurt people hurt others and as such give them the same understanding that we want for ourselves. It is just that they created defense mechanisms in a different manner – period because people who abuse were indeed abused themselves. Not a thought many want to deal with until they are forced to see that reality and then forgiveness and healing take place.

Because it is with that understanding and forgiveness we release ourselves from needing to be ‘right’ the other ‘wrong’ and let go of the anger that is killing that person who is carrying it around inside them when the abuser is totally incapable of understanding what they did and as such, there is no reason to hold onto it. There is only a reason to leave the situation and get on with life in a healthier manner.

This was an interesting question from a person on Quora asking therapists to respond. I found this particularly important because it is rare when therapists are asked to reflect on how it is that they interact with their patients. Here is how I answered this question: 

This is an interesting and important question that I have never seen asked before in my years here on Quora.

I am a hypnotist so there are many issues that folks have given the misrepresentation of what it is in. the media – especially the movies. So, I have to spend a lot of my time educating the public and my prospective clients on what it is.

I do this by explaining how the hypnotist is able to work in the subconscious mind by using the hypnotic trance state to work in the hippocampus and amygdala of the brain – the emotional centers bypassing the reasoning, rationalization, and judgment that occurs in the conscious mind – the prefrontal cortex. This allows the client to easily transform negative emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, and guilt along with limiting beliefs to positive feelings while letting go of the limiting beliefs.

You see, it is simple to do this as long as we are being factual while explaining the concepts that need to be understood.

Almost every answer that I write here on Quora is an educational piece of information on mental illness, hypnotism, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and other related topics such as how patients can better interact with or understand their therapist. I get many questions of that type.

I do my best to be respectful to those who asked the questions because they are looking for information that they need yet, may have no other way to get the answer – or so they think as there is a ton of information by professionals all over the internet most especially the videos done by doctors and nurses on Youtube. I have learned a lot from them over the years and continue to. They teach in a manner akin to professors in front of their classrooms explaining things in layman’s terms.

So it can be done and needs to be done so those that we are here to serve can make informed decisions about the care that they are being asked to consider.

This was a question I received from a person on Quora and this is how I answered it: 

The one thing that I have learned is to stop sharing my personal heartaches and negative experiences with the family. They don’t even really know the person that they are commenting on but think they know the person better than you. It’s crazy-making because it is ludicrous.

So, this is what you do instead: You stop talking to these know-it-alls about your private stuff, and you get competent help to help you sort it out. It is not up to you to defend anything, and by having your family make such unsupportive comments, they are telling you that they are hopeless to understand. So, move on and forget about them. It isn’t their business anyway, is it? This is your life and as such, it is up to you to figure it out with someone who had the ability to guide you through it, in a supportive and constructive manner because that someone truly understands the personality of which you are speaking. Your relatives do not. So stop asking them to understand that which is out of the range of knowledge.

This was another great question from a person on Quora, and this is how I answered it: 

This was a question that a person on Quora asked. It is an important question based on the feedback that my clients have given me over the years. Here is how I answered it: 

This is a great question because my clients have told me that they are very glad that I do actually take notes during all my client sessions. Why? Because many therapists write their notes after the session, many times leaving many details out what is going on with their patients. At least my clients have told me that they were not sure that their therapist cared about their case because they never could remember what was said from one session to the next. This has a negative effect on the therapy because the trust is never there from the patient’s point of view with this lack of knowledge of their situation on the part of their therapist who is supposed to be the one person that they can tell anything to and have it respected and recalled at least from their point of view.

It is because of the copious notes that I know exactly where we are in the treatment plan and what new information has come up that needs to either be integrated into the work or ratified for successful implementation of the guidance given during the previous session. Both of these actions make it clear to my clients that I am on top of their situations which allows them to feel respected and cared for in the manner in which they want their health care provider to demonstrate.

I know for those who are licensed there is a thought process as to what is necessary to put into their patient’s charts based on the professional standards and what they would prefer to omit for the confidentiality of the client based on if the case ever goes to court where the notes will be part of the record.

I am unlicensed and really do not have the same issues because of that situation. I have no problem recording whatever I feel I need is required to make sure that I never omit anything that needs to be acted on knowing that I really do not have a memory to help me and further realizing that our memories are by their very nature less than perfect recorders of what actually occurred during any event that we may remember.

Thank you for this very important question. Because I really do not believe that most mental health professionals understand the importance of taking decent notes could mean for their patients’ trust in the care that they are receiving – or not.

Today we are going to speak about something that most people do not want to pay any attention to and that is ‘doing the hard thing.’

There are many areas in life when it is best to ‘do the hard thing’ even though every cell in your body is screaming for you to do anything. However, here are some reasons why it is more than worthwhile to do the hard things in life.

1. Taking a stand for someone who is incapable of ‘being heard’ maybe because they are mentally ill, and won’t be heard even by their so-called psychiatrist or psychologist. Unfortunately, once someone is given the stigma of a mental illness, their voice is no longer heard – I know because I lived through this bullshit even after I had no symptoms of any mental illness for a number of years.

2. Elders can easily be scared into handing over their money to anyone who will ‘take care of them’ even if it is a horrible living situation. I know because I had to rescue my mom from such situations twice before she died. All the elder wants to know is that they have a safe place to live and the basic necessities will be taken care of since the person is no longer able to do this for themselves.

3. Youth, who are being treated in an abusive manner. Too often there are predictors about the family (not necessarily the family of origin though that can certainly happen as well) abusing the young child – many times in sexually inappropriate ways even before the kid is old enough to understand what sex even is, never mind making a decision on his/her own to be involved. Older kids can be manipulated into it by older and much stronger adults as well even if they know it’s wrong, they don’t know how to stop it. Many would say tell your parents, and I can tell you that many of my clients did just that to be blamed for being victimized further emotionally damaging the victim in the process.

4. Taking risks to try something new because you know it’s scary to do new things. However, it is only when one goes outside the ‘comfort zone’ that one learns more about both the greater world and one’s self. Taking risks and failing also builds resiliency because you realize that you are still standing and can continue forward with a new idea.

5. Taking a stand for yourself and what you believe is most important – never by defending yourself to a bunch of ‘schmucks’ as my dad would refer to such people, but by holding firm in your beliefs and doing what you decided to do anyway. There are only two questions one has to ask oneself self if someone is giving you advice whether or not you asked for it: 1) Who is this person in my life? 2) Is this a person who I respect in regard to the situation at hand? If the answer is ‘no’ you keep quiet and move forward with your intended plan of action. Pay attention here: If you do not follow your own heart and soul, and listen to your own gut, you will never feel either any sort of confidence and worse never find true fulfillment in your life. It is never up to someone else to tell you what you should be doing or how – meaning what you put your life’s energy and emotions into – that is your choice and yours alone. Yes, we can most certainly seek guidance, just make sure that you find the correct guide for you. One who will allow you to do what you so choose and guide you to success in that pursuit – so someone who has successfully accomplished what you want to do. In NLP we call this ‘modeling excellence.’ In fact in Tad James’s NLP courses – that is the answer to the test question as to what NLP is so it is an important concept to understand as we make our way through life.

6. Take those scary opportunities to travel to new places, and advance in your career – because, one can easily turn that feeling of being scared into that of ‘excitement.’ It is just a matter of having the butterflies in your stomach fly in formation. Physiologically speaking both these emotions feel the same in the gut, so turn it from a negative label to a positive one, and you are set to go. This is in fact what the major sports and entertainment figures do every day to do their jobs as successfully as the successful ones do.

7. Fail fast: This was already brought up before, but it is so important that it deserves its own listing Look, how are you ever going to know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t give a thing a shot? You can’t and worse you are not allowing yourself to build self-confidence by learning what you can do and what you can overcome in the process as well as denying yourself this ability to be resilient in the face of adversity.

Learning: By doing ‘the hard thing’ you are building up your sense of self-integrity because you took a stand when you saw fit to help another being get treated correctly. Was it fun? Probably not. Was it worth it? Hell, yes every single time. By taking risks we learn what works and what doesn’t and in so doing we are able to build self-confidence and resiliency – both very important in being able to be a productive and happy person.