Find the Problem

This morning as I was doing some routine Communications tasks that don't require a whole lot of brain power, I was listening to a podcast from a series my line-manager recommended to me called Building a Story Brand and one of the speakers said something that caught my attention. He said that the inability to identify problems well is the root of depression. I had to rewind and listen to it again. Yep, that's what he said. He went on to say that there is a specific kind of therapy called 'Problem Solving Therapy' and that often people fail to recognise what the problem is; it's not even about finding a solution yet. It's the problem that needs to be found. Wow, that makes so much sense to me.

Depression is not something I personally struggle with, but when I'm in an uncomfortable or stressful situation, I often find that my mind continually repeats things that have been said and experienced in that situation; it's like my thoughts are rolling around in a tumble dryer that just keeps going. And my brain is busy trying to connect the dots and find the pattern, to recognise what's going on. Now I realise I'm actually trying to find the problem. Because when a problem is identified, finding a solution is rarely difficult. The challenging task is to realise what the problem is. I think that fits in with what I was saying yesterday, that we often know the right thing to do, but we need to help ourselves out by asking the right questions so we can get to the solution. We ask those questions so we can identify the problem. I've never thought of it like that.