We don’t intend to sabotage ourselves. But if we take the time to observe how we are living our life on a daily basis, we might catch glimpses of how we seem to thwart our own best interests by the habits we keep, the attitudes we hold or the behavior we extend towards others. Based on over twenty-five years of “professional” observation, I’ve noticed there are common themes in “self-sabotage”. We can easily sabotage our lives by not attending to…
Established in 1982
Category: Stress & Anxiety
Up in Flames
On February 16th 2015, at around 4:15pm, I received a call while at work from a friend who lives in my apartment building. She said “Chris, there’s a fire in our building and we’ve been evacuated. But don’t worry; the fire is on the opposite side of the building from where we both live.” At first I was somewhat relieved, then it hit me… we live on opposite sides of the building, so it’s impossible for the fire to be…
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Sam came in highly nervous to attend his first therapy session. He was distressed and stated his doctor wanted him to have Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for his depression, anger, and anxiety. Sam feverently added, “I don’t have a million dollars to spend on therapy and don’t want to be in here for the rest of my life.” Sam was informed that CBT is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking about how we feel and…
My Teen is Cutting: What can I do?
Liz and Dan recently received a call from the school counsellor informing them their 14 year old daughter, Becky, has been cutting herself. Liz and Dan were in disbelief and confusion. Becky has always been an outstanding child who is friendly, outgoing, does well in school, is in cheer competitively and helps out around the house. When meeting with Becky, the therapist discovers she has been feeling extremely overwhelmed by pressures to be perfect and successful. Becky started self-harming last…
Posted in Addictions, Depression, Family & Parenting, Stress & Anxiety, Therapy Tagged with: adolescence, daughter, self-harm, teens, youth
EMDR: A Client and Therapist Perspective
EMDR has been used and researched for 25 years, and is considered a highly effective therapy for resolving trauma. Nevertheless, it remains somewhat mysterious and misunderstood. Written explanations can become jargon filled very quickly. Visual demonstrations of the process can raise concerns as it looks strange. In an effort to shed some light on the EMDR process, we offer a personal account of EMDR therapy and a discussion of some common questions about EMDR. Mia: My husband and I suffered…
Posted in General, Grief, Stress & Anxiety, Therapy Tagged with: anxiety, Eye movement desensitization reprocessing, infant loss, trauma, worry
Male Midlife Crisis? Is It a Myth?
Do men go through a midlife crisis? Is there research to support such a concept or is this an “urban legend?” The books “Passages” and “Seasons of a Man’s Life” were published several years ago but were based on small samples of investigation. Yet, men in their early 50s or 60s arrive in my counselling office convinced that they are having a mid life crisis. Often they have been sent by their wives or families who are convinced that their…
Posted in Marriage & Relationships, Personal Growth, Stress & Anxiety, Therapy Tagged with: aging, husband, life changes, Male, marriage
Serenity
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.” (Reinhold Niebuhr) Many know that the Serenity Prayer is recited at the end of each meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Few realize that one need not be an alcoholic to gain much from applying this simple philosophy to our daily lives. We all experience unwanted events that we profoundly wish would never occur. Difficult parents or…
Face fears: Walk toward the lion’s roar!
Freud said anxiety is the most frequent psychological symptom, and it’s true: not only are there disorders where anxiety is the main symptom, but virtually all other mental health syndromes include anxiety somehow. Only psychopaths, we’re told, don’t experience normal fears. Cognitive therapy for depression, a widely used approach, is based on the notion that depressive symptoms—sadness, loss of enjoyment, fatigue—are actually products of fear. That is, the person has allowed anxieties and doubts to take over, and to become…
Therapeutic Writing
As the counselling session was winding up, Jack’s counsellor discussed recommendations for Jack to follow up with before their next scheduled session together. “Jack, please read this handout, it relates to a number of the points we talked about in our session.” “Also, I would like you to do some writing.” “Writing?” said Jack. “I want you to do something called ‘stream of consciousness journaling’” replied his counsellor. “It’s a form of writing we often use in therapy to give…
Posted in Personal Growth, Stress & Anxiety, Therapy Tagged with: journaling, stream of consciousness, writing
Health Anxiety
People with health anxiety focus on specific sensations such as feeling dizzy, fatigue, joint pain, digestive problems, a headache or a quick and sudden heartbeat. Such physiological symptoms are typically not harmful if they are short lived and do not re-occur on a repeated basis. The difficulty that people with health anxiety have is that they misattribute these symptoms as indicating there MUST be significant disease lurking. Like many people, they will make an appointment with their doctor to have these symptoms…
Posted in Depression, General, Personal Growth, Stress & Anxiety Tagged with: anxiety, CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, health, physical manifestations, worry
