Most people agree on the healthy key values they want to live by and this is real grounds for hope
14th December 2014
"Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men." Confucius I've long been a fan of Professor Tim Kasser's work. He published his fine first book "The high price of materialism" back in 2002 - see this good 5 minute YouTube video to get a sense …
Recent research: articles from autumn journals
10th December 2014
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - Endnote - which currently contains over 21,400 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon …
Zinc and depression
9th December 2014
Last year I was intrigued by a paper - "Zinc in depression: A meta-analysis" - from Toronto University's "Neuropsychopharmacology Research Group" where the authors brought together 17 relevant studies and concluded "Depression is associated with a lower concentration of zinc in peripheral blood. The pathophysiological relationships between zinc status and …
Sessional client feedback: a launch pad for improving outcomes
1st November 2014
Counselling & psychotherapy are often helpful. In fact they are more effective than, for example, many interventions in cardiology or ... . Worryingly though ... despite a wealth of emerging research ... there has been little improvement in the outcomes we achieve. The same, of course, could be said about …
Maximizing exposure therapy
9th October 2014
Michelle Craske & colleagues from the Anxiety Disorders Research Center of UCLA have, for many years, been publishing careful, challenging research on underlying mechanisms & on ways of boosting the effectiveness of exposure therapies for different forms of anxiety. Craske's list of publications & research presentations runs to 31 pages …
Practising "doing": autonomy, values and "driving the bus"
27th September 2014
"When I get to heaven, they will not ask me 'Why were you not Moses?' Instead they will ask 'Why were you not Susya? Why did you not become what only you could become?'" Susya, a Hasidic rabbi. Earlier this week I wrote a blog post on "Practising 'being'" about …
Practising "being": remembering to wake up, appreciate & be open to surprise
24th September 2014
In her wonderful poem "The summer day", Mary Oliver wrote: Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean - the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my …
Peer residential group, final morning: review, group function & the benefit of working with difficulties (4th post)
9th September 2014
Yesterday we had the final morning of the 'long weekend' three day Scottish Mixed Group. I have already written posts about arriving, and the first and the second full days. This was the fourth year that we had met for these annual get-togethers that run from Friday evening to Monday …
Peer residential group, second full day: meditation, turbulence, sharing, conflict & singing (3rd post)
8th September 2014
I wrote yesterday about the first full day of this Scottish Peer Mixed Group, singing a celebration of what felt like one of the really special days of my life. And then yesterday the river of the group slipped into more shadow for me, the emotional/interpersonal weather changing. Squalls, rain, …
Peer residential group, first full day: pain, challenge, sunshine, love & dancing (2nd post)
7th September 2014
After a rather inauspicious start on Friday (see yesterday's post), the next day - Saturday, the first full day of the group - was, for me, deeply wonderful. One of the really special days of my life. An ocean of a day, so much happened. A bit like a lifetime …