07.21.07
Posted in Personality, CBT, Stress, Depression, Anxiety at 2:19 am by admin
Cope better.
But how can you?
Make your coping styles more effective.
But how?
The answer is free Online Self-Help CBT.
Let me explain why. My name is Dr. Michael Benjamin. For 38 years I have studied how people cope. As a Psychiatrist I learned how central coping styles are. Let me share what I have learned:
Coping styles are a mixture of experience and personality. By personality I mean the way that we think, feel and behave in given situations.
Are you getting a little edgy? How do I change my personality? Don’t worry you will not.
There is a dyad that we all accept as true. Feelings and thoughts, they interact and effect each other. Feelings and thoughts are the reaction to an event. Very often we have thoughts or basic assumptions which are completely wrong. The assumptions are unchallenged. They generate feelings. These feelings generate thoughts. Vicious circles are in the offing. A reaction to an event becomes prolonged. The reaction outlasts the event. The thought feeling dyad has led you into a mood. The mood makes it harder for you to cope.
Some people are very bad with their basic assumptions. They exaggerate. But by their very nature basic assumptions are unchallenged.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] is the way to challenge and change theses assumptions. Online Self-Help CBT is a very effective, easy tool to use. Almost immediately you feel a sense of mastery. You start to cope better. You will rapidly observe traits. Similar, wrong assumptions crop up regularly. You change them individually. Then you will soon see and change traits.
Maybe you wish to exchange experiences. A burden shared is a burden lessened. Online Self-Help CBT allows you to participate on a e-Group designed to do just that.
Dr. Michael Benjamin.
Psychiatrist
myRay: http://www.myRay.com Free Online Self-Help CBT
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07.20.07
Posted in CBT, Stress, Depression, Anxiety at 8:31 am by admin
We know that thoughts and feelings interact. But how do they do so? Why is it important that we know?
We are thinking all the time in two ways. The first is the obvious one. It is the headlight attention thought. It focuses on the subject that we are paying attention to.
But we are always aware of our surroundings. We have a sort of scan or radar scanning what is going on. It may be something in our vicinity. But it may be a relevant subject. Say we are nearing an exam.
This scanning process defines the importance of the subject that it is scanning. It has three levels of grading. The first is to tell us that the subject is of no significance. It is virtually telling the headlight attention ‘there is no need to refocus.’
 The next level is ‘Well I am not too sure ‘. ‘You can stay focused but I am putting you on standby’. This is object or event is labeled. But how is this done? By marking it with an emotion. So we have one subject in our ‘headlight’ but a feeling can occur. We are unaware of why we are feeling it. Obviously the event in the ‘headlight’ too can evoke an emotion. The event in the ‘headlight’ can evoke subjects associated with it to appear in the ‘scan’.
We are subject to a range of emotions. Many of which we are completely unaware of the source.
Now some people do this labeling process badly. They tend to over emphasize the possibility of something happening. Events are given emotions where they need not be.
We know this person. He is the worrier, the over conscientious, ever ready guy we all know. He is permanently tense. Happiness for him is not being unhappy. Relaxation is the absence of tension. Eventually he may well develop depression or anxiety.
Now we know the problem can we find a solution?
CBT – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – is that solution. CBT allows us to examine easily the thoughts that were previously ‘hidden’. On doing so they are automatically corrected. More so we can see that very often the same thought and emotion occur. People can rapidly discover traits. They can readily correct theses traits.Â
Online Self-Help was designed to specifically help correct erroneous traits.Â
Dr Michael Benjamin
Psychiatrist
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07.14.07
Posted in CBT, Stress at 3:34 am by admin
You want to loose weight.
You feel that handling stress will help.
You are correct.
You can do this simply and effectively. Use myRay the Online Self-Help site http://www.myRay.com.
Within no time you will gain a sense of mastery and control.
At this point you must be wondering who is this guy?
My Name is Dr. Michael Benjamin. I am a Psychiatrist. I have learned that coping style is a mixture of of personality and experience.
I know that we can easily change coping styles.
We do this by the changing the relationship between your thoughts and feelings.
You can discover why this important. But mostly you will want to utilise the fact.I have designed free online site to do this.
The site myRay, http://www.myRay.com will help you improve your coping styles
You can readily regain a sense of mastery bu using http://www.myRay.com
You can readily improve your quality of life by using http://www.myRay.com
myRay http://www.myRay.com is a free Online CBT site.
Use http://myRay.com as often as you wish.
With kindest regards.
Dr. Michael Benjamin
Psychiatrist
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Posted in CBT, Stress, Depression, Anxiety at 3:02 am by admin
I learn from my patients. As we push the myRay, the online CBT site to its maiden voyage I have gained two valuable insights from them.
As good as any explanation can be it must be plausible. It has to be very firmly supported by the trusted Family Doctor. I will deal with the second point in a later blog.
I have described the relationship between Appraisal of an event, (Automatic Thinking), Feelings & Mood. I explained the interaction between Mood, Personality & Automatic Thinking. On using this information we can easily, rapidly and efficiently choose the correct therapeutic intervention.
The concept Automatic Thinking needs clarifying. We notice every event that occurs. The “noticed event “ is categorized according to its importance and significance. We react emotionally to the results of this categorization.
Very often we are completely unaware of this process. This process allows us to both react appropriately and yet not be easily distracted.
 We often are only aware that we have a feeling but not why.
This categorization process is profoundly influenced by Mood & Personality.
What does this mean? It means that what emotions are not irrational. They are formed and driven by a “submerged “ thought process.
But what if the categorization process is incorrect? We can feel erroneous feelings and react to them without really knowing why. Even worse these feelings will eventually and persistently fuel our mood. In turn mood modifies the categorization process. We can get into a vicious erroneous cycle without knowing why or how to correct it. To compound the problem we are not aware of the error. We act as if the information we are being fed is always correct.
The pure simplicity and beauty of CBT is its ability to examine and find a fast remedy for this process. CBT enables us to raise the process above the water line. It makes it observable. We can review it systematically. Correction then becomes easy.
The free online CBT site myRay offers an added value. By using web technology we can rapidly observe and correct trends. Why is this extremely important? Personality and mood influence the process. One definition of personality is the collection of trends in the way a person acts feels and thinks. Need I say more?
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07.13.07
Posted in CBT, Stress, Depression, Anxiety at 3:26 am by admin
I have spent my 38 years in Psychiatry trying to organize terms that seem obvious. Unfortunately they are not.
There is an ABC of Psychology and Psychiatry. The A is affect or the way that we feel. B is behaviour. C is cognition, the way that we think.
The way that they think and feel determines the way we will behave. The way that we think, feel and behave is called our coping style. Our coping style is an admixture of our personality and life experience.
Let’s discuss thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings are the reaction to an event. The dyad should be limited in time. If the dyad continues after the event has ceased to exist it is now called a mood.
It is common knowledge that thoughts and feeling interact. Nice feelings good thoughts. Bad feelings bad thoughts. We can see the possibility of a vicious circle. In fact this will help us define depression. The circle may become so tight that we do not respond as before to any situation. Our mood has worsened. We are now depressed, anxious or in stress.
Let us make one final distinction. Are we talking about poor quality life? Is there a limitation in functioning? This is important. If we are merely discussing you should be offered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). In my effort to make CBT readily available I built the free Online Sef-Help CBT site myRay [http://www/myRay.com] to do just that this.
Is there a limitation of functioning? Are you no longer behaving as before? If so then you should be offered medications.
In my next article I will explain how feelings and thoughts interact. This explanation explains why and how CBT works.
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07.08.07
Posted in Personality, CBT, Stress at 11:00 pm by admin
Real leadership is about the ability to lead.
You need to know where you want to go and make sure that you are being followed.
One important parameter is forgotten. A leader has to be aware of his team’s ability to follow.Can all your team members do this? Can they follow you?
Leadership is not only about your ability to lead.
It is also about your ability to identify those who can follow.
More importantly to identify those who cannot.
Can all his members cope? Can they function under pressure?
20% of the population is going to develop anxiety or depressive states. This does not happen overnight. Members of this population exhibit ‘poor coping styles’. They are driven, rigid and not happy. They may seem to be conscientious and even an asset. But if you could do something, don’t you think that you should?
What can you do?
I have built a free, non-commercial Online Self-Help site. myRay [http://www.myRay.com] is easy effective and improves quality of life and coping styles. myRay [http://www.myRay.com] is designed for people who are prone to depression and anxiety and yet are still functioning relatively well.
myRay [http://www.myRay.com ]
can be recommended with discretion and without fear of insulting anyone.
I hope that this is food for thought.
I want to stress that myRay [http://www.myRay.com ]
is free. The user is free to use it as often and for as long as he wishes.
With kindest regards
Dr. Michael Benjamin
Psychiatrist
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07.06.07
Posted in CBT, Depression at 5:10 am by admin
Depression is super sadness.
Based on 35 years of experience there are a few things that I can share with you.
Sadness, like pain is not a ‘bad thing’. It is nature’s way of saying that you are not doing what you find fulfilling.
Sadness is telling you to change or adjust.
You may be chronically sad because your life has no meaning or reward. In our pursuit of happiness we concentrate on the pursuit and not what makes me happy.
There are two reasons that we do not know.
Our internal compass is missing. I cannot explain this better than pointing you to Ecclesiastes. I am not a religious person. But there is no written script that is more apt. Read it slowly and get to the end.
The second reason is our personality. Some of us make a very bad job of responding. We tend to misinterpret and overcompensate. These people are unaware the way that they perceive, think and feel about what is going on around them. They are the worriers, perfectionists, the reliable but disappointed guys that we all know. This innate coping style will lead to depression and anxiety. The dyad of thoughts and feelings can be changed. In fact it can be done easily. We call this process CBT [Cognitive Behavioural Therapy].
I am convinced that CBT should available to all. So I have built three frees sites.
myRay : http://www.myRay.com is a free Online Self-Help site.
MyDoctorExplains: http://www.MyDoctorExplains.com is a free site with audio visual explanations to answer any questions that you may have.
Please use them freely. Ecclesiastes is also free!
Dr. Michael Benjamin
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07.03.07
Posted in Audo-Visual Presentations, CBT, General at 11:29 am by admin
I have been working with Depression for 38 years.
There are two aspects about treating depression. How do we cure it? How do we prevent it?
They are not the same. No matter how we may cure depression this will not prevent depression.
Why is it so important to prevent depression?
Depression reoccurs. People who have the tendency to be depressed suffer from a permanent poor quality of life.
I no longer believe that Medications to be a panacea. They may cure depression. They do not increase quality of life.
But this begs a very serious question. When is someone depressed and not merely very sad? When do we cure? When do we prevent?
As a rule of thumb we can use functioning. If sadness is such that there is an objective limitation of functioning then we should address the problem as ’curing depression’.
If a person is sad but is not suffering a limitation in functioning then we should address the problem as ‘preventing depression’.
VNS, ECT, and Medications cure depression. They do not really prevent it.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CBT, prevents it.
It really is as simple as that.
If you want a fuller insight into how CBT works, or how CBT can be offered online please refer to my free Online site http://www.myRay.com
If you wish to understand more about: Thoughts, feelings, emotions, moods, depression, what it means, what re your choices and how to choose please refer to my free online site http://www.MyDoctorExplains.com
Both sites, http://myRay.com and http://MyDoctorExplains.com are non commercial and free.
Use them as often and as long as you so wish.
Dr. Michael Benjamin,
Psychiatrist
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