"Honey, we need to talk about death and dying"

"Honey, we need to talk about death and dying" has never said anyone. Well, at least no-one under 70.

We actually avoid the subject entirely, not just as individuals, but also as society.
Have you noticed the euphemisms we use? "He passed". "She left us".

Now I hear you asking - what's wrong with that? Who wants to think about something as morbid as death and dying?

There are a couple of compelling reasons to stop pretending we're immortal.

The first reason is the most obvious. We all will die. Hopefully, not today, or this year, or even this decade. But ultimately, we are sure that we will all die.

By pretending that our lives last forever, that there will always be time tomorrow, we put off things until it's too late.

The day to love others is today.
The day to embrace them is today.
The day to tell them how much they matter to us is today.

And also the day to change the world is today.

Then there is another, more practical reason to talk about death and accept it as part of life: it is that even whilst we deny it, a part of our subconscious mind still knows of course that we will die one day. And that part, deep inside our psyche, will agitate in the background, trying to raise our awareness, so we don't live obliviously.

That part will seep into our consciousness as a feeling of unease, or anxiety, sometimes even feeling like guilt, or panic attacks. Everything will be sort of OK, yet those symptoms will make it hard for us to enjoy our life.

This is what Existential Therapy is about. At the time, it seemed like the most depressing modality I learned about - "we're all alone and then we die". But actually, in a weird way, it is the most hopeful.

Because it teaches us that it is up to us how we live, that there are no outside boundaries, no judge other than ourself. It is taking personal responsibility to its logical conclusion.

It's about living because we are going to die. It means loving because we are alone.

Attachment theory and how it impacts on our relationships

Attachment theory is a whole field of research on how the way you were loved as an infant and little child impacts on the relationships you form later in life (and on a lot of other things).

I'd like to summarise it this way (it's a bit more complex than this, but this is the bit that counts):

If you were securely attached in your primary relationship (typically baby to mother), i.e. if you could depend on your (emotional and other) needs being met in a consistent manner, you are likely to grow up feeling safe, trusting that your relationships will last, that your partners will stick around, that you are loved.

If your attachment was not a secure one, if your parent was "running hot and cold" (sometimes all over you, sometimes neglecting you), if you were not loved in a consistent manner, or if you were "abandoned" (that can run from completely losing your parents' attention after a new baby is born, to gross neglect), you are more likely to grow up feeling insecure in your relationships, not trusting that they are safe.

The problem is that few of us will have experienced a perfectly secure attachment. So most of us will display one of the following "symptoms": clinging to our partner as if our life depended on them on one end of the spectrum, to sabotaging our relationships so we won't be abandoned by doing the abandoning ourselves, all the way to never actually becoming invested in relationships (building a wall) in order to stay "safe" at the other end of the spectrum.

Those dynamics are illustrated and explained perfectly by Alain de Botton in "The Course of Love" - a novel with subtext I can thoroughly recommend.

So what can we do, flawed beings that most of us are?

Well, awareness is a great thing.  Once we become aware of our patterns, once we realise that we are reacting to something from our past triggered by our present, we can choose to act differently.

At the beginning it's very hard. It's about starting to see how our reaction is not justified by what is happening here and now, but rather an echo of our childhood. It's about becoming aware that just because we have experienced abandonment in the past does not mean that our relationships today, which involve different people, will follow the same path.

It is about making ourself vulnerable, by saying our hurt, owning it, rather than blindly kicking around us in pain and blaming our partner.

It is about accepting that even though we were imperfectly looked after at some stage, it does not mean we were not loveable enough; but rather accepting that our parents were humans too, prone to tiredness, stress, and anger.

In a weird/funny/poignant way, this is what therapy is also about. It is about creating a secure attachment with the therapist, being able to trust that he or she will be there, regularly, consistently, listening, metaphorically holding you whilst you sit with the pain of finding out where all those feelings stem from, and helping you accept the past in order to write your own future.

For me as a therapist it is the most sacred aspect of my work. It is not about being a trusted advisor, a sounding board, "the expert" (beware of any therapist telling you they're the expert of your life); it is about offering a true relationship, that you can completely count on, for as long as you need it.

How to go from binge-drinking to "controlled drinking"

The festive season is upon us, and just as the ordinary Friday or Saturday nights see many of us drinking more than we know is healthy, Christmas and its lot of office parties and uncomfortable family gatherings tends to bring out the binge-drinker even in the tamest of us.

What is binge-drinking? It is drinking alcohol in order to get drunk, with a hang-over the next day in the best case scenario, a few hours missing due to black-out or waking up next to a stranger in the worst...

Binge-drinking is not to be confused with alcoholism. There is usually no compulsion to drink every day, but rather an inability to stop where the sober version of you knows is your limit.

So how can you move, from systematically getting trashed back to enjoying yourself?
Here are a few tips:

• Set yourself a limit when you go to a party or a function, and count your drinks
• Start with water or a soft drink if you're thirsty - only move to alcohol when your thirst is quenched
• Make every second drink a glass of water. Not only does that halve your alcohol intake, but you avoid the nasty dehydration headache the next day
• Switch to low-alcohol beer or wine and avoid spirits 

To allow your liver to regenerate (yes, it is the only organ that can heal itself, but only if you give it a break), have an alcohol-free day, ideally two in a row, each week.

Aim for 2-3 low-alcohol days per week - what that means depends on your drinking capacity. For me it might mean one standard drink, for others three. This is a particularly good exercise to reconnect to pleasurable drinking as opposed to drinking to get drunk.

The good news is that by lowering your overall intake your tolerance to alcohol will actually decrease over time - you'll need less for the same effect, and your body will thank you (and your wallet too).

And the piece de resistance, as always, is mindfulness: 

• bring back the focus on the pleasure of drinking, the smell, the taste, the colour, as well as the company you're in, rather than absent-mindedly "throwing them back": "festive drinking" as opposed to bingeing.

It's about finding ways to enjoy the "silly season" without needing to get drunk to do so.

Should you find that despite trying to control your intake you still struggle with binge-drinking on a regular basis, there may be some deeper stuff going on - maybe some anxiety you're trying to cover up, or a learnt behaviour on how alcohol is used in your family to deal (or avoid dealing) with emotions, or a fear of social situations.

Please reach out if you would like some help with that.

The liberating effect of "not giving a fuck"

Have you ever wondered what it would be like not to care quite that much about other people's opinions of you? If, when making decisions, you didn't feel like you had to take into account what aunty Frida might think, or your boss, or your neighbour from across the street?

Today I would like to talk about how effective "not giving a fuck" is for improving your quality of life. Of course it works best if you suffer from "people-pleasing syndrome" in the first place.

Just imagine:

• Basing the decision of which house to buy only on what you need and want, and not on keeping up with the Joneses, meeting your mother-in-law's expectations or  impressing your new girlfriend.
• Buying your car based on practical rather than status considerations.
• Choosing your work on what gives you satisfaction, what makes you happy, rather than on an income which is then spent solely to console you of your work day-to-day.
• Getting dressed the way you like, without pandering to the diktats of a fashion industry only interested in keeping their jobs.
• And possibly the most important one: imagine choosing your life partner, not on whether your parents will approve, or whether your friends will be impressed, but on their intrinsic human qualities.

Imagine now making the little decisions in life about what you want, rather than whether anyone else approves... Welcome to "not giving a fuck"!

Life suddenly becomes comparatively simple: no more labyrinth of social norms with matching pitfalls to navigate, no more letting someone's raised eyebrow change the way you feel about yourself.

But of course, the path to not giving a fuck is not an easy one - all your life, starting in your childhood, you have been taught to conform, meet your parents' expectations, "do as you are told".

It takes balls to go against our consumerist society.

It takes balls to say no when everyone expects you to say yes.

Don't get me wrong, what I am advocating is not some sort of egoistic nirvana of self-indulgence, but rather to stick to your guns even when your opinion or appearance goes against what's "normal".

I am suggesting that once you have worked out what you really believe in, what you really want, you go for it, and don't give a fuck about other people's judgement. 

I bet you will find it liberating.

The importance of being who you truly are

I used to have a career in executive search ("headhunting"), and I was often asked for interview tips by candidates and friends: "what do I need to say or do to make sure I land the job?".

My answer usually surprised them: don't try and fit the job by pretending to be someone you're not, because if you do land the job, it will be bloody hard work to not just do the job but also keep up the illusion...

Yes, we all need a job, more or less desperately, but for most of us, what we really want is work which suits our abilities and personality. So why pretend to be someone we're not?

In an ideal world, you show off your differences, and you are liked for them and get the job. Or if they don't like your differences you don't get the job and are better off for it.

The same goes for couples: if you pretend you love football, when really you couldn't care less, you either disappoint your partner when you reveal the truth, or you'll spend many boring hours watching football games...

If you only show your meek and mild side in order to seduce your partner, what will happen when you show the tiger in you?

If you need to pretend to be someone you are not in order to please your partner, ask yourself: are you really the right person for them? Are they the right person for you?

Be yourself, you're good at it!

And if being yourself doesn't get you what you want or what you need, therapy could help you find ways to change into a better - not different! - version of yourself... or just to learn how not to give a f*ck!

How Love is all about making the tough choices

We are sold this lie that love is all "beers and Skittles", cloud 9 or heaven, when in reality love is about making the tough choices.

When your baby is first born, you think choice is about the cutest outfit or gazing adoringly into their eyes. Yet the reality is that you must choose between breast or bottle feeding them, letting them cry or picking them up all the time, giving them a dummy so they settle or not so they don’t cry when they lose it… the list is endless.

When your child gets into toddler years it’s not about letting them decide between broccoli and chocolate or between wearing a tutu or a jacket when it’s cold - you will have to make that choice for them.

When they first start school it’s not about letting them choose whether to buy ice-cream or lunch from the canteen – you have to decide that for them.

And when they are teenagers, you have to choose for them whether to drink alcohol underage is a bad idea – because they will think it’s a good idea.

And once they are adults, you will be faced with the toughest choice of all: whether to let them take their responsibilities (and face the consequences of their actions) or to continue mothering or fathering them to the point where they never grow up…

So it is really about making children functional elements of society, protecting them - even from themselves, and yet allowing them to flourish without clipping (too much of) their wings.

It is the same in adult relationships.

We can choose the easy way, enabling* the ones we love to stay in their addictions, their dysfunctions, by giving them what they want even though we can see it harms them, or we can face the tough choice, of ceasing to be a part of it.

And this goes into the wider society - what do we permit? Is the role of the politicians to give us what we want (endless access to boozing, gambling, sex) or what we need (roads, hospitals, safety)?

Love, real love, is about helping those we love to get what they need, even at the expense of what they want. It’s about supporting them in their struggle, not just in the good times.

To truly love is to accept to sometimes be unpopular rather than people-pleasing. 

And that, in my eyes, is the toughest choice of all.

*Enabling: making someone’s life easier thus allowing them to continue with an unhealthy behaviour, for example offering an addict a roof over their head and food on the table, thus de facto allowing them to spend all their money on drugs or alcohol. See also co-dependency.

The green-eyed monster: is jealousy just another OCD?

I would like to talk about the "green-eyed monster" today: jealousy.
It is not an easy subject - it is not an easy emotion.

Jealousy is subtly distinct from envy.
Envy is "I'd like to have what you have".
Jealousy is "I don't want you to have what you have, it should be mine".

When does envy become jealousy? Usually when we think we are being deprived of something that should rightfully be ours.

In my work, I see people who struggle to overcome jealousy, even as they see how it is damaging their relationships. How is it damaging? Mostly because it comes with a side-serve of wanting to control someone else's life to an extreme degree.

In some ways the control that comes with jealousy makes it just another obsessive-compulsive disorder: in order to control our anxieties, we choose behaviours which give us the impression/illusion of keeping us safe. You can break down an OCD into several steps:

First comes the anxiety:
I'm scared of deadly diseases.
I don't want my father to die.
I'm scared my wife will leave me.

Then comes the mistaken belief (a form of superstition if you want):
If only I wash and disinfect my hands every single time I touch something, I won't catch anything.
If only I manage to walk to work without stepping on any cracks in the pavement, he will beat the cancer.
If only I can monitor everything my wife does, and prevent her from meeting any men whatsoever, she won't leave me.

This belief is reinforced every time that nothing bad happens, as we ascribe that "victory", that "phew, I'm still safe", to our obsessive behaviour.

But as always there is also a price to pay:
My hands are all raw and my skin is peeling off from being washed 250 times a day.
It takes me twice as long to get to work, I've been late a few times now, and people look at me in strange ways.
My wife really struggles with being controlled every minute of the day, and starts resenting me.

How can you stop the OCD? The answer is surprisingly easy, but includes a leap of faith (over the mistaken belief): cold turkey.

When you start not washing your hands all the time, and notice after a few days that you still haven't caught the bubonic plague.
When your father continues improving, even though you did step on cracks on your way to work.
When your wife hasn't left you, even though you have stopped checking her phone for messages from "other men".

If anything, in the case of jealousy, it is about becoming aware of the anxiety, and expressing it to your partner, making yourself vulnerable in the process rather than trying to build a wall around them.

The odds are, they will feel closer to you and have less reasons to leave you than when you were trying to control their every move.

Letting go might just be the only answer to anxiety that actually works...

Why do we keep pushing buttons even when we know they hurt the other?

We are all very good at pushing buttons during arguments, often even if - or precisely because - we know that we are not helping the debate, but rather hurting the other person.

It seems like such a non-constructive way of interacting, yet time and time again we fall into the trap of reacting through lashing out.

Have you ever wondered why this is so well entrenched in our habits? Why the cool, thoughtful, loving partner that we think we are suddenly snarls and bites?

I came across the answer by pure luck (well, not quite, it was at a professional development event after all) and it burned itself into my mind:

"I will make you feel what I feel so that you'll do something about it."

Concretely, what does it mean? Let me give you some examples:

* You feel really angry, because of something that has happened at work, (and because it brought up some feelings of powerlessness that relate to your childhood, but that bit will not show in your awareness, just be there in your subconsciousness) and you come home and the first thing your partner doesn't do "right" sets you off completely, until he bristles with anger too, for being attacked for no good reason.

* You feel anxious, things are not going very well, so you'll press buttons with your partner (maybe raising subjects that are touchy for him/her) until they are feeling anxious too.

*You feel hurt, by life and your partner, so you'll "bite" until they feel hurt too.

The underlying hope in all those examples is that if your partner feels the same way as you do right now, maybe he/she will do something to "fix" it!

It is - like most of the unhelpful things we do - a very human reaction. But unfortunately, instead of bringing you closer when you need/want support, that type of behaviour actually drives a wedge between you.

So what can you do to change it?

As always, change starts with awareness. Next time you are pushing buttons, notice it. Try and figure out what you are doing, whether it makes sense to attack the other, or whether you are just reacting to the (overwhelming) feelings inside you.

The next step is the easiest, and the hardest.

Speak up about how you are feeling inside. Instead of biting their head off, show them where you hurt. By making yourself vulnerable, by accepting your emotions, and not blaming your partner for them, it is much more likely that they will try and take care of you than if you make them feel like crap as well.

It takes time to change from reaction to awareness. It takes efforts to practise other ways of being.

My work as a therapist is to help clients figure out how they would rather be in their life, and how they can act differently to make that change happen.

How Australia is leading the world in gambling addiction - my luncheon with Gamblers Anonymous

In my highly exciting life that mainly revolves around people and cats, I sometimes get to do something a bit different - last week, that was lunch with the people from Gamblers Anonymous, or GA for short.

This lunch was put on for professionals, to give them an overview of what GA is all about. I am sharing this here because some of the facts about gambling in Australia simply horrified me.

Australia has 0.2% of the world population but 20% (twenty percent!!!!!) of the world's poker machines. They multiplied when the state governments discovered they were a great way to fill their coffers, as Rev. Tim Costello so eloquently put to us at the lunch; so we now have a state-sanctioned and state-taxed addiction.

The amount of money that people in Australia lose to gambling is simply staggering (on some poker machines you can "feed in" - read lose - $56,000 in less than 6 hours). For those of you who cannot see the lure of "the pokies", imagine machines devised with music pictures and all the modern interactive bells and whistles to get you addicted (and yes, psychologists have worked for the manufacturers of poker-machines, to help make them even more addictive). Of course gambling can take many shapes, betting on sports (this is how young blokes first get hooked), the horses, casinos, cards, online gaming - you name it, and someone else than the punter is raking in the money and the state governments take a percentage of it.

How does it start? Well, we had a lovely young lady, who of course shall remain anonymous, share her story with us: some incredible abuse and hardship in her childhood, leaving her isolated and in constant, intense emotional pain. When she sat in front of a poker machine for the first time, with the music and the pull of maybe winning enough to change her life, the loud voices constantly battling it out in her brain became quiet for once.

I won't take you to the whole cycle of addiction, suffice to say this academic overachiever ended up facing fraud charges in court, as she started stealing from her employer to finance her addiction. The weirdest part was that she didn't realise that is was an addiction, until the cop who interrogated asked her, surprisingly gently, whether she might have a gambling problem.

He pointed her towards GA, there was a meeting going on around the corner that same day, and this is where her story really starts, because what she found at that first meeting of GA, was a whole community, welcoming her like no-one had ever done before. She found support, practical help, but most of all, she found friends. When before she relied on gambling to deaden her unbearable emotions, suddenly she experienced human kindness.

I have previously written about how research seems to be showing that human connection might be the antidote to addiction. Her story was exactly about that.

We heard some more stories that day, all showing another facet of the addiction, and more facets of what GA stands for. The fact that GA isn't accepting donations or subsidies (from anyone) tells you a lot about their integrity - they will do what is best for their members, being beholden to no-one else.

Whenever I read about the latest (bad) news, I sometimes feel hopeless.
That lunch with the people from GA has given me back my faith in humanity - we may be capable of the worst, but we also are capable of the best.

Tolerance versus judgement

This blog is my personal soap box, so today I will share my thoughts about tolerance versus judgement, using a topical subject: the "burkini" ban debate.

For those of you living under a rock and only reading my blog, the burkini is a swimsuit covering the whole body and the hair, mainly worn by Muslim women trying to stay within their religious clothing norms yet wanting to enjoy a swim, and a very va-va-voom cooking show star who shall remain nameless, who may have wanted to swim without showing off the consequences of all the yummy food she cooks and eats.

I must admit that inside me, the arguments of both sides were fighting it out: should someone's fear force other people  to undress to fit in with the environment? where do we draw the line? and by extension what do I think about the whole burka debate?

First disclaimer: my mother is muslim, though not practicing (I'm protestant for those who want to know). She only wears the minimum enforceable head-covering (i.e. a scarf, preferably Hermès lol) when travelling in muslim countries, and dresses like you and me when in Europe. She tells me that the one advantage of being dressed according to the local customs when travelling is that it gives her an enhanced feeling of security. She has never been indecently approached even when on her own on public transport. For me, having lived in Paris where being chatted up is the best case scenario, and felt up the worst, that sounds not like too bad a deal, except it's bloody hot and sunny in Iran in summer.

My thoughts on the burka are that if a woman freely chooses to wear it, she should be allowed to. Freely though means no pressure whatsoever has been applied on her to wear it, not by her family, not by the society she lives in. If that freedom is not present, I think the burka is just another instrument of oppression of women.

Now, to the burkini. We don't expect nuns to wear bikinis or one-pieces to the beach, and yet we don't seem bothered by them not "looking like everyone else". So clearly, this debate is not just about fitting in. What this debate is really about, is the visible presence of muslims.

I understand that in the light of the terrorist attacks in France in particular, the temptation for knee-jerk reactions is quite high. I also understand that French people are scared of potential suicide terrorists, so that any clothing that could hide a bomb is suspect. Yet the burkini can hardly hide anything - try smuggling a bomb under a wetsuit and you'll quickly understand the difficulty.

So what we are really left with, is the question of how to react to people who are different from us.
And even that question is two-pronged: because what we feel, and what offers the best outcome, are not always overlapping.

In the burkini ban debate, clearly what most people feel like is "if only they looked like us, they would become like us" and I think that is a fallacy.
Forcing people to look like something they aren't cannot possibly the best possible outcome.
Separating them into "you're different because your beliefs are different, so you must be a threat" cannot possibly be the best outcome.

Let us not forget that some 4.7 million muslims live in France, of which I would guess 4.699 million are not a threat to anyone, are getting on with their neighbours, and generally contributing to French society like any other minority there. Oh I know, someone will dispute that number, and explain to me that only 4.4 million (or whatever) of them are actually good citizens. It still leaves an overwhelming majority of decent people, who have done nothing to merit judgment or intolerance.

What the burkini ban will do, what this picture did, is divide people into "us and them". It will make it easier for extremists to recruit because it shows our occidental society to be intolerant.

If my neighbour is different, does that mean he is "not as good" as me? My answer is: value has nothing to do with sameness. Some time ago I wrote a blogpost on how our judgement reveals more about us doing the judging than about the person we judge, and I stand by it: if I judge my neighbour according to my own personal standards, it just shows the narrowness of my mind, and has nothing to do with his value.

The way out of the very difficult, complicated situation that the world is in, cannot possibly be an arms-race, where we just try to "outgun" those who threaten our way of life.

If all of us, normal, decent people were to reach out, to the other, to the different, if we engaged the conversation, were generous, like the muslims I personally know are, wouldn't we stand a better chance to win each other's hearts?

Psychotherapy and language

Psychotherapy being "the talking cure", it seems appropriate for me to ponder about language.

A bit more than half of my clients come to me because I speak their mother tongue (German or French). Why is that language communality so important to them, that for some, they prefer therapy over Skype with me, over trying to find a different therapist "in the flesh"?

For one, it is about feeling at ease in whatever language they do therapy in.
But more importantly, it seems to be about what language structured their brain in their childhood.

You learn to express who you are, and your feelings, at a very early age, in a certain language.

Part of the work we do in session is to look back to find the moments where things may have "gone wrong" and where certain behavioural adaptations have occurred to deal with those problems, to then examine if they are still adapted to the present (they mostly aren't).

To feel at ease with your therapist takes a bit of effort - having to overcome a language barrier can make it that little bit harder.

Yet I have had clients whose mother tongue was obscure enough for them to choose me despite that, and we use English as our common language. It is not per se an impossibility, but it requires both from the therapist and the client an additional layer of effort that may be too much for some.

I enjoy my work in whatever language I use. English has become the one I favour, just because I have been using it every day for the last 20 years. Yet both German and French are still so deeply ingrained in me (and I still regularly read books in both) that even if I sometimes feel it's harder to express myself, I never struggle to understand my clients.

Funnily enough, all the therapy work I have done on myself has never been in my mother tongue. Only rarely do I bump against the difficulty of trying to explain an expression to my therapist that just doesn't have an equivalent in English, and so fails to conjure up the same picture to him that it does to me.

So maybe speaking the same language is just about making therapy that little bit easier.

Maybe in the end, it is not so much about which language we use, but about the willingness to truly hear the other.

How to make the most difficult decisions in your life

Quite often my clients come to see me because they are faced with really important, really difficult decisions; often it's about whether to change their country, their partner, or their job.

Most of the time, the decisions they are faced with are so difficult because all the options have good and bad sides. They all have a pay-off but also a price to pay.

Tempting as it may be for me to just give them my opinion when they ask me "so what should I do?", my role is rather to tease out what they really want, deep down. I help them by digging up the underlying motivations, both helpful and unhelpful ones. Some come from their unconscious "programming", and some are conscious choices they want to make.

So we look together at their needs and wants, and see if some are more important for them, or more urgent, and also how the different options will play out in the short, medium and long term.

In the end though, in most cases, there isn't just a good choice and a bad choice; so whatever their choice is, it will be "right" - though only as long as one important condition is satisfied, and this is at once the easiest to understand and the most difficult to apply:

You can decide whichever way, but then you have put 100% of your intention, energy and work behind that decision. Concretely, that means:

- If you decide to stay, stop looking at the other options, and invest all in what you have decided to stick with.
- If you decide to leave, start building your new life, don't look back at the old one wondering what it would have held for you.

If you can satisfy that condition, whatever you choose will most likely be the "right" one for you. 

How "family systems theory" can help us change the people around us.

The main mantra in psychotherapy is that you can only change yourself, not others.
So why do I now say that it is possible to change the people around us?
Bear with me, it's all going to make sense in a minute.

When a client comes to see me and tells me how unhappy they are, and could I please change their wife/husband for them, I have to let them down gently: I am not in the business of casting spells, I can only work with the person who is actually in the room with me, not with the one at home...

So how does family systems theory help us change the ones at home?

A family is a system like any other. There are inputs - the acts and words of all the people in the system, there is a "system" that mixes them up, interprets them etc. according to their own underlying and unwritten rules that differ for all families, and there is an output - the stuff that happens in the family.

Now like any system, if you want to change the output, you simply need to change the input.
Concretely, in your family system, what does that mean?

It means that every member of the family has the power to change things by changing their personal input. What does that look like?

Well, if you usually nag and don't get results, it might mean to stop nagging.
Or if you do everything for everyone, and get frustrated that they don't pick up the slack, it might mean doing less.
Or if you usually take the same person's side in every argument, to stop doing that.

And because the family is a system like any other, once you have changed the input, the system will give you an outcome that is different to the one you've had so far.

A bit like this: if your system were an adding machine, and you changed the numbers you were adding, the result would become a different one.

Basically, the other people in your family system will have to adapt to the "new you", and that means they'll have to change. Now, I cannot guarantee that your outcome is going to be exactly the one you're hoping for - every system complex, but there are certain rules that generally apply, which will help you work towards the outcome you want.

And sometimes, the change in input might be that you remove yourself altogether from the system.

This is how psychotherapy makes a difference. By working on yourself, by changing yourself, you are changing your input in your family system, and you will get a different outcome.

Worth trying?

You can choose to be right or to be happy - not both

Oh I can already hear the outcry: "Of course I can be right and happy!"
Bear with me please, I am not saying this lightly.

I am talking about handling conflict or arguments in any relationship, when you defend a point of view and your friend or partner has a different one.

These are the possible outcomes in an argument:

1. You are right, hence your partner is wrong.
2. Your friend is right, hence you are wrong.
3. You agree to disagree.

Now, how can a situation have a positive outcome, if it depends on someone else being "wrong"?
Once you have proven that you are right, or the smarter one, the "good one", how do you think it feels to be wrong, the dumber one, the bad one?

How well are you going to connect, when you are not equals, but one is "better than" and the other is "less than"?

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to feel righteous, to let your pride talk? As opposed to being tolerant and accepting, listening with an open mind?

You may feel that glow of victory, but it's a pyrrhic victory - best case scenario, you're gloating and your partner is subdued; worst case scenario, your partner makes life hell for you as payback. I cannot see happiness in either case.

There are so few cases in which there is black/white or right/wrong, how about trying to understand the other's position? Not judging it, but finding tolerance for it?

That is what agreeing to disagree is about. You are allowed your convictions, but as a corollary, they are allowed to keep theirs.

I know our society keeps repeating that we must win, but that always implies that others must lose. And "being the winner" cannot be a relationship goal.

What if instead, we made connecting our relationship goal?

Can we reconcile marriage and "fear of missing out"?

I'm sure you've heard of FOMO - the "fear of missing out". Apparently Generation Y is much afflicted by it, but I've seen signs of it in older people too.

That fear that if you commit to one thing, you'll miss out on another...

That in turn translates into anxiety, that wherever you decide to go, another party in town might just turn out to be bigger or better.

Now marriage is a prime example of closing all other doors once you chose "the one". How can we possibly choose to marry one person if it means giving up on the idea of any other - for life?

There is that moment when we meet someone who makes us think that we couldn't possibly find anyone better, when waking up next to that person every day seems to be THE thing to wish for.

Yet the sentence "till death do us part" might still send a shiver down our spine. It sounds too much like "for the remainder of your natural life" - a life sentence really.

Maybe it's a matter of perspective.

What if instead of deciding once for the rest of our life, we decided every day?

What if, once we meet that "special someone", we decided to make that person our choice, one day at a time...

Do you service your car? Then why not your mind?

I imagine that you get your car serviced quite regularly, at least once or twice a year.

You do it without really thinking about it, while your car is still going fine - you drive it to the garage or dealership, pay a few (or many) hundred dollars, get it checked, the oil changed, a little tuning perhaps (whatever that means lol) then drive it home, confident that it won't break down until the next service.

So why wait until you suffer from depression, addiction, a relationship breakdown or anxiety to seek therapy?

Why not have a session or two when you are actually feeling quite ok, just to check in with yourself, make sure that everything is still functioning, nip any concerns in the bud, and work out the general direction that you would like your life to go, and what changes you'd like to introduce to make it even better?

In the same way that it is easier to drive the car to the garage rather than having it towed there, it is much easier to do therapy when you are functioning well.

It is more constructive to maintain mental health than to try and "fix things" that have gone wrong - especially when relationships are concerned, and you run a risk of them becoming "beyond repair".

So, are you ready for a check up?

I've reached the pinnacle: I'm "clinical"

After years of slogging away, meeting all the requirements of my professional association, I have at last reached the pinnacle - I'm "clinical".

I work in an unregulated profession: anyone can hang up a sign saying "counsellor" or "psychotherapist" and start "treating" people. Scary thought, right?

So when you decide to see "a therapist", it might be worth your while checking that they belong to a professional association - in my case, the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia.

In order to become a member, I needed to hold a degree in the field, see a supervisor (the therapist's therapist) on a regular basis, do a certain number of hours of professional development every year and agree to work ethically.

You start off as a student member, become an intern, then provisional clinical, and at last, the highest level, a clinical member.

I think it's in the public's interest that my professional body has standards that its members have to uphold. And I find it's in my interest to have someone telling me what is "best practice" in my field.

Please feel free to congratulate me :)
I have invested time (years), money (lots) and my heart (all of it) into becoming the best therapist I can be - and I will continue to do so.

Resentment: how we hurt ourselves by holding on to our grudges

Have you ever been hurt?
So badly that you really struggled to forgive and move on?

Sometimes, the hurt we feel, the injustice we face, seem so big that we do not want to let go, that we want to stay angry, resentful, with whoever hurt us, or with the world for allowing it.

Our anger feels righteous.
We have been wronged.
We are allowed to - we even want to - feel resentful about it.

What happens next?
We disconnect, by refusing to connect.
We punish the other, or the world, by casting them out.

But who are we really disconnecting when we do that?
Yes, our self. Whilst we hold on to our resentment, we are the one in the corner, alone.

My feeling is that as human beings, as herd-animals, we need connection more than anything else.

Who do you think feels more connected?
The victim who has chosen to forgive the perpetrator?
Or the victim who holds on to the hurt?

Especially in relationships, it is easier to be the one who dishes out blame, and harder to be the one who forgives and moves on.

I was once told that "you can choose to be either right, or happy".
Now, those who know me well know how hard it is for me not to be right...
Yet life keeps setting me that same challenge (as life tends to do, until we "get it"). And I guess life is setting it for everyone else too.

We can choose to be self-righteous in our anger, and stay disconnected, or we can choose to forgive, and strive to reconnect.

The choice is ours, every single time.

What will you choose next time?

BREXIT - or what happens when people get emotionally manipulated

"BREXIT" is a great example of what happens when people get emotionally manipulated: they make irrational decisions based on fiction rather than fact.

Numbers have been thrown around by both sides, some of which were made up completely.
And this is how it works, thanks to confirmation bias: we choose and interpret whatever "facts" we're given so they confirm our existing beliefs.

The consequences are rather dire on a political level, as this is basically how propaganda has worked in history; let's repeat falsehoods, aloud, lots of times, with conviction, until they become "true".

The past is full of examples - Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR - who relied on only the radio, newspapers and television to indoctrinate.

Today, there are more channels, to which we are exposed for more hours a day. One of the most insidious ways our confirmation bias is reinforced is through Google and Facebook: they study which searches we do, which articles we click on, or like, and the next time the results/newsfeed will offer us more of what they know we like.

And there we go - we do not receive neutral information anymore, we get what Google and Facebook have algorithmically decided we "want" to see.

I feel like I'm living in Orwell's 1984.

How does this relate to my work as a therapist? Well, we all have confirmation bias in our personal lives too. It becomes especially visible when working with addiction or domestic abuse, how the "bad bits" get glossed over, and the rare good thing gets highlighted.

My work involves helping my client see the whole extent of their life - from an outside perspective.

I can hear you ask - but don't my clients get that outside perspective from all the other people in their lives, telling them what is good or bad, or what they should change?

Indeed my clients - everyone actually - do get an enormous amount of outside feedback, well-meaning advice etc.

Which is exactly what I do not do. I will not tell them what is good, or bad, or how they "should" change.

Because giving advice is not my job. My job is to hold up a mirror, in which they can see themselves, from an outside perspective, and to support them while they work out what they want to do differently.

And it is the most difficult bit of my work as a therapist: to not jump in, to not push or pull, to not rescue, but to instead to support my clients so they can find their own truth, their own way, in their own time.

So maybe the British people too would have benefited from more time looking at the reality, and checking facts, rather than letting the media tell them what and how to think...

Monogamy is like chocolate cake - every night.

What is your absolute favourite dessert? The one that makes your mouth water, even if you just ate a 5-course dinner? The one you would gladly get up for in the middle of the night, for one more bite?

Let's say it's chocolate cake - and not just any chocolate cake, but the particular recipe from this one patisserie across town... And one day, you win the lottery, and decide to get it delivered to your house, freshly baked, every night for dessert.

It's simply paradise, the harmony of aromas, the richness of the taste, the complexity of flavours. Oh how much you love it! Night after night, you are looking forward to it, and from the first spoonful it makes you swoon.

After a year or two, you still enjoy it very much. It is not quite as beguiling anymore, not quite as "new", but you're still very happy with the arrangement.

Your friends envy you, seeing you have the best dessert in town, or so it looks. And you are well aware how lucky you are. You never could have dreamed of anything better than that.

Ten years go by, and every night, you've had chocolate cake, the best in town. I bet that by now you may be thinking "yep, I love chocolate cake, it is still my favourite dessert, but oh, what wouldn't I give for a slice of lemon meringue pie..."

Marriage, when it comes with an side-serve of monogamy, is a little bit the same. You chose the best man or woman you could possibly imagine spending your life with, you have the best partner you could ever have wished for, so what could go wrong?

Desire is about seeing the other and being seen. How many of us stop seeing the most beautiful landscape in the world, just because we happen to live there? It is not so much taking it for granted as becoming blind to it.

Our brain is wired to notice changes, not sameness - a simple survival mechanism, using our brainpower where it is most needed. So, eventually, we notice the other less, they don't "stick out" anymore in our field of vision, having become (too) familiar.

So what can we do about this? Are we condemned to choke on our chocolate cake, give up on dessert, or as one of my friends jokingly suggested, marry someone new every 10 years?

I don't think we have to be that drastic. I believe that if we chose our partner wisely, they are still someone we really like, 10 years later. And if so, then it is worth working on our self to keep the romance alive. How?

By remembering what attracted us in the first place.
By becoming aware of their wonderful sides again.

By making an effort to remain attractive (this is not about Botox but rather the sort of effort we put into seducing the other - if tracksuit pants didn't feature prominently during your courtship, why would you think they are ok now?).

And, maybe most importantly, by talking about it.
Our desires, our hopes, our fantasies.
By making them a subject of conversation, like they were at the beginning.


If you enjoyed this post, you may like this one on Madame Bovary and infidelity.

Psychotherapy is like gardening

We all receive a garden when we are born - our mind. How that garden looks depends on what we received to start with, and on our experiences.

Some receive a large park, elegantly planted with tall trees and lovely shrubs, and an immaculate lawn; others receive only a small garden, with lots of rocks, barely any soil, on a sheer cliff-face.

We don't get to choose which one we receive. But we do get to choose what we make of it. Whether we were spoilt or not, it is the amount of time that we spend tending our garden that will make a difference.

For some, basic maintenance will be enough. For others, a lot of hard work will be necessary. All gardens though benefit from time spent tending them.

In my experience as a therapist, some of the most beautiful gardens I was privileged to see materialise over time seemed quite despairing at the beginning. They looked such a mess, so overgrown, with resentment, anger, grief, pain.

But the owners refused to let it lie that way. Every day, they plucked away at it, weeded it. Every week, they got an external gardener in for an hour (me) - not to do the gardening for them, but to help set general directions. It takes time, sometimes multiple seasons, until the garden is looking its best.

And what an achievement when it does take shape. Some rocks have been removed, others carefully integrated into the landscape. Every corner you look at, something grows, flowers, soothes the view.

Personally, I am a fan of Japanese gardens, which take into account the particularity of every rock, crooked tree, shrub, and plan the outline around all the existing. It's a personal preference. I can see the beauty in the garden of the Chateau de Versailles, but it doesn't speak to my heart.

I find beauty in the pain and hurt that has been overcome. To me, it is like a beacon of hope for others, still stumbling in the dark, struggling with life's messes.

Speak out, to others, about your struggles, those that you are still in, and those you have overcome. Show them your garden, imperfect yet beautiful. Share it with them. We will all be richer for it.

The biggest addiction of all - yes, odds are that you have it too

This is the biggest addiction scourge known to the western world - and you probably have it too.
Have you guessed it yet?
Caffeine.

Ever been jittery, or irritable, or downright cranky in the morning before you get your first shot?
Or worse, that pounding headache, or even migraine, if you don't get your first cup early enough?
Yep, those are withdrawal symptoms.

Why not though? Why not get this lovely hit every morning, every afternoon, when it's so cheap?
Now that's a philosophical question that I would like to look at more closely.

What could possibly be wrong with getting your neuronal stimulation through ingesting "uppers"?
Or to phrase it differently, what could you be missing out on by doing that?

Let's look at why and when you use it. The first few times you take it, the hit is almost overwhelming. You have this endless energy, so much so that you even literally shake. Your mind feels clearer, and sharper.

Over time though, like any highly addictive substance you need to take more and more to achieve the same effect, and soon all you're doing is drinking coffee to ward off the withdrawals. The kick doesn't come anymore, unless you multiply the dosage. Hence the offering of your local dealer: double and even triple shots.

Soon if you don't take care, you're drinking 5 cups a day, and barely feeling any effect. That's a few thousand dollars a year that you spend just on avoiding withdrawals.

That's tonnes of landfill of disposable paper cups, plastic lids and metal coffee pods. That's financing the slavery of coffee farmers who get only a pittance for their back-breaking work (unless you systematically buy fair-trade). Or it's financing the indecent profits of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and co.

I wouldn't mind it so much if in the end, we were not just feeding an addiction, avoiding withdrawals, trying to keep ourselves on the normal level, the stimulation effect non-existent by now because we chase a high that's not achievable any more due to addiction (in the same way  heroin-addict will chase the memory of the first "hit" at the beginning, and soon only try to alleviate the withdrawal symptoms).

I wouldn't mind it so much if it didn't make it easier for us to put up with a boring job or not enough sleep, thereby taking away our motivation for finding more interesting work, or more hours to sleep.

My argument is that like any addiction, it is pointless. After the early effect, we only get an imaginary effect from it, namely overcoming symptoms that were created by its ingestion in the first place...

If it's the ritual you crave, by all means, take a break and have a cup of (non-caffeinated) tea - and don't forget the 2-minute mindfulness exercise that goes with it!


***Disclaimer: I have battled my own caffeine addiction for years - mostly being "clean" but relapsing every couple of years...

The Affection Bank

We all have an account at the Affection Bank. It's mainly a deposit account, but from which withdrawals also can be made. Let me explain what I mean.

Our well-being is fuelled in great parts by what our environment gives us or the way it reflects us.
Every time we get a compliment, a pat on the back, a hug, a praise, a tender touch, or simply a look of love or a smile, our account at the Affection Bank gets a deposit.

Eventually we reach a level where we feel good about ourselves, when our account there is full. It's the ideal place where we have plenty to give to others: love, affection, time, patience.

That level differs for everyone - for people with good self-esteem, it takes less time to reach that level, because self-esteem means half the account already filled; for those less fortunate, it takes longer.

Conversely, every time we experience a negative, we draw on the account to make up for it. "Three people think I'm cool, one doesn't like me, I'm still ok".

Everything that shakes our emotional well-being draws on our account. It can be an argument, or a nasty word, a physical blow, or simply the loss of someone dear to us.

Where things get difficult, is when those events multiply, and the account gets close to zero. Then we start feeling anxious. We don't feel good about ourselves anymore, and we frantically look around us to get some positive reinforcement. We may actually become agitated or even unpleasant in the process, as would a very hungry person who can see the food but not reach it.

Whereas depression means that when your account is not quite full, but not necessarily empty, every time you check your balance it tells you "zero".

Why am I talking about this? Because it is important to realise what part positive feedback plays in our lives, how we depend on it; also that we can deposit for others, the ultimate in "paying it forward". This might be take the shape of reaching out, to reassure and get reassured that even though our Affection Bank account might be close to empty, we're still loveable and loved.

Who will you make a deposit for today?
Or even better, for how many people can you make a deposit today?

Parenting - time to ditch the guilt

Today's post may be the most important one I'm writing for parents.

It is a reminder of what our children really need, because the message we hear from everywhere is that we cannot ever rest unless we are perfect parents; yet trying to do just that only sets us up to feel like we're always falling short, constantly failing.

The reality is that children need only 3 things:

• to be loved
• to be fed
• to have the opportunity to learn.

Full stop.

Oh, I can already hear the dissenting voices... what about music? what about sports? what about art?

Sure, if you have time and money to spare, and your kids are keen, there is nothing wrong with extra stuff. But please stop believing those are necessities - they are not. They are luxuries.

As for keeping them safe - which has also become an obsessional undertaking in our society - bear in mind that trial and error is a very important component of learning. Sure, it is a good idea to intervene when they start building home-made pipe rockets, or to keep an eye on them from afar at the playground, so they don't leave on their own. But getting hurt (not killed!) is not a bad thing - it's actually a most efficient learning tool.

Do I sound outrageous? I guess my work has given me a different perspective, hearing stories of unimaginable pain and abuse. When toilet training means chaining a toddler to a toilet for 36 hours. When a 5-year old has to forage in the streets for food. When an 11-year old is hooked on heroin.

So if you are a normal parent, one who loves and feeds your children, and keeps them safe and sends them to school, it's time to ditch the guilt: you are doing an excellent job.

Reaching out - a way to feel good inside again

Like everyone I go through ups and downs in my internal world (my life doesn't actually have that many ups and downs, yet you wouldn't know that looking at the emotional rollercoaster I'm sometimes on).

I have previously written on what it feels like to go through depression (I prefer to think of it as "going through" rather than "living with", as it has a less endless feel to it).

Today I would like to talk about what is helpful for me.
This is not a "pull yourself together and do all the right things" sort of post - this is a post on what does work, if you have the strength to implement it*.

Depression is a quintessentially lonely place. You feel small, vulnerable, sad, abandoned. So much so that it feels counterintuitive to reach out, as the little voice of depression whispers to you that you will be rejected, as you feel so unworthy of love and attention.

Yet, the only way to find out whether that voice is telling the truth, or showing you a mirage, is to reach out and find out for yourself. Screw the little voice. It serves itself only, its purpose is to keep you where it feels safe (and an awful place it is too).

What happens then? You pick up the phone, and talk to someone that in your previous state, the one where you functioned like everyone else, has been your friend. Someone close enough for you to be able to show your vulnerability, someone kind enough to tell the truth to: that you feel like you're dying inside.

The miracle is what happens next: you find out that you are loveable, that you are indeed loved. That you have been missed whilst you were away licking your wounds. That you are worthy of their time, their attention and their love.

You do this once, and you feel a little ray of hope. You do this twice, and you start realising that you have a network of friends, only waiting you offer you support, a helping hand, and most importantly, hope.

Hope that what you are going through does not have to be borne alone. That all this terrible angst, those horrible feelings are only that - feelings, not the reality of your life.

So reach out, if you can*, to those in your life who have been friends before the big fog descended on you. You will find out that even though you couldn't see them through the fog, they are still there, ready to show you the love that you have shown them.


* If you don't have the strength to reach out, you may find that anti-depressants can help you to get back to a place where you can function enough to do so.



To those of you who are lucky not to know what I am talking about, here is what you can do when a friend with depression reaches out to you: just be there for them, hold their hand, physically or metaphorically, because by that simple action you dispel the most awful lie that depression tells: the belief of the sufferer that he is all alone.