Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep 133: The Trap of Toxic Positivity with Jacque Tyrrell
"At least you have your health." "It could be worse." "Just stay positive!" These well-meaning phrases might seem helpful on the surface, but as licensed clinical social worker, Jacque Tyrell, and I unpack in this thought-provoking conversation, they often create more harm than healing.
Toxic positivity—that pressure to maintain an optimistic outlook regardless of circumstances—has become so normalized that many of us don't recognize when we're perpetuating it. Jackie explains how this phenomenon often comes from good intentions yet can profoundly invalidate someone's emotional experience. Even trained mental health professionals sometimes fall into this trap when uncomfortable with a client's suffering.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when examining how the body positivity movement, originally rooted in fat liberation and challenging oppressive beauty standards, has sometimes morphed into its own form of pressure. Jackie introduces the concept of body neutrality as a powerful alternative—focusing not on loving how your body looks, but appreciating what it can do. This shift from aesthetics to functionality offers a liberating middle path for those exhausted by the constant pressure to "love themselves" in a specific way.
Perhaps most illuminating is their exploration of black-and-white thinking. Dr. Beth shares her personal struggle with constantly categorizing experiences as either "good" or "bad," creating an exhausting internal rating system. Jackie compassionately guides listeners toward finding their personal middle ground—a space where experiences can simply exist without judgment. This middle ground isn't universal but uniquely personal, making comparison with others not just unhelpful but fundamentally misguided.
Whether you're supporting someone through difficulty, navigating your own relationship with your body, or trying to break free from the tyranny of constant evaluation, this episode offers practical wisdom for approaching life with more nuance and self-compassion. Subscribe now to join the conversation about creating authentic emotional spaces in a world that often demands performative positivity.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health concerns, please contact 988 or seek a treatment provider in your area.
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
www.bethtrammell.com
All right, hey, listener, welcome back. I'm glad you're here. I am your host, dr Beth Pramil. I'm a psychologist and a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Master's mental health counseling program. I am in the business of trying to train mental health counselors and I'm also in the business of trying to help people make words matter for good, and so that's kind of my philosophy.
Speaker 1:I work a lot with kids and families.
Speaker 1:I work a lot with teachers and school districts.
Speaker 1:I do a ton of professional development virtually and in person, and so I'm really excited about this, because there are these two little words that make me crazy and we are going to talk about them together today, and maybe you will relate to this listener that when you think about days that you're struggling or you think about you know, maybe you've kind of gotten into mental wellness or learning about mental health or psychology, and you hear about just like staying positive and just makes me want to barf.
Speaker 1:You know, my friend, jackie Tyrell, is here. I'm calling you my friend now. We've met a few times and so now we're friends and even though you don't live by me, we can still be friends, and it's the beauty of how technology has shrunk the world to where people can connect in such beautiful ways. So Jackie Tyrell is here and we're going to talk about toxic positivity, and I am here for it because I have been trying to help people understand the balance of supporting people who are struggling without turning it into toxic positivity. So we're going to unpack a lot of things today, but before we do that, jackie, welcome back. I'm so glad to be hear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so good to see you. Tell us, like tell listeners a little bit about you, maybe a little about your practice, about your life, whatever you want to share, and then tell us something fun that's going on for you right now.
Speaker 2:Yep. So yeah, as Beth said, I am Jackie Tyrell. I'm a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Maryland. I have my own private practice that I'm kind of slowly building up solo for right now but with the long-term plan to eventually grow into some group private practice. So yeah, that's been a lot of personal work being spent there.
Speaker 2:Honestly, in the last two years it's kind of come in waves at work has kind of come in waves and then anybody know that works for yourself. You know, sometimes the motivation wanes and wanes. But anyway, I'm here now and I'm kind of hit a strong streak of motivation and I've been recently actually the fun fact creating some continuing educations for other providers. So we have and I say we because the first continuing education I worked alongside with a collaborator and colleague named Rachel Britton. So she and I created one course that is going to be titled is Body Positivity, the Right Lens, which is validating client experiences in body image, self-esteem and weight loss goals and not published yet. But on my own I'm creating another course called Emotion-Led Techniques for Reframing, personalizing cognitive interventions in therapy, which both of these have that similarity and commonality of targeting that toxic positivity and that toxic culture that it creates.
Speaker 1:You know, it's always this delicate balance, no-transcript. And that, for me, is what toxic positivity is is that we're just like pretending like everything's great and wonderful and we're just going to smile. It's like the social media presentation of how our lives always are and that's just not real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so that's. This is an area that I'm extremely passionate about, and, and I think the one thing about this is that most of the time, toxic positivity is well intended, so difficult to navigate and also equally difficult to recognize when it happens, because it happens from such a place of well intent, I don't think that even us, as clinicians, realize that we may be delivering some message that misaligns with somebody's need in the moment.
Speaker 1:I love that we're already going there. I think about family members or friends that might be again very well-intentioned to be like. I want to cheer Beth up and so I'm going to say like, well, don't worry, it always could be worse, and at least you have your health, at least you have your house, at least you have your house. You know, at least you're not fill in the blank. Whatever it is Right, yeah, but sometimes it's us as helpers, who are uncomfortable with the suffering of the people who are on our couch, that we're helping and then we fall in to toxic positivity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then we fall in to toxic positivity yeah, so yeah. And a good example of that which Rachel and I talk about in the body positivity training is that. So this course is about clients that might come in interested in or with the goal of wanting to lose weight, but might not necessarily feel aligned with the concepts of body positivity. And so, as a clinician, how do we help guide this individual towards their goals in a way that feels like it's the most authentic to them?
Speaker 2:And I think with somebody I am also very passionate about client autonomy, right. And so if a client comes in and says look, I have, you know, a goal to want to lose weight, but I also have a lot of distress about the process and I am looking for a certain amount of guidance to help me, you know, set boundaries, or to help me navigate the healthcare system or whatever that goal might be for that person, I don't want to be that person to say that, nope, you're perfect the way you are, or you're not blank, you're blank, or you're not blank, you're blank. You know, it's not my place to redirect in that way or to unintentionally or intentionally, depending on a practitioner really invalidate their experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I love we're sort of tying this to body positivity, because I think there are a lot of kind of messed up messages out there, particularly around body sizes, body shapes, and I think it's uncomfortable for most people to talk about bodies in general, much less like having a healthy, authentic relationship with your body. I don't know, is that making sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it does. And so part of what we talk about also is this idea that, unfortunately and there's other conversations out there that speak to this too is that body positivity has also turned into toxic body positivity. And so even in this like, because this is a, this is something that started in fat liberation right, this was a concept that started to help marginalized individuals and as a platform for those people to break free from societal standards, and we want to amplify those people. But unfortunately, with the advent of the internet, with the advent of, you know, marketing the way modern marketing the way it is, it is now shifted from this idea of self-acceptance and loving your body the way it is to this kind of competitive, in a way, space of what it means to be body positive.
Speaker 1:I think this is such a loaded topic because we get so many messages around what our bodies are supposed to look like or be or be able to do, and I think it relates to gender, I mean, I think there are so many things. So how do you start to unpack this whole thing toward body acceptance or body positivity and, when it just feels like there's so many things, kind of fighting against this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And well, that's such an individualized approach to like the how part. The one of the mentions that we make a lot is the shift to body neutrality instead, and so we want to. Instead of having this strong focus and the way your body looks, because even body positivity in itself has such a strong focus in the aesthetics of the body concentrated focus to this what can my body do? And its functionality, its movement, its capability, type things instead, so we can celebrate what our bodies can do for us, without being so critical or hyper fixated of the way it looks.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just like mind blowing. I'm thinking back to another episode that I recorded at like almost the very beginning, with a guest call and her name is Maureen Clancy, and I mean I had this like whole aha moment during this episode, where my whole life I categorize into good or bad. Well, that was a good decision, well, that was a good meatloaf, that was a great workout. That was not a great practice. I did not get in bed on time. That was bad. I spend my whole life in all the things. And Maureen was like well, what, if it just is, how do you? I literally have had to come back to that conversation like a trillion times. And so I think about this idea of body neutrality, of just being like how do I just accept that my body is, that my eyebrows are, that my hips are not, my hips are bad or good, my eyebrows are bad or good? How do we live in this place of neutrality? And I think I mean for me it's like, you know, mind blown emoji.
Speaker 2:And it totally, it totally is, and I like, I like speaking to this middle ground. That is probably the place where I'm the most passionate out of all of these subjects. If I could pick, like even an expertise that could, that exists I, I want to be the expert of the middle ground that's so funny.
Speaker 1:I love it. We're gonna. We're gonna call you that jackie tyrell expert of the middle ground.
Speaker 2:Let's just put it on your resume your video, right um and that, and that's important whether we're talking about body positivity, um the way we talk to ourselves, that that inner um dialogue that we have of uh, reviewing that good and bad that you were just speaking to, or whether that's you know how we even um interpret things too, like the way even we interpret things can kind of lean very polar at times. So if we struggle with that, how can we start creating that middle space for ourselves?
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, I'm just still like kind of lost here for a second, still just like stuck here, that you know, if it starts, you know, for example, for me, I'll speak for me, not for you know, I'm hoping there's at least another listener out there that is like, yeah, I kind of relate to that, beth, but if not, then I don't know, fast forward or skip this episode, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But like this idea that if okay, so if I'm like, yeah, my hips are bad, right, because if I'm stuck in like good, bad, right, wrong, good, bad, my hips are bad, which means because I'm constantly looking toward having body positivity or being in this like everything's got to be positive all the time sort of mind frame, then something must change. And so that I'm in this constant state of seeking not acceptance, no approval, approval, and what do I need to change to be able to receive that approval? And oh well, here's this next diet. Well, I'm not drinking that much water. Oh well, here's this next you know bodysuit, or here's this next pair of pants that are going to hide, so that I can say my hips are good. I just am kind of still stuck here at how that keeps me in this place of it's not good enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll tell you what, beth, that I know that you're not alone, because there's actually been a lot of talk around or similar talk, um like this on tiktok, on um the like well, space tiktok and health talk and all of that, and actually even in spaces like book talk and color talk and some of the other like domains, other domains of TikTok. They talk about this phenomenon that you're speaking to, where, you know, because of this image-centric nature of these platforms, it's almost inevitable that we are going to create this standard for ourself, yep, or it imprints onto us in a way that we start to believe that this is supposed to be what we're supposed to be doing, yep, and it's really difficult to untangle ourselves from that message, especially when it constantly gets repeated in a thousand different ways on a thousand different channels and it gets monetized.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've got all these messages. They're the things that we're sort of feeding our brain with right, and so it's like we're scrolling and this is what we're seeing, and then this is what I'm creating in my mind that I am supposed to be doing and, by the way, it costs $19.99, yep, and so now I've invested in this thing or to to take the next step, or right right right. So yeah, like, let's unpack what that, what that does, sort of next then I mean.
Speaker 2:Well, it goes in so many different directions because in one direction it creates this compounding issue internal struggle issue, um, within the person that there's no way out.
Speaker 2:Um, because unless you can have that awareness right away, you might not even realize that you are unintentionally, um, giving yourself these standard standards, yeah, and you think that these standards are supposed to be the standard, yeah. And so, without another sounding post, yeah to to realize that's even what's happening. How, like, how in the world are you even supposed to break free from that space is one thing. So I see this as a compounding issue, because this is an issue that many people might not even have the awareness to identify to begin with. And if you are one of those people that might have that extra amount of awareness, or you maybe have therapeutic training because you've been in the therapy space or either on the therapist side or the receiving want to be accepted, we want to be part of the community and even with as much awareness as you and I, Beth, are equipped with, it's still a compounding issue to get out of.
Speaker 2:And then, on the other side, I see the issue being that it's overconsumption, issue being that it's overconsumption because what if the first 1999 product didn't work or didn't satisfy the? You know the message that we have applied to ourself and that was one of the conversations that came up on the color talk that I was just speaking to. Like, I guess there's this trend right now where people are really enjoying coloring and they're using these specialty alcohol markers. I don't really know what the difference is, to be honest, because I don't participate, but from what I understood of this is that these alcohol markers are quite expensive and people are like buying dozens upon dozens of different colors, even if the colors are like slight shades different from one another.
Speaker 2:And so, okay, so the first pack that you bought, let's say it was 24 colors and maybe you were enjoying them and maybe you know you were getting the satisfaction that you were seeking from that. What happens when you see the next, you know, curated image of somebody coloring, and they have 50 colors. Now, okay, I only have 24 colors? Am I meant to have 50? Am I not, you know, coloring right or not? A good enough color? Like again back to that conversation between good and bad. And now this outlet that was meant to be a space of relaxation has become a space of competition and comparison I mean, I'm just thinking about how it.
Speaker 1:You know, part of the journey for me has been figuring out, if I'm not labeling, you know, if I'm not labeling it good or bad, how do I label them?
Speaker 1:You know, and kind of what I heard you just say is like I can begin labeling things for sort of my goal or intention of it, things for sort of my goal or intention of it, right. So it's like I'm not coloring and the end be good or bad. It's like my intention for coloring is to evoke a certain emotion or to experience a certain thing, and it doesn't have to be good or bad, it can just be. That is the experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's definitely the first place. If you have, or if you want to start breaking free of this good and bad message, I definitely say acknowledge that feeling first for sure. That's where I always start. How does that impact you? Yeah, and what is? Do you want to get away from it? My, my answer to that, or my guess to that, is probably right. You probably want to get away from that. Understand your. Why do you want to get away from that? Those are the most important steps because you can move away and maybe be successful. But I think moving away takes that. Why do I want to move away from this? And so I think you can easily be roped back in into a trend if you don't identify that strong. Why Do I want to break away from this? You know what feelings is it creating inside of you? Is it creating that tension? Is it creating that tension? Is it creating that critical talk inside of your head where you're labeling yourself as bad perhaps more often than you're labeling yourself as good?
Speaker 1:So here's where my brain's headed. Well, it's bad that I am labeling things as bad.
Speaker 2:It's bad that I am labeling things as bad.
Speaker 1:And then here we go. This is like literally what happens in my brain. I don't know. People are going to be like Beth needs therapy. You're right, it's fine, I have my own person. Okay, just leave me alone. It's bad that I label everything as good or bad.
Speaker 2:And also but there are a lot of worse things I could think, aka toxic positivity. Yeah, you know, like you know, uh, when people say, uh, you know, worse can things can happen, one of my favorite responses to that is well, better things could happen too. Right, it's like, yeah, but it could be better.
Speaker 2:I could want better right and so it's okay to acknowledge that, even if I have a real state of distress where the experience that I'm having, you know, needs to be seen, and, man, I am really feeling this dread, or however you want to label it I'm in a space where I want to call this thing bad. Okay, I want to call it bad because it's what it feels right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Me as a practitioner, to force you to see it as good is not going to help. So, okay, why is it bad? Tell me, tell me, why are you feeling it's bad and can we actually give that a voice for a little bit? Because maybe it is and maybe that deserves to be in that moment. And, by the way, I want to clarify that we're we're I really want to clarify that we're talking away from the body right now. Yeah, I'm talking about feelings. Yeah, you know, I'm talking about the internal dialogue that we have of you know, sitting in that feeling of this is bad and and maybe kind of giving that a platform to sit on for a moment before we start to reposition it in a different way.
Speaker 1:I mean I love you said like acknowledge that feeling first. Right, that it's like it's okay that you think judging things as good or bad is bad. Like let's talk about that as a feeling, let's give that a space, let's give that a voice, let's give it a label. I don't know whatever it might, whatever it might be, but we're going to acknowledge and honor that feeling first.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And if that and if that means that you are saying like that voice, maybe let's recircle back to the idea of the body for a minute. Let's say that voice is saying my hips are bad, I'm not necessarily going to encourage you to give that the platform, because that's not really a feeling. Right, my hips are bad isn't really a feeling. It's just the start of how the feeling is trying to express itself. And so let's try to figure out what that feeling of bad is really trying to say yeah First.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know what is this, what's underlying the feeling and what is it saying to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if we do a little bit of a deep dive there and the conversations starts with my hip, you know, I, I think my, my hips are bad, or I feel like my hips are bad and I'm like, well, tell me more about this feeling of bad and maybe that conversation evolves to you saying, well, you know, compared to you know, this celebrity, um, or I just feel that my body is inadequate. Now we're putting bigger words inadequate. Okay, we are in a feeling of inadequacy. Let's start and continue to evolve in that feeling a little bit. We're like why is that inadequacy existing? You know, and talk about that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'm always surrounded by these curated images and you know, this fitness influencer told me I needed to look this way and that person told me that I needed to look that way. And, you know, I thought that's what I was supposed to do. And then now we're looking okay, that struggle is real. That is the platform that we need to give existence to that. I do not want to tell you that experience was a good thing, because it's not so. Let's give that a little bit of validation that that experience was not easy to have. All those mixed messages were not an easy thing for you to absorb or to manage or to move forward with. Let's take a little bit of time to process that first and then figure out to see if there's ways that we can reposition different thoughts within that, to start moving towards a neutral belief of yourself.
Speaker 1:I mean I love as you're just talking. I was just like finding myself kind of following along and thinking, yeah, I mean I think the journey from you know, any parts of us are bad, right, so I imagine there's lots of listeners who feel like there are certain parts that are bad or not what they like or whatever. It's a long jump that to body positivity. So I really appreciate this journey that you're discussing through, like this quote, middle ground of body neutrality, because I I think sure I could just be like sure, well, okay then, fine, jackie, I like my hips, fine, yeah, that's body positivity. No, that's not body positivity yeah, that's body positivity.
Speaker 2:You know that's not body positivity, that's no. And it misses the origination of infant. To begin with, too right. It's not like, especially for someone like you or me to to propose that is like almost as harmful really yeah especially considering that we may be seeing a range of different types of people with a range of different kinds of backgrounds, that do have marginalized bodies, that do exist in spaces where they have received these messages much more frequently. So, no, like that is a pace that they set, not a pace that we set.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I mean, that's good. I mean I know that we're only talking about like a tiny portion of what you're probably going to be teaching in this live cast that you're going to be doing, but any last thoughts that you have on kind of what you wanted to share today, and then we'll talk about how people can find you and maybe sign up for your workshop or any of the things you do on your website or kind of what you wanted to share today, and then we'll talk about how people can find you and maybe sign up for your workshop or anything you do on your website or social.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, I think in this conversation around toxic positivity, I think my final thoughts around this, no matter which topic we're talking about, whether it be in your body or in your mind or in your environment, just know that it doesn't have to be black and white, it doesn't have to be one way or the other, it doesn't have to be good and bad, that there is a middle ground, um, and you know I I integrate a lot of dialectical dbt um because of that middle ground.
Speaker 2:Dbt is a great tool to uh start finding some of that middle ground. It's not the only tool, but it is one tool, um. So I think that's kind of where I want to land with that, because people have all kinds of different experiences, whether it is in their body, mind or environment, and I think it's important for them to know that there is a landing space in between. So, yeah, you can absolutely always find me on my website at myidealprogresscom For the CEUs that I've been speaking about. You can revisit that myidealprogresscom forward slash CEU with an S at the end of that. And for the body positivity one in particular, our next well, we're running it tomorrow, and I know that, which will be May the 2nd, and this will not be published by then, but the following run date for that is actually going to be August the 7th at 12 pm Eastern time, and then the next one following that will be November the 7th at 12 Eastern time.
Speaker 1:I love you're doing it at a lunch time. I love a great lunch and learn. I think it's a brilliant time of day for people to come and learn some amazing stuff. I am just so grateful for the work you're doing because I think you're really pushing to disrupt these messages that are so prevalent, and I just love anybody who is working to do that, because I think there just needs to be more and more folks who are doing that, that are kind of going against the grain of what you know the common messages are, and so I'm grateful that you're stepping into that disruption, even though I know it's not always the easiest path.
Speaker 2:No, no, I appreciate that acknowledgement and I thank you too for saying that, and I think it's something that has really caught me and I really want to put in like with the idea of the different experiences that I'm speaking to. I don't want to just speak to it from just my experience. So when I'm doing this, I'm looking towards other communities and pulling from those as well, and so I want to create a middle space for everyone, and I think that's really important, and you're right, it's not always easy and it's even at times, like you know, making me face myself and my own privileges in these conversations, because I can't ignore that part either, but I it still always wraps around to the idea that the middle ground does need to be created, and a lot more ways than that we're just talking about right now too, by the way, and I think everyone hopefully everyone can resonate with that.
Speaker 1:I mean, everyone resonates, but nobody likes it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean nobody likes it Because it's hard. It's hard to do, it's hard to create middle ground.
Speaker 1:And nobody wants to stay there. No, you know, you don't want to stay in the middle ground of, like you know, we want it to be clear, we want it to be absolute, we want it to be. I mean, I want it to be clear, we want it to be absolute, we want it to be. I mean, I really, I want it to be good, I don't want it to be bad, I don't and I, if it's middle ground, then it's not good, which means it must be bad, which obviously is a lie.
Speaker 2:I think I like to think of the middle ground as a space where we can still say a little bit good and bad. So, stuck in the good and bad that we start, to that, we can still come back to the middle ground. So, if they're like I said, if you, if you, if you're like, hey, like you know, my coloring looks really good today, okay, great, I'm not gonna tell you to go back.
Speaker 1:And you know, not feel that anymore like, actually, let's pull you back to the middle ground right it's hysterical, oh my gosh. Okay, well, before we start um exploring lots of other topics, because that's what we want to do and it's at the end but so it'll be the next time that I think the entire episode is going to be how do we stay in the middle of the middle ground and what value lives there? Because that's, that's powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, sorry. One more thought too what the middle ground is is what your middle ground is is the most important thing, because what's good for you might not be good for me, what's bad for you might not be bad for me. And really, in all of this, is that person-centered definitions of that, which is part of how I came up with my practice name, by the way, the ideal progress, my ideal progress. So ideal progress is what is ideal progress? Right, but because it's so personal, this middle ground is yours and your middle ground will not look the same as my middle ground.
Speaker 1:And that is uncomfortable, yeah, because then, when I compare myself to you, you're saying we're comparing apples to oranges, and so, because our brains tend to go in that direction, I just think it is really hard, really uncomfortable. And so, yeah, I know that that's going to be a really exciting conversation between the two of us and you're probably going to need to really use all your you know, your really professional skills, and I might need to have you invoice me afterwards because I'm probably going to need it in a million different ways.
Speaker 1:So anyway, okay, look, listener, thank you for being here, thanks for joining and kind of coming along on this exploration today with Jackie and I and Jackie thank you for saying yes, I'm so grateful for you and the time we get to spend together, kind of always. And so until next time, stay safe, stay well, ciao, bye, bye.
