Honesty best medicine for heart break
by Caren Penland, reporter

    People deal better with relationships when they are honest with themselves, a NW counselor told workshop participants recently.

    Dr. Terry Collet presented How to Fall Out of Love, sponsored by the NW Campus counseling department.

    The workshop covered relationship struggles and techniques for dealing with breaking up.

    “When the pain of staying gets worse than the pain of leaving, we know it’s time to leave,” she began.

    In order to reach a decision though, Collet said several steps must be taken.

    “Honesty is a key factor,” she said. “If you can get away for 10 days, you’ll start being a lot more honest with yourself.”

    The counselor then demonstrated different coping techniques, such as creating a crime list and setting up a treasure chest.

    The crime list is an aid to remember the reasons for ending the relationship since the human mind tends only to focus on the good and ignore the bad, Collet explained.

    Mind-stopping is another invaluable tool, Collet said, because through this process thoughts about the partner are removed.

    This technique is accomplished by deliberately thinking of the person and then replacing the thought quickly with a warm memory from the treasure chest, which does not include the partner.

    An example Collet gave from her own treasure chest was riding on her motorcycle with rain falling on her face. She said this memory gives her a sense of freedom.

    “You’ll notice that as the days go by, you think less and less of hairy legs or sweet thing,” she said.

    Collet also discussed the cycle of grief, which takes the following route: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, guilt, depression, euphoric recall, understanding, surrender, acceptance, reorganization, new patterns, anticipation, new activities, and finally a New Life.

    The most dangerous of these, she explained, was the euphoric recall. However, if the process of mind-stopping is followed carefully, it “will save your life,” she said.

    Collet pointed out that help by others is essential.

    “I had a large support group. My friends would call every two or three hours until midnight every day to see how I was doing to help me through that period,” she said.

    Collet’s lecture included a score sheet by which to grade overall happiness in a current relationship, as well as a contract to set up when the breakup will take place and with which steps this will occur.

    The all-female audience seemed connected to the lecture. One student even began writing out her own crime list while the counselor was still speaking.

    Collet, however, later expressed surprise by the lack of male participants.

    “Normally it’s about half and half. The guys are so skeptical at first, but most of them come back to tell me it actually works,” she said.

    Collet said that she has given this lecture for the last six semesters and assumes she will present it again this next spring.

    Believing in the ideas, Collet said she uses these techniques in her private practice all the time and that they have been very successful.

    “If you’re honest with yourself and your relationship, then you have all the tools you need,” she said.