Eunice had always worked hard. From childhood she had formed the almost compulsive habits of studying/saving/working. Her life had “been on track” she’d say. Then she was unceremoniously dumped by her fiancé and soon after lost her job. The present moment is all there is. The past is a memory and the future a vision. We owe it to ourselves...[ read more ]
What does it mean to be mentally unwell? A short and common answer to this question is disturbed or extreme emotional responses. The hallmark of depression is sadness or flat mood. Anxiety disorders, as the name suggests, are characterised by fear or anxiety. Bipolar disorder? An excess of sadness/flatness alternating with a surfeit of joy/excitement/energy. But apart from these emotional...[ read more ]
It’s the hallmark of crazy – talking to yourself! Culture feds us the image of the highly disturbed loner, erratically uttering conspiratorial syllables to beings unseen. And we certainly don’t want to emulate that! So, we think that the opposite, never talking to ourselves, neither internally nor externally, is a sign of psychological health. But it’s not. We humans are...[ read more ]
“I’m tying myself in knots. Diana is killing me!” A personal assistant, Paige, had recently started to work under Diana, who was aloof and seemed indifferent to efforts to impress her. Paige’s well-honed people pleasing skills just didn’t seem to work with Diana. “I feel like I’m running on adrenaline from the moment I walk into work”. Getting along with...[ read more ]
“Something bad is going to happen I can feel it.” Claudia was about to start a new job, the first step toward her dream job as a designer. “This is going to end badly”. “There she was laughing, rubbing his shoulder, rubbing my face in it!” Oscar’s classmate and former love interest Amanda had recently started dating Jayden, a mutual...[ read more ]
“Then she accused me of being the bully!” Sandro was beginning to rant. His face was red and his eyes were moist. His ex-partner had just denied him access to their 6-year-old son. I asked him how he felt. “Sh*t!” He replied. “But what kind of sh*t”, I queried. He looked at me with blank confusion. Lisa Starr and her...[ read more ]
It’s all my fault! “It’s all my fault” Rebecca lamented. Her son had recently been fired due to testing positive on a workplace drug screen. “I knew he was using; I should have done more to stop him!” It is a good thing to take responsibility for your actions and their outcomes. When we take responsibility, we start to...[ read more ]
Katia came to see me after a work team-building weekend. She was “encouraged” to partake in some fear-inducing and physically challenging exercises. She refused. “There was no way I was going on that rope bridge, that thing could fall at any time”. This refusal lead to a conversation with her boss who suggested she attend therapy. “He opened my eyes...[ read more ]
“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened” – Michel de Montaigne Imagine you have a superpower – the ability to see calamities before they occur. You wake in the morning and you see that your boss will call you into her office to discuss your poor performance. You go out to a movie with...[ read more ]
“You can’t trust anyone!” Clara announced. “They might act nice, but at the end of the day they are only out for number one”. Clara’s employer was funding psychology sessions to treat depression and alcohol addiction. She was reluctant to attend and even more reluctant to open up. “At the end of the day, you work for my boss!” she...[ read more ]
