Throughout history and geography, you can find an endless number of psychological, philosophical, sociological and religious currents that have tried to offer answers to life’s existential questions that as individuals endowed with intelligence we have been able to consider.
When someone immerses themselves in the study of any of the aforementioned disciplines, they are usually surprised by examples of thought that, seeming contemporary with our questions, are in most cases hundreds, if not thousands of years old. For curious minds, lacking prejudices, it will not be a difficult task to delve into the various sources of wisdom that have tried, with greater or lesser success, to resolve these issues in an effective way.
Being able to establish associative links between the ultimate foundations of these currents, we can find a series of pillars of wisdom that have served as a basis to offer answers yesterday and today
In this effort to find the minimum common factor of personal balance, we have been able to identify three basic aspects that are repeated over and over again in various techniques and currents that could be summarized in the phrase of Saint Augustine: “Know yourself, accept yourself, overcome yourself.”
In conventional cognitive behavioral therapies, we find how a base of beliefs or thoughts, not always conscious for the individual, activate, maintain or direct their behaviors, being necessary for the return to normality, to go through a series of treatment phases which would fundamentally consist of:
Identify the causal factors of behavior through a preliminary exploration with different types of evaluation tools
2. Intervention
Employment of cognitive and behavioral modification techniques aimed at the recovery of normal levels of behavior in reference to the general scale.
3. Tracking
Periodic review of the achievement of the objectives of the intervention and proposals for improvement
Principles of personal growth from Coaching
In the much maligned and often poorly treated technique of Coaching, according to John Whitmore’s CAR model three basic principles are recognized for its operation that would be summarized in the initials of said acronym.
1. Awareness
It would be made up of an objective part, coming from the possibilities that our own senses offer us What would be personal hardware. And a subjective part, coming from the system of beliefs, values, learning history and other acquired sociocultural influences, which modify our interpretations of everyday reality. It would correspond to the personal “software”.
2. Self-belief
As a fundamental basis for the successful development of the technique, we work on the idea that the individual has all the personal resources necessary to overcome difficulties that arise, understanding that their role in this story is not that of the end itself, but that of the means to achieve it.
3. Responsibility
Once the previous steps of knowledge and acceptance have been internalized, the protagonist of the coaching process assumes responsibility for action, committing to the execution of new processes that can lead to new solutions. In short, leave the famous comfort zone and face the path of improvement
Finishing this review, we would find the well-known third generation therapies, and specifically ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. As its name indicates, this type of therapy renounces the old cognitive-behavioral efforts to fight against one’s own personal nature, finding the key to development and well-being in:
The acceptation
Acceptance, prior to self-knowledge, can be seen as a necessary tool to overcome deviations from the norm. regarding thoughts, feelings and behaviors incorporating certain emotional nuances with respect to the predecessor techniques.
Commitment
Commitment, as a personal will to lead the change according to the characteristics and values of our own personal nature
Finding psychological balance
As you can see, there are multiple ways of approaching a situation, the same problem, of facing a challenge. But if we make an effort to observe, it is not difficult to find those common bases or pillars that support personal balance.
At UPAD Psychology and Coaching we are aware of this and we like to go to all types of sources of knowledge to implement our work methodology and offer our users all the tools at our disposal for your performance, well-being and personal satisfaction
