Practica Relational Psychotherapy

Beating the bounds

Beating the bounds is an ancient custom still observed in some English and Welsh parishes. Under the name of the Gangdays the custom of going a-ganging was kept before the Norman Conquest. A group of old and young members of the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, usually led by the parish priest and church officials, to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands (Wikipedia).

Younger generations learned from older ones where the boundaries

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Recovering from depression: a relational approach (part 2)

I have written this post for people who share their lives with a depressed someone.

It is hard to understand depression as it has no physical evidence; if you have never experienced a strong sense of helplessness, hopelessness, meaningless and lifelessness all merged, you will miss the crushing power of it.

Depression and sadness are not the same, although depressed people may feel sad as well. I am quoting again an anonymous and poignant description of depression:

“Imagine trying to enjoy a poolside party when you are drowning in

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A beautiful clip on the importance of sadness

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Recovering from depression: a relational approach (part 1)

“Imagine trying to enjoy a poolside party when you are drowning in the pool and all you can hear is people having a great time and laughing while completely oblivious to the way your body keeps submerging into the water and getting heavier by the water filling your lungs.” Anonymous.

Depression is like that.

Depression is usually defined as an illness characterised by prolonged low mood and a wide range symptoms, which vary from person to person and may include feeling helplessness, hopelessness, meaninglessness, low self-esteem, change in sleeping patterns, loss

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A short note on definition

Back in 1928, the sociologists W. I. Thomas and D. S. Thomas conceived a theorem, now named after them, that states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”.

If we believe that there is a monster in the forest and we change our route to avoid it, then our belief is real in its consequence.

If we define some emotions, such as sadness or anger, as negative and we avoid them , then our belief is real in its consequence, we have fewer tools to understand ourselves, others and the impact of our

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The autonomy risk

In Western culture, we usually use autonomy to measure the level of freedom we have. The more autonomous a person is the more freedom we assume the person experiences. As such, autonomy is the very core of freedom.

The trend of focusing on the self started in the West about 100 years ago with the rise of psychoanalysis; not only has it been growing since, it is also spreading to other cultures, along with other Western concepts rapidly via films, advertising, personal development books and self-expression workshops to name a few vehicles.

As much as autonomy is doing a great deal

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The value of context

maze One of the risks of psychotherapy is that it can focus too hard on a specific issue, or a problem, thus isolating it from its context. Most problems are created by the contexts in which people live and therefore require contextual view and solutions. Poverty, violence, sexual behaviour, religious beliefs and practices, social practices and community life must all be part of the therapeutic work if we want to achieve anything beyond mere awareness.

I believe that people come to therapy with real-world problems and are seeking real-world solutions. Therapy

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Where are our emotions?

We tend to think of our emotions as things within us, anger, anxiety, sadness are labelled as negative emotions that we are better off without. We even speak of releasing anger, thinking positively to push away sadness and other mechanism to change the way we feel.

In Gestalt theory, the validity of our emotions is achieved in what is referred to as co-creation. Co-creation is the idea that no activity has intrinsic value, but is a function of an interaction between people and their environment; the validity comes from an agreement and understanding between people that a certain activity carries

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Certainty and contradictions

“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language”. Rainer Maria Rilke 1902

Most of us have an inherent need to avoid tension and conflicts and that is understandable, unpredictable situations can bring up anxiety. And of course, the more we know about the future, the more predictable it would become and the safer we can feel – a

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