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…
Tag: anxiety
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 mental health service and medical service encounters conveyed to me by patients over the years. I will add more in time. I thought I would start putting some of them together merely as an illustration of some of the bad practices that continue to go…
Mental Distress and Suicide
Statistically, suicide is the highest cause of death in men between age 20 and 49. This is not to diminish the female suicide rate, merely to present statistics. And 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…
The Outsider Part 3: whistleblowers, and surviving the inauthentic culture
The prevalence of inauthentic groups and cultures gives rise to an even greater need for truth-tellers, people of integrity and courage.
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 overcome psychological, relationship, emotional or…
Mental Health Feedback: help me help you
In a continual effort to expand my understanding of the needs of people who need help, I wanted to invite people to tell me something about their experiences of seeking help or being helped and what could be of greater helpf to them during times of need. Your comments are valuable in developing my own…
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…
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…
Depression Part 4: downhill or uphill?
“Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement” Albert Camus There are simple reasons we end up depressed, getting deeper and deeper into a state of numbness or hopelessness or meaninglessness or apathy. All of the characteristics of a depressed state are the result of going away from something. That something could be…
Depression Part 2: a well-worn path
“It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won’t be. We always grow more through defeats than victories” Søren Kierkegaard Depression is one of the most common afflictions of human beings and one of the main reasons why people seek some…
The Outsider Part 2: living off-label
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” ~Albert Camus Whilst most of us long for kinship with others who will accept us, approve of us, validate our ideas and beliefs, some of us don’t. Many of us will adjust ourselves in order to fit in and secure such approval, or…
CBT: a low-cost ‘cure’ for psychiatric ‘Illness’?
As a psychotherapist I continue to come across the ad nauseam promotion of CBT – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – and its derivatives, both within the NHS and outside of it for what seems to be any and every ailment known to man, woman and child. This is partly due to the lasting momentum of a…
Personal Authenticity Part 3: the healing power of truth
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32 When it comes to healing ourselves from significant troubles, distresses, wounds, afflictions and traumas that we may have suffered, the one thing that I have found to be of primary importance is clearing any and all impediments to our seeing…
The Outsider Part 1: clarifying our place in society
If there’s one area of my work that I have a special interest in it’s working with people who feel like they don’t fit in or who find themselves rejected by the group. I wanted to start writing a series of posts on this subject because of the confusion and assumptions that we typically make…
Suffer the Little Children: neglect, abuse and its legacy for survivors
Child abuse inflicts horrific suffering and psychological injury upon the innocent; suffering that travels with us into adulthood
Healing Minds: what works for you?
Often we are so socialised into looking to ‘professionals’ for their expertise that we forget that, prior to the boom in professions, we did a pretty good job of taking care of ourselves and one another. Family, neighbours, community, aunts and uncles, grandparents: all of these community bonds have been eroded by massive shifts in…
Change Your World: Self-healing and Loving Kindness
Inspired by an article I read speaking about the benefits of pets to depressed people, I wanted to write a little bit about the therapeutic value of caring for other living things – not only pets – both as an aid to preventing and treating mental disturbance, particularly but not exclusively depression. “What wisdom can…
Existential Analysis: how I work with you
I first read Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Nausea” – a classic existential novel – when I was nineteen. From a place of teenage angst it struck a chord with me as I recognised the overwhelming sensitivities I felt at the time and typically kept to myself. Sartre speaks of experiencing the world in a felt way; a…
Narcissistic Abuse Part 2: from darkness to light
Cast a Giant Shadow Recovering from narcissistic abuse and other forms of exploitation that have gone on for months or years can be a painful experience as we re-emerge from breakdown. Malignant and predatory narcissists are inherently parasitic upon others, alternately taking what they want from victims to supply their own needs at the other’s…
Narcissistic Abuse Part 1: heart of darkness
This post is not intended as a guide for diagnosing or labelling individuals, but instead highlights the detrimental effects narcissistic individuals (including sociopathic, psychopathic and other exploitative personalities) can have upon us. Being able to recognise some of these effects can help us protect ourselves and seek effective help in recovering from the toxic relationships…
Self-healing: a shift from pain to compassion in five minutes
Periods of mental distress are often characterised by a hyper-focus on our own struggles to the exclusion of everything else. In the midst of pain and suffering, loneliness and desperation we can end up so concentrated on the distressing aspects of our lives and on what is missing that we literally forget ourselves and what’s…
Choosing Public Sector or Private Therapeutic Support
Choosing between public and private psychotherapy, counselling and mental health support
Existential Analysis and the differences between a psychotherapist, counsellor, psychologist, CBT therapist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst!
This is a somewhat contentious area for many practitioners because, as with most fields of endeavour, everyone has their own territorial imperatives and personal definitions. So with that disclaimer, here is my simple outline of the differences between each of these helping activities, the length of their training and training requirements. Counsellor Counselling as a…
Mental distress: a sane response to an insane world
Is there something wrong with me? Or am I responding sanely to something wrong with the world?
Fees and Payment Alternatives
The normal means of paying for therapy sessions has traditionally been payment in cash at the end of each session. This is my standard payment method as it is straighforward and time-efficient. For this reason I don’t accept cheques or credit cards. However, times are changing, and as more people recognise that the central banking…
A Guide to Making the Most of your Sessions
“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” ― Eckhart Tolle If you only read one page of information on this website then make it this one. It could be the difference between wasted time and a successful…
