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…
Last time I (hopefully) explained a couple of things. One: avoiding emotions is bad for us. Two: not avoiding them is tremendously difficult. This poses a wee problem. One thing which can help deal with this wee problem is the fact that emotions are social critters. Simply put, emotions happen (mostly) in relation to other…
In one of my dubious attempts to join the 21st century, I’ve been listening to a podcast. In it, psychiatrist Dr. Jeffery Smith makes a bold assertion: all problems which bring people into psychotherapy stem from affect avoidance. Loosely translated (very loosely, I’ll admit) this means emotions are our friends, and dodging them causes problems.…
Happy New Year! Time for me to kick-start my blog; which the frantic pace of the last few months sidelined. Gonna start with a series on emotion, because I realized after a year+ of blogging I haven’t talked about it! What kind of therapist am I? Let’s start with the question, “What exactly is emotion?”…
Since my last post I’ve felt a bit conflicted about posting advice. Conflicting with this conflict, on the other hand, have been numerous instances of people I work with asking me for advice. That’s not unusual, of course. It’s just that my reflections on advice giving really brought these requests to my attention. Perhaps it’s…