The Continuum Model

Have you ever come across someone that just annoys you to no end? Perhaps you've labeled them as "negative nancy" or likened them to Mrs. Bennet's character on Pride and Prejudice who seems to be plagued with frivolous anxiety. You put up with them on good days..and mentally block them out on bad days. 

If I'm being totally honest, I have caught myself thinking, "can I really empathize with someone that is immobilized by their fear of feathers?" or more likely, "what if a client walks in my office who has abused their wife..how can I keep myself from giving them the stink eye??" As a counselor, I can't block them out. In fact, i'm supposed to show empathy. Talk about an impossible expectation. I mean, I know we're supposed to love our neighbor...but what if they're not being very neighborly?

So one day, I was doodling during our lecture and Dr. Keys introduced us to something that changed my perspective forever: the Continuum Model. Now to be honest, I've been researching this thing for a good hour, and I can't figure out who started it..it seems to have evolved from Jasper (1913) to Foulds (1976) and then Beck and Freeman (1990). If you'd like to do your own research, or clarify my findings, please do! But since I don't have fancy scientific words to quote, I'll give you the Steph Blevins version.

Basically, the Continuum Model makes no distinction between psychosis and normal functioning. The reasoning behind this is that life events, personality, biological and environmental factors are intricately woven together so that it's hard to distinguish what is actually abnormal. Instead of blocking them off into separate categories, the Continuum Model is a one-dimensional line where no distinction is made between personality traits and the symptoms of either personality disorders or mental disorders which essentially differ only in severity. Have I lost you? 

Here is a small example. We've all had days where were just felt down either from pms or just a bad day. We've also had days where we were excited! Maybe you had an overdose of caffeine or accomplished something so you might have done something crazy like bought and expensive pair of shoes. Those things are normal. There are also times that we go a little out of the norm because of a life event, or the way we process life events. After the death of a loved one, most people go through a more severe form of the "blues".  We all understand sadness, a person in mourning just has a more severe case of it.

    major                depressive           "the blues"                hyper                   Manic episode

 depression            symptoms            (just a bad            (excited)               (ideas of grandeur,

(suicidal)            (bereavement)            day)                                        gambling life savings, etc)

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SEVERE                                                   NORMAL                                              SEVERE

You maybe be thinking, "steph, this isn't rocket science..why did you waste your wednesday morning on this topic?" We all can empathize with sadness, but what about empathizing with that lady with a feather phobia? Take it a step further...could you empathize with a sex offender? A chronic gambler who had gambled away his family's house? The crazy man that walks down the street? The girl that you exclude because she does nothing but talk about herself?

..........................

Have you ever turned out the lights and felt like something was in the room, only to turn the light on and find out it was your jacket?  Paranoid Schizophrenia.

Do you have an irrational fear of tiny little spiders that end up in your house? phobia.

Have you ever impulsively bought something that wasn't in your budget? Gambling addiction.

Have you ever knowingly done something that was sexually immoral? ......

Do you get my point?

For every abnormal behavior, there is a normal behavior that has gone awry. When you can find that understanding through even the smallest form of common experience, you have found empathy. Empathy builds appreciation. Appreciation builds love. Love is what Christ calls us to do.

As my father says, "you can't minister to someone that you don't appreciate". In otherwords, you can't love and stand in judgement at the same time. As stated by Jesus in Matthew 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?".  If we were to put this into practice it would be something like, "why do you shun gossips when you have been spreading rumors on a daily basis?"

In Matthew 22:26-40 Christ tells us that the second greatest commandment to loving Him, is to love each other. That can seem like an impossible task...so impossible that we often forget about it as we sit in our cars and judge those that walk by that are looking less than "neighborly".  I'll be honest, when a homeless guy walks by my Toyota Solara, I make sure my car is locked. I'm not thinking "there goes a precious creation of God". Then the words go floating by.."whoever has loved the least of these, has loved me" (Matthew 25:40). Sometimes I wonder what happened to that man. Then I wonder what I would have done if I had been born into his circumstances, and what kind of crazy things have I done to gain security..I begin to find empathy. It is then that I start down the path that Christ called me to walk on: love. 

Advice vs. Insight

"Counselors can tell you how to fix your problems"

This is the biggest myth of the mental health field.

Now switching gears...if you can, take a trip back in memory lane to when you were a teenager. When your parents told you what to do, where you thinking "gosh, mom knows EXACTLY what I'm going through, so I better listen to her advice, because she obviously knows the best answer. She is all knowing."?

If you said answered "yes" to the scenario above, you should get an award for being the best son/daughter of all time.

Most of us would say that at some point and time, we either out loud or in our heads screamed, "No! You have no idea what I'm going through! So you don't know what is best!"

Now fast forward to now. Brace your toes, I will most likely step on them.

How many times have you gone to talk to your girlfriends about a problem you have, only to walk away more frustrated and annoyed than you were to begin with? ::brace yourself:: Aaaanddd, how many times has your bfff&fff come to talk to you about a problem, and you have given her your most wise counsel on the subject, and then ::GASP:: she doesn't change a thing. She totally wasted your yoda level advice. Rude. 

If you are female, this must have happened to you at least once. 

Here's the problem. We want so badly to have some answer of what is right, but we are the only expert on ourselves. Let me phrase this in a less confusing way: you are the only expert on yourself. No one, no matter how parallel the experience, will have all the same variables, background, and content, that you have within your circumstances. You can NEVER say "i know exactly how you feel", because that is simply not possible. 

So this is what happens: your friend gives you her wise counsel. You agree that she's right in that single variable to your problem. You go home, you feel misunderstood because that advice doesn't answer the 100 other questions attached to the situation. You also feel like people are judging you if you don't simply ignore the 100 other connecting issues, and do what they advise. Meanwhile, you feel begin to disconnect, because your feeling like you are being shoved into a mold that your friend wants you to have. There is no need for self exploration when your friend already has the answer for you. Plus, you're not sure how safe it is to say what you really feel, because you are probably just wrong....or a sinner.

....sound slightly familiar?

Just for the record, I've been on both sides of this. I catch myself giving advice ALL the time. Listening takes so much effort, and the answers seem so obvious. It's always wonderful intentions. The motive is pure, but the outcome isn't always what we would expect.

Now let's do one more scenario...do you remember a time that someone just sat and listened to you? Maybe they went a full 10 minutes without interjecting, and they were present (as in, not texting/playing video games/etc). How did it feel? 

Now lets just take this rare experience a step further. After the 10 minute hash of your issue, you brace yourself for your friend's opinion..but it never comes! Instead she says something really odd, "it sounds like you're having a really rough time with this, I know there's a lot going on that I don't understand, so I'll be happy to listen while you work through these emotions. What part of this is bothering you the most?" or maybe she'll say "I'm trying to understand, this is what I'm hearing ________________________, is that right?. This list of questions could go on and on, but you know what all of these questions have in common? They never include an opinion. Your friend believes you know the right answer deep inside. She challenges you to expand your perspective. She knows that you must learn things first hand so she challenges you to explore the unknowns of your heart.

Some of you may be thinking, where is Jesus in all this? His best selling book is the bible, and it's full of rules!! 

But look at one of the overarching themes of scripture. Free will. Sometimes I think God is crazy..who would create a species, and let them loose to "figure it out"??? There is something  to be said about being able to explore and choose what you believe. When that choice is made, it is with full understanding that you are leaving every other alternative for that one choice. That's what God wants. He gives us guidelines, but He doesn't lay out the plan word for word. He believes in us. He listens while we blabber on about our problems, and BEG Him for answers. He puts things in our path to challenge us to think deeper. If He were to tell us what to do, we would be like Moses saying "but I stutter! but I'm not a leader!..but!..but!" Nope. He gently nudges us to dig deeper, and shows us that we can do more than we dreamed. 

I don't know about you, but this insight idea gives me a greater appreciation for the Parables. Talk about not giving a straight answer!

So I will let you decide....insight vs. advice. What's your answer?

So this is the beginning.

I'm not really a blogger.
I don't follow them, and I barely know how this works.

But one morning I was eating my breakfast doing my devos and found myself reflecting on how often my counseling classes reflect Christ's attitude towards His people. I also thought about  how I'm learning SO many powerful principles in such a short time during my studies as a MA in Counseling student here at Regent University...and how apt I am to forget things (my brain has a very small storage space).

As I took a bite of my eggo waffle with pb and honey I realized I needed to share what I've been learning. I don't know if people would even care to know these things, but for me they've been life changing. If nothing else, I want to write them down the golden nuggets so that I can go back for when I need a little reminder as to why I'm here.

I don't know if I'll leave this program and be a counselor, or a psychologist, or work in a school or another agency..but I do know one thing: I'll be a better friend. I'll know how to love others when there seems to be little to love. I'll understand how to truely listen. And I'll see how to look past their actions, and see the heart.

I'm about as Christlike as a stinkbug is like a wooly mammoth, but at least I'm moving in the right direction :)

...let the posts begin!