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Why kindness and connection are important to mental health

How can a psychotherapist help someone looking for connection?


One of the main reasons we’re all unfortunately hardwired to struggle as human beings is that two of our central needs often disconnect us from ourselves and others: our safety needs and our reward needs. Safety needs view everything and everyone with a problem-focus while reward needs can cause disconnecting comparisons, competitiveness and feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration. In fact, much of what people bring to therapy – including anxiety, depression, chronic anger, narcissism, addiction, procrastination and stress – can all be seen as both causing and caused by this disconnection. 

When we feel connected, on the other hand, we feel safe, rewarded, alive and fulfilled. Life has meaning and purpose. Whether it’s to ourselves, trusted others, pets, groups, communities, nature or the environment around us, establishing and maintaining connection - which includes the quality of kindness both as its cause and its result - is fundamental to maintaining good mental and physical health. 

 

How can a psychotherapist help someone looking for connection?
To add to our biological tendency to do so, many of us also often disconnect easily due to our childhood experiences in relationships. These can include adverse incidents that happened to us, as well as a lack of genuine love and connection during that time. Because it was relationships that led to these difficulties, if we’re going to be able to connect more later on, we have to experience the quality of relationship we initially needed. 

Good therapy holds the very real potential for such a reparative relationship. The experience of being truly heard and listened to, of trusting someone enough to be vulnerable and say the previously unsayable will help with connection in all areas of life.   

Connection often requires conscious and consistent effort before it becomes the norm and each of its facets can be looked at in therapy. We can focus on how to improve connection with ourselves - including our thoughts, values, beliefs, self-image, body, feelings and behaviours - and with others by exploring areas like boundaries, communication and how we express love and resolve conflict. Looking at the client/therapist relationship itself in real-time can also be valuable here. 

If you’re interested in exploring therapy, then visit our website for helpful advice for those looking for an accredited and registered therapist.

 

Don’t hold on to the wrong connections 
It’s important to remember that nurturing connection and kindness doesn’t mean having to remain connected with others to our detriment. For good reason, our safety needs will be sceptical about striving for connection and kindness with everyone at all times. We all know there are people who are better left untrusted. In fact, disconnecting from another might be the kindest thing we do for ourselves and therapy can be a great place to explore this too. 

Link: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/why-kindness-and-connection-are-important-to-mental-health/
26 replies
  1. Julie
    Julie says:

    I was skeptical, but this product exceeded my expectations. Life-changing product. It’s beneficial to all our health issues , awesome results to begin your transformation!

    Reply
  2. Fatemeh alizadeh
    Fatemeh alizadeh says:

    The therapist expects the counselor.
    To express her own concepts and expectations and talk clearly about the process of therapy sessions.

    Be a good listener and do not judge the client, set the meeting environment in such a way that it is calm, the client waits for the consultant and does not rush the diagnosis and treatment.

    Reply
  3. Alireza noche
    Alireza noche says:

    In my opinion, human beings have two main needs, including safety needs and reward needs. For safety needs that have a direct focus with people should be balanced.
    And the exact opposite of this case that requires reward needs to be taken to zero frustration in the person.
    The cases we witness in society
    Anxiety, depression and…
    The disconnection must be when the two parties are in sufficient peace and security, or it will bring all the psychological problems.
    Always a human needs a psychotherapy for his mental lull and also a person needs to make himself strong enough to sever his wrong relationships and continue his normal life without psychological trauma.

    Reply
  4. Monir Vakili
    Monir Vakili says:

    A few years ago, I read an interesting article about the effect of love and affection on blood pressure, which amazed me. Kindness and love can have a wide range of effects on the body and certain diseases, especially heart attacks and blood pressure. Also, communication with God and worship. It helps a lot to the health of the body and mind.

    Reply
  5. Hannaneh Ghalandari
    Hannaneh Ghalandari says:

    Professor, because in my opinion, if people treat the people around them with kindness and friendliness, they will also be attracted to him, because human nature is such that he prefers to receive kindness from someone, which means that he also likes to be close to him, but if A rude person means that he prefers to be alone, like when a person is upset or nervous and prefers to be alone.

    Reply
  6. Sara ebadi
    Sara ebadi says:

    Sara ebadi
    In fact, when we have a kind and friendly behavior with others, we feel more connected and confident, which in turn improves our own and others’ mental health, and this behavior also strengthens social relationships and reduces tensions felt in society. to be Finally, insisting on such positive behaviors provides a healthier and more positive perspective in one’s life and that of others.

    Reply
  7. هدیه معصومی
    هدیه معصومی says:

    Sometimes people wrongly trust some people and are too kind to them, when they see the consequences of their work, they think that they can no longer trust and love anyone, without knowing that kindness and trust To the right person, they can improve their lives.

    Reply
  8. Mohadese salimzade
    Mohadese salimzade says:

    Hi teacher, thank you for your good article. In my opinion, self-confidence means believing that you deserve love and valuing your thoughts, feelings, opinions, interests and goals.
    Having confidence not only affects how you feel and behave about yourself, but it can also play a role in how you treat others.

    Reply
  9. Sahel nafary
    Sahel nafary says:

    People cannot live a purposeful life without communicating with each other and feeling safe, supported and loved. Because having a relationship with others is necessary to maintain the mental and physical health of a person. Sometimes this affection and love to others may cause us to be hurt by them, so that we can no longer trust anyone and at this time we should seek help from a psychotherapist to improve our mood.

    Reply
  10. fatemeh noorzadeh
    fatemeh noorzadeh says:

    Hello Sir,
    At first I wanna mention to this point that we are humans and as a human we need connections we need to be in connection with people. It’s our human need. And above all I completely agree with you too. It was great.

    Reply
  11. Mobina Mokhtari
    Mobina Mokhtari says:

    Hello master,
    At first I wanna mention your sentence that I really liked that you said “don’t hold on to the wrong connections. “
    Well about having connections I agreed with your explanations about helps of therapists , all of them was useful.

    Reply
  12. Ghazale Derafshi
    Ghazale Derafshi says:

    Hi professor
    I think kindness is great pathway to happiness, empathy and compassion and great way to communicate with others..

    Reply
  13. Dorsa dehghani fard
    Dorsa dehghani fard says:

    Dorsa dehghani fard
    Our two main needs are our safety and reward needs.
    Many psychological problems originate from disconnection.
    Cultivating communication and kindness should not cause harm to oneself.

    Reply
  14. Dorsa dehghani fard
    Dorsa dehghani fard says:

    Dorsa dehghani fard
    Our two main needs are our safety and reward needs.
    Many psychological problems originate from disconnection.
    Cultivating communication and kindness should not cause harm to oneself

    Reply
  15. Zeynb nami
    Zeynb nami says:

    It was great. In my opinion, when we treat others in a kind and friendly way, we feel a greater sense of connection and self-confidence, which in turn improves our own mental health, as well as that of others. Also, this behavior will strengthen social relations and reduce tensions felt in society. Therefore, adhering to such positive behaviors will provide a healthier and more positive perspective in one’s life and that of others.

    Reply
  16. Anahita Bahreman
    Anahita Bahreman says:

    Kindness is related to happiness and contentment and causes happiness and good feeling for yourself and others. The more this feeling is, the more it affects us and the people around us and keeps us away from bad manners, discomfort and feeling bad towards others, etc.

    Reply
  17. Kobra bazdar
    Kobra bazdar says:

    In my opinion, the most important thing that makes people unable to establish good relationships with people is low self-confidence. Self-confidence plays the most important role in our social personality, and if we cannot strength it well, we cannot answer our spiritual needs. I hope that the science of psychology will try more on the personality of people and their role in society. Thank you very much Professor for these helpful articles.

    Reply
  18. Marzieh
    Marzieh says:

    Good points, as a practical example of how people can incorporate kindness and connection into their daily lives, I think volunteering for a local charity or community group as a way to connect with others could be beneficial.

    Reply
  19. Mahnaz Nouruzi
    Mahnaz Nouruzi says:

    Sometimes people know how to communicate, but they don’t have the ability to communicate. The reason for this is the existence of a series of personality problems that take away the ability to communicate effectively, such as
    depressed mood anxiety Paranoid or skeptical personality. Self-obsessed personality. Dependent people. Schizoid personality.
    In cases where we are facing the above problems, we must solve this problem with counseling and psychotherapy so that we can reach a suitable level of effective

    Reply
  20. fatemeh zare
    fatemeh zare says:

    It was a very informative article. As a student, i.e. someone who seeks knowledge, in my opinion, we should focus much more on things like strengthening communication, because humans are social beings and need interaction.

    im Fatemeh Zare, a student at Iranian University.

    Reply
  21. fatemeh zare
    fatemeh zare says:

    Hello dear professor. Following your good and thought-provoking article, a good psychotherapist should be able to strengthen his clients in terms of communication and help them by listening well and increasing their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence.

    My name is Fatemeh Zare, a student at Iranian University.

    Reply
  22. hamidreza taheri
    hamidreza taheri says:

    hi sir ,
    in my opinion psychology needs a lots of skills and techniques that most of the psychology students needs to learn

    Reply
  23. leila asghari asl
    leila asghari asl says:

    Hello and good time dear teacher, it was great, in my opinion, another factor that is effective in establishing communication is having self-confidence. A person who does not have enough self-confidence will have problems both in establishing communication and in breaking communication.

    Reply
  24. leila asghari asl
    leila asghari asl says:

    Very good, in my opinion, having self-confidence is an important factor in establishing relationships with others and even breaking toxic relationships, a person who does not have self-confidence cannot communicate well and therefore becomes isolated and nervous, and the same goes for breaking communication. which is toxic for him, he will have problems
    leila asghari asl* iranian virtual university

    Reply
  25. Mahnaz Nouruzi
    Mahnaz Nouruzi says:

    Hi dear professor
    communication requires skills and techniques that every psychotherapist must learn, and counseling is an art, and every counselor must have sufficient knowledge in addition to these techniques
    In addition the counselor should be able to communicate well in order to learn good communication to it,s clients

    Reply

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