Step 3: Be Open Minded

Be open to using more than one technique to get better – even ones that you don’t initially resonate with.

When I found myself entering the mental health world, I had to pretty quickly learn to be open to trying things that I would previously have thought were ‘wu wu’.

I am a surgical doctor so my approach was always focussed, straight forward and no- nonsense. The surgical approach is very ‘see a problem and treat it’, and it goes away generally. I had to shift this way of thinking and learn about things that seemed pretty weird and way out initially. Despite feeling quite resistant to some approaches, I had to learn to be more open and be more flexible.

I had to learn that for many psychological approaches, things go slowly, gently, and are explorative. Outcomes are less predictable and one of the most important things is to be able the trust the therapist you are working with. It is important to say when things aren’t working as sometimes they don’t. I found myself doing yoga (which worked), mindfulness (more about this below – this is a vital part of recovery), meditation (this didn’t work and probably made things worse so caution here), all of which I would never have imagined myself trying before I had PTSD.

One of the most ‘weird’ approaches I tried which was really helpful is something called the ‘parts’ approach, or internal family systems. This was a real game changer, even though to begin with, when I read about it I felt really really unsure about it. So, the message here is to learn, try things that others have recommended but be ready to say its not working and move on.

One further bit of advice is that sometimes, coming back to a technique at a future point is helpful. Sometimes a technique comes at the wrong time, but at another point further down the line, after things have shifted, it can then work really well.