(from googling)
Quote
Self-therapy is the practice of applying psychological techniques—such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) methods—to oneself to manage mental health, emotions, and behaviors without a professional therapist. It is a proactive, self-guided approach to building emotional resilience, increasing self-awareness, and resolving personal challenges, often viewed as an advanced form of self-care.
Self-therapy involves utilizing tools and strategies to address mild to moderate issues independently. Common examples include:
Cognitive Restructuring: Identifying and challenging negative thought patterns or cognitive distortions to change emotional responses.
Journaling/Thought Records: Writing down feelings and behaviors to track triggers and patterns.
Mindfulness and Meditation: Practicing presence and accepting emotions without judgment to reduce stress.
Self-Help Resources: Using structured books, online courses, or apps to learn new coping skills.
Exposure Exercises: Gradually facing fears in a controlled, self-directed manner.
Unquote
Talking to a friend (not for the first time) about our respective fraught relationships with our mothers has made me recall a story told back in the 90s by someone about her and her siblings' relationship with their mother, and one of the ways they diluted the impact over the years.
I'm writing this blog only as a layperson, of course, just re-telling something I've heard from someone about a technique that had worked for her and her siblings. Nowhere near recommending psychological techniques like CBT, as I'm totally unqualified.
Let's call the person Lee Meilan.
Start of her story (in my words from what she'd told me):
There are six of us children. If the servant came to summon any of us to our mother's room, we'd first go and fetch the cane, without even knowing what she wanted to see us about. Arriving at her door, we'd go down on our knees and shuffle over to her (seated in her armchair), with the cane raised above our head in both hands. Such was our relationship with our mother.
We never found out why she treated us like this. Perhaps she was frustrated with her position: being the second wife, she had no power in the household, so she took it out on us.
My siblings have all had some form of therapy -- that is how deeply affected by our earlier days we had been.
We'd have an annual get-together, taking turns to go to the country of whichever one of us was living in. Our mother would come along. We'd wait until she'd gone to bed, then gather in one room and talk about our treatment at the hands of our mother, crying as we recalled the trauma.
Each year, we'd go through the same routine, but the feelings evoked would change with the repetitive recollection. The same stories that had made us cry in the earlier tellings would start to make us laugh in later accounts, e.g., "Do you remember you got caned so hard on one occasion you couldn't sit down for days?" would make us cry for a few years, reducing in the emotional intensity with each year, then switch to making us laugh about it.
After we'd got round to being able to laugh about those stories, we then invited our mother to those sessions, and were actually able to address her directly, "Do you remember you caned me so hard on one occasion I couldn't sit down for days?" -- and laugh.
End of her story (in my words)
I can offer an explanation (as a layperson) for Lee Meilan's mother harbouring so much anger towards her children. Someone (let's call her Wang Donglian) told me that her mother got married off to her father during the Japanese Occupation because the grandparents were worried about her being raped by the Japanese soldiers. They thought that the Japanese soldiers might think twice if she had a husband to protect her. That husband turned out to be an irresponsible husband, as well as an irresponsible father to their children.
Wang Donglian's mother never forgave her own parents for ruining her life, and took it out on her children because they bore the husband's surname. The mother, surnamed Zhuang, once said (when they tried to protect her financial interests against one of her predatory brothers), "This is a Zhuang family matter, nothing to do with you Wang family."
Wang Donglian said, "So, my own mother was drawing a clear line between us and her side of the family, even though half of our genes are from her. Rejection can't get any stronger."
Maybe Lee Meilan's mother felt the same way towards her children: they reminded her of their father / her husband, who had perhaps not treated her well as a second wife, so she took out her frustrations on the children.
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