Do You Train at a Psycho-social 'Gym'?

You have probably never heard of a 'psycho-social 'gym'. That is because I made that term up. I find it very sad that in most of our societies, we promote and provide services for physical health ranging from gyms to sports clubs and so on, but the only health services are for illness and injury or severe mental illnesses.

Why do we not teach psycho-social skills at schools and universities and provide training centres or gyms and fitness centres like we do for physical health? I do not know the answer but I can speculate that it is because as a species we have focussed on physical survival. It is only relatively recently, perhaps in the last 100 years, that we have become more aware of emotional, mental and psycho-social issues.

Most people I know in my community area, social and acquaintance networks think that 'going for counselling' whether one consults a psychiatrist, psychologist or religious counsellor, means that one is somehow weak or just a bad, evil person, or one possesses a genetic structure causing madness. Many of these people are themselves taking medications for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, anxiety and depression. Yet they do not see themselves as 'needing counselling' or self development of any kind because from their perspective, they have a medical condition that the doctor can treat with a pill.

From my perspective, as a Transformation Coach, I see the links between our childhood struggles and psychodynamic environment and how this created the unconscious programming for our psyche for the rest of our lives. The brain mechanism is set up to learn unconsciously when we are children and we then enter adulthood without understanding that some of these unconscious programmes kept us alive when were children but are either unhelpful or destructive in adulthood.

Once we have reached adulthood, we have accumulated these patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving - our psycho-social coping programmes, that are so automatic, that it feels like it is simply our personality. Or that we are 'born like that'.

Much of our unconscious reactions, these automatic programmes, are learnt. We can retrain our brains to create more healthy patterns. It does take discipline, and daily attention.

I once knew a man, let us call him joe junior, who entered a cycle marathon. He did not train at all and was not terribly fit. He thought he was handsome, had a good body, and he was super determined. He was convinced that he had all that was needed to complete the marathon. He lasted about one quarter of the way and needed medical attention for weeks thereafter. He thought he was brave and showing what a virile man he was. This was in fact a destructive pattern of his - engaging in high risk, daring behaviours to show his pals and I presume, whoever else he could boast to. He definitely thought that he was a desirable, admirable man.

People did admire his 'crazyness' and bravery. He had a father like that who died of a heart attack aged 45. Joe Senior had gone swimming in rough seas to show how strong he was after a day of heavy drinking. He had a heart attack in the water, managed to be rescued and died on the shore. He was seen as a brave man by his social circle. His children were proud of the way he died. If Joe Senior was aware of his own programme he might have explained it like this: "Always do crazy things to show how brave your are no matter what the risk. Women will love you, men will envy and admire you. If you are injured at least you will wear it as a badge of honour and if you die, at least you will be a hero".

It seemed many people around him believed that. When we look at Joe Senior's psycho-social programming we would see that his father, Joe Very Senior was extremely critical and that Joe Senior grew up never feeling good enough. He and his siblings constantly strove to do more excessive things to gain their father's praise. They would get some attention, but were always belittled at not being quite brave enough, manly enough etc. Joe Very Senior had programmed his son to copy his own desire for physical bravery glory. Joe Senior then programmed Joe Junior in the same way, although not quite as severely as he had experienced in his own childhood. Death and injury was the price they paid for trying to make up for a lifetime of feeling inadequate.

Viewing our psycho-social skills through the analogy of a fitness programme helps us see that we can analyse where our automatic skills are not helping us lead healthy lives. Once we can see the script, or the programming with clear eyes,we can create a training programme to cultivate healthy patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. If Joe Junior had said, while lying in hospital after his failed cycling episode; "I do not want to die as young as my father did. I agree with the doctors - I am behaving foolishly". Then he might be a candidate for psycho-social fitness training. But he was so indoctrinated by his father's programme that he remained blind to the damage he was causing to himself, his wife and children. He continued his self destructive behaviour.

Like training for a cycling or running marathon, psycho-social training takes regular 'workouts' and a training programme. Starting to learn these skills at a young age really helps. But I have worked with senior citizens including one who was in her mid eighties who believed that it is never too late to cultivate healthy psycho-social patterns. Now that, is brave!