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articles pertaining more specifically to psychological issues
The Reverse Guilt-Shame Dynamic in People-Pleasing Many people-pleasers describe a deep sense of shame that drives their overextension to accommodate others. It’s almost the reverse of what should happen. Normally, if we see someone in need, we might feel moved to help, and if we don’t, guilt or shame could arise. In people-pleasers, however, guilt […]
Summary Three Brains: Balancing the Left and Right Hemispheres for a Healthier Life It could be argued that we have three brains: the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere, and the many neurons in our gut—equivalent in number to a dog’s brain. Today, I’d like to focus on the differences between the left and right hemispheres […]
Mind, Conscious and Unconscious In the course of my work as a therapist, I am often talking to clients about the difference between conscious and unconscious mind. Many people have never even considered that such a division exists, and would assume that the mind is that ‘thing’ that is having thoughts, making decisions throughout the […]
Or Why Therapists Should Not Affirm I have read many mission statements from various charities and media outlets recently that all revolve around the premise that one should ‘be allowed to be yourself’, or ‘provide a space to be your authentic self’. Indeed, many counselling and psychology professional bodies make similar statements referring to such […]
The impact of Technology on Human Psychology The last 25 years have seen unprecedented change in technologies and fundamentally altered human behaviour, yet we have barely begun to assess the impact of technology on human psychology and development. E.O.Wilson, biologist and naturalist, once said, The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Palaeolithic […]
(and the illusion of communication) I make it my own rule not to react with emotion online, to stay reasonable and to always attempt to bring out the best in people who disagree with me, it is a spiritual and communication challenge, not always successful. However, neither do I shy away from discussing difficult topics, […]
There has been a spate of attacks on cell phone towers due to a coronavirus conspiracy theory. Engineers have been attacked verbally and physically, one stabbed, one falling ill with coronavirus after being spat at. What is causing this irrational behaviour? These are not normal times, with our lives disrupted in a way that hasn’t […]
Lockdown has brought a massive change in routine for almost all of us. Normality for most of us involved; getting up when the alarm goes off, packing the kids off to school, grabbing a coffee on the commute to work, settling into a day’s work, punctuated by a cuppa and chat. Heading home at the […]
The concept of the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious There have been sophisticated theories of mind that have undoubtedly contained the concepts of conscious and subconscious for over two thousand years, most notably in Buddhist philosophy[1]. Greek philosophers also described concepts of mind, including Aristotle and Plato, although they might describe it as the […]
Carl Rogers, was one of the foremost psychologists of the 20th century and a pioneer of the person-centred approach to counselling. He observed that the human personality is like a triangle made up of the real self, the perceived self, and ideal self[1].