Boredom
An unpleasant state of unoccupied attention — and often the doorway to what you're avoiding.
How it shows up
In the age of screens, boredom has almost disappeared, because we fill it within a second. That is exactly why many people have lost the experience that behind boredom often comes restlessness, and behind restlessness a thought they were avoiding.
What we do with it in therapy
I suggest short, deliberate pauses without content. It isn’t an exercise in discipline; it is an experiment in whether something appears beneath the boredom.
See also
Shame
The feeling that something is wrong with you — as distinct from guilt, which says something is wrong with what you did.
Dual relationship
A situation in which therapist and client are also connected in some other way — through business, friendship or family.
Avoidance
Retreating from what triggers distress — the fastest relief and the most reliable way of making sure the distress stays.
