The Portable Therapist

Excerpted from
The Portable Therapist: Wise and Inspiring Answers to the Questions People in Therapy Ask the Most...
By Susanna McMahon

I wrote this book for you, the person who knows that there are answers out there but frequently seems overwhelmed by the questions. I wrote this book for those of you who are functioning, who are doing what you think you are supposed to be doing but are somehow missing out on something. You get up every morning, do your work, attend to hundreds of small details, drop into bed exhausted each night, and when you do have a few minutes, you find yourself contemplating what life is about. This book is for those of you who are expert "doers" but have somehow lost the art of being. This book is also for those of you who know something about being but need some help and encouragement toward life enhancement.

I wrote this book for those of you who have never read a self-help book before because you do not believe that the answers to your life problems can be found by reading a book. I agree with you; solutions do not follow from merely reading a book. The answer to the question "Why don't the self-help books work for me?" on page 59 explains why reading any book is not enough. Some of you may never have read a self-help book because you feel that no one else could understand your problems as no one else is you, living your life and feeling your feelings.

This is true, but while we do not share specific circumstances and traumatic details, we do share our feelings about what bothers us. As humans, we can all relate to sadness and loss, anger and frustration, feelings of worthlessness and discouragement. This relating can be shared and this process of sharing reaches us that we are not alone and that we can belong. If this is your first self-help book, I hope that you will find that it does pertain to you and that you can use the answers in this book to find your own answers, to encourage you in your search for your worth and your esteem and to increase your personal sense of belongingness.

I also wrote this book for those of you who read every self-help book that comes on the market because you believe that there is a secret out there to living your life, and if you can only find the right book you will find your personal secret. I will not presume that this is the right book with your secret. I will, however, direct you to the section dealing with the concept of paradox. The paradox of finding the secret that unlocks the meaning of life is that there is no secret. The information is out there, it has been out there for as long as we have recorded history and it is accessible through many channels. At the heart of all religions, all philosophies, all doctrines concerned with the meaning of life and all psychology lies the meaning of existence: Be true to yourself. Love yourself. Recognize your own worth and goodness.

These are simple concepts but they are not easy to implement. The proliferation of self-help books attests to the fact that being oneself is not something that naturally occurs in our culture. Unfortunately, Self-Esteem cannot be given you by someone else. The philosophy of self-love may sound simple but the process of acquiring self-worth is not an easy one. This book recognizes your search, your quest for the meaning of your life, and, hopefully, will function as an encouragement in your journey. We may read the right answer one hundred times before we "get it" but the only answer that is relevant is that last one that we finally understand. Keep reading, keep working, keep trying. I sincerely hope that this book helps you in your search and your discovery of your personal worth.

I wrote this book for the person who is balanced, emotionally healthy, and loaded with Self-Esteem. We can never have enough encouragement in this crazy, discouraging world. We need all the reinforcement that we can get. Because Self-Esteem is a process and not a fixed goal, every day brings new challenges, difficult confrontations, and pain and loss which deplete our feelings of worth and self-love. How easy it is to forget all the problems that we have already solved when confronted with a new one. How easy it becomes to lose faith and hope in ourselves when our external world seems to be falling apart.

How very difficult it is to love yourself when no one around seems to love you. How natural it feels to berate yourself when you make a mistake. This book is about learning to encourage yourself and to be kind to yourself when your world is in chaos. Recognizing that Self-Esteem is process and not commodity is a critical component of this book. Because it is process, we can never have enough. We will always need encouraging reminders, support, and positive reinforcements. I hope this book will function as a reminder for those of you who have already discovered your own self-worth.

I also wrote this book for those of you who have never understood the concept of Self-Esteem and the value of loving yourself. You may have heard the words before but you never personally grasped the concept. Maybe you were too busy or too involved with playing at life, but somehow you missed it. Maybe you thought the idea of loving yourself was too simple or too esoteric; maybe you felt that taking care of your own needs, belonging, and feeling good were selfish and part of the me generation. You were trained to play it by the straight and narrow and you wanted to be a good student and follow the rules of society.

These rules dictate that if you do what most of those around you tell you to do, which is to try for perfection, be altruistic, work hard, and do the right thing, then you will be okay. So you have followed their guidelines but somehow, some way, you are not okay. Something is wrong, something is missing, and perhaps you are even afraid to admit this. You do not even know where to begin to fix your life. It is difficult to acknowledge that your life does not work for you. But when you are alone and the facade is down, you are confused and vulnerable. Read this book. You are not alone and you are not in such a bad place. Confusion and uncertainty are excellent beginning points for discovery, growth, and change. I hope this book will convince you that finding your own meaning, your own self-worth, your own goodness is a worthwhile endeavor for you to try. It is your life and you are the only one who can live it meaningfully.

Above all, I wrote this book because I had to. I wrote this book as a reminder to myself to practice what I teach. I chose a question-and-answer format because it most closely resembles the therapeutic process that occurs with clients. There are no case studies mentioned in The Portable Therapist, not because they do not exist - every question in this book brings to mind many clients who have asked it - but because I wanted the reader to have a more personal involvement with the answers. When you are interested in a specific question, you will fill in your own details and apply the answer to your own situation. Each of you has your own reasons for asking the question, each of you has your own story to tell and each of you will decide what to do, if anything, with the information given in the answers. I hope that this book works for you. I hope that the questions are relevant questions for you personally and that the answers lead you toward self-insight and awareness of your tremendous worth and goodness.

There is an underlying philosophy in The Portable Therapist. It is not an original philosophy; it is not a complex or even a difficult philosophy. This philosophy is simply that you are good and your goodness is within you always. You do not have to do anything to be good, you cannot work toward being good and you cannot earn this goodness. It is already there. The work that is involved is to acknowledge your goodness, believe in yourself, and trust that the best that you can be is centered by your own goodness. In other words, being good is given; living goodness is the difficult task. Paradoxically, it takes even more hard work and effort to negate this goodness, to become truly evil. We have not been trained to acknowledge ourselves as good.

We have been trained to criticize, judge, and denigrate ourselves as if we are not good. Because our training has been so pervasive and comprehensive, it can be frightening to recognize this goodness within, it can feel strange and uncomfortable. But it also feels liberating and very powerful. If you are in doubt, try this little experiment. Close your eyes and say to yourself: "I am good. I am good. I am good." Keep saying this until you begin to feel something. You may feel like crying, you may feel somewhat afraid, you may find this difficult to say and believe. The better your training, the more difficult the exercise. Stay with it until you feel something. Acknowledging your own goodness will feel right. It will feel powerful and it will affect you. Recognizing your inner goodness is the first step toward Self-Esteem.

The Portable Therapist also has an underlying psychological theory. Again, this theory is not original. It is called Natural High and was developed by Walter "Buzz" O'Connell. Dr. O'Connell, influenced by the works of Alfred Adler, believes that Natural High occurs when one has both Self-Esteem and Social Interest. All of these terms are explained fully within this book. In brief, however, this theory means that by having self-love and loving relationships with others, we will feel universal belongingness. We will have found meaning, worth, and value, and we will feel joy at being alive. Isn't that what we all really want and strive toward?

This book grew out of ten years of doing therapy. I began my clinical practice at the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital in Houston, Texas. I was fortunate to work for several years with Vietnam veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. From them I learned so much, but the most important concept they taught me is that life is not fair. It just isn't. They also showed me that doing what you have to do to survive can result in devastation to one's self-concept unless you can learn to forgive. Because life is not fair, the concept of perfect does not work. We can never be perfect and therefore it is critical that we can forgive - ourselves first and then others. Fortunately, we can learn forgiveness and we can get on with our lives no matter what has happened to us. My work with drug addicts, alcoholics, and severely disturbed patients also confirmed the need for forgiveness and the trainability of this concept.

From the VA, I moved to Germany and worked as a child psychologist for the U.S. Army. My young clients, particularly the sexually abused ones, taught me that bad things do happen to good people and that, in some way, we are all victims. Even more importantly, I learned that we are all survivors and we need to acknowledge and reward ourselves for surviving. These children, and their families, showed me that goodness and self-love are internal attributes and not removed by external traumas. They also taught me that character grows out of pain and loss.

The idea for The Portable Therapist occurred while I was working as the director of the Community Mental Health Program in Madrid, Spain. Many of my clients in Madrid were successful, high-functioning, and intelligent expatriates. From these clients I learned that success cannot be externally defined. Doing and having do not result in a joyous, balanced, and complete life. These clients taught me the need for a redefinition of success and the even greater need for self-encouragement and the provision of meaningful internal rewards. My belief in short-term therapy was confirmed by the successes of these clients in Madrid.

This book is not designed to be a substitute for therapy. There are times in all our lives when we need outside support, guidance, and an objective perspective. The questions listed are serious questions. All of them have been asked and dealt with by clients in great pain and confusion. The answers given to the questions are brief. They may sound simple but they are not meant to diminish the intensity or severity of the problem or issue being confronted.

They were designed to be indicators toward finding solutions for the problems or, when no solutions exist, helping to learn how to cope with the problem. If these answers are enough to encourage, redirect, and help the reader problem-solve, wonderful. I would hope that readers who need more help with their problems will find in the answer the encouragement to seek out that help. This book was written for functioning adults. It will not be enough for severely disturbed people or those with serious traumas or personality disorders. It will not function as a "quick fix" as I do not believe there is such a thing.

The Portable Therapist was not designed to be read through quickly and then put on the shelf. Rather, it was written so that each question can be read as needed. This book contains eighty-three questions and answers which have been arranged into four main sections. The underlying theory and all relevant terms have been explained in the first section, which I have called the philosophical section because these questions deal with the "larger" or more global issues in our lives. I would recommend reading this section first in order to understand the terms which occur throughout the book. The second section is conceptual and deals with the theory and practice of learning Self-Esteem.

Personal or individual problems are covered in the third section. The fourth section, explaining Social Interest, deals with relationships and their issues. The definition of Natural High occurs in the very last question in the book. The reader may note that over three fourths of the book is devoted to learning Self-Esteem and only one fourth deals with Social Interest. Natural High is covered only by the last question. This format is intentional because the learning of Self-Esteem is critical to the development of Social Interest, and the Natural High occurs once you have both Self-Esteem and Social Interest. The list of suggested readings at the end of this book are works that either directly contributed to concepts mentioned in The Portable Therapist or that will provide more information on specific topics of interest to the reader.

As mentioned, all the answers in this book are brief and basically simple. I will anticipate the criticism of being overly simplistic and superficial which is often given to brief therapies. I do not believe that a short or a simple answer is superficial if the client or reader internalizes the message. No therapist can give any answer, no matter what the length or difficulty level, that will produce change unless the client or reader relates with the information given and uses this new knowledge to change themselves. It has been my experience that basic, simple but relevant answers are used and internalized more frequently than complex ones. Each reader will choose what answers make sense to them personally and each will decide what information to retain and to use toward their own change and growth.

This must be an individual process. Each of us discovers who we are, what is important, and how to be balanced, complete, and at peace for ourselves alone. However, this does not mean that we have to do this work by ourselves alone. We share some essential commonalities in our quest for inner peace and meaning. For example, knowing your story and what worked and did not work for you will not produce change in me but it may help me to produce my own change. Your change may give me permission, help, and encouragement to undertake my change. We learn, we grow, we change, and we share. There would be very little challenge or joy in developing Self-Esteem in a vacuum. Loving ourselves will always lead toward loving others. Loving ourselves and others will lead to joy and universal belonging, the Natural High.