Over the course of their careers, therapists will amass a collection of metaphors, proverbs, or words of encouragement that we prefer and pull out on a regular basis. One of my favourites to use, and one that has probably stuck with the most of my clients, is: “You can’t learn how to swim while you’re drowning.” You have to bring a person to shallow water in order for them to learn how to swim. Remove them from the threat. Remove them from the situation that requires they swim. This proverb is applicable in many therapeutic situations, but I am going to highlight just a few where it is best illustrated.
When I am working with people who are struggling with their work/life balance, burnout, or general stress. When applied here, this proverb means that I can teach you all of the strategies and techniques to help you manage your feelings of stress and overwhelm, but if you are still actively being overwhelmed by them, none of those tools will work. That’s surviving not healing. Think about a medic trying to treat someone’s bullet wound while the person is still being shot.
While not that graphic nor that physically obvious, it is still just as futile to have someone try to heal and manage their stress while there are active stressors affecting them. Failing to highlight this necessity or striving to push on despite the presence of continued stressors can lead to the individual becoming disillusioned by the therapeutic process and believing that their plight is too great to overcome. Giving a client treatment strategies that will be ineffective due to circumstance under the guise that they will be effective if the client is committed can be very harmful.
I will always tell my clients that they need to reduce or eliminate their stressors before these strategies can be effective, i.e.: bring them to shallow water before they can learn to swim. For some people, this requires sacrifice, revamped priorities, or significant changes to their lives, but it often becomes necessary.
Another area in which I use this proverb regularly is when helping people cope with their anxiety. It is virtually impossible to teach someone an effective anxiety coping strategy in the middle of a panic attack. Most people require assistance from another person when experiencing a panic attack. Once they are in a more manageable state, they can then employ coping strategies.
To take the swimming metaphor one step further as it relates to the treatment of anxiety, even after you’ve learned how to swim, you must practice it before swimming in deep water. In the same way, anxiety coping strategies must be practiced while calm in order for them to be effective when needed. This is something a lot of people miss.
If you were taking swim lessons and the instructor taught you one way to swim and you practiced it a couple of times, you wouldn’t be ready for deep water. If I took one session to teach you one strategy for coping with anxiety and then you practiced it a couple of times during that session, there is no way it will be effective enough to prevent or manage an anxiety attack. The concept is the same, these skills must be practiced regularly before they can be effective.
You can’t learn how to swim while you’re drowning. You need to get to shallow water first. You can’t manage your stress while there are active stressors. You need to remove or reduce them. You can’t learn how to cope with anxiety while you are panicking. You need to be calm to practice the skills. I hope this helps.
Thanks for reading,
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