Capacity Building | Candice Yorke, Counselling Psychologist

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [03:56]I think the pursuit of happiness has really become quite a diluted concept, thanks to social media and the influences that are around us. You mean the

Gershom Aitchison, host · [04:06]Kardashians? Okay. Sorry, I just had to Google the name.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [04:11]You know, if you think about, especially our, our teenagers, they are surrounded with TikTok and Instagram and all these things where only the best of the best is seen. so there's this constant reinforcement where if your life is not being lived at this super high level all the time, you must be doing something wrong, or there must be something wrong with you, or you must be depressed, or you must be, you clearly don't have enough friends or the right people around you because you're not living at this exceptional level all the time, which is just not the truth at all. you know, I read the other day that the happiness industry in 2025 was worth over 6.4 trillion dollars. So the happiness industry, being the wellness industry, your self-help books on, you know, follow these 10 steps to happiness, or, workplace wellbeing, or this course, or this retreat, or whatever it is that they are selling that we are just falling for because we have this urge to live the Instagram level life, because if I'm not living that life, I'm clearly not happy. so that's why I say I think the concept of happiness has actually been diluted, and we, we actually don't know what that word really means anymore. And this is perhaps why it's, it's better to start using words like flourishing, wellbeing, because they have more meaning for us. From a clinical perspective, flourishing, from a positive psychology perspective, flourishing is when you are no longer just coping, surviving. So pathology would be when you are in a state of disease or dis-ease, which would then, you know, you get treatment and it takes, takes you back to a coping level. You want to realize that that's not enough. We need to work towards flourishing, not just coping, and that there are ways and means of teaching ourselves to do that, and that is what lives, leads us to a very meaningful life. It's not about happiness every day. It's about having meaning in our lives and living a meaningful life. I think one of the other big distinctions for me when I really think about these concepts is that at the moment, happiness feels like a very inward concept. I need to do this, and I need to look like that, and I need to be, you know, involved with these people and do this. Whereas a life of meaning turns the focus more outward, because to have meaning in your life, you have to be contributing to something greater than yourself. And as soon as you think about contributing to something greater than yourself, you have to look outside of yourself. You cannot be completely focused on the self all the time. You have to go, well, what is my place here, and how do I fit in to that environment and that community, and how do I make them better? Once we start doing that, happiness tends to take care of itself. That's how I see it at the moment.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [14:15]Biomedical approach, and, and the reason, I did the analysis of it was specifically because there's been a lot of research into how the, the traditional biomedical approach can tend to pathologize normal behaviors. And It can also, so, so we, we live in a world now of over-medicalization. We look for a diagnosis as soon as we feel discontented or unhappiness, or there must be something wrong that we can put a label on. Because if we can put a label on it, we can give it a pill. That's biomedical. And the problem is that it also leads to a process where an adolescent in particular becomes a passive recipient of the care. You sit over there and you do what I tell you to do and you take the medication because I'm the expert. I'm the doctor with all the degrees, I will tell you how to manage this problem. And the, the adolescent becomes more and more passive in the process to the point where they lose any kind of agency. And they start to internalize the problem. So it's no longer, I am a person who is struggling with this. It's now, I am a problem. I have a problem with this, with this, I have this problem, that. I can't do this anymore because I, I've got this. So in other words, the diagnosis starts to become an excuse. I cannot interact with society or engage in these behaviors because of this diagnosis and that diagnosis and this label and that label and these medications. Now, there's obviously the caveat that in severe cases of severe pathology, of course, the biomedical approach is the right approach. It is appropriate. But I'm talking about the moment we are put into a position of growth, for example, growth is not meant to feel comfortable. Growth is a state of discomfort. That doesn't mean you will be doing something while we fattened means the opposite. If we can learn to sit in a discomfort, feel the discomfort, name the discomfort, and at sea discomfort, we are teaching ourselves capacity skills. When we have, well, my child has social anxiety, so please, teacher, they can't do an oral in front of the class. Please don't ever make them answer a question out loud, and please don't ever make them do a speech. That is just the worst thing that can happen. You have removed all tool building right there. And that child has been robbed of the ability to develop life skills that they will need for the rest of their lives. So that's not helpful.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [17:23]I think the, the first thing I, I should probably point out here is that, you know, at school we talk a lot about resilience and grit. These are words that you guys hear all the time. And there's a difference between capacity and resilience. Those are two different things. Capacity comes first. Capacity is your, your assets, your, your resources that you draw on when life takes you out at the knees. You're gonna go down. There is no way you can avoid that. Life is going to take you out at the knees from time to time. The resilience comes after the fact, when you brush yourself down and you keep going. If you don't have capacity, you can't get up. In order to keep going, to brush yourself down and keep going. Capacity gets you back up off the ground. Resilience makes you brush yourself down and try again. That's the difference between the two, if that makes sense.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [18:16]How would you add grit to that analogy?

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [18:18]Well, grit is the, is the, you know, doing a difficult thing for a prolonged period of time. Matric is a very gritty year. You need to be able to focus intensively for a very long period of time. It's difficult for a long period of time. That's grit. Okay, so that's the difference between capacity, resilience, and grit. And of course, all of those are directly to do with flourishing. We, we work on these skills in order to be able to flourish. maybe a, a, a way to do it, to explain it, an analogy could be, I want to go and play rugby for South Africa. I've seen the Springboks win two World Cups in a row, and they have all this fame and acclaim and all this, it looks fantastic, and I'm going to go and do that. So I read a book on playing rugby. Then the first time I go onto the field, this guy comes along and he tackles me and he takes me out at the knees and I hit the ground really hard and I skinned my knee and I've got grass stains all down my clothes. And I stand up and go, that wasn't meant to happen. You are, I was supposed, that guy was meant to kick the ball. I was going to catch the ball and I was going to jump over the try line. Done. You go, but that's not rugby. There's a whole bitch here on you getting tackled and scrums and where your ears are going to get pulled in the scrum and this is going to hurt. Yeah, but I didn't read that chapter because, you know, it triggered me. Or, or, and I'm going to say the provocative thing, my mom took that chapter out of the book because it was a bit violent. That's what we're dealing with.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [31:28]I think it's, it's exactly what we were speaking about earlier with the learned helplessness versus the agency. If we are gonna help adolescents and children, navigate all of this, whether they're coming from a broken position or whether they are just legitimately trying to build, build capacity skills to be able to navigate their world, it's a team sport. even with a child with deep pathology, right through to the one who's okay, the child's okay most of the time, but could do with a bit of extra help here and there when they're hitting a prolonged downer. It's a team sport, and this is where the, where a whole framework has to come into play, where the family, the child, him or herself, and the school, the community, the school and, and the teachers, and everyone else needs to be involved in this framework of developing the skills that this child needs for this particular context. If you're trying to do it only as the family without the school or the child, then you're as good as the doctor who's just saying, I'm the professional, just pay attention and do what you're told. Same goes for the school. If the school's saying, family, just do what you're told, it's not going to work. You, you, you're coming at it from one angle only, where it has to be a full circle. and, and the agency, this is one of my own personal passions, bugbears, I don't know what you want to call it, but the agency of the child is paramount. it's what you were talking about with buy-in. A child who's deep in the learned helplessness space has gotten to that point of futility. Well, what's the point of even trying? There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do. Nothing's going to change. You know, they're, they're really in a bad way. We can't, as responsible adults, leave them there. We can't just go, okay, well, no, sorry, he is too anxious. Yeah, sorry, Ed. Yeah. That's negligent. As far as I'm concerned, that's negligent as an adult, a significant adult in that child's life. We have to keep trying to bring that child to a point, and whether that's through medication, it often is, just giving them the medical help or the chemical help, just to get them back to a point where they can feel in sufficient control. To start taking agency for themselves. However that manifests, we have to get them back to the point where they can start taking the reins back and saying, okay, I'm going to try this, or I'm going to try that. That went well, that didn't really work for me, in whatever capacity that is. And it's not a quick fix, it's not a war that we win once, we all go through this war and we battle it out and then yay, it's sorted out, victory is ours. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. It's a series of battles that rear their heads and we have to all come together and, and pick it up again, and then it gets better for a while, and we, we go through this whole sequence of battles to get this child to a point of sufficient agency where they can do this as an adult for themselves.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [39:05]If you've never looked at Karpman's drama triangle, go and look at it because the victim sits at the point, the bottom point of the triangle, and it's the victim that holds all the control and holds all the power. So I'll give you an example, one that you guys will understand and relate to. You write a math test that you didn't study for, okay? You, you were busy playing or doing whatever you were doing, and you didn't put enough work into this math test. You went and you wrote it, and you failed it properly. Properly, okay? So now, you're sitting there and you're thinking, when I get into the car this afternoon, and I tell my mother what this mark is, it's going to be hell. This is not gonna go well. So you start coming up with your narrative, and by the time mom fetches you, you get in the car, and mom says, how did your math test go? It's the first question she has. She doesn't even ask, how was your day? How's your math test? And your response to her is, you know, that test had questions in it that we were never taught. Sound familiar? Oh, that, that quest, that test had questions we were never taught. Sorry. I claim my victim status. And I try and force my mom to rescue me. I want mom to go stomping into the school and say, why did you give my test with questions that were never taught? So mom has, you, you are holding the power. So you are forcing mom to make a choice at that moment. Okay? Mom has to decide now. Do I rescue my darling, precious little angel by storming into the school going, why were you giving my child tests on work that was never taught? Or mom uses mom's common sense, which moms tend to do, and mom goes, that doesn't sound right. Why would, why on earth would that happen? I'll tell you what, I'll find out. But this, this sounds a bit hinky to me. And mom maybe asks a question. Maybe she puts it on a group or she phones in and she says, listen, this is the story. What's going on here? This doesn't sound right. And teacher will invariably say, well, in every good assessment, there is going to be one or two questions your child has never seen before. That's what your highest cognitive level is all about. The application of knowledge to something new. A synthesis of information to create something new. And mom goes, yeah, okay, of course that makes sense. So it's fine. Now, part of mom's choice here is to either yell at the teacher and rescue the child. So the child's holding the power. The child's forced you to rescue. Or mom goes, hang on a minute, that's not making any sense. And says, listen here, you are just making up stories now because you didn't do very well in this test and you don't want to get into trouble. And then what do you do? You turn around and you go, you know, you never support me when it counts. You're never on my side. So the child is still holding the power because they've moved you now from the position of rescuing them to the position of persecuting them. Still holding all the power. So you need to get out of that completely.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [49:49]You know, there's a, there's a great analogy for this that, I remember Gavin used this analogy years and years and years ago. And he, he used the analogy of a parent teaching a child to ride a bicycle. Now, when a parent buys a bicycle for a child, they buy the bicycle knowing the child's gonna fall off, right? That child's gonna fall off the bike and skin their knee and their elbow and whatever the case may be. And when we teach the child to ride the bicycle, we start by holding the saddle, right? We're running behind them and we're holding the saddle and we're going and we're going until they'd get enough momentum to go by themselves. Because you know with a bicycle, if you're going too slowly, you'd fall over. So you need momentum to keep going. So they get enough momentum, we let go of the saddle, but we still let go of the saddle knowing they're going to lose the momentum and probably fall off. As a parent at that point, what do we do? Do we say, come on, let me fix your knee and your elbow and then we're going to try again? Or do we say, oh no, my darling, let me ride the bicycle for you? Or, no, no, let's put that bicycle in the garage and never look at it again. So are we dealing with what's happening right now, the, the hurt feelings, the low feelings, are we trying to make them feel better right now by putting the bandage on their knee and then saying, come, let's go? Or do we Help them become what they need to be in the long term by saying, come, you're going to get back on this bicycle. Let's try again. Let's try again. Let's try again. I'm right here next to you. I'm still running next to you, but let's try again. You're not doing this on your own.

Jacqueline Aitchison, guest · [52:44]For me, one of the biggest things for the adults and the children is to understand that building capacity, in other words, building the ability to live a life of meaning and of well-being, takes work. It's not something that operates in a vacuum or that falls out of the ether and hits you on the head. You have to actively participate in a process. And like I said before, that means it's going to get uncomfortable. Because like learning how to play a rugby match or running the comrades or whatever, it's gonna get sore sometimes. It's gonna feel hard sometimes. And our brains are gonna keep trying to default us back into the old patterns. That's, that's how we work. That's how we are wired to work. So, for me, the departure point is understanding that I need to be okay with sitting with the, with the hurt, with the discomfort, and I need to understand that that doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong, and that I need to change this so that the discomfort stops. Life is going to bring you discomfort all the time. That's what life does. But the more discomfort we face, and the more capacity we allow it to build through learning from the discomfort, the better we will become at doing the difficult things. We'll get better and better at doing it, but we have to put the work in first. The work is things like developing the emotional intelligence and understanding what that means, and practicing it, understanding that it's about my community as well as about me, and the emotions on both sides of that coin, and practicing that. putting myself in situations Where I feel a bit uncomfortable. Where I'm not always in my comfort zone. Comfort zones create a rut. A rut becomes a prison. We don't want to be there. That's not human growth. That's not flourishing and it's not wellbeing. That's not us living our best lives. That's living the easy life. And that's, that's not a happy space. We need to understand, understand ourselves well enough to know what our coping mechanisms are, because they're going to be different for everyone. Yours are going to be different to your parents. And that's fine, because you are not your parents. You are your own person. So for you, it might be journaling. It might be, I don't know, what different coping mechanisms do you have? It could be sport, exercise, those are good coping mechanisms, those are good self-care activities. A coping mechanism is not saying, I've had a really rough day, so I'm going to go and game until midnight. That's avoidance. That's bad, that's dangerous. That's not dealing with anything, that's checking out instead of leaning in.