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Diagnosing Trump
Inauguration Day USA.
The time has come for the 45th president, Donald Trump, to take the oath of office. The property developer and reality TV host is one of the richest people in the world and, at 70, the oldest president to be elected.
But what do we really know about the man beyond the biographical facts and his rather cartoonish public image?
Underneath all the bluster, self-promotion and insatiable hunger for power, wealth and women, is there a sensitive, damaged soul? A conscience? An inner life? Or just the sound of a chill wind whistling through empty, dark chambers of the Trump machine, bereft of emotion, spirit, light or love?
Who is Donald Trump?
What is his psychology?
Read more

The psychology of Brexit

The 5 stages of Brexit
​
No. 1: ALIENATION 

No. 3: MISINFORMATION

No. 4: POLARISATION

No. 2: DISCRIMINATION

The Brexit referendum, ostensibly about the UK’s relationship with the European Union, about sovereignty, democracy, the economy, also unleashed a fierce national debate about something else: the hot button-issue of immigration. Most people who voted Leave did not do so out of racism. But no opinion poll is needed to hazard a guess at the voting preference of those who are unabashed racists. Regardless, the Leave vote sparked a resurgence of racism across the land.
Racism is a dangerous river of fear and loathing. It courses, often silently and unseen, beneath the corridors of power and politics, snaking through workplaces, pubs and backwater suburbs across Britain. It's an ancient river that runs deep. Sometimes it can burst its banks. Read more

The good in goodbyes
19/6/16
​How are you with farewells? Do you avoid them? Leave the door ajar? Just walk away without explanation because if you actually said goodbye, the loss would be too real, and it might just hurt too much? 

Or the opposite: you actually care so little about the other person that you are quite happy just to flick the switch to “off”?
Saying goodbye to someone that matters to you is saying goodbye to the person you were when you were with them—to all the fun, shared plans and dreams you had dared to believe in. It’s all gone now, and forever, and it is unutterably sad.
Yet sometimes, saying bye can be a transformative experience. You say goodbye not just to a friend or partner, but to a worn-out version of you. Your familiar, comfortable cocoon falls away and you emerge, reborn as some kind of a butterfly. Read more ​
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Happiest days of your life?
8/4/16
There was a time when young children were allowed to be children.
Primary school was about learning how to play, have fun and make friends. Happy children are more likely to learn and make the world a better place than unhappy ones.
Childhood hasn’t been cancelled exactly, but it is under extreme attack. 
This week saw the launch of a campaign for universal access to school-based counselling services. Today's subjects: stress, self-harm, suicide.
Read more
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The state of the union:
Stay or Go?
10/3/16
On June 23, citizens of the United Kingdom are being asked to vote whether or not we should remain faithful to the European Union. Should we try to patch things up and make it work? Or, perhaps citing “irreconcilable differences,” opt for a separation and divorce? Stay or go? Such a stark, black-and-white choice in a scenario characterised by multiple shades of grey. Does it feel too good to leave—but also too bad to stay? The EU referendum is powerful metaphor for your more personal, intimate relationships, partnerships, marriages. Are you unhappy? Should you stay or should you go? Read more
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Perfect love
14/2/16
It's Valentine's Day, in case you hadn't noticed. What kinds of love are in your life? Are you satisfied? Many clients come for counselling with one complaint or another about love. Last year I worked with a client called Jim (not his real name). Jim worried that he was incapable of lasting love. “I just can’t trust it or commit to one person,” he said. “I am a commitment-phobe.” A few months earlier he had ended a four-year relationship. It was fine, he said, but he knew in his heart she was not “the one.” Instead of feeling free, however, he was miserable. “It’s as if I fired the gun,” he said, “but it backfired and blew up in my face.” Read more
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Weather report:
notes on happiness
8/2/16
The Office of National Statistics recently released its statistics on the state of the nation’s emotional weather: happiness, anxiety, life satisfaction and how worthwhile life seems. Forecast: Unexpected outbreaks of sunny spells in remote Scottish islands. Fair becoming good in Cornwall. Unending downpours in Liverpool and London. If you’re an older married Hindu woman with a job, living in the Outer Hebrides, you are probably very happy. If you’re a divorced unemployed middle-aged atheist man living in Liverpool, you’re probably not. Is all this meaningless—just an example of “lies, damn lies, statistics”—and, worse still, happiness statistics? Or is this an opportunity to take stock and maybe make some changes? How happy are you—how “worthwhile” is your life? If your new year’s resolutions didn’t work out, should you come up with new ones today, the first day of the Chinese New Year? Read more
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Give thanks—or else
26/11/15
​So it’s Thanksgiving Day in America, an annual tradition that dates back to 1621, a day for family, gratitude and generosity. For for Native Americans, a day of mourning. For most other Americans, day of eating a big turkey roast (all that tryptophan will make you sleepy—a nation sedated). A day of watching the big NFL games on TV (team sports are a safe proxy for aggression and violence—a nation pacified). And above all a day to give thanks (a nation made grateful). There is an idea from the positive-thinking end of psychology that regularly expressing gratitude makes you happy. Some people make every day a day of thanksgiving. There’s a lot to be said for that. So if you want to feel grateful today, good for you. If you want to feel other things as well, or instead, that’s OK, too. It’s one thing for you to choose your attitude—to accentuate the positive in your life, for example, or to give thanks. But it’s quite another for someone else to demand it. Not even your psychotherapist, or Bing Crosby, and certainly not your government, have the right to that. Read more
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Loneliness among young women
6/11/15
​I've written about loneliness before. Britain is the loneliness capital of Europe. Five million Brits have no friends. Nearly 30 percent of households in the U.K. now consist of one person. This has been called the “Age of Loneliness.” We’ve become an alien-nation, isolated from each other—and our own selves. The cup of human kindness is empty. The December issue of Marie Claire has an article about loneliness—including some quotes and thoughts from me—in which writer Anna Moore makes the case that it is young women who are feeling the awful ache of isolation the most. Read more
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In praise of uncertainty
19/9/15
In 1817, the poet John Keats wrote about how people of achievement had a quality he called “negative capability”: They’re capable “of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Negative capability is an acknowledgement of complexity, a mature respect of life’s shades of grey, an understanding that despite what the strident headline, indignant tweet or demanding placard says, the situation is probably not quite so simple. It is the opposite of fanatacism, prejudice, dogma, “isms” and “ologies.” The western world, however, is extremely doubtful about the merits of doubt. We like to think in black and white, left and right, good guys and bad guys, mars and venus, heaven and hell. We demand yes or no in a world of maybe. And in the process, we become blind to possibility. We’re so fixated on some notion of how things are “supposed” to be that we totally miss the beautiful gifts, opportunities and invitations of how things are. Read more
​​Most popular
1. Diagnosing Trump
2. The 5 stages of Brexit
3. What can we learn from Donald Trump?
4. What is a psychopath?
5. Top-10 self-help books
6. The worst self-help book ever
7. The 6 relationship types: What colour is yours?
8. In praise of uncertainty
9. On loneliness
10. Perfect love
11. On sex and sexuality
12. The great CBT debate
13. Does your government make you happy?
14. Multiple personalities revisited
15. Psychedelics revisited

Topics
All 
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Author
John Barton is a counsellor, psychotherapist, blogger and writer with a private practice in Marylebone, Central London. To contact, click here.
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Weekly news round-up #37
31/7/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: BIPOLAR TIMES: A triumph of marketing • U.K. NEWS: Cuts to UK mental health services are destroying lives • Independent report calls for more 'balanced' and 'truthful' reporting • U.S.A. NEWS: Juvenile detention centers “actually suck” for kids with mental health issues • US schools introduce mental health programs to address teen cutting • WORLD NEWS: Preventing long-term mental health issues in Nepal • Qatar: counselling centres urged for expats • New Zealand: Kiwis crave advice to support young people • VIEWPOINTS: Should I stay or should I go? • 7 signs your therapist is good at their job (because some of us are weirdos). Read more
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Weekly news round-up #35
17/7/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: TRUE NATURE: The oxygen of a healthy environment • U.K. NEWS: • Large UK trial to ask if mindfulness boosts teenage mental health • U.S.A. NEWS: • Even mild mental health problems in children can cause trouble later • Judge orders counseling for Obama critic Dinesh D'Souza • WORLD NEWS: • Global health workforce, finances remain low for mental health • Professionals demand cancelation of Israel conference • Iran changes law to make divorce harder • Time to tackle Australia's mental health crisis • VIEWPOINTS: • I came out of a teenage mental health unit worse than when I went in • Psychiatry's identity crisis • Timing is everything when it comes to marriage counseling. Read more
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Weekly news round-up #32
26/6/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: “A victory for love” • U.K. NEWS: Black and minority ethnic people shortchanged • Male matters: 'Psychologists should lead the way on male mental health issues' • Problems rise among teenagers • U.S.A. NEWS: Could brain scans help guide treatment for OCD? • Schwarzenegger: marriage counselling the ‘biggest mistake I’ve ever made’ • Horses that heal: how equine therapy is helping people find peace of mind • WORLD NEWS: South Africa: Counselling on wheels in Khayelitsha • Yoga can cure India's rising mental health issues • VIEWPOINT: Do I need therapy? How do I find a good therapist? Read more
Weekly news round-up #31
19/6/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: CHARLESTON KILLINGS: O say, can’t you see? • It's not about mental illness: The big lie • U.K. NEWS: Mental health patients forced to go to A&E • Mental health nurses to join beat bobbies • Two in five new dads concerned about mental health • Revolution growing in Birmingham • Project shines a light on darkness • U.S.A. NEWS: Huge racial divide in depression, anxiety • Suffering in silence: The battle of pregnant women • WORLD NEWS: India: Devotees of all faiths go for counselling at Mumbai church • Nepal: post-earthquake counselling • VIEWPOINTS: 10 tips to make therapy work for you • Working in mental health is not like fixing broken legs • A proactive approach to wellness. Read more
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Weekly news round-up #29 
5/6/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: CAITLYN JENNER: Kim Kardashian may have broken the internet, but Caitlyn Jenner united it • PICKS OF THE WEEK: What is Impostor Syndrome? • How does psychotherapy really work? • U.K. NEWS: Government’s mental health funding pledge • Frequently bullied kids 'twice as likely' to be depressed at 18 • Glan Clwyd Hospital: Mental health care ‘horrific’ • Big White Wall: support goes digital • U.S.A. NEWS: Hillary Clinton's campaign and mental health • Group sues to close Jewish gay counselling service • Former NY Giant Kareem McKenzie to be a counsellor • WORLD NEWS: Canada: How to fix the mental health system. Read more
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Psychedelics revisited
4/6/15
After decades of just-say-no prohibition, psychedelic drugs suddenly seem to be making something of a comeback: An increasing chorus of experts claims that magic mushrooms, LSD and Ecstasy aren’t particularly dangerous and could play an important role in treating mental health problems. We have explored, mapped and catalogued every inch of our planet. We have walked on the moon, sent spaceships to far-away stars and studied ever-distant galaxies. Perhaps, however, the final frontiers are within—what Aldous Huxley calls the “antipodes of the mind.” With exploration—whether through self-reflection, therapy, meditation, religious practice or hallucinogenic drugs—it’s possible that we can discover new realms, expand our consciousness and become ever-richer, fuller, truer versions of ourselves. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
29/5/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: BATTLE OF THE SEXES: Are women really more likely to have “serious mental health problems” than men? • U.K. NEWS: Mental health services in Scotland get £85m funding boost • Heart failure patients with depression are five times more likely to die • U.S.A. NEWS: Anxiety more prevalent than all forms of cancer combined • Serious mental health problems declining among America's youth • Demi Lovato is the face of mental health in new campaign • WORLD NEWS: Saudi Arabia: helping drug addicts through the phone • Australia: Online chat rooms could be the future of rural mental health. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
15/5/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: Med alert: Anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs do more harm than good, says expert • Time to wean ourselves off the drugs • Mindfulness: an effective mental health treatment • U.K. news: Surge in young people seeking help for exam stress • Cuts are 'driving people to the edge' • Mental health awareness week 2015 • “I work in mental health but colleagues don't understand my depression” • Call for international LGBT psychology and counselling standards • Mental health mission for Leicestershire officer • U.S.A. news: Man who shot Ronald Reagan seeks release • A prescription for mental health in America • New York’s first lady ties mental health to income inequality • World news: Canada: ‘Sad but rad' fashion brand • Australia: $200 voucher for troubled couples to use for relationship counselling dumped. Read more
B.B. King 1925-2015
15/5/15
There Must Be A Better World Somewhere
Sometimes I wonder
Just what am I fighting for?
I win some battles
But I always lose the war
I keep right on stumblin'
In this no-man's land out here
But I know
Mmmmm yes, I know
There must be a better world somewhere
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Weekly news round-up
8/5/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: General Election blues: A psychotherapist's recovery guide • Cameron: ensure our NHS is safe • Only less austerity will improve our mental health • Post-election playlists to suit every mood • Elections are bad for your health • U.K. news: The crisis in children's mental health: an NHS insider speaks • Pressure on A&E • U.S.A. news: May Is Mental Health Month • Millenials tearing down the stigma • The troubling link between the economy and mental health • Reviews: 'Welcome To Me' shows humor, heartbreak • 'Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy' by Irvin D. Yalom • World news: Earthquake-devastated Nepal struggles to heal its emotional scars • Nigeria: Hundreds freed from Boko Haram require counselling • Turkey: Obligatory counseling for domestic violence perpetrators • Saudi Arabia: Using art therapy to open the minds of jihadists. Read more
Weekly news round-up
1/5/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: General Election: Where parties stand on issues relating to counselling and psychotherapy • U.K. news: Mental health charities can help people where the NHS cannot • U.S.A. news: Crunch on campus • Majority of Texans affected by mental health issues • Effects of bullying even worse than effects of abuse by adults • A stroll in Ikea: The ultimate test of a relationship • World news: United Arab Emirates: Employees fear disclosing mental health issues to bosses • India: Early counselling key in helping youth combat stress: Read more
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Weekly news round-up
10/4/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: Kurt Cobain remembered • U.K. news: Myths and realities of mental health • Jump in counselling for UK transgender children • Protecting mental health must begin in Britain's schools • Education doesn't guarantee happiness • U.S.A. news: Will the Germanwings crash affect how employers approach mental health? • 9% of Americans are angry, impulsive...and have a gun • California to provide counseling to mentally ill inmates • Children of undocumented immigrants face crisis • Michelle Obama, Kerry Washington and Sarah Jessica Parker talk mental health • World news: Saudi Arabia: Treating jihadists with art therapy • Jamaica: Signs you need to get divorced now • Read more
On sex and sexuality: 
Are you “normal"?
24/3/15
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. This famous dictum, variously attributed to Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello and Thelonius Monk, to name a few, could also be applied to museum exhibits about sex: They are destined to dissatisfy, to miss the point, to prove hopelessly inadequate compared to the experience of the thing itself. Nevertheless, undeterred, notebook in hand, world of therapy went to investigate the Wellcome Collection’s Institute of Sexology exhibition, where you are invited to “undress your mind.” You may, if you wish, do the same. Where do you stand, for example, on BDSM, kink, 50 shades? What are your "rules" of sex? Are you “normal”? Read more
Weekly news round-up
27/3/15
Notable news from the world of therapy
The plane crash: Andreas Lubitz's mental health • U.K. news: Deputy Prime Minister launches mental health in sport initiative • Mental health service budgets 'cut by 8%’—patients detained in a police cell • Children's mental-health funding boost • Male victims of sexual abuse • Psychotherapy practice uses animal magic • Blur: “We Went For Counselling” • Bogus psychology doctor exposed • Danny Dyer’s secret counselling • Coronation Street star training to be a psychotherapist • Trauma for One Direction fans • U.S.A. news: Measuring empathy • Popular club drug for the terminally ill • World news: Chad: refugees receive counseling • Ghana: mainstreaming mental health • India: prisoners to enjoy 'magical' counselling • Singapore: 24-hour help for problem gamblers • China: mental health issues triggering insomnia • Read more
Weekly news round-up
20/3/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: International Day of Happiness • Children's mental health to get £1.25 billion boost • Mind matters: the politics of mental health • Wales: older men action call by Mind Cymru • USA: “President Obama has elevated the conversation about mental health to the national stage” • Mental health: A new priority in Corporate America • India: call for better focus on mental health in Kerala • Australia: mental health services spending on the rise • Other stuff: The computer will see you now • Run from your problems: why counselling during a workout is an effective form of therapy • Happiness is a needle and thread away: new data on benefits of knitting • Read more
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The colour of love
10/3/15
You've read the story on The 6 relationship types. Now we'd really like to know: what colour is yours? 
     Here are the 6 types:
• Yellow: When “avoidant” meets “avoidant” (cold+cold), eg. Terry & June
• Red: When “preoccupied” meets “preoccupied” (hot+hot), eg. Burton & Taylor
• Blue: When “avoidant” meets “preoccupied” (cold+hot), eg. Charles & Diana
• Purple: When “avoidant” meets “secure” (cold+warm), eg. Bogie & Bacall
• Green: When “preoccupied” meets “secure” (hot+warm), eg. Bill & Hillary
• Black and White: When “secure” meets “secure” (warm+warm), eg. John & Yoko
     VOTE NOW!
Weekly news round-up
6/3/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: Facebook’s bid to help prevent suicides • Julie Andrews (above): Counselling led me to love • The future of mental health in the UK: an election manifesto • Children's services hit rock bottom – so what's next? • Scotland: child wait increases 'are horrifying' • “The Troubles” linked to half mental health cases in Northern Ireland • USA: Michelle Obama promotes awareness of mental health care • Kenya: How one woman is “fighting the funk” by helping others • Israel: 350 soldiers received psychiatric counseling after Gaza War • Saudi Arabia: counseling helps 2,950 extremists mend ways • Australia: Large gap between rich and poor areas in use of services revealed • The developing world: When mental health is the best investment • Therapy: Two opposing viewpoints • Read more
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Trauma: the aftershocks of human inhumanity
4/3/15
A sad story last week about the suicide of a British soldier who suffered terrible injuries from a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan. For Private Bradley Paul, the psychological wounds became impossible to live with. The government sends people like Paul off to the dark places of the earth, often for highly questionable purposes. They witness death, destruction, massacres, unspeakable acts of barbarism. They suffer great injuries. They see friends killed right in front of them. They kill. Then they’re supposed to come home, keep calm and carry on as normal. “As you were, soldier.” Thanks a lot for your years of service, your courage, your sacrifices—now go away.
     Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) doesn’t just happen in war zones, far away. It is an unbearable, horrific fact of life. It is among us. How many deeply traumatised people are walking on the earth today, right now, in pain, having received no treatment at all? Read more
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Weekly news round-up
20/2/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: Alastair Campbell: I urged couples counselling for Blair and Brown • Service provision in the UK: time to think again • Armed forces suffering crisis as 28,000 are diagnosed with problems since 2007 • Suicide in Wales • USA: Where are the mental-health providers? • Funding for mental health services in Australia to quadruple • Mental health care in Nepal • Headline of the week: “Non-married couples on motorcycles will not be arrested, but given counselling” • Read more
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Valentine's Day: The demand for romance
14/2/15
It’s Valentine’s Day. The day when there is some kind of Big Brother (or Big Sister) command from on high that today you must be romantic, offer cards and pink fluffy things to the person of your dreams, make grand gestures intended to demonstrate the extent of your commitment, and perhaps go out for an evening meal in a red rose-strewn restaurant offering a “special” (ie. monumentally overpriced) menu.
      Valentine’s Day can be great of course, a celebration, a renewal. But love, romance and sexual arousal don’t tend to respond to command. Perhaps overall, on the balance sheet of human joy versus human misery, Valentine’s Day is a net contributor to the latter rather than the former. Read more
The end of “conversion therapy"
10/2/15
“My death needs to mean something” wrote 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn in her suicide note in December. Well, it does: It further highlights the plight of transgendered people, and has dramatically accelerated the demise of the ludicrous “pray the gay away” practice known as conversion therapy, which has long been inexorably heading for retirement in the therapy curio cabinet, along with skull drilling, lobotomies, leeches, and various treatments for “female hysteria.”
     Therapy (and life) isn’t about trying to make yourself become someone you’re fundamentally not. It’s not about trying to change other people, either. Whether we’re part of the mainstream or we live more towards the margins of one bell curve or another, don't we all want acceptance and freedom? Isn't a fair, inclusive and peaceful society better than a prejudiced, oppressive and violent one? Read more
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Some Instagram postings: #mentalhealth
3/2/15
The pick of recent pics.
The 6 relationship types: What colour is yours?
10/1/15
Our early attachment experiences as babies and infants direct all our relationships in later life. The way we learned to relate—hot, warm or cold—is the backdrop to every romantic entanglement and disentanglement, to every Machiavellian workplace manoeuvre, to how we operate as parents. Attachment, too, provides an X-ray vision into relationship patterns, which as a result can be broadly broken down into 6 different types. What colour is your love? Read more
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Asylums revisited
1/2/15
Politically, economically and emotionally, there’s probably little appetite for the return of lots of asylums, but a new paper in America argues there is something appealing about the possibility of refuge in “safe, modern, and humane” patient-centred facilities, where the original meaning of the term asylum—a place of sanctuary, support and treatment—is honoured. And where the staff aren’t like Nurse Ratched. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
30/1/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: R.I.P. Fido: Grief groups grow as American society views pets as family members • Children: mental health in the U.K.; child adversity and psychological troubles may speed up aging; the needs of gang-affiliated young people • Scottish ministers under fire over huge drop in mental health research • Los Creativamente Inadaptados: The alternatives to psychiatry movement in Chile/Argentina • Read more
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Blue Monday: How was yours?
24/1/15
How was your week? Did you survive “Blue Monday”? The third Monday of January has supposedly been “scientifically” proven to be the most depressing day of the year. The warm glow of Christmas (another myth) is now a distant memory, the credit card bills have arrived, your New Year’s resolutions have all fallen by the wayside. You’ve lost your mojo. There’s nothing on TV. It’s raining. The Blue Monday equation, however, has been debunked. There is some evidence that springtime/early summer is actually a much sadder time of year. Read more 
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On change: turn and face the strange
23/1/15
We’re born, we grow, we blossom into gorgeous ripeness. But sometimes our growth can be stunted, stuck or skewed. What prospects for change in these circumstances? Jung wrote: “We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate; it oppresses.” This paradoxical idea of change says: We can only become more like the person we want to be by first fully cherishing the person we are. Acceptance arises from two factors that therapy offers: self-knowledge, and, for want of a better word, love. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
16/1/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: • Art therapy for troubled kids • Headteachers: pupils are “let down” • Bisexual women more likely to suffer than lesbians • Why is America’s mental health the worst in the world? • Tears of Ishtar: women’s psychological suffering in Iraq • Study challenges notions of Australian men’s openness to counseling • Voodoo priests, doctors on frontline of Haiti’s mental healthcare • Download New Year, New You • Read more
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Weekly news round-up
9/1/15
Notable news from the world of therapy: • Did you survive “Divorce Day”? • Deputy PM launches search for “Mental Health Heroes” • Children's mental health services ’cut by £50m’ • Online counselling: easier for students to seek help • One woman's fight for mental healthcare in China • Good diet, good mind? What you need to know • Read more
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On motivation—or why resolutions don't stick
1/1/15
We emerge from 2014, unsteady and slightly hung over, blinking at the harsh light of a new year. A clean slate. A fresh start. But those new year resolutions will be forgotten by February. Human motivation is a complex business. We’re not always sure what we want, or why we do what we do. We are all perfectly capable, in a certain light, of being craven, weak, cruel—or even criminal. Perhaps we might resolve in the coming year to be more accepting of all our various imperfect selves—and of those around us, too. Happy new year. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
19/12/14
Notable news from the world of therapy: • First “Mental Health Taskforce” meeting • “Time to Talk Day” 2015 • Police brutality and killings in America • Expert calls for better military mental health services • Irish counselling service sees dramatic rise in abuse victims • Vulnerable mothers-to-be need more support • Doctors in Massachusetts required to offer end-of-life counseling • What is “Coyote Psychotherapy”? • Which Jung archetype best describes you? • Read more
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Suicide decriminalised in India
19/12/14
In India, a failed attempt to take your own life might have landed you in jail. Now it has apparently dawned on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that some care and support for those who are suicidal might be more helpful than punishment. Anyone with suicidal feelings—a broke farmer in Kerala, a bereft celebrity in Hollywood, a relative, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour, you, me—needs support, reassurance, care and contact. What they emphatically do not need is condemnation and incarceration. Read more
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Multiple personalities revisited
29/11/14
“Eve” had three faces. “Sybil” had 16 different personalities, each of which was unknown to the others. Was “multiple personality disorder” for real? Don’t we all have lots of “selves,” lots of disparate strands in the tapestry of our being? Our community of fragmentary selves is like a rather rubbish football team—and sometimes it falls into disarray. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
28/11/14
Notable news from the world of therapy: • Short-term counselling reduces suicide • Nurses warn of strain from cuts in mental health services • Clegg to establish cross-government taskforce for mental health provision • Pulling together to extend the lives of people with serious mental illness • Human rights abuses leave a third of Libyans with mental health problems • Canada: men's psychological wellbeing in the workplace—addressing an unmet need • Psychiatrist to the Taliban tells all • Counselling offered to cricketer whose bowl led to death. Read more
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Weekly news round-up
21/11/14
Notable news from the world of therapy: • Pregnancy and childbirth: mental health care for parents • Free relationship counselling to rescue marriages • Deciding whether to disclose mental disorders at work • Unabomber’s brother makes plea for better mental health services • Counselling proves most effective in meaningful weight loss • Are you sitting down? Some bad news for you: sitting may harm your mental health • Opinion: Is therapy just a really expensive best friend? (Answer: no.) Read more
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What is a psychopath?
11/11/14
There has been a lot of talk lately about them. Society applauds the non-axe-wielding kind. They are celebrated. They are idolized. They stalk the corridors of power, finance, culture. They are our sporting heroes. The higher you climb in any field, the more of them you will encounter. Poor ones go to jail, as they say, while rich ones go to business school. But on balance, does the word “psychopath” really mean anything? Are any labels useful? Read more
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The therapeutic space
3/11/14
You go to see a therapist. What kind of environment are you hoping for? A formal office space? A doctor’s consulting room? Or perhaps a comfy, slightly messy lounge? The therapeutic environment has been subject to some research and attention, summarised in this report from Co. Design. For counseling settings, research suggests that softness, personalization, and order might affect the experience of therapy and the therapist. Read more
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Hip hop happy
12/10/14
What's the soundtrack to your life? Is it a happy one? Given the complex, at times paradoxical nature of happiness, it's perhaps no surprise that sometimes sad songs--the blues, Miles Davis, Radiohead--can induce wild feelings of euphoria. Read more