Avoidance 101
Post 2 – Fair warning, this gets a bit complicated!
Enough Avoiding Already!
I am constantly amazed at the wide variety of things that people avoid and the many ways that they avoid. Everything from the basics like avoiding emotions or avoiding the unknown, to working crazy hours to avoid feeling like they are disposable, to refusing to admit that something traumatic that happened to them is a problem (avoiding reality). The further into counseling I get, the more convinced I am that avoidance is a major root (if not THE major root) of mental health issues. Before anybody gets up in arms about this, I want to point out, I am not really talking about stuff like major depression due to significant brain chemistry imbalances or some of the more severe mental health issues like schizophrenia. However, outside of those areas, I struggle to think of a client I have seen that was not avoiding something that they needed to deal with...and did not want to.
So, in order to bring some clarity to this idea, lets define the base of avoidance, which is avoid. Webster defines avoid as ‘(1) to keep away from or shun, (2) to prevent the occurrence or effectiveness of, or (3) to refrain from.’ How I use avoidance is a little bit different from Webster but it should fit in just fine. I tend to define avoidance with clients as ‘not dealing with the reality of a situation’ or ‘acting like what is real is not real.’ Let me give you a few examples of avoidance: a husband avoiding the need to be vulnerable with his wife (avoiding his fear of being betrayed), a man avoiding his feelings of being disposable (avoiding the truth about his beliefs about self), a woman refusing to admit it was a problem her grandfather had tried to molest her (avoiding the reality that she is valuable), or a man avoiding dealing with his emotions which lead to being an alcoholic (avoiding the reality of how emotions work).
Interestingly, most of the time, people want help with the symptoms and not the thing they are avoiding. Originally I thought people were intentionally avoiding the real issues (like value or fear). However, as I have matured as a counselor, I have realized that, generally, they have NO IDEA what the real issue is but they can see the symptoms. Let’s use the alcohol abuse example above. The client came in for help with being an alcoholic (the symptom) but wanted nothing to do with having to feel his emotions (the real issue). We worked for months to get him to the point where he could both notice his emotions (instead of avoiding them) and then do something healthy about those emotions. He was relapsing into alcohol use 5-10 times a month when we started. As soon as he stopped avoiding his emotions and started dealing with them like they were real, in a healthy manner, the number of relapses dropped to close to zero (I think he relapsed once in 9 months, with a solid 6 months of sobriety before we terminated). So, to phrase it another way, when he stopped avoiding reality (his emotions), and started stepping into that reality with healthy tools, he immediately started getting better.
So, lets talk about what this means for people at a really basic level. Dealing with reality well means that you get healthier. Not dealing with reality well means that you get more unhealthy. It is just that simple. Now, this begs the question of how do you deal with reality well? Well, there are two parts to that. The first part is you have to know what reality is or is not. I am not going to get into too much about this (once again, I probably will in the future) but in essence, reality is defined as how things actually work. If I drop a pencil, it will fall. If I push something with enough force, it will move. If I listen to and validate my wife (in the manner she prefers), she will feel closer to me and safer with me. As I am a Christian, I will also include the word of God (the Bible) in this reality. If you are not a Christian, that’s fine, this still works, just understand where I am coming from. The idea here is that there is objective truth that we can discover through observation and experience, which either is reality or points us towards reality.
The second part is actually grace. I am not a theologian so I am not going to provide you with some deep and awesome definition here. I am a counselor though, so I will try to provide you with a functional and applicable definition. Grace is the reality that everybody, including you, has intrinsic value (which cannot be earned or lost), so act like it. Now, lets tie these two together. If the reality is that somebody is failing to deal with their emotions and they deserve to be treated with grace, what does that mean about how we deal with the situation? Well, first off, their failure does NOT mean anything about them or their value, so they are just making a mistake out of ignorance, fear, avoidance, or whatever. Second, if there is a reality to how we handle our emotions, they need the tools and experience to deal with that reality better. This means they can try, fail, learn, grow, and try again without being judged or being a failure. Trying is the important part here, or put into the terms of this post, trying to step closer to reality is what actually matters. Success is not particularly important in this area (remember, no loss or gain of value) but gaining the experience to deal with reality better does matter a lot.
Now, I want to talk about a couple of ways that I have learned to help people try and deal with their avoidance. The first way is to invite people, with grace, to talk about the reality (or truth) of their situation. Treat them like they are intelligent, like they have value, and like you want to hear what they have to say (see previous post for more on listening). Then, point out the reality/truth of their avoidance as you see it and ask them their thoughts and continue to discuss. Most of the time, people will become aware of their avoidance, especially if you can point it out in a logical manner. The second way to deal with avoidance is a bit more formulaic and I tend to give client’s a handout with this ‘formula’ on it.
When you notice you are avoiding, STOP! Slow down, calm down, take time to think this through.
Figure out what you are avoiding.
Then figure out why you are avoiding it.
Determine if your understanding of why you are avoiding changes your understanding of what you are avoiding.
If it changes, go back through the process until it no longer changes.
Think through what the objective reality/truth is about whatever you are avoiding.
Step into that reality/truth with grace.
Grace = everybody in the situation has value, act like it!
So, lets walk through this using the example of the woman refusing to admit her grandfather had tried to molest her. Also, please understand this example will sum up a couple months of work in session. First off, (1) calm down and get to a point you can think about what is going on. Next, (2) figure out what you are avoiding. In this case, she was avoiding admitting what had happened to her. Then, (3) figure out why you are avoiding. She was avoiding this because it would have serious effects on the family and she was scared. (4) Does the why change the what? In this case, yes it does. So, back to (2) She is actually avoiding 2 things (you will have to trust me on this, it is a long story), 1 – her being valuable and 2 – fear of what it would do to her family. Okay, onto (3) she was avoiding it because she believe she was garbage (her words) and that she was not valuable enough to create conflict in the family over her experience. (4) This does not change our understanding of what she is avoiding, so (5) what is the truth of the situation? The truth is that she is valuable, even valuable enough to fight for and she was finally able to admit that. (6) Despite admitting this, for this client, stepping into this reality was more about her treating herself like she has value in her day to day activities and thoughts, and less about confronting her grandfather/her family over what her grandfather tried to do. We explored it, and she decided (somewhat against my recommendations, which is fine!) not to share it with the family as there were no more children who were vulnerable in the family. This seems to have worked for her, and within a couple months of her starting to step into the reality that she is valuable, she was healthy enough to terminate counseling.
I give this example to try and elucidate how this process can work and how complicated people tend to be. For her, making the choice to act like she was valuable in other areas was enough. For others, they may need any number of things, including creating some conflict in the family. It can be a challenge to determine what people are avoiding and how they need to step into reality/truth, especially if they lack insight into themselves. However, if people are willing to work at it and put some time into it, they can generally keep digging until they figure out what they are avoiding and then deal with it healthily. They may need help (mentor, pastor, friend, counselor, etc.) but stepping into truth/reality with grace is a powerful and effective tool for anybody.