Category: psychotherapy

The Chinese farmer – a short story

In her book ‘Embracing Uncertainty’, Susan Jeffers tells a story of a Chinese farmer (or maybe he wasn’t Chinese) who discovered that his horse had wandered off into the forest. His neighbours said to him “how unlucky to have lost your horse” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.

Two days later his horse came back with another horse it befriended in the wild. His neighbours said to him “how lucky to have two horses” the farmer said “maybe it is, maybe it isn’t”.

The next day, while the farmer’s son tried to tame the new horse, he

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Today I failed

missed-target

Getting to know ourselves is part of what therapy attempts to offer; thorough becoming aware of what drives us, our wishes and our fears, we can experience the wider spectrum of who we are. As I see it, psychotherapy’s role is not only to broaden this spectrum but also to enable us to navigate it more freely.

This means a journey to the edges of the spectrum of who we are. this can be painful, it takes us to where we are most uncomfortable and most vulnerable; this is also where our

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Switching behaviours on and off

Few are the concerns in human behaviour that can be measured in binary terms, that is, either/or situations. And fewer are the recoveries that psychotherapy can offer that can be measured in binary terms, as in: I had a problem, now I don’t.

Many concerns can be measured on quantitative scales or continua, bearing in mind that for each person there will be a different cut-off point in which a quantitative change will become a qualitative one as well.

Anger and depression are two good examples that I hope

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Elements of psychotherapy: part 1

What makes psychotherapy work

The question why some people report making good use of therapy and others do not has been on my mind for a while. I believe it is important to understand what works and what doesn’t in therapy and adjust it accordingly. Research into therapy can help to keep it relevant and up to date.

The following thoughts are based on research by others (*) and my own ongoing research. There are many variables in therapy and accounting for all of them is not always possible, some are very subtle and others remain unknown. The following pie chart

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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 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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