HURT MORE, SUFFER LESS “A well-thought-out principle and long-term view can guide decision making in preference to acting on feelings and anxiety in the moment” (Kerr, 2019). It hurts more in the ‘here and now’ to manage one’s own impulse to react. My older child has hit my younger child, my partner has not offered…
“Anxiety can be reduced in many ways that do not depend on the development of more of a self” (Kerr, & Bowen, 1988, p.127). There are a multitude of ways to reduce anxiety, we only have to google ‘how to keep calm’ for literally hundreds of thousands of results to pop up: get enough sleep,…
Almost all daughters feel disappointed with their mothers at some point, because nobody can live up to the impossible and exhausting expectations that accompany mothering. Your daughter’s mistake will probably be to assume that she’s going to get it ‘right’ when she becomes a mother herself, rather than questioning gender roles and the job description…
Choosing to go to couples counselling when one’s relationship is not working is not something one jumps up and down with joy at the thought of. Let’s face it, bringing one’s private relationship issues to a stranger is probably the last thing one feels like doing at a time like this. And yet when a…
Anxiety, Stress and Depression through the Social Brain A large number of clients come to see me for anxiety, stress and depression, often believing there is something inherently wrong within them. We seem wired to think we are separate, perhaps because what links us is invisible to the naked eye. It’s difficult to see that…
The family: an emotional system. Most therapeutic frameworks view a person’s behaviour as emerging from an individual or from a dyad (mother-child), Bowen Family Systems Theory however, views human behaviour through a ‘family systems’ lens. The human family according to Bowen Family Systems Theory is a naturally occurring system, a product of evolution, like all…
How cutting ties from a ‘toxic’ person may be robbing us from seeing our part. “When one is more objective one is better able to see their part in the system, the way he effects the emotional functioning of others and the way others effect his emotional functioning. More objectivity means one is better able…
Drugs & Alcohol- a symptom of the system Drugs and alcohol have been used by human beings for millennia. Today, the ‘drug war’ receives near constant media attention even though most modern drugs were discovered and consumed many millennia ago. The prevalent view of addiction these days is that it is a disease which is…
Anxiety- Chronic or Acute? We all experience anxiety from time to time, it is a natural condition of being alive. Anxiety is our response to a threat, real or imagined, and exists on a continuum – from a short lived spike in heart rate to a paralysing stress response. It is normal for us to…
It is rare to come across couples who have decided to attend couples therapy without each hoping the other will change in some small or large way. It would all be so much simpler if the other person changed. In fact, the problem would not exist at all if our partner did what we wanted them to do, was who we wanted them to be, and changed their behaviour to meet our needs- right?