Psychotherapy can be an effective means of addressing the aftermath of abuse and all forms of interpersonal mistreatment and can help us develop the life skills necessary for protecting ourselves and meeting our needs in all kinds of relationships. However, it isn’t intended to be used for crisis intervention. The following is a list of…
Using The Resources Section
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~Aristotle This resource section contains a collection of articles designed primarily as password-protected psycho-educational material for use exclusively by my patients who currently attend sessions weekly. It also contains some open-access pages, some of which may help people who are looking into personal development or psychotherapy work…
Psychotherapy Support During the COVID-19 ‘Lockdown’
The government response to the Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in severe restrictions on the citizen’s rights to freely move and travel. In the UK we have been told by government not to leave our homes unless absolutely necessary, leaving millions of people disconnected from friends, family, employment, and support services they would normally…
Protected: Emotions Part 6: self-care
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Protected: Boundaries Part 4: practice
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Protected: Existential Affirmation: a primer for being
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Protected: Emotions Part 8: Aggression Work
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Protected: Emotions Part 7: Anger, Aggression and Passive-Aggression
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Protected: Emotions Part 3: suffering, craving, and aversion to feelings
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Protected: Emotions Part 5: practice
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Protected: Emotions Part 2: Splitting
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Protected: Emotions Part 4: understanding and expressing their purpose
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Protected: Emotions Part 1: they mean us no harm
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 14: our power to refuse abuse everywhere
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Protected: Mindset Part 9: Reason for Being
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Protected: Experiential Work: integrating the psyche
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 13: resolving inner conflict and toxic introjects
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 12: recovering from narcissistic exploitation
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 9: Suffer the Little Children
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 7: Shame
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 6: reactive abuse and kicking the dog
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 5: Seeking Justice
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 4: refusing the role of victim
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 3: How Darkness Travels
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 11: narcissism’s heart of darkness
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 1: oppression and the hidden origins of suffering
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 10: the trauma of betrayal
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 8: the toxic victim
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle in Context 3: Authority, Falseness and Authenticity
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle Part 2: Destructive Envy and the Hungry Family
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Protected: Mindset Part 3: clarity, purpose, direction
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle in Context 1: Authority, Common Sense and Freedom
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Protected: Relationship Imbalances and the Co-dependency See-Saw
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Protected: Mindset Part 7: transforming insecurity, anger and vulnerability
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Protected: Mindset Part 4: from fear to courage
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Protected: The Risks of Playing Nice: reconnecting with our innate power
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Protected: Child Work Part 1: Home is Where the Heart Is
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Protected: Child Work Part 2: The Missing Piece and re-integration of the psyche
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Protected: The Outsider Part 5: ‘the Crowd Conscience’ and the Individual
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Protected: Inauthenticity: Living Against Ourselves
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Protected: Mindset Part 5: Stability, Power, Response
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Protected: Psychotherapy and Counselling: The Talking Trap
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 10: faith and self-belief
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Protected: Have You Ever Been Seen? Part 2: Anxiety, Nothingness and the Existential Survival Kit
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Protected: Have You Ever Been Seen? Part 1: Anxiety, Nothingness and Surviving the First Lie
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 9: your fork in the road
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Protected: My Space: reclaiming and protecting my psyche, body, and world
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Mindset Part 10: Self-healing and Loving Kindness
Entitlement and Lack of Generosity I looked that the entitlement mindset in an earlier article, which examined how this mindset is a symptom of unmet infantile needs that carry the expectation that other adults owe us something. Freud referred to the Anal stage of child development in his early theories whereby interruption of the stage…
This Cold Hollow: children born to parents who don’t want them
How did I know that you had left me before I knew the words for empty, lost, bereft? Before my birth scar? Before I witnessed the guillotine of your contempt? Before I could control my bowel, or tie my shoe, or awakened trembling in the night. Before you scoffed at me as I learned to…
Protected: Psychotherapy: going beneath the surface
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Protected: The Vulnerable Self
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Object Relations: Self and Other
Cameos, written in irony, illustrating how human beings routinely and habitually relate to Self and Other as objects.
Protected: Relationship Skills Part 2: equal investment
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Protected: Mindset Part 8: relating to others as objects
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Protected: Present Awareness
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Protected: Grounding and Affirmation Guided Practice
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Protected: Mindset Part 6: the Lighthouse Plan
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Protected: The Abuse Cycle in Context 2: Authority, Welfare and Wellbeing
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Protected: Boundaries Part 3: information sheets
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Protected: Mindset Part 2: Entitlement, Empowerment and Cooperation
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Protected: Existential Awareness: a thread of despair
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Protected: Worry is the Beginning, Not the End
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We Are Affected by the World
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.” ―…
Protected: Relationship Skills in Black and White
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 6: Responsibility
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Protected: Existential Void: beyond an empty belly
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 8: when no-one’s looking
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Protected: Depression Part 6: The Narrowing Way
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Mindset Part 1: Ambivalence in Psychotherapy
ambivalence 1. simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action 2. a. continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite) b.uncertainty as to which approach to follow Merriam-Webster Ambivalence as an Asset Ambivalence – the urge to go in two directions at once; to…
Protected: The Labels We Use on Self and Other
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Psychiatric Diagnosis Part 2: help or hinderance?
Some things to consider before being assessed for a psychiatric diagnosis or treatment
Protected: Boundaries Part 2: your values and rules of engagement
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 7: living an authentic lifestyle
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 5: genuine relationship
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Protected: Personal Authenticity Part 4: being and becoming
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Protected: Boundaries Part 1: keeping out the poison
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Protected: When the Past is Present
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Protected: The Traumatised Psyche
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A Poverty of Help: inadequacies of support to vulnerable persons in the UK healthcare system
This is the start of a collection of experiences of government-funded mental health service and medical service encounters conveyed to me by patients over the years. I will add more in time. Because of their prevalence, I thought I would start putting some of them together as an illustration of some of the bad practices…
Psychiatric Diagnosis Part 1: a guide and caution for the weary
This post seeks to give an overview of how upsetting or distressing human experiences can be viewed and categorised as illness, disease, defect, disorder or dysfunction requiring the special expertise of specific treatments, therapies, interventions and pharmaceuticals for effective ‘cure’. It is not my intention to devalue the choices exercised by patients who elect this…
Protected: Existential Crisis
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Protected: Keeping a Therapy Journal or Notebook
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Protected: The Outsider Part 4: the scapegoat, and surviving the dysfunctional group
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Mental Distress and Suicide
Statistically, suicide is the highest cause of death in men between age 20 and 49. The suicide statistics are shocking, with greater numbers of men taking their own lives than are killed in road accidents, or by cancer and coronary heart disease. Of the 6 233 suicides in the UK in 2013 (male and female),…
Protected: The Outsider Part 3: whistleblowers, and surviving the inauthentic culture
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Considering Starting Psychotherapy or Counselling?
“Everything depends on inner change; when this has taken place, then, and only then does the world change.” Martin Buber Facts Here are some brief facts about Psychotherapy and Counselling: You don’t need to have anything ‘wrong’ with you to benefit from psychotherapy A psychiatric diagnosis is not required to understand, work with or overcome…
Protected: Depression Part 5: Listening to Elvis
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Dissociative Identity Disorder
Still Like A House Fractured? No, curiously I feel fractured but I see myself in the mirror and I’m whole, standing still like a house. The mirror may be fractured, but my eyes still swivel like windows in this head, guided by a nose that acts as a weather vane. I open and close my…
Protected: Spirituality II: Developing an Existential Practice
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Ways of passing the time
Indifference Here I am and there you are. And there’s the clock on the wall. I pretend I don’t want anything from you. You pretend you don’t want anything from me. Our pretending binds us like a form of artificial intimacy. And keeps us hungry, a million miles apart. Conversation I pretend I’m listening to…
Recovering your self in 7 days
Hollowday There’s a hollow in me; an absence. Like a piece of furniture missing from a room I haven’t been in for years. I enter knowing something’s changed and I can’t say what. There’s just the feeling. Hollow. Dumbday I feel dirty on the inside. I scrub the outside; wet hair, towel and soap, and…
Protected: Spirituality I: An Existential Perspective
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PTSD, cPTSD, and Dissociative Experiences
I wanted to write something about the relationship some of us have to traumatic experiences from our past. It seems important that I write this from an intuitive, non-technical place. For me, this is because intution – as opposed to fear – is what we need to develop regarding our power to manage our way…
On choosing a psychotherapist
When choosing the right psychotherapist it’s important to remember some basic facts about psychotherapy if you want it to work for you: Psychotherapy is founded upon a trustworthy, secure relationship. The best evidence from the longest-term study supporting psychotherapy’s effectiveness in helping people make changes in their lives says that the quality of the therapeutic…
Protected: Depression Part 4: downhill or uphill?
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Protected: Depression Part 3: ‘bad’ feelings, alcohol and substance misuse
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Protected: Depression Part 2: a well-worn path
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Depression Part 1: Causes, anti-depressants, and two simple steps on your road to recovery
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one…
Protected: The Outsider Part 2: living off-label
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