Creative despair reminds us that sooner or later we will have to do it: stop, face suffering and our resistances, far from feeding the repertoire of avoidance strategies, this technique invites us to accept reality, assuming the desperation to walk with it, but this time creating a new path, a new, brighter goal, in which there is hope.
This psychotherapeutic tool is part of acceptance and engagement therapy, for readers who are not familiar with this approach, it can be said to be part of so-called third generation therapies.
“Learn to dig a tunnel of hope in the mountains of despair that surround you every day. “Martin Luther King.
It usually generates positive and transformative changes in people through two very concrete keys, firstly, it combats automatic thoughts, those that make us suffer and that often put us in destructive dynamics with which we feed pain, secondly acceptance and commitment therapy is characterized by a direct, human and committed approach with the patient , in which, through fluid and comfortable dialogue, without judgment, changes are generated in addition to providing more adaptive behaviors.
Thus, when promoting these changes, it is common to use what is called creative despair, which can bring the patient closer to his own values, reaching a state of calm and internal harmony from which new opportunities can be generated. , and creates the perfect state to enjoy.
To better understand what creative despair is, we will start with a short story as an introduction, the story begins with a peasant, a man who receives a proposal to perform a strange task, with which he will gain a great advantage. work in the field only with the help of a donkey and a shovel; However, there is another small condition: you must have blindfolded.
The good man starts working according to indications, but what he doesn’t know yet is that the field is full of holes, as is foreseeable, our protagonist falls into one of the holes, not knowing what to do or how to get out, the farmer removes the link and uses all he has: the shovel, so for almost a whole day he starts digging and opening tunnels , gradually realizing that all it does is sink more and more.
After realizing this, you decide to accept your situation and opt for another strategy. This small example illustrates with originality the true essence of creative despair. Sometimes our own avoidance attitudes lead to greater despair and we end up increasing the complexity of the original problem.
When a person arrives at the psychologist’s office, he does not arrive alone, comes a bag of distorted thoughts, defensive barriers, limiting attitudes, erroneous areas, an excess of the past, an underutilized present and a perceived anguish of life almost from the first moment.
Get this patient out of the clinic?That when he arrived it is not easy, and that is also not the main goal, we have to chart a path and give hope to that person, but how do we do it?How to get the patient to go home with a little more light?In the face of so much darkness that it invades his mind? Strange as it may seem, creative despair is a good start, a sometimes powerful tool. Let’s see why . . .
We can conclude by emphasizing that creative despair can and should be applied beyond the psychotherapeutic framework, somehow we have all gone through those moments when we are trying to escape something and, almost without knowing how, we end up feeding even more discomfort. It’s like driving around a city you don’t know and in a short time you start circling.
Leaving this circle, seeing light beyond one’s discomfort, involves first understanding that continuing to use the same strategy over and over again is useless, because it only leads us to the same results. The cycle, stop running, assumes that we are lost, that we do not progress, and then look beyond. Raise your head and get out of your own trap to discover other paths, other healthier and liberating paths.