Practical Psychologist's Tools. Balance Model

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Perhaps I, as a person born in October, and "Libra" according to the sign of the Zodiac, in everything and always seek harmony and balance, and clearly feel their absence.

However, it is rather difficult to measure balance and harmony in our life.

There are many different techniques and techniques, but none of them fully met my criteria before.

And so, while studying Positive Psychotherapy, I learned about a wonderful tool that surprised me with its simplicity and pleased me with its integrity and complexity. I want to share with you this wonderful tool of psychological assistance and self-help.

This model, as I said, came to us from the Positive Psychotherapy of Nossrat Pezeshkian and it looks like this:

In it, our whole life is conventionally divided into four spheres:

body / health,

activities / achievements,

contacts / communication,

meaning / future / fantasy

There are many options for using this model, and the more I use it, the more opportunities I see.

I use the Balance Model both with clients and in my own life to determine what is happening in it now and what needs to be changed.

Now I will tell you what exactly needs to be done in order to understand what is happening with the balance in your life, or rather, in general, with your life, where the energy and time go, what areas remain in short supply, what way of escape from problems you have chosen.

Take a sheet of A4 paper, draw a coordinate system on it, like this:

Next, think about how much effort, time, energy you invest in each of the 4 areas of your life, based on the fact that you have 100% for everything.

· BODY / HEALTH -%?

· ACTIVITIES / ACHIEVEMENTS -%?

· CONTACTS / COMMUNICATION -%?

· SENSE / FUTURE / FANTASY -%?

The results should be plotted to scale on the abscissa and ordinate lines.

Body and health on the positive y-axis, then on the positive segment of the abscissa - activities and achievements, further - on the negative segment of the ordinate axis - contacts and communication, and, finally, on the negative segment of the abscissa axis - meaning, future and fantasies.

We connect all the points and get a rhombus, most likely not isosceles.

Like this, perhaps -

Or like this:

How do you understand what all this means?

The very first thing is to see exactly how you distribute your forces, what is in the leading position, what is in short supply.

There are cultural characteristics that build, to a large extent, our model. The overwhelming majority of my clients are overloaded by two areas - activity and meaning, their rhombus turns out to be elongated horizontally and flattened vertically.

And, if you think about it, then everything is correct and understandable, we have been in the country for a long time, I mean the USSR, where we all come from, work was the main meaning of life.

And to reason, reflect, live in the future, bright, certainly, it was the same accepted.

The younger generation is not so strongly fixed in such a model, the attitude towards health, fortunately, began to change for the better.

What else can you understand using the Balance Model?

Your diamond may reflect your current situation or life strategy.

If you have just got a job, then, most likely, the field of activity will be overloaded, and this is understandable, you need to adapt to the new environment, and this takes time and effort.

If there are no special changes in your work, and the situation with overload is the same, then this, rather, speaks of priorities in life, and, possibly, flight to work, labor dependence, workaholism.

Then it makes sense to sort it out, from what am I running away to work? From communication with my wife / husband, which has ceased to satisfy me, from loneliness and feelings of lack of demand in my personal life?

Here you need to understand and admit that by running away, avoiding, you can never establish harmony and balance.

You can run away in fantasy, addiction, numerous connections, or just empty communication. Escape, at first, may be a way out, gives you the opportunity to take a break from the conflict, to distance yourself, to think. But, if the problem is not solved, and flight becomes habitual, then it itself becomes a problem.

There is one more aspect in working with the Balance Model, which is more motivational than just explanatory.

If your field of activity is overloaded, then you can draw resources from it - money, fame, a sense of your own worth, self-confidence as a specialist, since you have invested in it.

At the same time, if a sphere of the body, for example, is deficient, you did not invest in it effort, time - did not take care of it, did not heal when you were sick, did not pay attention to bodily symptoms, did not please with massage and fitness, then in that the moment when stress occurs, a crisis, this sphere can surrender first.

And then the body will not only not be your assistant, but vice versa, ballast.

I have talked only about some aspects of working with the Balance Model, in fact there are many more. Anyone who wants to know more, I refer to the works of Pezeshkian and his followers.

As for harmony in our life … I think that when you take care of all areas of your life, then harmony comes to you along with prosperity.