Our Lips Are Sealed: Why counsellors and psychotherapists maintain (or try to maintain) Confidentiality

by Stephen B.Chadwick, MA Counselling Psychology.
www.cowichancounselling.ca

Of course I would have to start off this post with the classic Gogo’s song and a video insert from the same. However, I think I will leave that towards the end of the post.  This is kind of, sort of, a heavy “intellectual” post so it might be nice to finish off with something light and silly or carefree.

Okay, the other day someone mentioned to me that they had read on another blog somewhere that counsellors and psychotherapists/psychiatrists/psychologists/psychoanalysts are generally considered to be (gasp!) a bit aloof and ridiculous. And mainly this is because they are perceived as being very secretive, in other words they don’t reveal (or shouldn’t) very much about themselves when clients come in for therapy sessions. As a result, there is a belief within the larger (non-mental health) world that counsellors are a bit buffoonish. So ultra-concerned about confidentiality. They have reason to be. And there is reason for it.

Just Get Over It! (Already)..... Not!

by Stephen B.Chadwick, MA Counselling Psychology.
www.cowichancounselling.ca

 

 The caption for this entry is “Just Get Over It!”and I think it needs to be spoken about because so many people use or have used this phrase that people assume, that there is something to it.

 

What I mean by this is, many people either consciously (like they state it aloud to others, almost in complaint) or think it about themselves when struggling to get over a loss. Like.... “I should be over this already it has been ..... (fill-in-the-blank)  days/weeks/months/years”.

So someone has suffered from a loss, of any description, and they think that they have a due-date on their grief... kind of a like a best-before date on a carton of milk or a due-date on a library book.  Like, it’s okay to be moaning and grieving but after a certain date, the milk in the carton goes sour or the library book starts incurring fees.  So after a while your friends to whom you may pour out your heart or your grief, think you have turned into sour milk or that you are like a book that should go back to the library. See my post on whining to friends!

They’re  right. But they are also very wrong.

Hunh? What are you saying? I hear you ask.

 Let me explain.

First of all, take a look at this clip. I am not keen on the film Moonstruck. I love the films of Norman Jewison, a Canadian director. But I am not keen on this film. Regardless, there is a classic scene with Cher and Nicholas Cage that helps to illustrate this post entry.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMtRKgzI27c

So Cher’s character acts pragmatically. She slaps Nicholas Cage and tells him to “snap outta it!” The problem with this is... when one experiences a loss, one can’t just “snap outta it!” So, as I mentioned above, when well-meaning friends say this or “get over it/suck it up” or says “She (or He) just needs to get over it” or something like that... they are seriously ignoring the lived experience of the person who is grieving and trying to wipe it away. Wrong.

 

With the character of Nicholas Cage, he is angry, very angry. He has lost his arm in some sort of accident and still clings desperately to the past, hence he can’t just “snap out of it”. Unfortunately with people who are still grieving it is important to acknowledge where they are in the process of accepting their situation as it is. It also has a lot to do with how they currently identify themselves. Remember, where I talked about identification in the posts: Can I have your identification, please? Well, this is where it comes in.

 

The character of Nicholas Cage still identifies with his past hurts and experiences, hence he cannot let go of his pain and anger and so when he finds love with the character of Cher he clings to her like a drowning victim.

 And speaking of drowning victims, this is a very good analogy. Again when someone casually tosses off a “Just let it go” comment, it’s usually a pretty good indication that the speaker is not understanding the person’s intense grief. Dollars to donuts.

 

So, when a person is drowning, they are obviously in a highly agitated state. Their very life is in danger. And what typically lifeguards tell rescuers when they venture out to rescue the person is to literally  push the person away from you, if they start to grab onto you. Makes sense. Otherwise both of you will go under and both of you will drown. However, you also need to consider what is going on for the person in distress (but not drowning). He or she had been clinging to their past experience of life and identification: mother, husband, career designation, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever and now all of a sudden they are out, abandoned, in the middle of the (emotional) ocean, without a life ring.  They are scared and they are terrified. (and maybe angry and confused) OF COURSE they are going to cling to whatever they had or had lost. And of course, they will be “clingy” to their friends or those who will listen. Or the first half-way good situation which comes along, which is also why people get into similar relationship patterns over and over and over.  This is perfectly normal.  Let me say this again. This is perfectly normal.

I remember very clearly, an experience of one individual I knew who had suffered a severe relationship loss. The individual had lost not one but two relationships of some significant time (3 or more years) over 10 years. The individual struggled to overcome his loss. And yet was told: “Just get over it!”, “Let it go!” , etc, etc. Wrong. The individual could no more let it go, than the poor person, who could not swim, abandoned out in the middle of the ocean with no dry land in sight and with only a life ring. The individual was absolutely clinging therefore to the last valid relationship in their life. This was normal as there was no other relationship on the horizon.

So.... If you are in a loss of some sort. Reject the comments that say: “Just get over it” , because it just makes you feel worse. Why? Because the implication is subtle that one just needs to do some simple step in order to overcome the loss. Nope.

There are other gurus out there who say that this is what you need to do, but I believe they are wrong. One cannot let go of your life-line, until one feels safe enough to know that there is something to replace it. Full stop.

 

Now, that having been said..... They are also right. ..... Hunh???

 

Yes, they are right. Quite apart from the fact that your well-meaning friend has somewhat callously or insensitively told you to “get past it”, he or she is kind of right. I won’t get into the fact that perhaps your well-meaning friend may also not have a whole lot of emotional space internally to show you empathy and that they may be a significant problem for they themselves. But they are indeed right. How, you may ask?

I’ll tell you.

When a person begins to identify so much so with their past and past experience, it begins to create a vicious circle. You identify as _________ (fill-in-the-blank) and so you continue to act like the person you have been and the experiences you have had.  You subtly recreate the same self-perpetuating experiences you have always had. With of course the same result.  And sometimes, by sheer will, by sheer necessity, as in the case of the character Cher plays in Moonstruck, one needs to ignore (or try to) what one is currently feeling in order to create a new identity. This is sometimes how people who have grown up in the most horrendous social upbringings are able to completely change their lives and throw off the past chains of their history.  

 So, you need to think of yourself differently. However the problem is, just like the person clinging to the life ring, UNTIL they start to let go of the ring and start actively paddling they will always be dependent (not co-dependent!) upon  having that life ring.  And unfortunately learning to let go and swim can only be accomplished when you feel relaxed enough that you aren’t afraid you are going to drown! It’s a paradox.

 

Put it this way, say you have lost a relationship, a job, a physical function for example. You will feel a tremendous amount of anxiety, you will grieve, be angry, will wish you could go back in time and change things back to the way they were. And your identity and emotional state will be locked into where you are and where you were, when things were “right”. And of course you will not be feeling relaxed and calm. Not at all.

But! If you can “get over it” or “let it go” --- which usually happens after all the acknowledgement of grief. THEN! You can feel confident enough to find a new relationship, a job or a way around your physical disability. And that involves being creative and open.

The ironic part is people can rarely find creative, fun, nifty solutions to their problem(s), when they are stuck and afraid and still identified in their loss.  Because, surprise! surprise! Anxiety/depression run absolutely counter to a creative mindset.

So acknowledge your loss. If you are down in the dumps. Don’t let anyone tell you: “ Just get over it!” You will get over it in direct proportion to the decrease of fear you feel when you look at what your loss means to you and to how you identify. Creation is a courageous act of sheer will. And the more courage you can muster and/or creatively you can think, the faster the change will come.

And think of this ABBA song. You’ll be dancing once again and the pain will end.

I welcome comments, questions for clarification and dialogue respectful to this post and any others.

If you are interested in this or other posts, why not click on the Google + button or submit your email, either way and follow?

 

Take care,

Steve.

P.S., here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqsrWXkLBoY

 

 

 

Can I have your Identification, please?

by Stephen B.Chadwick, MA Counselling Psychology.
www.cowichancounselling.ca

WARNING: LONG POST: WARNING: LONG POST

So I am starting this next post with a familiar quote that everyone hears when they get stopped by the cops and are speeding or run a red light or did some minor infraction. What, you may ask does this have at all to do with counselling and psychotherapy? Wait for it. We’ll get to it.

Okay, Identifications can have a couple of different meanings. Apart from your passport or your driver’s licence, How you identify... how you identify yourself... and what you identify with can have some pretty important meanings. All of us have multiple identifications in this life: father, son, daughter, mother, cousin, grandson, sibling, co-worker, employee, boss, lover, etc., etc. and that’s just for starters.

            Think about this:

When you go to a party or a social gathering, what is usually the first thing that most people ask, apart from your name? You introduce yourself and then your “interlocutor” (my fancy word for the day, meaning the person you are having a conversation with) ... Anyway your interlocutor, says:  “So... what do you do?”

And you immediately, say... “I’m a _________(fill in the blank)”, as if an individual can be reduced to a single word. You can’t. Both male and female, we fulfill multiple roles in our lives.  Shakespeare mentioned this in his monologue from As You Like It where the character of Jaques, in Act II, Scene VII who states that “All the World’s a stage and... one man in his time plays many parts”.

So, identification is important. Perhaps more so for men that for women, because, and here I overgeneralize, because for men, they identify (generally) with who they are and what they do, whereas (generally) women identify with their roles in relation to others. Hence when the average man loses his job, he becomes a blank, a nothing. Like the fill-in-the-blank above. Whereas most women, again, these are overgeneralizations, may not feel the loss nearly as keenly because their identity is not so wrapped up in their job or career. This of course is not true for all women or all men. And any job or career loss is devastating. But perhaps some women (and men) can weather it better when their identity is less dependent upon what they do but rather their relationship to whom they do it.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the loss of the relationship can’t also be devastating. Take for example, the play by Tennessee Williams, Suddenly, Last Summer. Granted, there is a song by the Motels from the 80’s about this film. The original had some heavyweights: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn. There is a line in the film where Katherine Hepburn turns to Clift and says: “After all, I’ve buried a husband and a son. I’m a widow and a... Funny there’s no word. Lose your parents and you’re an orphan. Lose your only son and you are... nothing”.

 

 

This was a very powerful play but it illustrates the power of identification with what you are and  to whom you relate.

 

Taken to the other extreme, when you don’t identify with anything you have very little reason for existing... which I will discuss in a moment. Take for example another film, however this is Sci-Fi – Logan’s Run from the seventies. In this futuristic world, everyone is identified as a number – sound eerie already – Logan 5, Jessica 6, etc., etc. simply because real identification, interaction and meaning with other people are simply no longer possible because the world population has exploded and everyone is obliged to give up their life for “renewal” at age 30. Everyone goes around identifying themselves with a super, glow-in-the-dark chip implanted, Jesus-like,stigmata-like, in the palm of their hand. 

 

So, identification, how and what you identify as in this world is important. Important, so that your life has proverbial meaning and you are not just a number, like in Logan’s Run. But it is also important just how your identification is derived. And as I hinted at earlier, this can be what you do, but also what role you play in relation to others.

 

Now, you are probably asking why is this identification jazz so important anyway? Well, I’ll tell you. Because often the most difficult conflicts/stressors can come about psychologically AS A RESULT of the discrepancy BETWEEN what you are externally and what you are internally. In other words, what other people say or think you are and what you yourself think you are. In other words how you yourself, define yourself.

 

Again, you may think to yourself.... “Oh, what is all this malarkey?” “Who cares already?”

So, I will give a real, hard, concrete example. Two, in fact. I will start out with the most obvious one on the individual level and then I will go to the more abstract one on a national level.

Bear with me.

In a film by Pedro Almodovar (1999), called All About My Mother, there is a character called Agrado. Now, bear with me as Almodovar’s characters tend to be a little unusual if not bizarre. In the film, there is a play which is cancelled in a theatre as the main actress is sick. So, Agrado, who happens to be transgendered, offers to entertain the audience who would have otherwise left the theatre, by telling the audience her life story. In it she relates how she had endless amounts of plastic surgery in order to look like how she does and how much money and time it cost. She states that it was all worth it because “now the outside matches the inside” or “you are more authentic, the more you resemble what you have dreamed of”.

The clip is below with subtitles in English

 

 

 

Now, the character is talking about the externalities of what you look like – as a man, as a woman, etc. So, in this case, who are we to judge people who get plastic surgery? Yes, of course it is not “authentic”, but then the internal reality then matches the external reality and then the external identity matches the individual’s internal identity.  Problem solved. No more conflict.

 

Now, most of the population of this world are not transsexual. But stop and think for a moment. For all the women and girls out there who are looking to resemble something in a magazine. Should we begrudge them? No. They are in fact IDENTIFYING with the models in the magazine. Of course the lack of acceptance of how they actually look as opposed to how they would like to look, is what causes the conflict. You can either help them to accept they way they are or help them to become what they would like to be.

This conflict is even more profound for those who are indeed transgendered and are women inside men’s bodies or vice-versa.

But then, again, in terms of identification, for every man and for every woman, they will become their more authentic self when they either can become what they envision themselves to be and/or accept their external situation in congruence with their internal situation.

So, if you have always wanted to be an astronaut – and IDENTIFIED as one or if you have always wanted to be a ballerina – and IDENTIFIED as one and yet have not achieved the external reality to match the internal reality, then it is possible, perhaps strongly possible, that there will be some conflict or distress or disappointment.

Would it be that you could accept and love yourself as you are, where you are, then things would be okay. However, most people are not in that headspace.

 

In the next installment, I will talk about how this IDENTITY conflict can have national
consequences.

I welcome comments, questions for clarification and dialogue respectful to this post and any others.
And if you are interested in this or other posts, why not click on the Google + button or submit your email, either way, and follow?

Take Care,
Steve.

 

Tips and Strategies for Dealing with Anxiety and Depression BEFORE you need to see a counsellor.

Now, don’t take these tips as a be-all and end-all. They are just meant to be strategies that can tide you over until you are able to get into see a counsellor.

That having been said, when you make a decision to see a therapist, you may not be able to see one right away. In some cases, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists and even mental health teams may have a waiting list. Sometimes these waiting lists can stretch for up to three months! By which time the client (you or someone else) may already have ridden out the crisis or the situation and may no longer think that you need to see a counsellor. Think that one over carefully. Indeed, the situation you may have experienced may have been temporary or “situational”, like losing a job or a girlfriend or boyfriend and you may have gotten over it within 3 months because – hey! Now you have a new job/boyfriend/girlfriend/ whatever (fill in the blank here).

However, in some situations where as I mentioned before in another post, you have been experiencing chronic, ongoing stressors, you may need to still see a therapist. So, for example, maybe you did lose your job/girlfriend/boyfriend/whatever (fill in the blank here) but perhaps you did so and had your “meltdown” due to something else. Maybe you lost your boyfriend because of some relationship difficulties that chronically spring up in your relationships whenever you get involved with a fellow. Or maybe you lost your girlfriend because you get into a pattern of behaviour that sabotages the relationship. The difficulties we find in our intimate, interpersonal relationships, like our love lives, can also be apparent in our interactions, but in a more muted way obviously. You are not going to have an intimate relationship with your boss. Or maybe you try to and maybe that is why you lost your job. Who knows?

However, as I said our patterns of behaviour in our intimate relationships often show up in our ordinary, day-to-day relationships with neighbours, co-workers and bosses. You should also know that some of these patterns also come from our relationships with our first “intimates” namely our parents, our siblings and childhood friends.  But I am digressing.

In any event, you have a problem: anxiety or depression and you need to get in to see someone but the waiting list is miles long and you are in the lineup but it stretches down the corridor, around the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door and into the parking lot ......  across the street! What do you do in order to keep yourself together until you can get into see someone?

Here are some tips. These are tips, mind you, NOT a substitute for therapy. Think of these as an analogy with a snack or a meal. One wards off your hunger, the other will satisfy you longterm.

For Anxiety:

Anxiety can often be “misplaced intellectual or psychic energy” and no, I am not talking about the person you phone up on a 1-800 number to get the winning lottery ticket numbers. I am talking about the endless energy of thoughts running through your head: “What should I do about this?”, “What should I do about that?” “Did I do the right thing here?”, “Did I say the right thing there?” This is psychic energy.

1. Calm yourself down with a grounding exercise. For five minutes, do the following: Sit comfortably. Tell yourself aloud (or if you are in public, silently) 5 things you: see; 5 things you hear; 5 things you feel and can touch. Then get yourself to find 4 more things you can see, 4 things you can hear; 4 things you can feel or touch. And so on. Do this until you are down to the number one. By the end of the exercise you should be more in touch with what is currently going on around you in the moment rather than what is running around inside your head.
2. A second exercise: close your eyes or, if you are in public stare at a single spot. Slow your thoughts, if you can and if you can’t simply listen and concentrate on your breathing. Often when you have anxiety or an anxious moment, your breathing will become shallow and fast. Forcibly concentrate on trying to extend your breathing time – both in and out. Count the seconds in – make it as long as you can – and then count the seconds out – again as long as you can. And finally, if you can close your eyes, listen to your breathing. Listen to the quality of the breathing.  Listen to it going in and out of your lungs. Feel the rhythm of your breathing and your ribcage expanding and contracting and your shoulders relaxing. Get “in touch” with your body and your bodily sensations while you do this exercise.
3. Finally, the third exercise is not really an exercise, but a good suggestion. This suggestion is also useful for depression. You see, depression and anxiety can often be two sides of the same coin. It’s too long to talk about here, but people can flip from having no or low energy – depression, depressed mood to hyper-anxious and endless running thoughts. In this instance the best suggestion is: Get Out of The House! EVERYDAY!   Often, a simple change of scenery can change your thought patterns if you’re into a groove – be it anxiety or depression. For anxious people, getting outside of their heads (and into their surrounding environment, observing the trees, the flowers, hearing the birds, etc.) can be useful to take their minds off of their problems. For depressed persons also, getting out and about is useful, because depressed people will often isolate themselves. One good way to alleviate depressive symptoms is to get out (and ideally socialize). Again being able to interact with the world, even in just a small way, will often help lift a person’s mood.

For Depression:

Depression can run the gamut from just low mood or the blues to full-scale depression, where you isolate yourself, can see no other option or solution to your current problem and see no end in sight. Your energy is at an all time low and you have little hope and don’t feel like anything you do will be of any use. You may feel “beaten up” or “beaten down” and feel despondent, guilty, despairing and like there is no way out of your situation. It is most hard for people who are depressed to feel “revved up” or hopeful. Hope, you see, generates positive thinking and positive thinking generates energy and initiative to do things.

 

1. Again, just like anxious people: Get Out of The House! EVERYDAY! Just the mere physical act of getting out of your (literal) current environment can help to change your mind and brain. External stimuli – birds, flowers, sights, sounds, saying hi to the neighbour or going to the store or downtown to go shopping, helps to lift your mood.
2. Physical activity --  of any sort, helps to get things going. Natural endorphins are released into the body. Especially if this is hard, physical activity. Your heart is pumping; your blood is flowing. You are literally “on the move”.
3. Set a task and accomplish it that day. Do not make the task too big or you will defeat the point of this exercise. You see, with depressed persons, often they have a lot of inertia – inability to get up and get on with things, simply because they are, well, depressed! So as a result of feeling inertia and an inability to hope they tend to isolate, become bogged down in their depression, hopelessness and inertia and tend to vegetate or do nothing. This is precisely why you should get out of doors every day. Just to do something physical and active. However, if you also combine it with a moderate, ACCOMPLISHABLE (is accomplishable a real word?) task or goal you also increase your sense of well-being and hope and thus lift your mood.
4. Finally, a last exercise or suggestion for warding off the effects of depression.... until you can see a counsellor or therapist, is to do something for someone else or volunteer. This tackles a number of the above exercises. It gets you out of the house (changes your mind/brain chemistry and your environment). By the way, anybody remember the video by Sheryl Crow from a few years ago entitled: A Change (would do you good). The link is here: Check it out. It’s all about the craziness of people’s lives and how – taken from a broader perspective – like an angel or a benevolent witch up on a cloud somewhere – it would make you laugh, seeing the ridiculousness of it all. This helps a lot with depression.

 

 

1. And if you want a really good laugh, and want to see this illustrated on a bigger broader perspective, check out Pedro Almodovar’s film from the 80’s, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Same principle as the Sheryl Crow idea, but just reframing the idea of chronic frustration.

  Moreover, volunteering or doing something for someone else helps you to get a task accomplished (see exercise 3). And volunteering, or doing community work, like, ahem, the kind that Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton has had to do in the past (‘cause we all know orange IS the new black), helps you to gain a sense of usefulness to the world, a sense of purpose, which depressed people often lack but also helps to increase your sense of gratitude. Despite your personal situation, there will ALWAYS be people who will be worse off than you. Guaranteed. And this does not mean to say that you need to suffer your situation, regardless of what it is, but rather that there will always be people whose personal situation is far worse than your own.

So that is it in a very brief nutshell.  But bear in mind that these are exercises and suggestions for keeping yourself together UNTIL you can see a therapist and if you’re in an emergency, reach out for immediate help by dialing 9-1-1. They are not meant to be permanent solutions. They are like putting a temporary patch in a roof while it is leaking, until you can afford to, or until the weather dries up to put a new roof on your house.

 So until then, keep your house and your soul together,

Take Care,

I welcome comments, questions for clarification and dialogue respectful to this post and any others.
And if you are interested in this or other posts, why not click on the Google + button or submit your email, either way, and follow?

Steve.

 

 

When Talking to friends isn’t enough: When to seek professional help in counselling.

 

As my second entry in this blog, I would like to start to talk about psychotherapy, counselling  and what is the difference between: counselling, psychotherapy, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and generally just to help dispel some of the myths and misconceptions out there.

 

First of all, what is counselling or psychotherapy? And how do I know what it is and when I need it? Well, psychotherapy or counselling is really no different from talking to a good friend or buddy about problems and issues you might be struggling with. The only major difference is really is that the psychotherapist or counsellor has more skills at listening and reflecting back to you what your story is and what you are suffering with. This assumes of course that your friends have enough time and patience to put aside their own needs and agendas when talking with you to be able to do this. Not all friends can.

 

Moreover, because they are friends or buddies, they sometimes have an interest in maintaining your current situation, aka the status quo. Perhaps for example you have a drinking buddy and you want to quit drinking. In this case, although your buddy may hear your concern about drinking, chances are, he (or she) won't exactly support your efforts to quit. And so, counselling is like just speaking to a friend or buddy, but friends or buddies may also have an agenda. A lot of simple emotional difficulties can indeed be solved just by talking it over with a friend, but some cannot.

 

So, say the problem is complicated, and maybe talking to a friend is not so useful, because your friend just “doesn’t get” your problem or like talking about the example above, the friend has a vested interest in you staying the way you are! What to do then? Then you should probably speak to someone else or speak to a counsellor.

 

But what if you are having a problem, you friend DOES listen and knows how to listen and she or he does not have an interest in swaying you in one direction or another.  How do you know when you need to seek professional help and your friend can no longer help you?

So, you need to look for clues in your friend’s behaviour.

 

First off, do they say up front: “You need professional help!” , or something like that – That’s a huge, big red flag clue. You need go no further. Do not pass GO, do NOT collect 200 Dollars. Put down the Monopoly Game. Look for a counsellor or psychotherapist.

 

Secondly, how does your friend react when you want to talk about your problem? Do they sigh? When you ask if you can speak to them, do they put you off or try to brush you off or try to avoid you or the meeting or try to “reschedule” your talk together? This is possibly an non-verbal, unspoken clue that they either are emotionally exhausted trying to help you grapple with your problem and/or they themselves feel helpless to assist you and don’t know how to help you.  They may be trying to be a good friend: helpful, supportive, but the problem you present them with may be so complicated or overwhelming they may not know what the right thing to do is.

Big clue:  if you ask them point blank: “What should I do?” and they answer: “I am not sure. I really don’t know”. 

Look at it this way, if you feel that you are at a standstill in resolving the problem just by talking to your friend, then you probably are. Next step: go find a counsellor!

So if you are talking to your friend about something as complicated and powerful as feelings of suicide, depression or trauma. Almost for sure, your friend will not know what to do. Seek a counsellor.

 

And finally, in what typical situations should you seek out a counsellor right away, if you were thinking of just talking to a friend in order to “get over it”.

Here is a short, helpful list of emotional situations where a person would benefit from seeing a counsellor or seeking professional help:

 

1.      Long term blues (or depression): crying, sleeplessness, worry, anxiety – that has lasted more than a month or two. Feelings or thoughts that you are better off dead or wanting to kill yourself.

2.      Intense feelings of anger or hatred towards someone else that have lasted more than a month or two.

3.      Recurring nightmares, sleeplessness, “flashbacks” or seeing stuff that you witnessed before. These are trauma-like reactions.

4.      Any major (negative) change in your behaviour. This is usually another clue that something is not right. So,... major loss of weight. Major gain in weight. Major change in sleep patterns – sleeping too much, not sleeping enough, having broken sleep. Major increase in substance use. For simplicity, just think: Major Change, or simply Major.... majorly!

Seriously though, if you or your friend(s) recognize a significant (negative) shift in your behaviour, then it’s likely something’s going on and you should speak to a therapist. And hey, if nothing is going on it won’t hurt. It’s like going to the doctor for a pain in your side. It might be nothing at all just a muscle twinge. But then again it might be something more serious.

 
I welcome comments, questions for clarification and dialogue respectful to this post and any others.
And if you are interested in this or other posts, why not click on the Google + button or submit your email, either way, and follow? 

Take care.

Steve.

 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. My name is Steve and I'm a counsellor in private practice in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

My primary interest is people - what motivates them and the often ingenious and sometimes heroic way that so many people manage to survive and thrive. It's only natural then, that I decided to make a career based on just that.

In my practice I focus on that part of the population sometimes known as the "worried well", the "walking wounded" or even the "working wounded"; people who, like anyone else, have their share of baggage, stressors, and challenges, but manage to carry on as best they can.

Anyone, however, can reach a point of being overwhelmed. Sometimes it's when too many ordinary stressors occur at once, or perhaps a loved one is in crisis, times of loss and grieving or transition through life's stages, or struggling to cope with a low mood. It's often at these times that relationships can fray, and daily routines seem like too much.

I'm going to address these issues in my bog, as well as provide information about the nature of counselling and talk therapy - what it is and isn't, what a person can expect, and perhaps clear up some commonly held misconceptions. I'll also touch on what people can do to help themselves not just survive, but thrive.