Interpersonal connection

Some of my patients have been betrayed, abused, or otherwise mistreated so often in life that they give up on trying to have relationships with other people.  For the majority of these individuals, the maltreatment began in childhood.  Some were physically or sexually abused by a parent or step-parent.  Others were verbally insulted, criticized, or condemned on a regular basis by a parent or caregiver.  Still others were neglected or ignored.

Of course, some people have perfectly good childhoods and still decide as adults that it is safer to stay away from people than to risk falling victim to treachery.  Anyone who has been repeatedly deceived could conceivably reach this conclusion.  Even a single betrayal, if it is severe, can be enough to shatter one's ability to trust others. 

Perhaps it is "safer" to withhold trust.  It does solve the problem, at least in theory.  If you never give your trust then you will never be betrayed.  So why do I see patients like this in my office, again and again and again?  If the strategy is so effective, why see a therapist? 

Honestly, most patients do not identify lack of trust as their primary concern, although this does sometimes happen.  Typically the lack of trust comes out later, when we start digging into the problem and find the patient's inability to trust lying at its core. 

So what kind of problems come from witholding trust?  Depression and anxiety are probably the most common.  People have an innate need for interpersonal interaction.  The earliest humans (Cro Magnons) lived in small tribes or clans and these groups depended upon one another for survival.  A single human living alone was easy prey for large animals and would not have survived for very long.  As our species evolved, those who cooperated best were the most likely to survive and to pass on their genes to their offspring.  There were no "loners."  Now fast forward to the present day. 

People who intentionally prevent themselves from having close relationships with others are very rarely happy.  Humans truly are social creatures.  It is in our very nature.  Going against our innate tendencies often feels unnatural.  We get lonely.

Fortunately, we do not have to choose between being lonely or getting betrayed.  This is what I tell my patients.  We can learn to exercise caution while we're getting to know people.  We can allow trust to develop gradually.  We can learn that trust doesnt' have to be "all or nothing;" we can trust people to varying degrees.  We learn that it's okay to trust a given individual with some things while not trusting them with others.  We can discover that connection with others occurs on many levels, from very superficial to deeply intimate.

We do, however, have to be willing to accept some risk.  Inevitably as we begin to interact with other people we will encounter some who are untrustworthy.  So often my patients view such encounters as additional evidence that people simply can't be trusted and that they are better off keeping to themselves. I see things quite differently. Most of these experiences represent successes, not failures.  If you begin to interact with someone and soon discover that he is not someone you can trust then you have learned valuable information.  If you then decide that this is not a person you want in your life you have made a wise decision. How can a wise decision represent anything other than success?  \

Beginning to reconnect with others after a long period of isolation can be scary.  It's not easy.  In the end, however, the potential benefits are worth it.

Childhood

Whenever I spend time with my nieces or my stepdaughter, I am awed and intrigued to observe the process of child development in real time, as it unfolds.  As a psychotherapist, I am acutely aware of the wounds that are inflicted when something goes wrong during childhood and disrupts the normal process of development.  While it is true that we do not have to be defined by our pasts, events that happen in childhood influence the development of our very personalities and therefore affect how we perceive ourselves and the world.  If our basic physical, emotional, and psychological needs are not met during this critical time period, we are left with empty spaces that we long to fill but do not know how.

These are the people I see in therapy.  Popular culture pokes fun at psychotherapy for seeming to believe that every adult problem has its origins in a troubled childhood.  I sometimes joke about this myself when I inquire about a patient's childhood experiences.  Still, most stereotypes contain some kernel of truth and this one is no exception.  Children with parents who are controlling and extremely critical sometimes grow into adults who expect too much of themselves, whose self worth is tied to their achievements, and who beat themselves up when they make a mistake.  Children who grow up in chaotic and unstable households sometimes become adults who are obsessed with order, who become extremely upset when things do not go as planned, and who attempt to exert control over everything and everyone around them.  Children who are discouraged from or even punished when they express their thoughts and feelings sometimes become "people pleasers" as adults.  The have learned from their experiences that their needs do not matter.  As a result, they lack assertiveness, have trouble setting limits, and are often taken advantage of (partly because they never say 'no'). 

So I am profoundly impressed when I see evidence of these psychological and emotional needs in children.  About six months after my husband and I got married my stepdaughter came to stay with us for the summer.  One night she got upset about something trivial.  She started crying.  Her tears quickly escalated into sobs and loud wails.  I assumed she was throwing a tantrum and figured she would eventually stop crying if we simply ignored her.  She was still wailing after thirty or forty minutes, at which point my husband insisted on going to comfort her.  It wasn't until later that I realized my mistake; my stepdaughter did not know how to self-soothe!  In other words, she really had no way to calm herself down when she was distressed.  She was still at a stage developmentally where she needed help from an adult.  I'm sure no harm came from the incident but it made me think.  What if this happened often?  What if no one ever came to comfort her or to help her calm down?  That's the kind of thing that happened to my patients in childhood.

I observed an interaction between my eight year old niece and her parents last week that made me smile.  We were all at my parents' house getting ready to go for a walk.  My niece had to go to the bathroom before we left.  In the meantime, the rest of us went outside to wait for her.  "Watch," my sister said to her husband. "When she [my niece] comes out of the bathroom and sees no one in the house she's going to come running out here in a panic."  Sure enough, a few minutes later my niece came running out the door.  "I thought you left me!" she exclaimed.  Of course my sister and brother-in-law have never and would never leave her by herself at her age.  Still, the fear my niece felt was real.  And what happens to those kids who come running outside to find that all the adults have, in fact, left them home by themselves?  What happens to them when they become adults?

These are just some thoughts and observations...

When to seek help after a tragedy

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there had been a crisis in my family.  In a recent conversation with my mom about what happened she asked me if I thought the family members most affected should seek counseling.  "It depends," I told her.  I realize my response was not particularly helpful.  Unfortunately, there is no universal rule of thumb about when a person should see a counselor or therapist in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic experience.  Many - if not most - people are able to work through a distressing experience by relying on their existing coping mechanisms and natural support networks.  Sadness, grief, anxiety, and anger are all normal emotional responses to tragedy.

"So how will we know if they need help?" my mom asked.  I had no easy answer for this question either.  (You might think having a therapist in the family is useful.  Not so much.  You're better off being related to a lawyer or a doctor).  Personally, I think it's preferable to allow the natural healing process to take place whenever possible.  From time to time I see patients who are struggling with feelings about something that happened a week or two earlier.  My strategy is to caution them against anything that might interfere with the process of healing: don't avoid thinking about it if thoughts arise; don't avoid people, places, or things just because they cause you to remember; don't avoid talking about it; share your feelings with someone you trust; let yourself feel.

As for my family, I think the best thing we can do is to spend as much time together as possible.  In this way we send a very powerful message: we are here for you and we love you.  It also allows us to see for ourselves how everyone is coping.  Hopefully, we will see those who were affected the most begin to resume  life.  If, after several months we realize this is not happening, we can reach out and encourage them to seek help.

Obliquity

I was reading a Huffington Post article last week and came across a new concept that sparked my interest.  The article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-grant/does-trying-to-be-happy-m_b_3276701.html) was called "Does Trying to Be Happy Make Us Unhappy?"  The author, Adam Grant, talked about something called obliquity.  The concept comes from an economist (yep, an economist) named John Kay, who defines obliquity as the idea that goals are best achieved indirectly.  He gives some examples of this paradox: the happiest people are not those who spend their lives pursuing happiness; the most profitable corporations are not those that make maximizing profits their primary goal; the wealthiest people are not those whose first priority is accumulating wealth.

What sparked my interest - of course - was the premise that the happiest people are not those who spend their time trying to be happy. In fact, as author Adam Grant points out, actively pursuing happiness actually ends up making people unhappy.  This should give us all pause.  Think about how much time and energy we (Americans, westerners) devote to building a happy life.

Ask the average adult what he or she wants in life.  You'll probably get a variety of responses: a family, a big home in a safe neighborhood, a nice car, the time and money to travel the world, etc.  But if you ask him why he wants these things, what he hopes to gain from having them, it really boils down to this: he believes these things will make him happy.  In the end, most of us just want to be happy.

I imagine John Kay's advice would be this: if you want to be happy stop trying to be happy.  According to Kay, basing our decisions in life on what we think will make us happy doesn't work.  Why?

Kay explains his reasoning.  In the real world, things don't happen in a straight line.  One course of action generates a number of responses from different groups of people as well as from the environment; we simply cannot predict all of the possible responses in advance.  If we want to be successful, we may need to adapt our strategies based on feedback from others.  Issues emerge that might not have been immediately apparent in the beginning.  Factors that did not initially seem relevant can later become a central concern.  As circumstances change, our goals may need to change as well.  It is therefore preferable to start out with a vague and imprecise objectives, as these are more flexible and adapt more easily to changing conditions.

Effective problem solving - and effective living, for that matter - involves trial and error.  We often do not know whether a particular course of action will be effective until we try it.  If we are rigidly committed to that course of action we will be reluctant to abandon it, even when it proves ineffective.  Sometimes we have to be willing to abandon our objectives and change direction.

Kay stresses the importance of knowing what you don't know.  We get into trouble when we assume we know how the world works or when we convince ourselves that we have more control over our environments that we actually possess.  Successful people are ultimately those who recognize the limitations of their knowledge.  In terms of happiness, this means acknowledging that we might not know what makes us happy.  The world is full of people who chose a particular path because they thought it would make them happy, only to discover later that they are not happy at all.

In sum, if you want to be happy stop trying to be happy.  Focus on other objectives.  For me, I try to focus on goals like spending as much time with the people I love as possible.  Yours goal might be different.  I'd love to hear from you - what objectives do your pursue?

Personal crises

As a psychotherapist, I'm used to dealing with crises.  Crisis management is a job requirement for everyone who works in a mental health setting, from the lead psychiatrist to the people who answer the phones and schedule appointments.  In college, a significant amount of class time was devoted to this topic. 

What constitutes a crisis can differ from person to person and from setting to setting.  When I worked in a residential setting, a crisis typically involved a patient becoming physically aggressive, destroying property, engaging in self harmful behaviors, or trying to run away from the facility.  For an inpatient psychiatric hospital, the crisis is often admission to the facility itself (since people typically aren't admitted to an inpatient psychiatric hospital unless they are an immediate danger to themselves or others). 

Crises also vary in size and scope.  An individual can experience a personal crisis (for example, an "existential crisis").  Crises can also occur within a family.  Often, a problem in an individual family member impacts the entire family, creating a family crisis. 

Sometimes an event disrupts the lives of large groups of people, causing a neighborhood, state, or even national crisis.  Natural disaster is a common example of a large scale crisis.  Recall the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Between nineteen and twenty thousand people died (most from the tsunami), leaving thousands of grieving friends and relatives in their wake.  The resultant destruction left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.   Entire communities were completely destroyed.  The earthquake and tsunami also caused a nuclear power plant in Fukushima to meltdown.  Eventually, the loss of energy supplied by the plant taxed the entire nation's electricity supply.  The Japanese government was forced to look for alternative ways to meet the nation's electricity needs. 

As a psychotherapist, the crises I deal with tend to be on a smaller scale.  I think the majority of crises are small scale crises.  You might think that dealing with so many crises makes a person better at handling them.  There was a time when I was naive enough to believe this.  The truth is, when you are confronted with crises on a daily basis you become good at dealing with other people's crises.  And that's all.  I've discovered that all of my training, education, and experience mean nothing when faced with my own crisis.  This became abundantly apparent during a recent family crisis.  I was no calmer nor any better equipped to deal with what happened.  The first thing I did when I learned what had happened was to ask my mother what I should do.  That's certainly not the most competent reaction.

What stood out the most to me was how helpless I felt.  There was absolutely nothing I could do to change the situation.  There were, of course, things I could do to be there for my family.  Perhaps a bit ironically, I did not know which of these options would be comforting and which would be intrusive.  I was torn between wanting very badly to be there but also wanting to respect the privacy of a loved one who was going through a terrible experience.  

I'm not upset with myself for not knowing what to do.  I'm not sure there is ever any "right" thing to do in a crisis anyway, although there are certainly "wrong" things to do.  I've come to realize that it was naive of me to believe I would be better equipped to handle my own crisis just because I'm used to helping other people handle theirs.

When helpers need help...

What happens when the person who is supposed to help others doesn't quite feel up to the task?  This is something I've struggled with occasionally, particularly during the more turbulent periods of my life.  I find it difficult to offer someone hope when I feel depressed myself.  It's hard to be a calming presence when my own anxiety feels overwhelming.  It's a challenge to find the energy to connect and engage with other people when what I really want is to hide from the world. 

And yet, these are exactly the things I must do.  In some ways this is an almost universal phenomenon; most of us are not at liberty to drop out of life just because we feel depressed or overwhelmed.  No matter how bad we feel (or for how long), there are things that must be done; we have no choice but to do them.  We must somehow set aside our feelings and fulfill our responsibilities. 

Still, I think the experience of depression, anxiety, grief, or distress by mental health professionals puts them in an uniquely difficult position.  How can a person help others at a time when she herself can hardly function?

After doing some research, I discovered that most mental health professionals do exactly what I do when I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed: they go to work, do their job the best they can, and go home at the end of the day.  Then they get up the next day and do it again.  In a 1987 survey of clinical psychologists, 60% of those who responded acknowledged conducting psychotherapy when they felt they were "too distressed to be effective."

Some research suggests that psychotherapists might even be more vulnerable than the general population to experiencing anxiety or depression.  Tillet (2003) calls this the "helping profession syndrome," which he describes as the phenomenon in which people are drawn into helping professions because of their own psychopathology. People who have struggled with anxiety or depression in the past have a higher risk than others of experiencing anxiety or depression in the future.  Thus, the very factors that influence some people to pursue careers in fields like mental health also make these individuals more vulnerable future psychologically or emotional distress.

So what should the healers do when they themselves are hurting?  Of course we should always take care of ourselves emotionally (and physically, for that matter).  When we're hurting, we should be aware that we're having a hard time and that we will probably perform less effectively until things get better.  Otherwise, we do the only thing we can do: keep doing our jobs, to the best of our ability.

Part of moving past self-blame is asking the right questions

It is relatively common for people who have had some sort of traumatic experience to blame themselves for the event, even when it is clear they did not cause it.  Some of these individuals readily acknowledge that they did not cause the event to occur; still, they hold themselves responsible for not preventing it.  This is especially true when they can look back on the event and identify things they could have done differently that would have led to a better outcome.

Self-blame creates a lot of emotional suffering.  This leads me to conclude that people do not choose self blame; in fact, many people attempt to convince themselves of their innocence.  Barring that, they might try to avoid thinking about the event at all.  Paradoxically, they find that no matter how hard they try not to think about the event they seem to think about it all the time.  In turn, these unwanted thoughts remind them of their guilt.  In this way, self-blame begins to consume more and more of their lives.

So how do you help someone overcome self-blame?  It is not enough to tell them that they've done nothing wrong; they've probably heard this a million times already.  There is very little anyone can say to convince them of their innocence; this is a conclusion they must reach on their own.  As a therapist, I try to operate from the assumption that the patient has the answers; my job is to ask the right questions.

So what kind of things might I ask about?

What happened? It's important for me to have at least a basic understanding of what took place.  For one thing, it helps to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate guilt.  There is always a possibility that the patient did in fact commit some act of wrongdoing.  In such cases, the task is for the patient to learn to forgive himself.  Either way, I need to know the basic facts in order to help the patient put the event in its appropriate context.  If relevant, I sometimes ask patients to draw a little diagram so I can get an idea of the environment where the event took place and of where the patient was positioned in relation to other people.  (You'd be surprised by how helpful this can be.  Sometimes a diagram makes it immediately apparent that, for example, based on the patient's position in relation to others there was no way he could have caused, prevented, or otherwise intervened in the event). 

If you went before a jury, would they find you guilty and convict you of causing the event?  What specifically would they convict you of?  This helps people to think about guilt from a different perspective by adopting the mindset of a hypotehtical jury member who has been instructed to consider only the facts.

Are you the only one to blame for the event?  Or are there others who bear some responsibility?  I often have patients make a "responsibility pie chart."  I ask them to identify all of the people (or other entities) who played some role in causing the event and to assign a percentage of total blame to each one.  (Remember, the total has to add up to 100%).  Ultimately, most patients end up assigning themselves somehwere around 20 to 25% of the total "blame."  I then ask: "Are you treating yourself like you're 25% responsible?  Or are you treating yourself like you're 100% responsible?"

Do other people share the belief that you are to blame?  If not, who do they blame?  How did they reach this conclusion?  What evidence did they use?  Is this the same evidence you use? 

If a friend or relative had a similar experience, would you blame them?  If not, why?  Are you holding yourself to a different standard? 

These are just a few of an endless number of possible questions...

Guilt and self condemnation

I often work with patients who have endured some sort of trauma and who have blamed themselves for these events.  In most cases, it would be obvious to any outside observer that my patient is not at fault for what happened.  In fact, many of my patients have been told on multiple occasions and by many people that they are not to blame.  Still, they continue to blame and then condemn themselves.  The most common example of this is sexual assault.  Patients often blame themselves for not screaming louder, fighting harder, or somehow resisting more vehemently.  Or they insist that they "should have known" the person was a rapist and stayed away from him. 

Then there are the patients I encounter whose actions did play some sort of role in the outcome of their traumatic experiences.  I have never had a case like this that was completely cut and dry, i.e., the patient's actions were the direct cause of a negative outcome.  Keep in mind that most of my patients are military service members.  So an example of this type of situation might be as follows: A patient is in charge of some team or unit of service members.  He plans some sort of mission or decides upon a particular course of action, which his team or unit then implements.  Someone in the team/unit gets hurt or killed during the mission.  The patient blames himself because he planned the mission and selected the people who participated in it.  Of course, the patient did not plant the bomb or fire the gun that killed his teammate.  Still, he feels responsible.

Self blame inevitably causes suffering.  A person's thoughts are often consumed by their traumatic experience/experiences.  They replay the event in their minds over and over again in an effort to identify what they could have done differently that would have led to a different outcome.  They initially condemn their actions but over time end up condemning themselves.  Often they begin to hate themselves.  As self-loathing grows, they withdraw socially and isolate themselves from others.  They frequently become depressed.

Self-blame also keeps a person stuck.  When a person blames himself for some traumatic event, everything about the event becomes frozen in time.  The person's memories of and feelings associated with the experience are stored in their mind and body in their original form.  When the person attempts to process the event he ends up condemning himself.  It doesn't take long before he decides to stop trying to process the event.  He tries to bury the emotions and memories.  This is, of course, impossible.  At some point, the emotions and memories rise to the surface (e.g., when the person sees something that reminds him of the event), as intense and as vivid as they were on the day the traumatic event occurred.  Most people respond by redoubling their efforts to suppress the thoughts and emotions, which may work in the short term but will eventually fail.  And thus a self-defeating cycle emerges.

If self-blame has such obvious negative consequences then why do it?  While the costs of self-blame are many, it also provides a certain benefit; it enables a person to maintain a sense of control.  If I accept that something bad happened that was completely beyond my ability to prevent or control then I must accept that something terrible could happen again at any minute and there is nothing I can do about it.  This is, of course, technically true.  It is, however, quite scary.  How do we live in a world where we cannot keep ourselves safe? 

If, however, something terrible happens and I blame myself for it then I can prevent the bad thing from happening again by changing my behavior in some way.  In other words, if it's my fault then I can fix it (or keep it from happening again).  I am in control.  Blaming myself allows me to maintain the illusion that I have control over my environment and that I can prevent bad things from happening to me (and am therefore able to keep myself safe). 

In future posts I will talk about ways to move past self blame...

The guilt of feeling satisfied

I previously mentioned that I wanted to spend some time thinking about who I want to be - my ideal self.  This isn't the first time I've considered this.  A few years ago I could've readily identified the areas in my life in need of improvement.  Even now there are things I try to be mindful of: to refrain from snapping at people (especially my husband) just because I'm tired or in a bad mood; to spend more time attending to and interacting with my stepdaughter when she's with us; to call two or three close friends on a regular basis (time passes quickly and it's easy to lose touch, even with people you care about); to spend time playing (or at least attempting to play) with my nieces when we're together; and to stop what I'm doing and give my full attention when someone is trying to have a conversation with me.  There are some other things I can't recall at the moment.

So I do make a conscious effort to cultivate particular ways of being.  There are also things I would like to do in theory (such as doing volunteer work in my spare time) but I know myself well enough to recognize I will never muster the motivation to do them.  I am not perfect; my life is not perfect.  For the most part, however, I am happy and content with myself and my life. 

It seems that this is both a blessing and a curse.  I have not always been content in life, so I appreciate what a blessing it is just to wake up most days feeling good.  I do not take this for granted.  On the other hand, I have absolutely no drive or ambition.  I had both of these when I was younger.  I was intensely focused on my educational and career goals.  I successfully achieved these, and within the timeframe I'd set for myself.  I finished my bachelors and masters degrees.  I bought a house in my early twenties.  (Unfortunately, I am now unable to get rid of this house because housing values have fallen so much since the recession).  I like my job; right now, it's exactly what I want to be doing.  I am naturally curious, so I'm constantly learning new techniques and ideas.  Still, I see little need to pursue additional training in any particular technique or strategy. 

I knew when I entered my profession that I'd never be rich.  Currently, I have a good idea of how much others of my profession living in the same geographical area earn and my salary is comprable.  I haven't had a raise in three years, but I suspect that this is due to the nation's economic problems and not specific to my employer.  Do I want to make more money?  Sure.  Do I want to find another job?  Not at all.  Even if I could make a little more money (probably no more than $10,000 a year more than I make now) somewhere else I don't really want to work anywhere else, at least not right now.
I do have one concrete goal right now: for my husband and I to buy a bigger house so we can expand our family.  Starting this month, I'm going to start paying extra towards the principal on my mortgage.  I've also been saving a few hundred dollars each month for the past several years.  (And I think I've saved every tax return I've gotten since I started working).  Hopefully these efforts will eventually help me achieve my goal.  I suppose I could get a second job to accumulate money at a faster rate, but it would make me unhappy.  (I know this from previous experience - I don't have enough free time when I have a second job and it makes me unhappy). 

In summary, I have no interest in pursuing additional education (at least not formally; on an informal basis, I will never stop learning new things).  There are no "promotions" at my current job; my colleagues and I each practice as independent clinicians.  Our supervisor is a military public health officer.  Unless I plan on joining the military (I don't), there is no room for advancement.  Going by past experience, I will probably get a modest raise at some point in the next several years.  I'm okay with this.  I am not actively looking for a better paying job.  The only concrete goal I am working towards (excluding my general aim to be a good person and to spend as much time as possible with the people I love) is buying a bigger house.  For these reasons, I have been told that I lack ambition.

Ambition is "the earnest drive for achievement and the willingness to strive for its attainment."  If this is an accurate definition then I cannot deny it: I have very little ambition.  I possess no drive, earnest or otherwise, to achieve any particular goal.  It is obviously not possible to strive for the attainment of goals that do not exist. 

At this point in my life I am the happiest I have ever been.  Beneath my contentment, however, lies a kernel of guilt.  Lately I wonder if I should be doing more.  Am I selling myself short?  Am I using my talents to the best of my ability?  Do I lack ambition because I am content with life?  Or is it because I've grown lazy? 

Self Mentoring?

From my first human services class as an undergraduate student, through graduate school, three internships, my first "real" job,  and my experiences as a clinician, my development as a professional has been entwined with my emotional and psychological growth as an individual.  I've often found that my professional experiences have been the impetus for self exploration; many times I needed to first grow and change as a person in order to become a better clinician.  In this way, my personal and professional growth have been and continue to be inseparable.  Would I be as self aware and emotionally healthy if I'd chosen some other line of work?  I doubt it.  Would I be as good of a clinician if I hadn't devoted so much time and energy to dealing with my own psychological and emotional baggage?  Definitely not. 

While my career as a clinician has been integral to my own development, one need not be a psychotherapist in order to achieve personal growth.  This is, in fact, the idea behind the field of self-help.  Anybody can improve as a person, become more self-aware, understand themselves better, relate to others more effectively, or become more "enlightened." 

I recently came across a relatively new (or new to me) method of self-help: self-mentoring.  I'm not particularly interested in debating the merits of various self-help techniques.  When I come across something new I tend to explore it a little.  If I'm especially intrigued I'll do more research.  Otherwise, I'll take from it anything that seems useful and go on about my life.

So, about self-mentoring.  The first major component of self-mentoring is self-discovery.  It requires a realistic and accurate assessment of you true self - both strengths and weaknesses. I can definitely support this, given my strong belief in the merits of self-awareness.  Suggested "self-mentoring" strategies for self-assessment include self-monitoring, self-reflection, seeking feedback from trusted others, consulting professional or expert sources (to include books, journals, videos, an actual psychotherapist, etc.), and/or completing any of an infinite number of personality assessment inventories (which can be quite helpful if you've never done one.  I personally recommend the Myers-Briggs.  If you Google Myers-Briggs personality assessment, you can probably find several free ones online).

A quick aside -- personally, I think it is  impossible for any person to ever completely know himself.  I therefore believe that self-assessment should be an ongoing and lifelong process.  Self-awareness promotes mindfulness and makes it easier to have meaningful relationships with others.

 Knowing yourself (to the degree this is possible) is of course meaningless if you make no attempt to use that knowledge.   This brings us to the second major component of self-mentoring: self-improvement, preferably in the form of concrete behavioral change.  In order to change, you must first have an idea of who you want to be.  (They call this your "ideal self").  

In my brief foray into the world of self-mentoring, it was this idea of an "ideal self" that made the strongest impression.  It's not that I've never heard of this concept before; I have.  It just made me realize that I haven't given much thought recently to who I want to be.  I reflect a lot on who I am and I definitely try to be the best version of myself as often as possible.  But who do I want to become?  I honestly don't know.  And so I suppose I need to give it some thought...