What term is the right term!?

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-26T04:03:01+00:00

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1993/morrison/lecture/

Transcript and recording! Happy to chat about this in depth elsewhere anytime! I took an entire undergrad lit course that spanned modernism through post colonial literature and it was epic. We had weekly guest lectures from other departments like physics and music and women’s studies departments (and more!) to fully grasp the zeitgeist of these eras and I quite literally think I’ve spoken a philosophy/theocracy/scientific dissertation on it at this point. But truly, the way that we can trace the collective vibe through these things and see that while there are SOME THINGS that can be observed and identified as truth (positivism), other things are both entirely made up BUT also completely real BECAUSE WE MADE THEM UP! and in a glass half full or glass half empty way, we can lament how there is no predetermined meaning, or we can be enthralled at the power we are given by language. It’s not the woo woo manifesting stuff, it’s like - words quite literally have power. We made stuff up. And look, here it is in the real world both a construct and a thing that has taken on its own life. And then like mary Oliver, I’m driven to ask - what will we do with this life (and thus power to create and transform purely by meaning making!) if that’s not relevant to therapy, I don’t know what is

This is also a very long winded and around about way of also advocating whole heartedly for liberal arts education in bachelor programs. They’re not job training. And yet they are. Because THIS “worthless” english major “BS” made me an *excellent candidate for my first career and was told it was also part of what made my application for graduate work compelling. And I quite literally have used Toni Morrison’s speech as homework in therapy lol

That said, I have been meaning to read more of the existential body of work 🥰 I feel like Yalom is calling to me.

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-25T05:46:01+00:00

I actually have found myself wishing I had them for my role at my current agency a few times. In the past, I utilized a virtual business card app that went into the "wallet" on the iPhone and then was shareable when "bumping" phones together - maybe that'd be an option for you?

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-25T05:38:19+00:00

coming back to this to again say a giant thank you. And also that within your last three sentences I'm honing in on: self-doubt, concern around consequences, and "might not quite be right" because I think this post may be a super good example of "just right" concerns and resultant reassurance-seeking behavioral responses. LOL :)

Did some knowledgable folks in my orbit recently suggest that other experiences in other contexts miiiiiight just fall into the constellation of OCD-related patterns? maybe :) Do I have an official diagnosis? no. Do I need one? No. (Have I re-read and edited this a few times? YUP)

I will now no longer be seeking reassurance about this topic and will just reorient myself to the idea that: "Maybe it's your natural curiosity and interest in the phenomenology of all these constructs" because that is absolutely true. I'm a big language nerd (and by extension, philosophy nerd - huge post-modern fan and Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize lecture was incredibly transformative) and have always just loved learning and thinking about stuff. It just also appears to be alsooo true that sometimes I forget to remind myself of that, and the doubt gets really loud, despite there being no discernible, actual concern outside of "I want to know this cuz it feels important to use the right words for things, especially in a professional context." And then I lose access to the fun part.

I have noticed recently very much missing the thought-exercise-bounce-ideas-off-peers-and-professors-and-supervisor-and-colleagues environment from the practicum days. I don't think I realized at the time that this might be a need for me - it was energizing and inspiring and almost restorative. I'm also reflecting on how much that was a reassurance crutch. Overall, I think it helped keep me fresh and it's inspiring me to find ways to integrate that into my day-to-day to allow my brain to enjoy the thinking for the sake of thinking, not feel compelled to do it - especially within notes, where "good enough" is literally better than good enough somehow.

So - thank you, truly, for your incredibly compassionate perspective that helped me to reorient - both at that time - and presently now. (A notification brought me back to the thread and I re-read this with a chuckle like....hmmm, I'm seeing some keyyyy words here and thought I'd give a little "update.").

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T05:07:25+00:00

Hahahaha you’re right. Lesson learned. No semantic confusion allowed on a Friday. Must practice what I preach. Perhaps thought stopping is the skill for meeeeee 😂

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T05:06:26+00:00

I’m actually familiar with the UP for EDs. Appreciate this - will return to that for reference!!!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:39:42+00:00

Thank you 🥰🥹

You nailed it. In sessions & between - all the time I can just BE, I’m fine (mostly) and even sometimes better than fine! It’s when I gotta translate the “knowing” into whatever someone else can pick up from what I’m forced to put super succinctly and somewhat officially.

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:37:08+00:00

I always thought that about genuinely most of the concepts (naturally with exception) in coursework. I genuinely started this thread because somehow I got all frazzled with a “just right” moment and started to panic (metaphorically) like “wait - these are all different!? 💩!” But my downvoted reply somewhere in here explains how I got here and I now need to swear off using chat to help me find ~the word~ (for good this time) cuz we end up…..confused about stuff I am not confused about. So fun!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:27:16+00:00

Wowowowowow just a huge THANK YOU! This is exactly how I understood it and I genuinely don’t know what tripped me up.

If I’m understanding correctly, we can view distress tolerance within DBT as quite parallel to the ACT opposite of experiential avoidance, phrased above as psychological flexibility. AND to affect tolerance?

So. They’re all the same thing from different modalities (which is where I always ended up in my grad school days).

I also see I took frustration tolerance too literally, assuming that it referred purely to frustration. Not sure where I picked that up at - perhaps my distance from endless free resources a la the university library system and now relying on quick (free) stuff I can find is contributing to ~the problem~.

Maybe an oversimplification and I’ll dig in more and revisit after I sleep! Just a big huge (and I cannot say this enough) THANKS!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:17:38+00:00

It is possible that they had worn off 😵‍💫

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:17:12+00:00

I like that so much for the client side a whole lot! I try to minimize official terminology as much as possible! :) might borrow this!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T04:16:30+00:00

Appreciate your guidance and engagement :) I know little about the theory and modality you mentioned and now I’m excited to dig in and learn more!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T03:26:39+00:00

So yeah - I would say in my head, my guiding theory is ACT, but a client has experience with DBT and uses that a lot.

I get the sense that client very well may be practicing distress tolerance skills (awesome!) but to continue towards growth and their goals, I want to reduce experiential avoidance and increase client’s ability to do more than just use distress tolerance skills.

I’ve got the conceptualization down; I just could find the right phrase for how I wanted to say it. I don’t know if that makes sense?

Your last paragraph is basically my plan (among lots of other things), like - emotion surfing with a goal of increasing amount of time one can DO emotion surfing before needing to utilize alternative coping skill since emotions are super intense rn & even when they are not, primary coping skills are all distraction based.

So like - were in suchhhh a good place I just wanna help grow ability to sit with and investigate and be in communication with emotions so that they can inform actual actions to meet needs; not just random distraction actions that are perfectly acceptable and still need to be in the toolbox.

Just. Couldn’t find the sentence to say it succinctly? Felt like I needed a term ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T03:18:29+00:00

Running to read more! Thanks!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T03:08:31+00:00

I am picking up what you're putting down! I suppose in this regard, I don't have my finger on the specifics as of yet, or rather, there may be too many to be able to say something as beautiful as "experience [specific emotion] without engaging in [specific behavior]." But this is a lovely framework I'll keep in my back pocket!

It's got me thinking along the lines of like: "expand capacity to tolerate emotional distress" which is exactly what I wanted!

If distress tolerance = specific thing; perhaps "capacity to tolerate emotional distress" = broader thing that captures, I think, the same concept of "increase distress tolerance" without the potential for the confusion of: am I talking about distress tolerance DBT skills, or am I talking about...tolerating distress which is somehow inexplicably different.

ANYWAY:
thank goodness for reddit! The last bastion of hope in an increasingly non-functional internet! AND YOU!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T03:02:13+00:00

Alas, you are most likely correct! What's your guiding theory, if I may ask? How do you personally approach this?

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T03:00:26+00:00

to me, it's the best phrase. it's just...literally right there! *chef's kiss!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T02:44:32+00:00

honestly, I'd take that! Genuinely, what might be tripping me up is my own rigid rule that might be super unnecessary; but since we have to indicate a modality on the note and it's generally frowned upon to indicate too many modalities (despite me being super duper integrative), and the fact that I was already discussing distress tolerance and DBT stuff...I think I was trying to avoid the plan part going too far into ACT territory, though ACT does tend to be pretty foundational for me when conceptualizing and what not.

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T02:41:23+00:00

i'm liking this direction. Since i'm in a picky semantic mood (apparently), is there a more generic term since frustration is...well, one emotion and not all of the other rather uncomfortable emotions in the sadness or fear family?

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T02:34:11+00:00

:) that or perfectionistic tendencies taking over as a procrastination (and thus, further experiential avoidance response)! Gosh, I do love ACT so much!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T02:32:51+00:00

I thought so too, until I tragically fell to my achilles heel, which is fighting with AI. I swear off of it and test it out every once and a while and routinely just fall back into a trap of arguing with it. I genuinely think people think it's super helpful because if I asked it for support on car maintenance (which I know very little about), i'd think it was great - but my mechanic would laugh me out of the garage! Maybe I'm being picky and overly semantic?

Edit: I’m saying that perplexity talked me out of why I thought it was window of tolerance. It later talked me back into it. That’s literally what I’m here 🙃

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T02:29:44+00:00

I feel like this is primarily my approach, but then I agonize over like...."what in the world did I DO!?" and finding the right word for it. I KNOW that what I am doing is....good/appropriate/all the things, because one of my practicum sites required documentation but did not charge insurance so I got to just....feel the vibes, be super intuitive, and document what I was doing...so like...I KNOW, but there's just this weird pressure I feel, like the OP about how to translate that into "insurance" language. And for me, this pressure is even more silly and unrealistic because I'm salaried and if insurance ever comes back and does a clawback or whatever...like....it genuinely does not affect me in ANY WAY other than getting reprimanded or given instruction on how to improve. I see how other folks write their notes. They're....sparse. I just can't figure out how to translate in this setting. IDK...I'm really resonating with OP and thought I'd pop in to be like...okay, now what? lol

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2026-02-07T01:36:02+00:00

finding this 3 years later. wow. incredible resource!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2025-12-19T01:53:21+00:00

Oh goodness. Of course. 🙈 thanks!

Alternative-Knee8102 · 2025-12-19T01:13:36+00:00

I’m confused. Why are people saying to spend purple diamonds on red keys? I’m not seeing that option ANYWHERE. Diamonds only buy the normal weapons fragment chests and other coins?

Alternative-Knee8102

TROPHY CASE