The Christmas Family
Christmas is a stressful time. Presents, food, social activities.
Most significantly, it is a time for family.
And that is not always easy.
This blog explores what can make Christmas a difficult time in family life.
The roles that we have in families become heightened at Christmas time and can cause tension.
The 2011 film Arthur Christmas is a good guide for seeing this tension in a very exaggerated context.
Love: The Struggle of Every Man
The drive for financial security is ingrained in the male personality. This drive is well-meaning. It is there biologically so that men will overcome pain to provide for those they love.
Unfortunately, the drive for financial security can overpower the motive of love and become self-serving.
The film The Family Man dramatises this struggle. A successful man on Wall Street sees the life he could have had with a loving family.
The film is appropriately set at Christmas time. A time when the stress between family and material wealth is at its peak.
Cancer: Five years on and counting
Five years on from my cancer treatment and my outpatient appointments are nearly coming to an end.
A time to reflect, remember, and be thankful.
Helping those bereaved by suicide
Helping others grieving a suicide is a demanding task as it affects you aswell. However by coming to terms with your own loss you can help thoes more directly affected. Familiarise yourself with the experiences of grief the bereaved is having. There are general and specific suggestions to folow.
Overall encourage hope that they can learn to live with a lessintense but still real grief.
My approach to coping skills for emotional pain
Working with thoughts, emotions, behaviours and sensations of the body, (TEBS), is the approach I use in therapy. The client is encouraged to identify how thoughts drive our emotions and physical sensations.
To reduce or learn to live with our emotional stress is done by practicing alternative positive thoughts. These thoughts have to be supported by associated behaviours.
Do we need another hero?
Heros; do they play a constructive role for us today or are they just wasteful distractions?
When you consider the prevalence of heroes through out time we have to acknowledge there seems to be an inherent need for them in our psyche.
Do they provide us with an inspiration to overcome our own obstacles? Are they a role model for us to achieve greatness in our own lives? Do they provide hope when all else seems lost?
Therapy Story Time
Identifying the negatives in your life story that have led to the problems you experience today is a key part of Narative Therapy. This model of therapy encourages clients to creativley set a new course for the direction of their life.
Gardening: It Grows You
Gardening, good for the body, the mood and soul, or so they say.
What is it that makes Gardening so attractive for people? What makes it good for us?
If it is so good for us what is it that holds us back from going out into the outback, our own wilderness?
How can we get over our barriers to creating our hideaway. our oasis of calm?
Ireland: Don’t you just love it?
A discussion on what it means to be Irish in modern Ireland. How sharing a common place and experince of living here along with our cultural heritage is what defines us.
It is good to like being Irish as we are Irish.
Counselling: How it Begins
A walk through how James starts and maintains a counselling relationship with a client.
The work of counselling from the first query to the final steps of finishing.