Abusive relationships

I rarely see women who are in an abusive relationship. I often see them when they have come out of an abusive relationship though. Sometimes this is when they are trying to get their lives back together or sometimes it’s something that happened in their past and...

Blame and responsibility

It’s the way of the world now that everyone talks about ‘blame’. I’ve mentioned before that blame removes power. When someone uses the word ‘blame’ for their situation they are saying that they are powerless. It’s someone else...

Self observation

Always when people come in for therapy they find the process beneficial and they often remark that their spouse / sister / brother / cousin / friend etc ought to come in. I usually ask the same question: Do they know they have a problem, and invariably the answer is...

Be yourself

We often say to people – especially children and young people – that they should ‘be themselves’. However, this is easier said than done. It could be said that discovering ourselves is the journey of a lifetime. We have to distinguish between...

Positive feedback

There’s a term which originated in engineering called positive feedback. An example of positive feedback is in a concert hall. Someone taps on the microphone to test it and there is loud screech that comes from the loudspeakers. What happens is that the initial...

Phobias

The different types of phobias that I see would defy any rational comprehension. The common ones: Emetophobia (fear of vomiting), Ornithophobia (birds), acrophobia (heights) and the odd: Coulrophobia (fear of clowns), Globophobia (balloons), and the really strange...