Well into my career, a stupendous idea crashed into my life as a therapist, with refreshing results. This serendipitous idea was and is: we all have different parts. I refer not to physical parts like hands, bellybuttons or spleens; but psychological parts. This is not a new idea. As this article explains, William…
At 12:50pm, you walk out of the counselling office, feeling great. Back at work, an urgent message from the boss lies in wait to remind you about that 4:30pm project deadline. A small tendril of unease begins to worm its way through your gut, nibbling away at the post-therapy state of calm and confidence. …
I’m increasing security at Chris Lindsay Counselling; not in a psychological way, but rather technological. As part of this, you will find a new email address on my contact page. People in my field get very concerned about confidentiality and privacy of information. The sheer volume of hours my poor bottom end has spent sitting…
How To Do Progressive Muscle Relaxation… I Lost My Textbook I lost my textbook. The one from which I learned how to do progressive muscle relaxation back in grad school. I went to grab it in preparation for this blog post, and nada. Tsk. Ah well. I mean, after teaching PMR approximately 56 kajillion times…
I promised in my last post to talk about the idea of “resistance” in more detail. We therapists often feel things like frustration, confusion and even helplessness when we run into it. We have been known to label resistance as bad. Worse, we have at times turned to criticizing and blaming “resistant” people. Not only…
Time to finally pick up on the cryptic statement I dropped at the end of my last post. As it’s been awhile, let me re-cap: most of the problems which bring people to psychotherapy are not all negative. Oh sure, they are unpleasant or nobody would come for therapy. But they also have real benefits. …
As described in a previous blog skiing was an ultimately disappointing experiment for me. I taught myself and didn’t do a particularly good job, learning some bad habits which limited my ability to ski well. Over several winters, these became entrenched in muscle memory and difficult to un-learn. Practice does not make perfect after all.…
As discussed last time, I provide Chris Therapy. Chris Therapy is unique, but it does involve the use of various well known models of therapy. Some therapists announce: “I’m a CBT therapist!” or “I’m a Trauma-Informed therapist!” I downplay the types of therapy I use, because while models are important, they’re not that important. Image…
Psychotherapy has an obsession with models. Not the catwalk kind. CBT, DBT, EFT, EMDR, ACT (clearly we also love acronyms); there are hundreds. I’m not exaggerating… this list of almost 150 covers just the most common. One you won’t find on this list is my own. I provide Chris Therapy. “Chris Therapy” first occurred to…
It has been a long and exceptionally busy winter and spring. I’ve been pleased to play my part as the pandemic has messed with people’s mental health. Unfortunately, my poor blog has languished in a sorry state of neglect. With the return of the sun, and the incremental reduction of lockdown orders, the frantic pace…