Psychotherapy and Counselling
Viktor Frankl, a psychotherapist and contemporary of Sigmund Freud, developed his therapeutic skills in an impossible setting. He was among those sent to the concentration camps by the Nazis, and he used his skills to inspire prisoners to fight for their survival by finding meaning in their suffering.
The experience of moving from one country to another tends to increase the likelihood of the use of primitive defence mechanisms as a protection against the difficulties of everyday life and in relationships in the new country. The danger of this social development is an increase in the use of splitting and in the use of ‘psychic retreats’ in an attempt to uphold an idealised inner and outer world without pain or conflict.
Jeanette Winterson, The World and Other Places: Life transitions are challenging because they force us to let go of the familiar and face the future with a feeling of vulnerability. Whether positive or negative, a transitional space can force us to adjust to new ways of living, being and working. How we deal with these […]
My white therapist calls it my edge, I hear
Angry Black Women. She says, Strength
of Wilful Negative Focus. She says, Acerbic
Intellectual Temperament.
All morning I did
the work I love.
A noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
When it comes to alcohol, women lose the battle of the sexes on almost every front. More and more women are struggling with heavy drinking and alcoholism, a disorder that was once believed to be primarily a man’s issue. The disease is in many ways more physically detrimental to women, who, for example get cirrhosis of the liver at twice the rate of men. Even so, they seek treatment less often. The female addict sits in a tremendous amount of guilt and shame, and is afraid to tell even those closest to her the truth about herself. She views herself as a “bad” person needing to become “good,” not as a sick person needing to become well. Many others will view her this way too and it will keep her from seeking treatment.
The link between diet and our emotional health.
Nike announced on Monday that the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign would star Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who famously began kneeling during the national anthem in order to protest police brutality, igniting a national conversation about race, sports, and the meaning of patriotism. Since his silent protest Kaepernick has yet […]
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“Ahimsa,” the Sanskrit word for non-violence asks us to be kind to others and the Earth, but most especially to ourselves. For how we treat ourselves reflects how we treat others.
This short film from the Institute of Psychoanalysis depicts a mans journey to seek help from a therapist and how at times we all can suffer from feeling weighed down by life.