Cognitive Therapy
is Step Nine in
TORQUE BACK
a System to Fight
Bipolar Disorder
by Ken Jensen

I'm Ken Jensen and I beat my bipolar disorder and formed this system TORQUE BACK by spending many hours talking with my mother. Others too but she got the bulk of it.

She provided me with a type of cognitive therapy of which she wasn't even conscious. She simply knew I needed someone to listen. And poor Ma. I had LOTS to say. Especially when I was manic. She stood up to the onslaught well and thank God she did or I'd have nothing to share with you guys.

And there you have it really. She provided such fantastic cognitive therapy that I not only healed myself but developed what I learned into a system I now share with the world. She had a hand in that part of things as well. Again, not knowing she was doing it. Just listening as her highly-energized son spouted off in a thousand directions.

But the one other great thing she did was to offer her opinion on connections she saw in my behavior and thinking patterns. She watched my body over the years too. She knew a lot about my mind based on what she saw in my body.

I couldn't track time at all when I was bipolar. As I grew well, she helped me piece together when events happened, so that I could assemble the outline for what would become my first book.

If you follow my entire system and gain the wellness I did, you might actually owe my mom more than anything you think you'd owe me. She's the reason I have to give what I do. (Please say it with me) "Thanks, Ma!"

This is the power of good cognitive therapy. Learn more:

Ken Jensen

Help for Bipolar Disorder

Wellness Guidebook
Second Edition

This guidebook contains many details concerning nutritious supplements and their effect on the mentally ill mind. Great care was taken to ensure the accuracy of the information in the text. This book is intended to provide general information only, and is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric evaluation or treatment.

The author and the publisher are not engaged in providing professional services or medical advice to the individual reader. Each individual's health is unique. All matters regarding health or a particular health situation such as cognitive therapy should be supervised by a health care professional.

The author and the publisher shall not be held responsible or liable for any harm or loss allegedly arising, directly or indirectly, from any information in this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, or otherwise without express written permission of the author. You may not forward, copy, or transfer this publication or any part thereof, whether in electronic or printed format, to another person or entity.

Copyright 2010

Ken Jensen

URL: http://www.bipolar-disorder-survivor.com

Cognitive Therapy 

Just in case I didn't already make it absolutely clear:

Step Nine of TORQUE BACK (C):

Chat -  Talk to someone

Sitting alone, spinning around and around inside your own head, is a recipe for disaster. It's a much better plan to vent it out. This means some sort of cognitive therapy.

You can use a friend, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a life coach, your minister, preacher, or rabbi, your family, a counselor at an advocacy center, group sessions at meetings designed for depressed or bipolar people, your dog or cat, or whatever it takes. Just get it out.

Cognitive therapy allows you to discuss what's eating you. Learn to be retrospective and introspective. Being retrospective means to look back on your past to see if you can identify patterns or wrong choices that may have helped lead you to where you are now. Inspect the flow of your life and the mentors you've chosen. Evaluate your friendships over time.

Understand who influences you most and why, and what has that lead you to? What key events have caused you to make a right when you should have made a left? What has impacted you greatly but has been discounted by you as something less? A good cognitive therapy person will help guide you through the maze of your past and help you see connections you are too close to to see yourself.

Being introspective means  to look inside yourself with severe honesty and learn what really drives you as a person. Why do you feel and think as you do? How have your decision-making skills shaped your life to bring you to this point? What are your beliefs about life, people, God, health habits, and your own ability to succeed? Can you see some beliefs that have clearly not stood up to the test of time? Can you see how something you have hung on to and believed in, never really brought you what you think it should have?

Again, you may very well have a hard time seeing these connections or honestly evaluating them. Your illness may simply make it a cumbersome task. Murky, confusing, stressful. Someone utilizing cognitive therapy will help you sort this all out and listen with compassion, no judment, to help you find your own way.

Between these two thought processes, retrospection and introspection, lies the quest for an answer to one simple question.

Why is your life like it is?

These are heavy questions and the answers will change everything about your experience of life as you discover them.

Centerpointe will cause you to be able to develop the thinking necessary and remove the blocks that currently hide the answers from you. And their free counseling center provides some great cognitive therapy. They are there to help you figure this all out as you are using their tools. Great folks!

But the talking must happen, no matter who with, because your life depends on it!

This can lead to brand new problems as you begin to source your listening audience. Who is willing to listen to your depressive thoughts, your manic thoughts? It is an exhausting chore for certain people you may wish to open up to. There's a good chance that your family is already burned out. It's no one's fault. It just is.

A therapist of any kind can seem too detached or give advice that you can clearly see is no good. The wrong person will not be able to understand your pain well enough to relate. You will pick up on this wall between you and it will hamper your ability to share deeply, which you desperately need. And if the other person doesn't understand fully, then what's the point? Just because someone is trained in cognitive therapy, doesn;t mean they ar automatically the best at it. Unfortunatley, a job's a job, in some cases. So pick your person carefully.

There are other people out there with big hearts and an ability to listen, right in your own backyard. You just need to patiently find them out. If you choose a wrong candidate once, or many times, don't give up. Keep working on yourself with all I teach and keep looking for the right person to listen.

Many people try using cognitive therapy or some version of it once, or maybe twice, don’t like the therapists for any number of reasons, and quit looking entirely. If you want to be well again, you don’t have that option.

The more you talk, as you simultaneously do everything else I ask, the more you'll be able to see the picture that is YOU. You will see where you've gone wrong. You'll see where you can improve. You will find closure in some areas. You will fix something and be excited for the potential of the future!

You'll reach the point I am at now. I look forward to finding my faults so that I can repair them as fast as possible, in eager anticipation of the better life that will bring me. I become more effective at a fairly constant rate.

To be sure, this isn't always pleasant. Sometimes I discover something about myself that stings. Some glaring fault that makes me feel like an ass for not having noticed it sooner. But this sensation passes. Part of this soul-searching is also learning the ability to give yourself room to grow without judgment.

There is no need to kick yourself hard when a negative personality trait is found. Just acknowledge it, decide to change it for when it's needed next, and move on. It's a refreshing life skill to have. But until you get good at doing this on your own, you'll need to do some sort of cognitive therapy with a guide. Take the training wheels off later.

Talking out everything on your mind allows all of this to begin.

I spent years talking somewhat to doctors but not really connecting in any deep way. When I was very sick, most of what came out of my mouth was self-delusions, lies, hopes, fears, and pains. Not an ounce of anything useful for personal evolution to take root.

But once the earlier steps of my system allowed some healing to take root, I talked my mother's ears off, for hours on end. She never knew what to tell me but she witnessed my transformation. The things I spoke of began changing into more positive-toned topics. My clarity of self became evident to her just in listening to me.

She really was just a sounding board as I underwent this growth and years later, as I began to piece this all together to share with you, she was my memory card. She helped me with the chronological order of my turning points and described what she witnessed in me, which I then translated into the facts of what was happening inside me. This stuff then led to the formation of my system in a way others could use it.

She almost never offered advice, as she was lost as what to do to help me. And yet, she helped me perfectly just by being a great audience. She gave me the best cognitive therapy of all. Better than the pros. But that was me. You may need or want a pro, which os great! Whatever it takes, just get to it!
 

Action Plan for Step 9:

Find your audience, of course. A professional cognitive therapy pro may be a great choice or maybe you need someone closer to you, someone who has the trust and love you need.

Maybe you don't want anyone to know your business, in which case, a perfect stranger is the best choice. Maybe you're in a brutal frame of mind, more so than not, and want someone who can handle severe venting. It's up to you to find who this person is. Once you've found him/her you will know it and the outpouring, introspection, and retrospection can begin.

This purging and learning combination is going to help rocket you back to good health!

Some helpful links:

The following organizations offer counseling services of all sorts and/or can lead you to a source of cognitive therapy within your local area.

http://www.dbsalliance.org Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

http://www.nmha.org Mental Health America

http://www.nami.org National Alliance on Mental Illness

Can't keep it all to yourself. That "little black knot of anger in the pit of my stomach" routine is off limits now. Hiding is no longer acceptable either. Avoidance will not work.

You have to talk it out. Pick wisely, though. Make sure you get a person who believes in your want to help yourself without medication. Make sure they are someone who is willing to listen without judging. Even therapists fail at this, sometimes.

So, be careful with whom you share your deepest and darkest thoughts, but try to find someone who cares. They don't even need to have an answer. They probably won't be able to provide one anyhow. But if they are present and listen, you win! And who knows? You may find someone who really does have an answer that works for you. It's not like it's impossible. Your best bet, if it's available, is to find someone who's been there and got out. Like me.

Step Nine is next and it covers what to do with the stuff you NEVER want another soul to know about.

Be well!

Ken

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