There exist two diametrically opposed (and therefore incompatible) views with regard to what mental health is or is not and which view we hold depends upon whether we are in Being Mode or Doing Mode. Doing Mode – When we are in this modality our…
The positive approach works for many things but not for all things. It works very well for making a cup of tea, for example. The formula is simple: firstly, we boil some water (in a kettle or whatever), secondly, we throw the water in a…
Thoughts are hypnotic, ideas are hypnotic, words are hypnotic – as soon as we think a thought or speak a word it becomes meaningful to us! It didn’t have to be meaningful, however; it’s not ‘stand-alone meaningful’, it’s not ‘meaningful all by itself’… The point…
We talk about ‘tolerating discomfort or ‘coping with stress’ or ‘managing emotions’ very easily indeed in the field of mental health – terms like this roll off our tongues with the very greatest of ease. We’re positively in our element when talking about stuff like…
It isn’t just that who we are (or the way that we are) is in itself ‘good enough’, and so on this account we don’t need to be constantly striving to ‘better ourselves’ or ‘improve ourselves’ (and be constantly recriminating against ourselves if we can’t…
The only type of ‘therapy’ that is worthy of the name is therapy that has no agenda, therapy that does not involve expectations or goals. The only type of therapy that is worthy of the name is therapy that is completely ‘non-coercive’, in other words….
Anything that comes out of the rational mind is ‘non-therapeutic’! There simply isn’t any possibility of the thinking mind coming out with anything therapeutic even if we waited around for a million years. That’s not its job – its job is to fix specific abstract…
When we’re psychologically unconscious then the only kind of interaction we’re capable of is the coercive kind. We can’t in other words help ourselves from automatically trying to get other people to see the world in the same way that we do. This is both…
The most counterproductive thing we can do with regard to our own emotional pain and mental suffering is to get ‘clever’ about it – which is to say, the most counterproductive thing we can do is to think about it! When we hear about ‘not…
Pressure, in therapy, is always counterproductive. There’s no such thing as ‘helpful pressure’, no matter how much common sense may seem to indicate the contrary. We may define ‘pressure’ by saying that is when some force outside ourselves is making us do something. It is…