Many people who turn to therapists for recovery have a stereotyped imagination of what they can expect from the experience. Many have the image of a Freudian like character sitting in a leather chair, saying nothing and occasionally coming out with some masterpiece of intellect that brings realisation. While it can be said that this…
When we start a new relationship, we let a few things go that we might not later. We don’t always set boundaries or recognise so-called ‘red flags’. The adrenaline is just running too high and that is just the way we want it. We want to enjoy this new feeling before routine sets in and…
These days we throw the words “narcissist” and “codependent” around like confetti. It is easy to label someone who appears self-centered as the former and one who gives a little bit too much as the latter. Despite the fact that we can easily recognise these traits in people, it is always dangerous to label people…
Narcissists are the proverbial Jekyll and Hyde characters, one way one moment, one way the next. A roller-coaster ride for anyone involved with them. When we become involved in a new relationship, a need to bond and connect with others is usually the main reason, leading hopefully to love. However, narcissists have their own reasons…
There will be many people who have started the year with the thought that they need to change their relationship status from attached to unattached. Those same people might also have had that thought last year and the year before and maybe even the year before that. The daily grind of ineffective communication, sweating the…
One of the biggest difficulties we face when trying to instigate change in our lives is protecting ourselves from the effects of the past and an imagined future. Even when the past has been somewhat dealt with, the brave new world known as our new future life can be difficult to deal with, hold many fears and lead us…
Hollywood always seems from afar to be a seedy, dirty place, full of self-absorbed people pushing their own agenda. Most of the inhabitants of this false reality world love a bandwagon to jump on and like the proverbial lemming, many will follow. It is a shallow, superficial world that promotes the ridiculous and untalented to…
Just recently, two things have prompted my thinking around this article. I read with horror that the so-called “Black Cab Rapist”, John Worboys will be released quite soon. I quote from The Evening Standard in London: Scotland Yard was severely criticised today for its handling of rape victims in a hard-hitting report into a catalogue…
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. Failure (or the perception of failure) is something we all must come to terms with. Businesses and relationships fail…
The role of parents in a child’s development has long been seen as crucial. Great minds like Freud and Peck, among many others have highlighted generations of parents’ inadequacies and the effect this has on the subsequent adult. This idea is borne out every day in my practice where clients seem to be held to the past by…