change therapy

goodbye blogger

2006-07-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

well, people, i finally did it. i've moved my blog and now it is at

www.moritherapy.org

if you are currently subscribed to this blog, please go to www.moritherapy.org and subscribe via the subscription options you find in the right hand column. if you can't figure out how to do that, please call me (my number is on my web site at www.moritherapy.com) or email me at moritherapy at shaw dot ca.

see you at the new site!

isabella

goal setting - part 2

2006-07-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

continuing on from yesterday's blog, here is the rest of steve pavlina's (edited) words on goal setting

goal setting is an activity

setting clear goals is not a passive act. you must take direct conscious action. everything counts, and nothing is neutral. you are either moving towards your goals, or away from them.

if you do nothing or if you act without clarity, then you are almost certainly a victim of "being outgoaled" - you are spending your time working on other people's goals without even knowing it. you are happily working to enrich your landlord, other businesses, advertisers, stockholders, etc.

waiting for something to inspire you and hoping that the perfect outcome will just fall into your lap is nothing but a fantasy. clear decision making doesn't happen passively; you actually have to physically put in the time to make it happen.

clear goals sharpen present-moment decisions

your reality will not match your vision exactly. that's not the point. the point is for your vision to allow you to make clear daily decisions that keep you moving in the direction of your goals.

when a commercial airliner flies from one city to another, it is off course over 90% of the time, but it keeps measuring its progress and adjusting its heading again and again. goal setting works the same way.

maintain a clear list of goals not because that's actually where you'll end up but because it will give with tremendous certainty in deciding what you need to do today.

you'll see a measurable difference in your life the very first day you establish clear, committed goals, even if your first few attempts aren't perfect. you'll be able to make decisions much more rapidly because you'll see how they'll either move you towards or away from your goals.

on the eve of his death, walt disney had a reporter crawl into bed with him so he could share his vision for disney world, six years before its completion. when disney world finally opened, another reporter commented to walt's brother, roy, "it's too bad walt did not live to see this." roy replied, "walt saw it before we did.”

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

goal setting

2006-07-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

lately, i've been following steve pavlina's blog. he's got some pretty strong things to say about personal development. below is a somewhat shortened and edited excerpt of what he says about goal setting and decision making.

bunker hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in the 1970s, was once asked during a tv interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful.

he responded by saying that it's not terribly difficult to be successful and that only two things are required.

first, you must decide exactly what it is you want to accomplish.

secondly, you must determine what price you'll have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.

clear goals are essential

study after study has shown how essential clear goals and objectives are to success. if you don't take the time to get really clear about exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish, then you're forever doomed to spend your life achieving the goals of those who do.

if setting goals is so critically important, then why is it that so few people take the time to define exactly where they want to go?

part of the reason is a lack of knowledge about how to set clear goals. but those who truly know what they want often outperform everyone else by an enormous degree.

a frequent deterrent to goal setting is the fear of making a mistake. teddy roosevelt once said, "in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

setting virtually any goal at all is better than drifting aimlessly with no clear direction. the best way i know to guarantee failure is to avoid making clear, committed decisions.

you're probably spending most of your time working to achieve other people's goals. the local fast food restaurant, tv advertisers, and the stockholders of the businesses you patronize are all very happy for that.

many people assume that because they have a direction, they must therefore have goals, but this merely creates the illusion of progress.

an example of the difference between a direction and a goal is the difference between the compass direction of northeast and the top of the eiffel tower in france. one is merely a direction; the other is a definite location.

define goals in binary terms

one critical aspect of goals is that they must be defined in binary terms. at any point in time, if i were to ask you if you had achieved your goal yet, you must be able to give me a definitive "yes" or "no" answer. “maybe” or “kind of” is not an answer.

be detailed

be as detailed as possible when setting goals. give specific numbers, dates, and times. make sure that each of your goals is measurable.

either you achieved it, or you didn't. define your goals as if you already know what's going to happen. it's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

commit goals to writing

goals must be in writing in the form of positive, present-tense, personal affirmations. don’t say “by the end of the year, i don’t want to feel alone anymore.”

rather, say “on december 31, 2006, i look back with satisfaction on a time full of romance and friendship.”

if you phrase your goals in future terms, you are sending a message to your subconscious mind to forever keep that outcome in the future, just beyond your grasp.

avoid wishy-washy words like "probably," "should," "could," "would," "might," or "may" when forming your goals.

and finally, make your goals personal. you cannot set goals for other people, such as, "a publisher will hire me by the end of the year." better say: "by december 1, 2006, i have started working in an interesting, enjoyable position with a north american publishing company, earning $55,000 a year."

objectify subjective goals

what if you need to set subjective goals, such as improving your own level of self-discipline? how do you phrase such goals in binary terms? to solve this problem, i use a rating scale of 1 to 10.

for instance, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate your current level of self-discipline? then set a goal to achieve a certain specific rating by a certain date. this allows you to measure your progress and know with a high degree of certainty whether or not you've actually achieved your goal.

-------

tomorrow we'll go to part 2, where steve talks about the actual activity of goal setting and how goal setting helps in making everyday decisions.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

getting support - part 2

2006-07-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

when we feel we don’t have enough support, of course there’s many ways we can “go out and get more”. however, often, when we have a problem like this, it’s not because we lack the know-how – it’s that there is something blocking us from reaching for what we need.

when we don’t get the support we long for, it’s often because there are some voices in our heads saying things like, “they don’t have time”, “they’re not interested”, “they already have too much on their plates”, or “if they find out i need help with this, they’ll think i’m a loser.”

when this happens, we can help ourselves by talking this over with someone who has already “proven” that they enjoy supporting others.

here are some ideas on how you might increase your support network:

your existing friends and family
assertiveness classes or self help books like how full is your bucket? by grandfather-grandson team tom rath and donald o. clifton
counselling
making a point of initiating and sustaining conversations with people who you don’t ordinarily talk with
getting involved in volunteering, support groups, community events
if you’re religious/spiritual, praying for more support
taking classes on anything you’re interested in
giving to others
becoming a regular somewhere – at a pub, a coffee house, an interesting online group
keeping in touch with people through phone calls, letters, emails

important: as i said in a previous post, there might be moments when you’re tempted to read such a list and roll your eyes, saying “that’s not much help, that’s all pretty obvious!” if that's the case, please stop and think for a moment. if you’re unhappy with the extent or quality of your social support and you haven’t done one of these things in the last three months, maybe it’s time to go back and try them – try the obvious!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

getting support

2006-07-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

today i thought i'd share with you a handout from a workshop i gave a little while ago on social support:

this is part 1 - part 2 is tomorrow.

social support

there’s the quality of supportive relationships – what type of relationships are they and how satisfied are we with them?

then there’s the quantity – how many people “have our back”?

research has found that social support can
· increase immunity (resistance to disease)
· help our emotional health
· reduce stress and illnesses associated with stress
· recovery from illness

what’s your your current social support like?

quality of social support

how satisfied are you in your relationships with family and friends? in the majority of these relationships do you feel that you are:

understood
loved, or at least appreciated
heard
informed
useful
able to talk about your deepest problems (with at least some of your support people)
that you have a definite role or place
able to be yourself

quantity of relationships

how many close and/or dependable relationships do you have? consider relationships with:

family
friends
neighbours
coworkers
others
spend time with someone who doesn’t live with you?
talk to friends or relatives on the phone?
go to meetings, social clubs or other groups?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

mental illness in the workplace: good news!

2006-07-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

last month i reported on yves magloe, a tenured professor at pasadena city college, who was let go because of a mental illness. as many of you know, it is extremely rare of a tenured professor to let go - tenure usually means lifetime employment.

well, good news. hugo schwyzer reports that professor magloe was reinstated.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

another video: about depression

2006-07-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

and here we have another video, where you can hear me talk a little bit about depression and disconnectedness. this time it's on youtube. thanks, carol, for doing this video!

yogurt and self-righteousness

2006-07-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

plain yogurt – after you’ve opened the container, do you stir it or do you carefully take off what you need and leave the rest alone?

that, my friend, is the big question.

it’s a question that plagued me, so i complained, err, i mean, talked to a few people about it – with such passion, apparently, that i was challenged to write a blog entry about it.

and it is, clearly, a question of seinfeldian proportions.

here’s what happened: we were having dinner, eating perogies, and concerned with health as i am, i served plain organic yogurt instead of sour cream with it.

one of my table mates apprehended the yogurt container, stuck the spoon in it and proceeded to (what seemed to me) violently stir, nay, disturb the yogurt that lay peacefully in that container.

i flinched. and i spoke up. “what are you doing to that poor yogurt??!!” i shrieked.

“ah – i’m stirring it?”

“what has that yogurt done to you?”

“ah – i’m just stirring it …”

i’m sure i rolled my eyes. what a barbaric thing to do! yogurt is a living thing (i think), all these little yogurt bacteria sitting together in well-organized molecules, kind of like in their little yogurt house, and in comes this barbaric giant with his spoon and creates a soupy chaos!

until that point, while my poor yogurt bacteria were bathed in chaos, i was safely ensconced in a comfy cocoon of yogurty self-righteousness. surely, walking into that yogurt like a horde of raping and pillaging warlords can't be right!

and then my curiosity got the better of me. just like the barbaric yogurt giant, i couldn’t leave the story alone, i had to stir it up. i asked my friends haedy, MJ and timmie about their opinion.

to my despair, they didn’t immediately take my side! worse, it was hard to get them excited about this important topic.

so i tucked my tail between my legs and, on the occasion of blueberries and yogurt for dessert last night, brought the sorry results of my survey back to the barbaric yogurt giant. and he just laughed! he just laughed, and challenged me to write about it in my blog.

i’m still of the opinion that yogurt should be left alone but – well, it appears that the yogurt giant is entitled to his opinion, too.

what’s the morale?

instead of speaking up about the rights of yogurt bacteria, i could have gritted my teeth, causing dental problems and constipation.

instead of defending his stance, the barbaric yogurt giant could have played nicey-nice, cowering to my self-righteousness, which could have been the beginning of a horrible depression.

instead of exploring the world for the wide array of yogurt opinions, i could have stayed marinated in my self righteousness, which eventually would have resulted in calcification of my brain cells.

instead of letting me freely partake of their opinion (and slight lack of interest) on the topic at hand, my friends could have let me believe, by simply and absent-mindedly nodding to my dairy diary, that they agreed with me. the beginning of the end of our friendship?

instead of taking my friends’ feedback back to the barbaric yogurt giant, i could have hid the truth from him, or could have even lied to him, saying that my friends agreed with me! this would slowly have poisoned me from the inside …

what a horrible story this could have turned into!

but we all talked freely with each other.

and now, instead of dental problems, constipation, depression, calcified brain cells, dead friendships and slow poisoning – it’s just a blog.

go ahead, be happy!

2006-07-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

the keys to happiness are available to anyone, says this article in lifescience.com today:

Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness, but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.

One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois

okay, now we know it. not that we didn't know it before. so what's up? how come that, armed with this knowledge, we don't all go ahead and be happy?

there's probably many reasons. one of them has fascinated me quite a bit lately. many of us have this great reluctance to do take seriously really ordinary, run-of-the-mill recipes. let's take the one about gratefulness, something i've discussed in other blog entries before.

here's a scenario:

mick: "i'm so unhappy! what should i do?"
terry: "i write a gratitude list every day - 10 things i'm grateful for every day. wanna try that, too?"
mick: "geez, i've heard that one before. if it was so easy, everybody would be happy!"
terry: "exactly, it's easy, and if everybody did it, they'd be a lot happier!"
mick: "oh, leave me alone with these mom-and-pop ideas. you have no idea how complicated my life is!"
terry: "ok, before i leave you alone with this, can i ask you just one question. have you tried gratitude lists before?"
mick: "yes! i did one once, and it didn't work! it didn't make me happy!"
terry: "oh. well, i guess for me it works because i do it every day."
mick: "it's easy for you. you are already happy!"

so mick is unhappy. he uses words that sound like he's looking for advice. then terry comes along with an idea and mick turns it down. it's because a) maybe he wasn't even looking for advice; b) the advice is too "easy", which c) devaluates the depth of his unhappiness.

mick has been unhappy for so long that his unhappiness has become quite important. he does not wish for his unhappiness to be devalued.

he expresses the depth of his unhappiness by saying that his life is "complicated". because he feels unheard (and because he probably has been unheard for many years), he is not interested in what terry has to say/offer. also, mick thinks that because the simplicity of the remedy does not match the depth of his unhappiness, it cannot work.

also, because he has used this remedy once and it did not work right away, he feels justified in not trying it again. it didn't work, and it does not match the depth of his depression - so why try it again?

unfortunately, mick does not know that this remedy does indeed work in most situations if applied on a consistent basis. he doesn't know it because it's an experiential thing.

remember when you were 8 years old and you saw people kissing and you thought, "eeeeek, what a gross thing to do!" and then when you were 17, you couldn't get enough of it?

experiencing the cumulative effect of gratitude lists (and other ordinary remedies) is a bit like that. it's as simple as a kiss. and can be as life changing.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

gender identity: shapeshifting

2006-07-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago, i spoke of the book self organizing men, a collection of literary works promoted in jay sennet’s blog, around the theme of FtM’s – people who were born biologically female and transition towards male.

here is another work of art in it, a jewel of a poem. it weaves in and out and around the many levels of experience of its author, female-to-male queer activist eli clare who starts off the poem by noting the similarity between two different kinds of drug use:

I lay out syringe, alcohol pad, vial: a ritual
connecting me to junkies. Draw the
testosterone,
and push needle deep through skin into
muscle.

all of this happens in (inside the temporal space of) spring, another moment of transition:

Open the windows, forsythia spilling its dense yellow.

but not much of this poem happens directly “inside”; much of it is in-between. eli is “a shapeshifter” – as a transgendered (transgendering?) person, as a person with cerebral palsy, as an activist, an anti-hierarchist. shapeshifters, it occurs to me, are, or at least can be, magicians: wise people, shamans, those who dare to travel across dangerous and forbidden boundaries, back and forth and back and forth, cross-pollinating worlds.

shapeshifting as a magician but also very concretely, very physically:

Voice cracks.
Stubble glints.

Body begins

and if there’s a lot of flying back and forth between worlds, it gets confusing, even for the magician:

Crip skin,
white skin:
which stories
do I tell
the best?

… and tiring:

... here at the confluence river and ocean collide—current rushing head long, waves pushing back—stones tumble one against another; logs drift and roll. Tell me: where in this hiss and froth might I lay myself down?

where? where could eli lay himself down? can he lay himself down before he lays his female identity down (to sleep? to rest?) can any magician ever lay himself down for long?

and while i understand that there needs to be rest for this body and mind, i am touched, tickled, by the poem's freshness: all the almost haiku-like references to spring, the walking down the street with kids greeting him, rushing rivers, tumbling logs – there is so much fresh, breezy movement; while this need for rest is understandable – is rest really interesting to eli, or will he, after a short moment of catching his breath, spring up again to see what’s around yet another corner?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

psychopaths

2006-07-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago i had a conversation with someone about psychopaths. since i can't remember for the life of me who i had this conversation with (hmmmm ... should i make my next post about memory?), i thought i'd post here a link to a very interesting article about this topic, and hopefully that person is among my readers.

the article is about joseph newman, a psychologist at the university of wisconsin. here is an excerpt:

[Newman] believes that psychopathy is essentially a type of learning disability or "informational processing deficit" that makes individuals oblivious to the implications of their actions when focused on tasks that promise instant reward. Being focused on a short-term goal, Newman suggests, makes psychopathic individuals incapable of detecting surrounding cues such as another person's discomfort or fear.

In a study he repeated in different prison populations, for instance, Newman examined how quickly psychopathic and non-psychopathic individuals respond to a series of mislabeled images, such as a drawing of a pig with the word "dog" superimposed on it. Researchers flashed each image and then timed how long it took for subjects to name what they saw.

Over and over again, Newman found that non-psychopathic subjects subconsciously stumbled on the misleading labels and took longer to name the images. But psychopathic subjects barely noticed the discrepancy and consistently answered more quickly.

Newman says the result is one instance of how psychopathic individuals have difficulty processing peripheral cues, even when those cues are entirely obvious to everyone else. Furthermore, the study task didn't involve any of the emotions that people commonly associate with psychopathy, such as anger or a lack of fear. So the fact that psychopathic subjects barely noticed the wrongful labels - even in the absence of emotional cues - supports the idea that a psychological deficit might be at play.

read more here ...

i had often thought that at least in some instances, psychopathy might involve something like what newman proposes.

i have worked in prison environments, and would not say i have met many psychopaths there - and the ones that i did meet were actually not the ones with the most serious crimes.

particularly, i remember one person who had shot someone (yup, compared to some of the other offenders, that wasn't very serious), who then ended up in a wheelchair.

the offender had a complete and quite baffling lack of interest (never mind concern or even compassion) for the victim. it was as if there was a hole where that concern would normally be found in other people.

i had noticed that before in other people who i wouldn't necessarily call sociopaths or psychopaths, but who still would show a strange lack of connection in certain situations.

the first time i noticed that was with someone who nowadays might be classified as a sex addict. he was very charming, very intelligent - but completely nonchalant about the far-reaching effects his addiction had on the people around him. having worked with people battling with addiction, i find that unusual; often people with addictions are quite uncomfortable about the fallouts from their behaviour. but not so with that person. i remember thinking that it seemed like a part of his psyche had been amputated.

if you're interested in a more academic treatment on the topic of psychopathy, you might want to read this article by linda mealey. it's a little old but still quite interesting.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

understanding spammers

2006-07-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

okay, here is something that i absolutely have to get off my chest:

what goes on in the head of spammers?

and what, specifically, is the process of coming up with these amazing names, like

abhorrence p. versifying
amateurism g. causal
ambiguities u. magnetos
annihilation j. silliness
arnulfo mcleod

(more at the end of this entry – i don’t want to spam your reading time with the remaining 41 names, from demetrius column to zelma mooney)

so, someone tell me how this works.

is there are spammers’ name factory? if so, how does it work? is it automated, or is it a dingy old industrial complex in manila, where 13-year-olds write their fingers bloody with name after name for a starvation wage?

are spammers so bored with what they do that they entertain themselves with coming up with these names?

is there perhaps a secret spammers’ naming olympics, or some kind of grammy award for the most inventive spammer’s name?

or is it something you learn in spammers school?

or are they perhaps all high on VI*a*GRA or h OO dia?

one last thing: do these people know the words they’re using – i mean, are they even aware of the hilarity of these names? think about the irony of “annihilation j. silliness” sending you a completely inane message.

on the other hand, “experiencing a. pit” probably knows what she/he/it is doing.

i tried to find some material on the psychology of spammers and haven’t come up with anything at all. maybe i need to dig deeper. considering how big (and irritating) spamming is in our internet lives, it’s suprising that i didn’t find anything yet.

anyways, here’s the rest of the names.

demetrius column
democritus mateo
disbarring f. lunatic
emulsified u. carrier
eridanus h. sweatier
exorcized h. scuttle
experiencing a. pit
fry dempster
genaro lovett,
godiva stanley
guadalupe harper;
harebrained l. ramrodded
heidi champagne;
highchairs p. polyphemus
hohenstaufen v. sicking
inflorescence b. afghan.
jernigan fletcher,
jocundity h. sulkiness
joris dng
kermit clinton
leaching k. criming
lofting c. amendable
maillol l. shrews
microwaving c. grammes
monomania i. buxom
morocco s. yanking
morse k. commencement
pacifically t. gloss
pauperism p. perimeter
pocahontas e. maharajas
propitiate f. mockingly
schlessman lankford
shrub b. nipples
steers q. bloodhound
stress f. obelisks
trammelled s. intercessions
vercingetorix brick
yesenia hopkins,
young alford,
zaida coxum,
zelma mooney

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

nonviolent communication

2006-07-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

a challenge issued by the nonviolent communication site:

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) would like there to be a critical mass of people using Nonviolent Communication language so all people will get their needs met and resolve their conflicts peacefully.

10 things we can do to contribute to internal, interpersonal, and organizational peace:

(1) Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.

(2) Remember that all human beings have the same needs.

(3) Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.

(4) When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.

(5) Instead of saying what we DON'T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.

(6) Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we'd like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.

(7) Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone's opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.

(8) Instead of saying “No,” say what need of ours prevents us from saying “Yes.”

(9) If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves.

(10) Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

which one do you find easy? which one seems hard?

i find this one a bit challenging: "if we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves." when i'm really upset and a solution does not easily present itself, i do end up thinking about my unmet needs - but really only once i'm feeling backed into a corner.

remembering that all humans have the same needs - well, that's always been pretty obvious to me. i think in many ways it goes even further: plants, animals, to a degree even things have needs, too: to be cared for, to be treated with respect.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

homilies i like

2006-07-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

never pass up a good opportunity to shut up.

it takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.

the best way to stop feeling like a liar is to stop lying.

"the bad thing about self-pity is that it gives me permission to do absolutely nothing."

"don't believe everything you think."

right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.

it is not good to pray unless we are willing to accept god's answers.

isolation is a darkroom for developing negatives.

"thank you, god, for the beautiful day i'm going to have if i can just get rid of my fucking attitude."

"i had a very long childhood"

peace is not something you wish for, it is something you make, something you do, something you are and it is something you give away

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

a video!

2006-06-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago, my friend carol from alphaglyph productions did an interview with me. here is a picture from it:

and you can see the video on the alphaglyph podcast site. you can try either the "download" or the "play" button. you might need the quick time with itunes plugin for it (for some systems, quick time alone doesn't seem to do the trick).

this video is on the intimacy of the therapeutic relationship.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

overcoming codependency

2006-06-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

once in a while i post poetry here. it helps process our thoughts and feelings.

but there's no limit to the art forms we can use to express ourselves. here is the drawing of a friend of mine, literally depicting what's going on inside his head, inspired by a list of codependent behaviours he found on the web:

dealing with the challenges life throws at us by trying to control (manipulate?) others is an understandable and very common coping mechanism. fortunately, my friend is someone who does not want to just cope anymore; he wants to live.

this very insightful drawing is part of his journey towards living a more conscious life where he deals lovingly with himself and those around him. the illusion that we can make others think, feel or act in a certain way is very seductive and can be so subtle. often we don't even know we labour under this illusion. breaking free from it feels risky and scary - but it does lead to freedom, freedom for everyone concerned.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

alternative thought records, pt II

2006-06-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

a continuation from yesterday's blog regarding alternative thought records:

this is an example of using alternative thought records. in the beginning, it can usually only be done afterwards. with time, one can get practiced enough to try and do it right in the moment.

this is an example of debriefing the next day:

situation:
harry received an email from his stepmother, where she hints that harry isn’t spending enough time with her. after all she’s done for him, stopping by her place a few times a week after work is the least thing he can do, she claims.

when did it happen?
last night.

who was involved?
harry, his stepmother, and his partner

where did it happen?
at home

what happened?
having just come home from another exhausting day at work, harry read this email, and what little energy he had left totally went out of him. instead of making dinner as he had promised, he just lay down on the couch for an hour, staring at the wall. trying to be understanding, his partner went ahead and made dinner but it was obvious that he was not pleased, especially since harry didn’t explain what had happened.

feelings:

at first, in rapid succession: angry, frustrated, guilty and ashamed. then, nothing. numbness.

intensity of feelings: anger: 80%, frustration 50%, guilt and shame: 80%. numbness: felt like 100%.

automatic thoughts:

what the %#$& ???
can i ever do right by her?
she’s right, she has done so much for me
i’m such a rotten son. and she hardly ever says anything anymore about me being gay. i should be grateful. i’m such a stinker for getting mad when she sends me these emails.
i’m such a loser. i promised harry i’d make dinner and what am i doing? nothing!
the numbness has no words, really, it’s just this freaky dull roar, like being caught all alone in a huge grey machine.

cognitive traps or distortions:
some cognitive distortions in these thoughts:

overgeneralization: can i ever do right by her?
shoulds: i should be grateful
labeling: i’m such a stinker

alternative thought:

i’m angry at mom right now. that’s the way i feel right now. i can live with that.
i feel exhausted right now. and i want to make dinner. i don’t need to feel overwhelmed by this. i’ll just put one foot in front of the other.
i notice this feeling of numbness coming on. being numb has never done anything for me. i’ll remember to focus on the feeling in my hands while i make dinner – that usually keeps me from falling into numbness.

feelings now: accepting (80%), clarity (70%)

(if these alternative thoughts would have been applied right at the moment of the situation happening, this is what the feelings might have been:

angry: 40%, exhausted 50%, accepting 90%, hopeful 55%, present 60%, alert 70%

compare this to the previous list: intensity of feelings: anger: 80%, frustration 50%, guilt and shame: 80%. numbness: felt like 100%)

this is an example for someone who is dealing with depression. however, an alternative thought exercise can be helpful in many different situations. as we can see, most moods (such as depression here) are a complex interplay between many different, and sometimes opposite, thoughts, feelings and actions.

this exercise is in some ways similar to the what i discussed in a previous blog entry, anger transformed.

why don't you try one of them next time you're facing a difficult situation and let me know how it goes?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

a tool: alternative thought record

2006-06-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

cognitive therapies, which focus on examining and “repairing” one’s thoughts, are often seen as the best way to deal with depression. while i believe that the tools that cognitive therapies provides are just one among many ways to help with depression, they can nevertheless be quite useful. so here is a tool from this tool box – enjoy it!

i’ll post it in two postings – the first is the “recipe”, and the one i’ll post tomorrow is an example of an application. (and thanks to depression forums for providing this tool).

alternative thought record

situation: describe an event or situation, that occurred within the last few
hours, or days at the most, in which you experienced emotional distress.

when did it happen?
who was involved?
where did it happen?
what happened?

feelings: describe the feelings that arose at that time. rate the intensity of your feelings from 0-100%.

automatic thoughts: list one or two of the most intense thoughts or images that you had at the time of the event.

cognitive traps or distortions: examine your thoughts and images
to see if there are cognitive distortions (cognitive traps are distorted thoughts such as all-or-nothing thinking, should statements and blaming)

alternative thought: describe an alternative, balanced way of thinking about this event. notice the cognitive distortions in your original thinking, and create a new statement that balances or eliminates those distortions.

rate the intensity of you feelings now, from 0-100%.

tomorrow: an application of this tool.

take care!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

addiction, shame and secrets

2006-06-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

medicalnews reports this today:

An article published in the recent issue of Psychological Science ... demonstrates that individuals have a strong tendency to eat only a single unit of food, regardless of the unit's size or caloric value.

The authors conducted experiments with offering free food in public areas, varying the size of the product unit and the size of the serving utensil ...

The results demonstrate an identifiable unit bias, as passersby tended to take a single unit or spoonful of food without consideration for its size or quantity. As tests were conducted both within eyesight of others and in a more discreet location, the bias in favor of consuming a single unit cannot be attributed solely to the avoidance of perceptible gluttony ...

well, that may be the case for some people. however, this last sentence reminds me how little people know about the inner workings of people struggling with addictions. a "discreet location" would still not be safe enough for many people with a food addiction.

the vast majority of people struggling with addictions function quite well in the "normal" world. part of this functioning involves an intimate relationship between addiction, shame, and intricate techniques designed to conceal the addiction.

for many overeaters, a "discreet location" in a public place will still bring forth the need to appear a normal eater. the deep shame over the addiction would be much stronger than the apparent safety of such a discreet location. many overeaters will only overeat in the privacy of their homes, often alone, maybe even with the curtains drawn.

i have met food addicts who had become experts at climbing out of bed, getting dressed and driving off in the middle of the night without barely making a sound, so as to not wake up anyone in the house and alert them to their excursion to a 24 hour convenience store.

of course, this often turns into a vicious cycle. the person wants to eat, eat, eat - but not be seen eating. so she creates a bubble of isolation around herself. this isolation is depressing, and the depression is then medicated with more food - and thus the cycle continues.

ironically, then, eating in public can be the first step towards recovery for some people. eating that second chocolate bar in public, or finishing off the big bag of chips for all to see, can be a healing experience. maybe the eating behaviour is still there, but at least the layers of shame and hiding are taken off.

isabella more
counselling in vancouver

my birthday wish

2006-06-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

today is my birthday.

i have a wish.

at this time, there are a few people in my life who are deep in the throes of suffering.

my wish is that whoever reads this, may send good thoughts to my friends, to any friend you know who is suffering.

in the words of the buddha

may you be free from danger and fear.
may you be peaceful, happy, and free from suffering.
may you live with ease

fantasy vs. real world

2006-06-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

an interesting chart from the poor in spirit blog:

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

gender freedom

2006-06-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

as my dear readers know, one of the blogs i watch is daily dose of queer, where i found a link to jay sennett’s blog. he’s looking for bloggers to review a new anthology called “self organizing men” – women transitioning into malehood (or FtM, as it’s often called). good for him to use blogvertising to get this material on the market.

i agreed to be one of his guinea pigs, and am i ever glad i did.

first i have to confess that i was not sure what to expect, and was afraid i might stumble into the badly-mumbled outpourings of a confused twenty-year-old.

well, i was wrong. i can’t be male by nick kiddle is very well written. every sentence is clean and clear, so the reader can completely concentrate on the story. as a writer, i want what nick’s got!

the piece traces nick’s travels and travails as he (i’ll refer to nick as a male here, hope that’s okay with you, nick) winds his way through the landscape of gender identity.

unfortunately, not everyone sees it as a landscape.

i guess we should be grateful that we’ve moved out of gender identity being a wasteland of two camps – male or female. at least there is a recognition now that some of us have landed in the wrong camp and need to move, so now we have four camps – female to male, male to female, female, male.

but really, i want my world to consist of more than four camps. i want a landscape with flowers of different hues of colours, many paths to journey along, hidden nooks and crannies to explore.

nick, too, wants freedom around his gender identity. there are moments when he identifies as a man, and others when he finds it useful to be a woman. one of the things that are important to nick is to have children, and children of his own. this is why, for now at least, he decides to stay in a female body.

i can’t wait to hear how other people react when they read nick’s account of meeting a psychiatrist who, instead of assisting nick in building more supportive relationships, cannot tear himself away from a morbid fascination with nick’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria. my first reaction was anger – i just wanted to go and slap that ignorant jerk – and when i got to the point where mr. psychiatrist sits back, smug in his “knowledge” that nick is “really” a woman, i just started crying.

this is not just the story about one of those transgendered people, somewhere off in a far corner of our safely heterosexual world. it’s the story of all of us who need to be free to explore who we are, free to change, free to express ourselves.

thank you, jay, and thank you, nick.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

understanding "enough"

2006-06-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

just as hope can be seen from opposing viewpoints, i think the term "enough" can be seen from different points of view as well.

let’s take these three examples:

“you don't need another blanket, joe. it’s not that cold – these two blankets are enough.”

“don’t worry about making every page perfect. remember, it’s a draft; what you have here is great, it’s definitely good enough.”

“no thanks, i don’t need another helping of pasta; i have enough.”

in the first scenario, joe feels he needs more but he is dismissed by someone who feels she is in a position to adequately assess joe's needs (and perhaps assess them better than joe himself).

in the second scenario, someone aspires to be perfect and she is reassured; the situation does not call for perfection, and what’s already there is more than adequate.

the person in the third scenario has a good sense for just exactly how much he needs; that need has been fulfilled, and he effortlessly states what his boundaries are: “i have enough.”

we could say that the first situation is about deprivation; the second one is about perfectionism and the third is about balance.

what do we want to have in our lives? deprivation, perfectionism or balance?

it is interesting to note that in the first two scenarios, both times, it is someone else who assesses what’s enough. only in the third, it’s the person himself who decides what’s enough.

we often have uneasy feelings about the word “enough”. often it’s around the phrase “good enough.” perhaps the next time this unease crops up, you can ask yourself, who is making the decision whether something or someone is good enough? and if it’s you who seems to be making that decision and you still feel uneasy, you can ask yourself, “is that really me talking, or is that someone else’s voice inside me? my mother? my teacher? is that voice still valid?”

let’s get to the point where you decide what’s good enough.

isabella mori
counseling in vancouver

understanding hope

2006-06-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

hope is one of those things that can go both ways. let me first tell you about what i believe to be the negative aspects of hope, and then about the bright side of hope.

the carrot and the stick

hope can be the carrot of the famous "carrot and the stick". it can be that delicious something in the future that is always dangled in front of us but which can never (or rarely) be attained. "i love you but i'm not ready for commitment" - ever heard that? what that often means is "if you just stick around long enough - because YOU love ME, don't you? - then some time in the future i might just be ready to get married." but the person who dreams that their lover will eventually come around will often not have their hopes fulfilled. in the meantime, this person has spent a lot of energy wishing for something that might never happen - and when it finally becomes obvious that it won't happen, more energy will go down the drain of disappointment.

getting lost in the future

this is closely related to the fact that hope is about the future. planning and thinking about the future is a good thing but when we overdo it, the precious moments of the present can get lost. we often take the useful, rational planning for the future that is often needed and overextend it into wishful thinking. the subject of weddings comes up again: i'm sure you've all met people who have turned wedding preparations into weeks and months of headaches over obsessive planning, in the hopes that they will have the perfect wedding. in the midst of all that planning, precious relationships with people in the here and now can get damaged for years to come.

ok, now for the good news.

when i think of my personal relationship with hope, the words that come up are reality, affirmation, work, and open hands.

reality

i firmly believe that to a large degree, we make our own reality. quick, think of the first 10 words that come up when i say the word "china".

----

these ten words constitute an important part of your personal reality about china. whenever you hear or see the word "china", the people, things and concepts that these words stand for will colour how you deal with any new information about china that you receive. the memory of these people, things and concept have come to you because of your unique experiences, thoughts and feelings. since we have a great degree of control over our experiences, thoughts and feelings, we therefore have a great degree of control over our reality.

affirmation

hope is a large part of my reality. so just as you have these particular 10 words that you immediately think when the word "china" crops up - whenever i hear someone speaking of a problem, a challenge, a sadness, the concept of hope immediately crops up for me. it's almost as if i insist that there is hope. maybe it's because when i grew up, my mother would often say, "the only thing you can rely upon nowadays are miracles". as long as a person is not dead, there is hope. this i affirm.

hard work

this hope is not an empty, sweet-talking hope. because the next thing to do is to get up and see where that hope is, what it looks like, what avenues lead to it.

that is hard work. i've had a number of clients who in the beginning of working with me just couldn't handle that. i ask them then whether i can hold their hope for now. i'll hold their hope until they're ready to shoulder the work. i think of a client, for example, who had lost hope of having a connection with god. i held that hope for him for over a year, gently reminding him of it once in a while, and then slowly, slowly, he came and picked it up. but it wasn't easy. there were lots of aborted prayers, uncomfortable meditation sessions, fearful dreams about what that god might look like.

open hands

it seems important to me to hold that hope with open hands. if i close my hands on it, it gets all squished up and turns into something else (wishful thinking? crazy fantasies?) i want to hold that hope, fully aware of all the possibilities it entails: that it might come true, that it might come true in a way that i am at this time unable to imagine, that it might not come true. yes, that's a paradox: on the one hand i totally insist on the hope, on the other i am fully aware that it may not be fulfilled. i don't know what it is - it just seems that this openness is the oxygen that hope needs in order to breathe and grow.

so ... in the end, yes, i fully believe in hope - as long as it's sweet, gentle hope, hope full of question marks and possibilities.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

my latest newsletter

2006-06-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

hi - thought i'd post my latest "what's new" email here ... here we go ...

dear friends -

the other day i was walking by my garden and all of a sudden it hit me: this is starting to look like the garden i had always dreamed of! a little wild and chaotic, with lots of flowers in lots of colours, contained yet natural.

it was really touching because this imagined garden was one of those dreams that i hadn't been very sure would come true. it seemed quite distant, and a little impossible. i'm no great gardener, and i am really not very good at being the slow, steady maintenance person that a garden really needs. and yet, here it is:

so ... it's so much about dreams. i think we often don't realize that. for example, i'll ask a client, "it looks like you're not happy with where you're at right now. where would you rather be? what would your life look like if you were happier?" sometimes people find that question hard to answer. but then, a little later, they might say something like, "i look at marcia and don - they have a life! how come i don't have a life?" that is the dream, that's the kernel of the dream. we can then carefully make room for that dream, weed around it like around a precious little plant we just found in the garden, make sure it gets the sun and shade it needs, that it gets the right amount of water and nutrients. actually, it's surprising to see that most dreams, once discovered and nurtured even a little bit, are quite resilient.

if there's anyone you know who needs to have their dreams nurtured, please tell them that some dreams really can come true. tell them about the dreams that have come true for you. and if they're interested in more, i'd be happy to have a chat with them. i'm always there for a phone call or an email.

here is someone who followed his dreams: ken walker was already quite happy in his job where he helped people getting out of the morass of poverty. but he had made a lifetime study of happiness and knew that there was more for him. he quit his job and became the happiness guy. today he helps people discover how they can be happier right now. he'll be our guest next week at our fireside chats, a round of friendly, informal discussions at sacred space at 27 west pender street (across from tinseltown). here are the times and dates:

fireside chat topics

wednesday, june 21 - guest night: meet ken walker, the happiness guy!
wednesday, june 28 - everyday intuition
wednesday, july 5 - "but i'm not an artist!" - and being creative anyway
wednesday, july 12 - the many forms of prayer
wednesday, july 19 - talismans - sacred objects

two other events i'm organizing at sacred space are

bloggers' night on monday, june 19, at 6:30 - meet a bunch of people who're as much into blogging as i am!

pagan coffee meetup - june 30, 7:00. meet other people who are curious about things pagan!

both these events happen at sacred space, 27 west pender street.

blogging for the good of humankind

2006-06-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

rick bruner from business blog consulting writes this today:

... why not blogging for the good of [hu]mankind? There are issues-focused blogs like the environmental blog TreeHugger. Now there’s a network of blogs for good, founded by Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing Group. Way to go, Paul! It’s a brilliant idea; I hope it really turns into something big. Doug Kaye (founder of IT Conversations) is another blogger/podcaster with a social conscience… he’s started the podcast channel Social Innovation Conversations.

it's going to be interesting to see where this goes. of course a lot of blogs already focus on making the world a better place - hugo schwyzer, who i quote quite often here, and who writes about all kinds of important social issues, including feminism and body image, is definitely one of them.

do you feel that that this blog, change therapy, blogs for the good of humankind? i'd love to hear your opinions ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

international bloggers day

2006-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

today is international webloggers day so i thought i’d look at what people in other countries do who seem to have interests similar to mine.

in germany, joerg undeutsch (that translates to “george un-german”) has a blog called ”flattersatz” (“flapping sentences”). in one entry, he talks about living life to the fullest. instead of living in hypocrisy, it’s better to

“run naked through the rain, stumble, pick yourself up again despite the bruised knees and bloody lips and eyes where rain and tears mingle – tears of joy, desperation, mourning and lust.”

well, i have to say that’s right up my alley, although i guess i would prefer it if the rain was warm and i could wear sneakers.

then we go to barcelona, spain, where mercedes p., in el divan del psicologo (the psychologist’s couch) talks about her virtual relationship with her psychoanalyst who lives 12,000 km away, in buenos aires, argentina. her blog’s tag reads

“life was created to be lived in eternal enjoyment, infinite liberty, unconditional love and unlimited consciousness. anything less, and you’ve completely lost the objective of having been born human.”

interesting. i wonder what mother teresa would have said about that.

and before we go over to the U.S., a blog written by two danes, brainethics, with a rather more left-brain content than our friends from germany and spain. they report on a scientific paper that investigated people’s responses to other people’s pupil sizes. apparently a diminishing pupil size led to some observers’ believing that the other person was sad. when that was the case, the observers’ pupil sizes also tended to diminish.

so – squint if you need sympathy!

finally, back to good old north america where clearly most blogs reside. i actually went to technorati and tried to find psychology related blogs from all kinds of places (africa, india, new zealand, australia, ireland, scotland) but just couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile.

here are north american blogs i look at on a regular basis:

creating passionate users; love their post on the effect of being around negative people, and how they bust the myth that happy people are boring

good old hugo schwyzer, who has a lot of intelligent things to say about a lot of things – for example, feminism and body image

and finally, the happiness guy – check out the post on decluttering the mind.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

understanding learning disabilities

2006-06-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

“i have this young man sitting here, george. i’d like to send him over to you. he’s a real sweetheart but he’s got a problem and some things got a bit messed up.” my friend tessa at the neighbourhood church didn’t tell me more than that; probably he was sitting right beside her and she didn’t want to say more. so we made an appointment for the next day.

a few hours later, tessa called again to tell me his story. his company had closed down a few weeks earlier but he hadn’t applied for employment insurance. there was an insurance claim for a car accident george had been in a month ago but he hadn’t dealt with it. his landlord was causing him trouble but he didn’t want to file a claim.

what was happening?

george had a real hard time reading and writing, explained tessa. when everything went well for him, he could function at a slow grade 5 level but when things heated up, when he felt challenged or threatened, letters just started jumbling up on him.

when we met, it was quite clear that george wasn’t “stupid”, as he called himself. he wasn’t “slow” either – all of the jobs he had held required a high degree of alertness and quick reactions. his problem was simply that he looked at letters in a different way than 80% of the population. 20% of the english speaking world struggles with letters and/or numbers, people like tom cruise, cher or walt disney.

for those of us who were fortunate enough to learn letters and numbers without any great difficulty it’s often very, very hard to understand what it’s like to live in a world where the alphabet and simple arithmetic are always about to slip into a weird, chaotic mess of incomprehensible symbols. george had experienced that a lot, even from teachers and counsellors. that didn’t make him feel better – it heightened his feelings of frustration, shame and fear.

i am grateful that when i sat across from george, i was able to see his reality. because tessa had warned me of his fear of forms, i made sure not to have him fill out any written material. instead i listened to his story. yes, it was a story of frustration over not grasping what other people seemed to grasp so easily; of shame because he seemed so “different” from others; of fear that people would laugh at him; but more than that, it was a story of amazing resilience and intelligence. for example, in order to make up for his difficulty with reading signs, he had trained his memory to almost photographic precision, and had thus become an expert navigator.

“you know,” he said, “it’s not even so much that i have this learning disability. i know people who have it worse. but what hurts the most is that i keep telling myself that i’m stupid, slow, worthless.”

the amazing thing was that he had really never told anyone how he felt about his learning disability. the focus had always been on what he cannot do. when we took the focus off that and simply started talking about what it was like to be george, it was as if a new door, one he had never seen before, began opening for him.

if you know anyone with a learning disability – and chances are you do – don’t let them walk through it alone. acknowledge who they are in their entirety, celebrate the special skills they have, and let them tell you their story. chances are you’ll learn something.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

speaking in my true voice

2006-06-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

genkaku, one of my favourite bloggers, wrote this today on speaking one's truth:

The movie "National Treasure" is an adventure about stealing the Declaration of Independence. On the back of this document, in invisible ink, is a clue to finding a vast treasure, which, by movie's end, is found.

In the midst of the movie the central character, actor Nicholas Cage, and a sidekick are looking at the security-encased Declaration and reading a bit of it. Cage reads a part and the sidekick says, "Nobody talks like that." To which Cage responds approximately, "People may not talk like that, but that's the way they think."

I thought it was a good line. People do think about the principles and aims of their lives. And it's not just the small stuff, the beamers and new clothes and corner offices. It's the sweeping stuff, put in various ways with various words ... goodness and peace and compassion and the vastness of the universe and, perhaps, God.

They may think this way, but as the sidekick said, they don't talk that way. They don't talk that way perhaps because they are among strangers or people who are busy talking and acting in ways that run counter to these compelling thoughts. Or perhaps it is all too personal, too private, too somehow touching and tender ... like a newborn baby in need of all possible protections and nurture. Or maybe there's some other reason for not talking about what they actually think about...all that illogical loving that nags and hints and beckons and yet remains without a tongue.

In Hinduism and probably in Buddhism too and probably elsewhere as well, there is the encouragement to bring "thought, word and deed" into accord. No more style over substance. What a compelling idea -- bringing these stars into alignment ... thought, word and deed; body, mouth and thought. Nothing extra and nothing left out. Complete and completely at ease.

This is the way people think, I think. Maybe not with these exact words, but ... well, close enough for folk singing. This is the way they think.

And this is the way they talk even when they don't talk this way.

The Hindus had another encouragement: "Always speak to everyone of God." How is such a thing possible, some may ask?

I guess my question would be, how could such a thing be impossible?

an interesting question. i sometimes ask myself when i pray - is this my voice, truly my voice? and the next question is, what is my true, absolutely authentic voice? how can i tell?

of course i can never get to the authentic absolute. but perhaps if i spoke more "to everyone of god", i could a little close to it.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

how to ...

2006-06-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

hello everyone -

maybe you don't need me anymore! i just discovered wikihow, and you can, too!. there you can learn fascinating things, like how to

Become Emotionless ("a very useful way to handle problems")
Bury Your Burdens
Cope With Feeling Alone at Night
Discipline Your Troubling Student
Find Help For a Suspected Eating Disorder
Get an Annoying Song out of Your Head ("try tapping out a different rhythm with your fingertips")
Keep a Sharp Mind and Good Attitude
Let out Your Sadness
Live Life to the Fullest
Overcome a Fear of the Hospital ("Don't go inside, just sit outside (weather permitting) and watch the people. See the doctors and nurses relaxing on their breaks, see the ambulances pull up and watch as the paramedics do their jobs.")
Psychoanalyze Yourself ("Things you'll need: a brain; a problem")
Smile When You Think You Can't Smile
Stop Being a Constant Worrier
Stop Biting and Grow Beautiful Nails
Stop Laughing when You Laugh at Inappropriate Times (with a link to "How to not laugh at your own jokes")
Stop Ruminating (mentally Going over and over Bad Events)

interesting, interesting, interesting. the very definition of pop psychology, i guess.

hey, maybe i should post an article there? how about ... how to wean yourself from dr.phil? no, i don't know enough about dr.phil - haven't watched more than 15 minutes of him in my entire life. or, how to stop being anxious over what to write in your next blog, in 7 easy steps. that's better. too lame, though. or, how about this one: how to tell your father that you've just gotten your 17-year-old teenage self pregnant. now that's something i know something about!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

understanding addictions

2006-06-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

back in april, i said this in regard to a blog entry on obesity research:

the more healthy i live, the more understanding i have for people for whom health is not such a great priority, or who have chosen to focus on different areas of improving their health than i have. i have some hunches regarding what the reason for that might be; fodder for another blog entry, i guess

so here is that blog entry!

i noticed this the first time a few years ago, when i was still working in vancouver's downtown eastside, and all of a sudden it was okay by me that a lot of people who lived in that area were smoking. i realized what an important social glue smoking is, and even started carrying a pack of players on me, for people who i knew would be desperate for a smoke. what a difference to the times that i would rant and rave against the evil of smoking!

don't get me wrong: i still believe that cigarettes are extremely unhealthy. but somehow my attitude towards smokers changed.

what happened?

a few ideas, mostly in regard to smoking but they apply to other behaviours as well:

as i became more secure in my own healthy behaviour, i needed to protect myself less against a possible "infection" from people who behave in different ways. i did not need to criticize people who smoke anymore because it was clear that i would most likely not feel tempted to smoke again.
physical and mental health go hand in hand. the more i looked after my physical health, the more my mental sanity increased. one thing that comes with sanity is more tolerance, a greater ability to see that people's paths are infinitely varied. who am i to say that my path is better than someone else's?
we all use a wide range of behaviours, including addictive behaviours, to help us cope with the world around us. smoking serves a wide range of purposes (social, physical, emotional) and is a better way of coping than violence, crack or meth. the same goes for other addictive behaviour; many people instinctively use the coping mechanism that seems to give them the most benefit for the least amount of pain. the more potential pain there is, the less important become the non-immediate consequences of behaving in unhealthy ways. when confronted with never-ending poverty, what difference does it make that cigarettes may blacken your lungs over time? i became more aware of that.

there but for the grace of god go i. i have been given the gift of walking away from unhealthy behaviour. my job was to recognize that gift, accept it and treasure it. it was a gift, nevertheless. and even the ability to recognize, accept and treasure it - that was a gift, too. what do i know about what other gifts people receive? what do i know about other people's ability to deal with such gifts? not very much. i cannot see into other people's souls. i can hardly look into my own.

what i can do is listen, listen to people's stories, and tell stories about those of us who have received this particular gift. and then we'll see ...

and i can be grateful. humbly grateful.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

breaking free of violent relationships

2006-06-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

"you promised me you would never hit me again" - read this story of a woman who heard her son utter these words exactly one year ago and decided to leave a violent husband.

i had shivers running down my spine reading her story. i guess everyone would - but for me it had special meaning. i still think of the day i threw out my abusive ex-husband as the "day of the revolution". in fact, today i did a lifeline exercise where i rated the ten most significant positive and negative events in my life and even though all kinds of wonderful things have happened to me since, extricating my children and myself from this toxic relationship still rates as the best thing i've ever done, 16 years later.

i am grateful that i had the strength to do this, and grateful for every person - man, woman, child, who manages to break the chains. freedom breeds more freedom.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

mental illness in the workplace

2006-06-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

read in hugo schwyzer's blog about a tenured professor who apparently was let go because of behaviour resulting from a mental illness, as well as my comments on this alarming situation.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

butterfly chaos - a hypertext poem

2006-06-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

what do you know about
the flapping of the butterfly -
the light flap, soft flap, timid flap,
the one that makes no noise, disturbs no sleeper,
that is so utterly erasable, and much more insignificant
than sand paintings in eastern gardens …
and what is there to know about this miniscule event,
what insight, wisdom to be gained from bodies of such
weightlessness?

a hurricane ran over our world last year
and ate up houses, trees, streets, bicycles,
devoured people with its water-mouth
and spat out corpses, broken towers, wrecks,
and twisted sailboats.

what do you know about
the flapping of the butterfly –
the light flap, soft flap, timid flap,
the one that set in motion nothing but a tiny, tiny, tiny breeze –
a tiny breeze that joined another tiny breeze –
and then another one …

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

so relaxed!

2006-06-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting here in my office. not alone. someone is in the chair across from me. very relaxed. is she asleep?

(if you come to my office, will you fall asleep?)

yes, i think she is asleep. just comfortably in the chair.

how much i can learn from her! never ruffled, never offended, always relaxed, always ready for a quick chat. not a picky eater, either. has her preferences, of course, but will not press the issue - it's not worth it.

i aspire to be like her.

i love my cat.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the wounded healer

2006-06-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

my approach to therapy is influenced by traditions that place some weight on judicial self disclosure, on the idea of the wounded healer, on the notion that there is very little we can know for certain, and on paying attention to the here and now: the here and now of the client's life, of the experience during the therapeutic moment, of the unfolding relationship between the client and myself as we walk a stretch side by side on the client's life journey.

there have been a number of occurrences lately that brought this approach into sharper awareness than usual. for whatever reason, right now i take particular notice of tendencies to speak of our experience as if it didn't really happen to us, as in, "people are really angry these days" or "when you feel this bad, you can't do anything about it". what am i trying to do when i shift my own felt experience onto "people" and "you"?

i have also just taken a workshop where the facilitator kept on asking us to speak from our own experience, not in terms of opinions or hearsay. and when i was on the other end of the stick the other day and gave a lunch and learn presentation at bc hydro, one comment was that i spoke a lot of my own experiences and maybe not quite enough about how i have helped clients.

finally, i have been quite aware lately of how often i think and communicate in terms of questions, rather than statements. as in:

what can i learn from this?

here's one thing:

thinking about this has helped me clarify more what the characteristics are of clients and problems where i think i can help (and where i cannot help).

1) i need to personally feel a connection with the person and
2) with the difficulty they are experiencing, and
3) i need to honestly feel (not just think) that these difficulties can be overcome, and
4) that there are a number of ways out of/through/beyond these difficulties.

people who are confounded by depression, the range of eating disorders, unhealthy substance use and other addictions, chronic pain, questions around spirituality, life transition, sexual and other abuse experiences, posttraumatic stress disorder - these are all difficulties that meet these criteria.

this is also why i do not feel qualified to see couples (and have never sought to learn about it) - i would not be able to meet qualification number 4): i'm way too tempted to have an agenda. it is also the reason why i do not deal well with people with narcissistic or true borderline tendencies - i don't meet most of the criteria.

(nb: when i say "true borderline" i mean someone who actually shows some of the classical borderline characteristics, not someone who has been labeled as such for convenience).

aaaah, and this "nb" could bring me to a lot more comments, such as, when i have grave doubts about the wisdom of psychiatric categories such as "narcissistic", why do i even bother to bring them up?

do i have a good answer to this? i don't know. let me think about it.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the negative voice vs. the encouraging voice

2006-05-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

"The story of your life is the story of a journey of your heart through a dangerous and beautiful world. It is the story of the long and sustained assault on your heart by the Enemy who knows what you could be and fears you. But it is also the story of the long and mysterious pursuit of your heart by the God who knows you and truly loves you deeply." John Eldridge

who is our enemy?

who is our god?

it occurs to me that the "enemy" - the negative, negating, invalidating, small, sarcastic voice often sits very close to my ear (or heart?). how strange! why not reserve that seat to my god - the encouraging, loving, expansive, freeing, soothing voice?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the weekend to end breast cancer

2006-05-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

hi everyone

just a quick post today. i've decided to post occasionally about my weekend to end breast cancer participation on urbanvancouver. go to it to see my first entry!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

children and war

2006-05-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

i found this in medicalnews today:

How Do Children Understand The Phenomenon Of War?

All over the world children are exposed to war, some first-hand, others through media images. However, little is known about how children understand the phenomenon of war, and many parents are unsure how to approach the subjects of war and terrorism with their children.

Parents can benefit from research that emphasizes their children's perspective. Increased awareness of children's knowledge of war, their sources of information about war, and developmental differences in their communication and understanding of war can help parents approach their children about this important and timely issue.

Dr. Kathleen Walker and Dr. Maureen Blankemeyer, Kent State professors in human development and family studies, have studied the understanding of war and peace among children in Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Israel and the United States, where they also conducted a study to learn about children's awareness of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and what has influenced that knowledge.

of course i was quite intrigued, so i looked around to see what these researchers found - but there's nothing there.

it all sounds pretty bland.

and war is such a horrific experience for adults - how much more intense is it for children! just yesterday i spent time talking to two friends of mine, both of whom were affected by WWII in eastern europe. there is nothing bland about their stories. i, too, born not long after the war, am deeply influenced by the stories of the holocaust and WWII that my parents told me.

here are some web sites that deal with the same topic:

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/911/childwar2.html
http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/13_1/Vol13_1Articles/CYE_CurrentIssue_Article_ChildrenUnderFire_Boyden.htm
http://www.nd.edu/~krocinst/colloquy/issue%203/feature_childrenwar.shtml

it is our children for whom we want peace; for some reason, we always think of the future when we think of our children. but our children today, they need peace now.

i don't know whether it's a coincidence that i, as well as the two friends i just mentioned, feel passionate about peace.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

understanding anorexia

2006-05-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

i don't have anorexia but i am intrigued by how close i feel to people who have this experience. there is a way in which i understand the desire to control one's life to such a high degree. "my body will not tell me when to eat! i am in charge of that!" these words also reveal the split between "my body" and "i" - as if there were two entities. like most people, i find it easy to buy into this duality.

there is also a part of me - the small, wounded child who feels misunderstood and overlooked, perhaps? - who gets the need to influence people and occupy people's minds by my behaviours, just like the person with severe anorexia often holds their family and friends in thrall.

and i so very much understand the excitement that comes with closing in on perfection! perfection, as we imperfect human beings understand it, is such a shining ideal, such a dazzling idea to strive for. it's blinding, and there is always something comforting in that kind of emotional blindness.

even the self image that looks so very different to the person with anorexia than a "normal" (??) person is something that makes sense to me. it's nothing but an exxageration of what happens to most of us anyway - who can really see reality? who has the eyes, who has the guts? who has the guts to look upon themselves with true love? it's much easier to form some idea of oneself and then to only see that idea when we look into the mirror.

and i get the disdain that some people with anorexia experience towards people who eat "normally". in their eyes, they are striving for perfection, whereas people who eat normally or people who eat too much are just letting themselves go to seed. feeling superior is something in which we all engage.

anorexia comes at a very high price. it can mean death, it can mean serious health problems. sometimes the experience of being human is so challenging that paying that price appears worth while.

i understand that, too.

however, i don't agree that this price need be paid. i believe that there are softer, easier, more joyful, happy and free ways to live one's life according to one's own script; to interact between body and mind; to live with those around us; to strive for ideals; and that there is enjoyment in going through life with our eyes open and looking reality square in the eye. and i don't believe in sacrifice - in sacrificing our body or anything else. sacrifices are made to wrathful gods; if you have a wrathful god, i say, fire him!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

healthy lifestyle strategies

2006-05-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

A UCLA research study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found that people may be able to improve their cognitive function and brain efficiency by making simple lifestyle changes such as incorporating memory exercises, healthy eating, physical fitness and stress reduction into their daily lives.

Researchers found that after just 14 days of following healthy lifestyle strategies, study participants' brain metabolism decreased in working memory regions, suggesting an increased efficiency -- so the brain didn't have to work as hard to accomplish tasks.

For the two-week study, 17 subjects with normal baseline memory performance scores were randomly assigned to two groups: a control group did not make any behavior modifications, while a test group incorporated healthy longevity strategies to improve physical and mental function.

wow ... i'd really like to believe that this is can be generalized to the population at large. 14 days of healthy lifestyle and brain efficiency is increased ...

i'll have to get the whole scientific report and look at some of the details. what did the control group do, for example? is it possible that the test group improved simply because they were given so much attention? also, 17 subjects - that's 8 or 9 subjects for each group. not a lot.

still, it sounds really hopeful. stay tuned for more news on this ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

tracing depression

2006-05-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

what is depression? sometimes tracing the various meanings of words can help in understanding the concept or experience for which the word stands. a while ago i spent a few hours trying to pin down when the word “depression” was first used. it looks like henry maudsley, a british physician (there were no psychologists before the late 1800s), was the first to use the word, in the early 1800’s. before that, and right through to freud (who, as far as i can tell, did not use the word “depression”), the term “melancholia” was used. this dates back to the greeks; melancholia literally means “black bile”.

when you look it up in the dictionary, “depression” is derived from “deprimere”, and “deprimere” means “to press down”. the interesting thing, though, is that “supprimere” (to suppress) means “to press down”, as well.

what is the connection between suppression and depression?

to suppress actually means more literally to press down. the prefix sub(p)- always refers to a downward notion (e.g. to submerge). freud saw suppression as pushing something down into the subconscious. this is a pretty normal process – we cannot be aware of everything that ever happened to us. perhaps the subconscious can be compared to what we have stored in the basement. most of what’s stored down there is simply because we have no use for it right now. however, there are the odd things that we stick in the basement because looking at it day in, day out is just too uncomfortable or painful. we stick them in the basement, far out of sight, probably even locked away in a trunk. problems arise (!) when there’s too much in the basement (maybe it even starts to stink from down there?), or when some of the things in the basement should either be thrown out or brought upstairs (that is, into consciousness).

i cannot give you an example of something that i have currently suppressed – it is the very nature of suppression that i am not aware of it.

to depress – that’s a more complex affair. the core meaning of the prefix de- is “away from”. down, aside, up, whatever. just get it away from me! it is interesting to think about that in the context of melancholia – black bile. the function of bile is to aid in the process of digestion, especially fat, a hard-to-digest food item. could we think about depression as pushing away that which is hard to digest? or as taking something inside (“eating” something) that we then push through the digestive tract rather than letting it “mix with our juices”? or is depression about swallowing things so fast that our bile cannot keep up with it? or is depression, as many suggest, about swallowing our anger? again, it is interesting to note that the greek word for bile – chole – is closely related to the greek word for anger – cholos.

in my opinion, the emotional part of depression most definitely involves not dealing with our feelings. (there may also be a chemical component to depression.) that can sound a little harsh, no? i immediately think, oh no, there’s something i was supposed to deal with and i didn’t! like not paying a bill. but it goes much deeper than that. in most cases we are simply not in a position to deal with the feelings. maybe we don’t know how. maybe it’s too scary or seems overwhelming. maybe the depressive feelings are closely connected to old experiences we have hidden away (suppressed).

there’s one thing we can do, though, even in the middle of depression. never mind all the emotions we have already pushed away. we can deal with that later. but we can stop pushing right now. we can stop putting things in the basement right now. and instead of resisting our own feelings, we can start to resist – or better even, simply move out of the way of – pressures from outside.

like when i moved out of the way of time pressure yesterday.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

stress and the buddha

2006-05-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

stress … it’s 9:15 pm and i’ve been at it since 7 am. i’ve had a 10-minute break. somewhere around 4 pm.

look at me! i’m such a hard worker!

what a bunch of baloney!

driving my body, mind and soul like this is nothing to be proud of.

and i’m very grateful that i recognize this. so when i was driving home from a meeting, thinking about how i was going to most effectively work through the rest of the evening, mercifully, the sensible part of me told me to STOP!

“stop,” said this sensible voice to me, “stop this thinking in the future, stop the scheming and planning, and pay attention to what you’re doing now!”

so i started to pay attention to what i was doing. driving. participating in the dance of traffic. noticing the tension in my shoulders. stepping on the gas, stepping on the breaks. breathing. breathe in: 1, 2, 3, 4; breath out: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. breathe in …. breathe out ……..

aaaah. that felt better. breathing, stepping, looking, moving … and then of course, thoughts of the future still popping in and out. but the focus wasn’t on those thoughts anymore. the focus was on being right here, only “this”, right now, rather than doing this and that, over there, in the future.

i even pulled over for a few minutes to just sit and breathe.

i feel much better now.

thank you, buddha, for teaching me this.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

a new food and exercise plan

2006-05-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

lindsay from dizzyisland has made a decision:

After a little encouragement from my psychiatrist on Friday, I decided to bite the bullet and begin my food and exercise plan ...
Basically what my doctor said to me made a lot of sense; at first I wasn’t hearing her, but she finally got through to me on Friday. I’ve spent years and years planning and anticipating, and not a whole lot of time actually doing. It was good to have someone there to call me on my shit, recognize my behavior pattern for what it was, and suggest that I jump right in the pool with no hesitation.

Yes, I still have a couple days left of work; yes, it’s going to be hectic; yes, I’m clueless as to whether or not I’m going to get paid yet while I’m off; yes, I have to travel to my hometown this week; but, I’m in the care of God now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. My belief that I can’t make it through a day without self-medicating, by any of my various means, is false. It’s an illusion. I can get through a day without (fill in the blank).

darn courageous, lindsay, and way to go on getting your food and exercise in order! making the move from planning to doing sounds so easy on paper. saying that you can make it through the day without self-medication sounds so healthy. pronouncing that there's nothing to be afraid of sounds so logical.

and all these things are so hard to do in actual practice.

or at least, so it seems. the metaphor of jumping in the water is so fitting. last time i went swimming (something i don't do very often), it was the same way: here i was in my bathing suit, already a little cold, walking around the pool, looking for the best way to avoid the shock of entering the water. so cold! so wet! so ... not dry, so not the what my body is used to! in a small way, i was dreading the impact of this new experience, i was dreading the moment where the rubber hits the road, so to say. there was a part of me that completely resisted the transition as well as the newness of it.

and then i got in, and within a second or two everything was fine.

i hope everything will work out ok for you, too, lindsay.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

horticultural therapy

2006-05-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

7 am today, when i was watering my garden, my bare feet tickled by the morning dew, i thought, why not do a quick write-up about horticultural therapy?

so i googled the term and on the first site that came up, i clicked on "what is horticultural therapy?", this is what i found:

"There are four elements that are essential for an activity to qualify as horticultural therapy if it is to be considered a profession eligible for the same status as other caring professions.
a defined treatment procedure that focuses on horticultural or gardening activities
a client with a diagnosed problem who is in treatment for that problem
a treatment goal that can be measured and evaluated
a qualified professional to deliver the treatment"

doesn't that sound ... errr ... exciting?

no?

it doesn't really tell me what horticultural therapy is. it focuses completely on the profession (another term that i think of is "priesthood") of horticultural therapy. apparently, these pries ... i mean therapists are just like "other caring professions".

so what do they care about? defined treatment procedures. aaah, there's someone who needs to be treated! who might that be? a client with a diagnosed problem. right. if you have priests, you need sheeple. and these sheeple need problems - not just any problem, mind you: it needs to be diagnosed. with the bibl ... i mean, with the DSM IV, presumably. next we care about treatment goals, and not just any treatment goal - it needs to be measured! no treatment goals, no therapy. and get out your measuring tapes, guys! and for heaven's sake, if the prie ... i mean the therapist who administers the treatment isn't qualified - just imagine the jungle of a mess that would create! i also wonder, is it considered beneficial to administer fertilizers and psychiatric medication at the same time?

oh, and did you notice the word "status" in there?

there's probably a lot of wonderful, truly caring horticutural therapists out there, and i am sorry if i offended them. it's just when i read something like the above description (which doesn't even answer the question), my bile rises. it brings up so much of what's wrong with mental health professions.

what does this say about me? am i getting a kick out of criticizing some of my colleagues? where do i commit the same errors as they do?

i'll reflect on this next time i dig around in my garden. the one that i call my "nature overcomes civilization project".

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

gratitude - even when i'm tired

2006-05-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

after an 18-hour day, i am incredibly tired. but i can still find a few minutes to express gratitude for the good things in my life.

the great weather we've been having lately.
our lovely gray cat, rum, who has such an easy-going personality.
that my blisters never popped!
the willingness to exercise most days.
that my friends feel comfortable giving me feedback.
the deep conversations i had today.
my "practice angels" (people who refer clients to me).
easy conversations with god.
oh, and the ivy that's really starting to grow around my window ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

increasing psychotherapy effectiveness

2006-05-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

research has shown that when clients are directly involved with charting the course of therapy, therapy tends to be much more effective. because of that, i use two very simple tools in my sessions that help to ensure client involvement. the one i am reprinting here is the one i give at the beginning of the session. it is useful in many ways - one of them is to chart improvement over time. if there is little improvement, the client and i can discuss what changes we need to make; and if there is improvement, we can figure out how that improvement happened, and how the improvement can be strengthened even more and firmly anchored into the client's life.

here then is the outcome rating scale:

Looking back over the last week, including today, help us understand how you have been doing in the following areas of your life, where marks to the left represent low levels and marks to the right indicate high levels.

Individually:
(Personal well-being)
I----------------------------------------------------------------------I

Interpersonally:
(Family, close relationships)
I----------------------------------------------------------------------I

Socially:
(Work, School, Friendships)
I----------------------------------------------------------------------I

Overall:
(General sense of well-being)
I----------------------------------------------------------------------I

the second tool i use is the session rating scale, which is given at the end of the session. this little questionnaire ensures that the client gets what they need out of the session - for example, that she or he feels heard, and that we talked about the things she or he wanted to talk about. when there is dissatisfaction, we talk about it to make sure that next time, the session works better for the client. an example of the session rating scale can be found at the end of this article.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

mental illness, mental health, mental wellness

2006-05-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

the public health agency of canada has a site on mental health - or mental illness, if you prefer that term. the definition is:

Mental illnesses are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behaviour (or some combination thereof) associated with significant distress and impaired functioning over an extended period of time. The symptoms of mental illness vary from mild to severe, depending on the type of mental illness, the individual, the family and the socio-economic environment.

this is an ok definition as it goes but i ask myself right away - if there is an alteration, a change, then what has it changed from? has it changed from ease (as opposed to distress) and skilful (as opposed to impaired) functioning? or maybe just from distress (as opposed to significant distress) and acceptable (as opposed to impaired) functioning?

so let's say that when one is not mentally ill, then one varies somewhere between ease and distress and between skilful and acceptable functioning.

this is again ok but just not very exciting, is it?

what's mental wellness, then?

fortunately, the public health agency has something to say about this, too. in fact, it is the UN definition of wellness:

Wellness is not only the absence of illness but also the sense of total physical and mental well-being.

this sounds fabulous! it sounds as great as the definition of non-illness sounds unexciting.

unfortunately, it also sounds pretty unrealistic.

i think that's partly because of the dualism involved in illness vs. wellness. when you take these definitions, someone with a chronic condition could never have well-being. the diabetic who lies totally content on the deck of a cruise ship during her honeymoon - sorry, no wellness. on the other hand, a physically healthy psychopath with not a care in the world would enjoy all-round well-being.

obviously, there is something wrong with this picture.

i certainly have no easy answer to this. i guess my point is that mental health, mental illness and mental wellbeing are difficult concepts to pin down. in the end, i think every person needs to define these terms for themselves.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

chronic pain - hard to understand

2006-05-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

many years ago, when i was still in the early phases of studying, i had a telephone conversation with a friend of mine, who at that point had lived for many years with chronic back pain. inexperienced and naive, and influenced by reading louise hay, i suggested to my friend that at some level she wanted the pain.

she was livid. why would anyone want something so horrible and crippling? how could i be her friend and say something like that? she hung up on me, angry, anxious, bothered.

that night i went to bed in a state of bewilderment. i clearly remember lying there, staring up at the ceiling, praying for insight.

and then it came to me. obviously, i did not have idea one about chronic pain. since i was not suffering from chronic pain myself, how could i? i decided there and then to become a student of people with chronic pain, to ask them to teach me.

i am grateful for the experience. being a student of chronic pain sufferers has taught me so much that is directly related to pain - about pain medication, the connection between chronic pain and depression, how doctors and the rest of society relates to people with chronic pain - the list goes on and on. but i've learned so much more. for example, about what it's like to have a disability - visible and invisible; what it means to live a "normal" life; and the superstitions we harbour towards people who are "different".

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

suicide by a friend. or was it a stranger?

2006-05-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

last week, a young man in his 20s, let's call him john, ended his life. he had struggled with depression for quite a while and just couldn't take the pain of his life anymore. he swallowed the pills he had hoarded over a few months, and then he left us.

there was a memorial service. they talked about how much he had loved his cat; how close he had been to his friend, mark; how much his job had meant to him; and joked that he's probably in heaven now, playing cards with st. peter.

the problem --

john liked his cat, but he adored his two horses, which were never mentioned. he had stopped talking to mark a year ago. he hated his job. he had turned his back to the church, and he was passionately opposed to gambling, which is why he never played cards. nobody talked about the fact that he was a talented, aspiring artist.

what had happened?

did the people who organized his memorial service really know john?

what would it have been like for john to truly be known by more than just a handful of friends? would it have made a difference?

i honestly don't know.

but i ask: who do we have in our lives? do we know who they truly are? do we care? do we show we care?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

getting sick

2006-05-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

i feel a cold coming on.

i could ignore it.

i could go to bed.

i could get all panicky.

i could have a hot bath.

i could listen to my body.

i could feel guilty about getting sick.

i could be afraid that i've infected my friend who is weak from chemotherapy.

i could realize that it's normal to get sick once in a while.

i could accept my present reality.

i could worry that it might turn into one of those long-lasting flus.

...

all these options.

i think i'll accept that i'm not feeling well, listen to my body, have a hot bath, and then go to bed early. without feeling guilty, worried, afraid, or ignoring my present reality.

thank you, everyone who has helped me get to this point of agreeing to be friends with my body. it still doesn't come automatically, i still see feeling guilty, worried, and all those other feelings about getting sick as options - but i don't exercise those options anymore.

thank you.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

hopelessness?

2006-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

"research convincingly shows that people come to therapy not because they have problems but because they have become demoralized about their chances of resolving particular challenges."

this is something i brought up in one of my earliest blog entries. there, i talked about how we face problems all the time, and how the "size" of a problem seems more to be related to our personal attitudes to them than to "what" the problem actually is.

today, rereading these words, i got stopped short by this sentence again. people become demoralized about their chances of resolving particular challenges.

in other words, they become hopeless.

"they" become hopeless.

never mind "they": i, too, have moments of being hopeless. i wouldn't even call it that (my ego doesn't like it when i call myself hopeless; it is convinced that it has a reputation to uphold) but still, that's what it is, essentially. for example, when i find it difficult to imagine a solution. i stand in front of the problem and the problem is huge, blocks out all my view. what i personally tend to do then is to imagine/pretend/rationalize that what is in front of me is "reality". for example, when i lived in an abusive relationship, i arranged my emotional world-view so that things like having my partner block my children's and my friendships was normal, not being talked to for three days was normal, his being cruel to animals was normal ... wait, i couldn't call it "cruel", of course - it was "not treating animals like humans" - so, yes, you can see how i had to adjust my language, too.

in my hopelessness, i rearranged my values, my language, my love for my children because there seemed no solution in sight.

i am grateful that the day came when i could see a solution. and i don't think i could have done it myself. i had help. from friends, strangers, family - even a lovely policewoman, a victim of domestic violence herself.

yes, i am grateful.

oh, just before i go ... what did i just say? that i had adjusted my language to fit the reality of my problem? and what had i said earlier? something about having difficulties calling some of my moments hopeless?

hmmm ... ??!!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

being invisible

2006-05-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

back in the 90s, i took a women’s studies course and as part of that, i was supposed to participate in an event during women’s day week. the report on this still evokes a lot of feeling in me about being a woman artist, being (in)visible, trying to swim against the stream… here is an excerpt:

as part of this series of events, there is something called "women's inspiration - an installation workshop". i catch the tail end of the previous event, a panel discussion of women artists: a theatre actor, a movie actor, and a painter. they imply that if one wants to be recognized as an artist (and, perhaps, as anything or anyone else?), one has to step out and literally exhibit oneself. i listen, nodding my head vigorously. however, i am anxious for the installation to start. i like hands-on situations – let’s not talk about exhibiting ourselves, let’s do it!

this is why i have chosen to participate in a workshop. after the panel wraps up, nothing much happens. on a table, there are two glue-sticks, a few sheets of black and purple construction paper, and no scissors. while i wonder what, when, where and how the installation piece workshop is going to happen, i read a large wall-poster covered with women's writings around focus questions such as "what is feminism?" and "why is it good to be a woman?" i answer that one with a scribble: "menstruation". a woman points out that "menstruation" starts with "men".

nothing seems to be happening yet regarding the installation but over in a corner are two women talking - maybe about the installation? i walk over and ask what is going to happen. they encourage me to start, and, against (or with?) a feeling of uneasiness, do. i write across a big sheet of paper attached to a room divider: "this is womy(e)n's inspiration". then i start to paste words and images out of magazines i had brought. i think i would like to have different images of women. mostly what i find is "attractive" women. after a while she puts on the big white sheet a photograph of roseanne arnold, one of k.d. lang, a childlike drawing of a stick-woman, a small picture of oriental looking women and children, a picture of an older woman, one of a middle-aged "normal" looking woman embracing a child, one of a black woman in an evening gown, a very powerfully sexual looking woman out of an ad where i change the words "taifoon clothes" into "taifoon woman", and a few pictures of paintings of women.

no-one else joins me and everyone else around me disperses, getting ready for a pub event that is supposed to follow. where is the "workshop?" i also have another question: where can i find more real looking women? i think maybe i would like to draw some. and a propos drawing: i try to draw other people into the process but nothing happens. soon after, a young man appears and tells me that the divider upon which i am working has to be moved. so it is moved out of the enclosed room into the open area of the student union's building. i attempt to find out who the organizer of the "workshop" is but nobody seems to be responsible. one person seems to indicate that someone was responsible but they have to do something else. the room divider with a beginning of "women's inspiration" now stands in another corner. i clean up and leave.

why did i leave? because i was so close to tears that all my functioning focused only on keeping my composure, on "getting out alive". here i was, all by myself, trying to express something that was not only important to me but to other women - after all it was "women's" inspiration, not just one woman's. i felt betrayed by those who had lured me into this experience but what was much worse was that by retreating, i felt I was betraying myself as well as other women to whom inspiration is important. and there was my little feeble attempt at expressing "women's inspiration", standing somewhere in a corner, serving as a room divider, inviting nothing but indifference, maybe even ridicule …

----

so that was quite a few years ago. nowadays i certainly wouldn’t react this strongly anymore – but there are still moments where i feel like an outcast, when i play small, when i retreat into my shell … i guess we all do that … as long as we come out again …

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

time, space, stories, memories

2006-05-05T21:39:00.001-07:00

today i went to the 75th anniversary of my daughter's elementary school. time travel! there was someone there who was may queen in 1934, a 95-year-old teacher who had taught there for many years, and of course the choir who sang right across the century, from i got plenty o' nuttin to rag mop to woodstock to i got a good mother.

yes, an experience in time and space. standing by the entrance, i watched all these people coming in. most of them didn't seem to know each other, or didn't recognize each other. 35-year-olds from langley, a man well past retirement from ontario, a guy in a kilt and a marijuana leaf dangling from his ear, a teacher-turned-textile-artist, a self described slum lord from the neighbourhood, the princpal, the choir teacher, me ... what connected us? just little strands of stime and space. the space of this school, where we have memories, and time: an anniversary. these strands of time and space connected us - like the ribbons of the may pole. woven by stories and memories: you remember when ... ? and the tall grass outside the school ... and then his brother broke his arm ... oh, my son moved to surrey, too ... mr, woodcock, he was the principal for 35 years ... stories, stories, stories. humans are story telling animals.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

overcoming alcoholism

2006-05-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

stanton peele, north-america’s grand-daddy of progressive (and controversial) views on addiction, has this to say about success with overcoming alcoholism.

The most important single prognostic variable associated with remission among alcoholics who attend alcohol clinics is having something to lose if they continue to abuse alcohol.... Patients cited changed life circumstances rather than clinic intervention as most important to their abstinence.... Improved working and housing conditions made a difference in 40 percent of good outcomes, intrapsychic change in 32 percent, improved marriage in 32 percent, and a single 3-hour session of advice and education about drinking... in 35 percent. (quoting George Vaillant, in The Natural History of Alcoholism)

These results apply in all situations-in other words, more than the type of therapy, or even whether the person enters therapy, the best chance for recovery is due to the number and quality of the person's attachments to life. Having people that care about them, including family, friends, and community involvements; having activities of every sort that they find meaningful; having work skills, opportunities, and involvement; and so on predict whether people will have the motivation and resources to overcome alcoholism. They have both more to lose and more to counteract the appeal of the addiction.

while i don’t quite see eye-to-eye with stanton peele regarding AA and other 12-step programs, i would defintely agree with him regarding the above.

life circumstances are much stronger than any specific therapeutic approach in terms of motivating a person to change any kind of addictive behaviour. it is the job of a good counsellor or therapist to draw attention to and enhance these motivating factors, for example by helping the person reach out more to their support network, assisting with the intrapsychic change that vaillant talks about, supporting activities such as hobbies, creative endeavours, volunteering, etc.

my job can also be to help people find AA groups that work for them. some of them are very dysfunctional and fundamentalist and therefore not helpful. others are absolutely amazing and, contrary to peele’s opinion (and/or experience?), very empowering.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the myth of keeping up

2006-05-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

in a blog entry, the creating passionate users guys (three software/game developer geeks "passionate about how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory") make a good point about the myth of keeping up. it's really comforting to hear this from leading-edge people in information technology - if they can't keep up, who can? better yet, if they don't want to keep up, why should we mere mortals?

what kind of things am i trying to keep up with? certain types of information, definitely - for example, i'm interested in new ideas about customer service. amazon shows 3111 books for that. when i go to altavista and search for a narrower term, "customer delight", on pages built or modified within the last year, i get 73,100 results. no, i can't keep up with that. information overload.

oh, and i've just decided that i won't include any more links in this blog entry. no more following links to the nth degree - at least not tonight. that's a start.

but there's so many more things to keep up on. the dishes. the garden. the news.

you know what, though? i have this feeling that most of this is what the buddhists call maya - illusion. information overload is always around - the amount of visual, auditory and tactile information available to us at any moment is monumental. plus temperature, smells, tastes and that elusive sense of knowing (sixth sense?).

at any moment we need to choose what information to pay attention to. right now, the evening sun plays on the tall trees behind my neighbour's house, the spring leaves fresh and green. the play of light and shadow creates ripples that make me think of piano music ...

and i'm sitting on my big golden chair, and i hear my computer's fan going, and my boots feel a little tight, and and and ...

so much information!

only i can choose what to pay attention to. only i can cut through the illusion of "too much".

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

enchantment

2006-05-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

To become enchanted is a valuable skill, more essential than it has ever been before. To understand the inner truth of a person who is radically different from you, to penetrate a belief that seems preposterous, to grasp a faith that violates everything you've held dear, you must become enchanted. It's the only way. It's not difficult. Look into the wide eyes of a laughing baby, let yourself fall into that innocence, and for a breathless moment you can be taken over. People are enchanted every day - by a baby, by a flower, or by the sound of their own voice speaking ideas they didn't know they had. But to become enchanted by that which frightens or repels you - that's less common and perhaps even more vital.

from not in kansas anymore. a curious tale of how magic is transforming america. by christine wicker.

this is my 100th blog entry. enchanted by the internet ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

a house full of stuff

2006-04-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

i have recently heard from a number of people who have difficulties with what could be called “hoarding” – ammassing and keeping more possessions or even animals than one can house in a living space. this oversupply then becomes a problem, either for the person who accumulates these items, and/or for those sharing and/or visiting.

here are some examples of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that can go along with that. it's important to keep in mind that not everybody who experiences them has a big problem; or that this list of thoughts, feelings and behaviours is the "packing slip" that always comes with hoarding. however, if anyone recognizes some of these things in themselves and is troubled by them, it's good to know that you're not alone, and that there is help.

some people might experience

a fear of

losing and discarding important things
making mistakes
forgetting important life experiences or information that one may need in the future
letting things literally “out of sight”

a need for

strong emotional attachment to and identification with objects; sometimes these objects are mementos
rationalizing why each object “must” be kept (it has monetary, practical or sentimal value; will be needed in the future, by the owner or someone else; there is a responsibility that the items must be disposed of properly; the item is unique; something bad will happen with the item is discarded)

a difficulty with

categorizing and organizing objects and information
controlling the urge to collect items, even when collecting them is detrimental
deciding what things to throw away

also

feeling overwhelmed by a house full of collected items or junk
procrastination because it’s hard to know where to start
excessive shopping, on and off line, sometimes because shopping reduces anxiety
above average “magical thinking” related to objects
some people also “hoard” animals, especially cats
depression (both as a result and as a cause of the above)

what can be done?

that’s material for a whole new post. in the meantime, here are some web sites that might be helpful for some:

http://www.davidco.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5
http://www.flylady.net
http://www.fortunecity.com/millennium/lavenderplace/983/index.html#
http://www.messies.com/
(note: this last site is called “messies anonymous” but i would not consider it a regular 12-step program)

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

headache, families and guilt

2006-04-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

from WebMD:

When one person gets a headache, the family may feel the pain, a new survey shows.

The results show that headaches often run in families, with effects rippling through the family like waves on a stone-struck pond.

The survey included the statement, "I am unable to tend to household chores (cleaning, grocery shopping, making meals, etc." because of headaches.

More than six out of 10 participants agreed with that line.

Many family members pitched in when headaches struck. Nearly two-thirds of participants said that when they had a headache, their spouse or significant other covered more household duties or parenting responsibilities.
Many participants expressed guilt about how their headaches affected their families.

Asked if they felt that their partner and/or children "feel neglected" during participants' headaches, two-thirds said yes.

Asked if they felt "guilty" during headaches about being "unable to spend time" with their partner and/or children, more than eight out of 10 said yes.

Slightly more than half of participants said they felt that their family didn't understand their headache condition. But more than half said their spouse/significant other understood their headache-related issues and needs.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

a narrow discipline

2006-04-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

i have
in my bathroom
a hidden place where
i scatter words.

it's true!

behind my old pink mary kay bag,
between it and the wall,
there is a space, narrow,
a lane of sorts,
where i hide pen and paper.

at night, before i go to bed,
after i brush my teeth
(a narrow row of sorts)
i take paper and pen out,
sit on the rim of my green bathtub
- a narrow ledge -
and write a poem.

lit, often, by six candles:
mothers of the north, east, south and west,
mother of the centre,
father observer.

when i am done,
the small, thin piece of paper
and the pen
just vanish
in that narrow lane of words
behind the bag, right by the wall.
the candles are extinguished,
and i go to bed.

those little seeds of words sleep in the dark.

the other night, i found forty-one
word-flowers grown in that cozy place.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

anorexia and the naked body

2006-04-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

yesterday, at a lovely meeting of the vancouver chapter of valley women's network, i met laara atley, originally from finland, the land of saunas. we were talking about body image, plastic surgery and the like when laara made the very valid comment that people who were brought up in a culture where nakedness is normal (such as in finland), an obsession with body image may not be nearly as prevalent.

i tried to find some research on this but other than marilyn story's comparison of body self-concept between social nudists and nonnudists i have not found much so far. (this research found that nudists tend to have a better body image than non-nudists).

this makes sense. for example, body image distortion is something that frequently comes with anorexia. it is widely believed that anorexia is at least partly caused by a culture that emphasizes the (more or less unattainable) image of an idealized, thin, "perfect" body. now if a person never has a chance to see a wide range of nude bodies, it is very easy for them to have a distorted image of nude bodies in general. it's easy to then go and figure that one's own body should look the way these idealized bodies look (because that's the only comparison there is). without any "normal" reference points, it would be quite difficult to construct a realistic body image of one's own body.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

psychiatric medication and diagnoses, working hand in hand

2006-04-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Many Authors Of Mental Health Diagnosis Guidelines Have Financial Ties To Drug Makers, Study Says

The majority of psychiatrists who worked on the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's widely influential diagnostic manual had financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry before, during or after the manual was published.
more ...

are we surprised?

the psychology of cyberspace

2006-04-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

john suler of rider university on the psychology of cyberspace, with titallating topics like

cyberspace as psychological space
cyberspace as dream world
bringing online and offline living together

and of course it includes a (large!) section on online therapy. in the myths of online therapy, there are two interesting comments:

Many sexual abuse survivors report that they feel too frightened to see a therapist in person, at least in the initial stages of their healing. It is much less frightening for many such people to receive therapy online from the safety of their own home.

If a gay person has a high level of concern about confidentiality, receiving therapy online may be more confidential than walking into a therapy office where they can bump into acquaintances they know, or could be identified as gay simply by seeing a therapist who specializes in working with gay clients. Many lesbians, gay men, and child sexual and ritual abuse survivors find that there are no therapists in their area who understand their unique needs, or if there are, they are not accepting any more clients. For them, particularly those who live in rural areas or small cities, accessing therapy online may be a lifesaver.

this site is an amazing resource! thanks, john.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

mood tracking software

2006-04-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

medicalnews tells us today

Dutch researcher Maarten de Rijke and his co-workers Gilad Mishne and Krisztian Balog have developed a new programme that can trace and explain significant changes in mood patterns on the Internet. MoodViews is a collection of instruments that maps the mood of bloggers as they write their message.

this is the kind of thing they post:

(this changes every 10 minutes or so - so come back and looks what the world is like in a little while!)

now they chart the mood of all of the bloggers on livejournal, one of the free blogging platforms. so i tried to see what vancouver bloggers' moods were today - but i had a hard time finding a lot of vancouver livejournal users, so i gave up on that.

instead i looked for different mood tracker software, and found VistaWrite, which tracks your mood and goals, and it has a little journal, too. i'll try it out for the 30 days i can have it for free and let you know how it goes.

right now my mood is ... i don't know. i'm too tired ...

gnite ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

weird psychology

2006-04-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

and for today: some weeeeiiiiird ideas about the human psyche:

here we have a list of self defeating behaviours, which, nancy spoolman says, require 'negative techniques'. okay, that makes sense so far, although there is something a little strange about these long lists of negativities found on this web site. but how is this for a 'negative technique':

"To institutionalize deviant sexual behavior by developing views that society is an ogre for not accepting this behavior as normal, by involving self in the gay and loose liberation movements, and by surrounding yourself with people who reinforce these behaviors."

hmmmm ... gay and loose liberation movements as negative techniques to support self sabotage ... interesting ...

oh, and stuttering is self-sabotage, too, apparently.

ok.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

transformations

2006-04-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

inspired by my last blog entry, the following is a slightly altered excerpt from the satir model, giving a model of how to help people deal with feelings.

anger transformed

behaviour: what action did you take when you were angry?

coping: how were you using anger to cope better?

feelings: were there other feelings associated with feeling angry?

feeling about feeling: how do you feel about being angry?

perceptions: what do you think would happen if you put words to your angry feelings now?

expectations: when you were angry, what expectations or hopes did you have that were not fulfilled?

yearnings: underneath your expectations, what did you yearn or long for? how could you express these yearnings differently?

self: what was your level of self esteem a) prior to being agry, b) during the anger, c) following the anger?

... powerful stuff ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

therapy, goal setting, yearnings and expectations

2006-04-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

last week i had the great pleasure of taking a goal planning workshop with mary-lou hill. this workshop was originally designed for women who are part of mary kay cosmetics. however, since mary-lou is the mother of my friend ronnie (of part-ninja), a few of ronnie's friends got to have a workshop designed just for ourselves.

i walked into this workshop with a bit of a prejudice, because mary-lou is an NLP practitioner, which is an approach to which i generally do not feel drawn. also, i have been to and given many workshops that involve goal setting and the like, so i was a bit doubtful that i would learn anything amazingly new.

but mary-lou's wonderful, wise and open style, as well as her unusual approach to goal planning turned out to be a great experience. some of the things that really struck home for me included:

the importance of using language that excites the subconscious. it's at the gut level that i need to be excited; it's not enough to feel a goal is desirable on a purely intellectual level
the importance of being in a deeply relaxed state when imagining my goals - this way, the image is much richer
when unpleasant patterns of thinking/acting/feeling come up, i can interpret that as meaning that i am offering them up to myself in order to deal with them, rather than be irritated/frustrated/hopeless that they're rearing their ugly heads again
when these unpleasant patterns arise, i can remember to ask what the most positive purpose behind them is, and then experiment with better ways to reach that purpose
some people tend to move towards goals, and others move away from unpleasant states; for me, it's important to incorporate both

of course a lot of these things were already in my awareness but i needed to be reminded of them and, more importantly, i need to really get them, understand them on a deeper level (i guess that's what heinlein would refer to as "grokking")

much of what mary-lou did reminded me of the satir approach (which shouldn't be any surprise, given that virginia satir, fritz perls and milton erickson were the psychologists upon which NLP was originally built).

for example, the positive purpose behind our patterns (what mary-lou called "highest intention") reminded me of satir's concept of "universal yearnings" - the longing for love, acceptance, peace, etc. that is common to all human beings. in satir-speak, the unpleasant patterns i just mentioned would be fuelled by (often unreasonable) expectations, which are really just frustrated yearnings.

and of course the other thing i got out of the workshop is yet another reminder a) of how valuable it is to question my assumptions, and b) that in therapy and many other human-to-human interactions, technique, education and affiliations don't matter nearly as much as the integrity, talent and life experience of the persons involved in the interaction. who cares what school of therapy/religion/etc. one subscribes to! what matters is how well we understand each other, and how well we get along.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

gratitude

2006-04-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

i just stumbled across a sober thought, a blog by dayvud, a recovering alcoholic. it looks like we have a number of interests in common, including buddhist nun and writer pema chodron and the book the spirituality of imperfection (the one by kurtz and ketcham, not the one by richard rohr, another author for whom i have a lot of respect).

dayvud posts gratitude lists on his blog. what a great idea! here is mine for the day. i am grateful for

the huge selection of fruit and vegetables we have here in vancouver (in the last 24 hours, i had mangoes, lichees, oranges, cucumbers and bananas)
spending the afternoon hanging out with my my sweet little 9-year-old daughter
my beautiful office
my laptop
my house plants
how patient and easy-going my husband is
my saturday morning friends
the red tulips in my front yard
my ongoing, inexhaustible interest in things psychological
my connection with the divine
that my work and study related books are in an order that enables me to find whatever i'm looking for
that bailey, my older daughter's cat, is half way through being in heat (only another day or two of listening to her yowling)
the peace in our family

... and so much more. but 13 seems like a cool number to stop at!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

obesity research

2006-04-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

back in january, i posted an entry about the controversy around the size of the “obesity epidemic”. i just received a comment about this, suggesting that the article i had pointed out in that entry was naïve in asking questions about the intentions behind the high publicity that obesity has been receiving lately.

this prompted me to beef up a bit on existing research and thoughts about this topic. what i found confirms my belief that the jury on the connection between obesity and ill health is still out.

again, i have no doubt that in an ideal world, and all things being equal, there is no question that eating moderately is a good idea. however, we don’t live in an ideal world, and all things are not equal.

(sidebar: as i was reflecting on this topic, it occurred to me that the more healthy i live, the more understanding i have for people for whom health is not such a great priority, or who have chosen to focus on different areas of improving their health than i have. i have some hunches regarding what the reason for that might be; fodder for another blog entry, i guess).

anyway, here are some references regarding the obesity-health connection:

obesity is often measured using the BMI (body mass index), which is a way to estimate the ratio of fat to other tissue. the author cautions that in conducting these measurements, once size does not fit all, that there is a wide range in so-called “normal” weight, BMI, and that “a direct relationship between obesity and cardiovascular disease is debated by some authorities”.
this article questions the statistical soundness of the center for disease control’s research on obesity and points to the paradox that while obesity is said to have risen sharply, so has overall life expectancy.
“confusion of the consequences of obesity arise because researchers have used different BMI cut-offs, and because the presence of many medical conditions involved in the development of obesity may confuse the effects of obesity itself.”
study finds government overstated danger of obesity
“this study on adult mortality and obesity involving adult adoptees and their biologic and adoptive parents indicates a genetic influence on the risk of premature death from all causes, from natural causes, infections, and cardio- and cerebrovascular conditions. non-genetic influences are suggested regarding death from the vascular causes and from cancer.”
here is an interesting thought piece on the concepts of “natural death”, “premature death” and “preventable death”, looking at the connection between mortality, lifestyle, cultural ideas around lifestyle, and longevity. a quote:
It is worthwhile contemplating that the 295,000 American and 39,000 Canadian military deaths which occurred during World War Two all fit the definition of "preventable" deaths.
suggests that there are more deaths in north america due to underweight than to overweight.
“a broad range of BMIs are well tolerated by older adults. the minimum mortality (estimated from the fitted proportional hazard models) occurred at a BMI of approximately 31.7 for women and 28.8 for men.”
“compared with normal weight, overweight and obesity did not significantly increase all-cause mortality risk. Compared with low cardio-respiratory fitness (CRF), moderate and high CRF were associated significantly with lower mortality risk. Compared with normal weight, overweight and obesity were not significantly associated with all-cause mortality.”
“among individuals that are not severely obese, weight loss is associated with increased mortality rate and fat loss with decreased mortality rate.”
this article supports the view that childhood overweight is associated with increased mortality risk in later life. the greatest risk is seen in overweight children who become overweight adults or underweight children who become overweight adults. like any study, this study has numerous limitations, first the ones mentioned in the study but most of all the fact that they don’t give any comparisons re the mortality rates of stroke, ischemic heart disease etc. for the general population.
"obesity is strongly predictive of mortality from all causes combined, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. central [abdominal] obesity may be an even stronger predictor of morbidity and mortality than body weight or BMI, although this remains controversial. the risks … may well reflect the association of these anthropometric variables with underlying insulin resistance or hyperinsulinemia … there is powerful evidence that obesity is detrimental throughout the life span, any time from childhood to old age.”
“1) regular physical activity clearly attenuates many of the health risks associated with overweight or obesity; 2) physical activity appears to not only attenuate the health risks of overweight and obesity, but active obese individuals actually have lower morbidity and mortality than normal weight individuals who are sedentary, and 3) inactivity and low cardiorespiratory fitness are as important as overweight and obesity as mortality predictors.”

pretty contradictory, some of this, wouldn't you say? what do you think?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

internet addiction?

2006-04-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

it's evening, and i'm really tired. i should go to bed. but wait, let me check my email. and the other email. and wasn't i going to look up something on depth-oriented brief therapy? oh! ding! here's another message! and i haven't really played spider solitaire yet today. and ...

now it's late evening. i'm really, really tired. my feet are getting cold. my husband has long gone to bed and is sleeping. my eyes burn from staring at the computer too much. i'm gonna go to bed now. let me just quickly check the other email address ... oh, it's her! i should email her back. it'll just take a minute. no, wait, i have to check whether this link still works ...

now it's late at night. i'm really, really, really tired. my feet are blocks of ice, and i'm starting to hallucinate voices, as i sometimes do when i'm way, way past my bed time. (why is it so often the voice of an elderly man with a strong east indian accent?) i'm too tired to get up, go upstairs, brush my teeth. ok, i'm going now. i'm just gonna close all those windows. hey, the spider game is still open! ... it's so much easier to stay on the chair and keep playing than dragging myself up to the bathroom ... do i really have to brush my teeth?

just another addiction?

feminism and body image

2006-04-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

recently, i've had a number of interesting and sometimes heated discussions about plastic surgery. according to one view, plastic surgery is an artificial way to prop up a twisted body image - one that is only available to those who can afford it. according to another view, undergoing plastic surgery is not much different than wearing jewellery or nice clothes - and if one can afford that kind of thing, why not enjoy it? in connection with this, it was interesting to read one of hugo schwyzer's comments on the topic of body image (you have guessed it - hugo is my favourite blogger!)

here are a few snippets from his entry back in march:

... feminists are equipped with tools to identify the lies about the body that permeate the media and the broader culture. They can, particularly when given "body history", see the historical origins of our obsession with certain kinds of unattainable body types. Above all, the most valuable thing about studying the history of the body is this: you learn that women have not "always felt this way." ...

... few if any young women mention concerns about weight or appearance in their diaries (she used hundreds of diaries written over a century and a half) before the 1920s. There are specific historical reasons -- Paul Poiret's sheath dress, the coming of the automobile, industrialization and the need for "sizes" in pre-made clothes -- that contribute to this sudden upsurge in anxiety and self-loathing. And when we discover that there was a time, not so long ago, when women didn't feel this way about themselves, we lose that sense of hopelessness that there is no possibility for change.

... Discussing one's physical flaws and detailing one's anxieties is a normative part of growing-up for a great many young women. Feminist classrooms and feminist blogs can provide a safe place for that sort of sharing to take place. But the goal of feminist spaces is not merely to provide a safe place to vent. Our goal has to be to help our sisters resist the cultural, social, and often familial messages about their bodies that leave them so unhappy.

... feminists can remind everyone -- over and over again if need be -- that the demands of the culture (or of spouses) for a certain body type are unrealistic, unreasonable, and can be successfully resisted. Rather than end discussions with a sigh and a "That's just the way it is, some things will never change", feminists can point out counter-examples, usually of women who have refused to comply any longer with the tyranny of slimness (or the tyranny of voluptuousness, or whatever.)

Of course, here's the kicker: if you're going to preach self-acceptance, you've got to be doing everything you can to be self-accepting ...

... From a feminist standpoint, learning to love one's body isn't just about boosting one's own self-esteem. It's about providing an example to other women who need to know that self-acceptance is not a chimera, but a viable reality.

thanks, hugo.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the process of therapy: vulnerability in the here and now

2006-04-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

these days i am often called upon to talk about psychotherapy. i am very much of two minds about this. on the one hand it’s something that i feel very passionate about – this is what i do, after all! on the other hand, i find it difficult – therapy is such a private, intimate experience, and it so multi-layered, and in many ways so intangible.

two people meet in this encounter that we call psychotherapy. two people in person. but since we bring our imagination into this encounter, we always bring more people with it. the reason why one seeks out therapy as a “client” is because one wants to deal with discomfort around the past or fears of the future. the past and the future exist only in our imagination, in the sense that they are not present here and now. they are present in our memories, thoughts, ideas.

so here we sit, two people in person, and a whole lot of other people in our imagination. in the beginning, when we talk, there is much tentativeness, and a tendency to talk to the whole audience. for example, the “therapist” talks to the client, the client’s mother, and the therapist’s supervisor. the client talks to her boss, her father, her own little child, and to the therapist. part of the task of the encounter is to bring it more and more into the present, where therapist and client talk directly with each other. naming the other people in the room might be helpful:

“wait a second – what i was just saying, maybe i said that more to your mother than to you. so let’s sort this out. this is what i might want to say to your mother, were she here in this room, and this is what i want to say to you.”

“okay, come to think of it, i’m talking this way because i know this is what would please my daughter. what i REALLY want to do, if i felt i didn’t need to please her, would be …. “

slowly, naming and acknowledging the presence of others can soothe these ghosts enough so that they don’t have to accompany us all the time anymore. we can carve out a niche in the here and now and really talk one-on-one. really engage with each other. and then hopefully this niche can be widened, to bring more here-and-now into our lives, more engaging with what’s right in front of us, rather than wrestling with the past and future.

this takes enormous courage and trust. a willingness to be vulnerable, on both parts.

maybe that’s one of the reasons why it’s difficult to talk about psychotherapy. the vulnerability is frightening, and it takes fortitude to put this vulnerability out in the open, where strangers can see and hear us.

i pray for fortitude, then. for all of us.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

words of depression

2006-04-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

random words about depression, collected from the past:

i must confess that during my depressive time, i was more productive, but that was because i didn't focus on such things as selling the car, keeping the house clean, all those things that one does to stay gainfully alive.

……..

i am fighting panic and depression and it looks like i’m winning. i mean, a little bit of panic keeps one on one's toes and helps one appreciate the good things in life, and a little bit of depression gets one in touch with one's underbelly but hey, enough is enough, and this one was getting too much for my taste.
……..

it seems that whenever i spend too much time here in the house, depression sinks down on me. i have to get out. have to connect.

………

i've worked myself through two huge piles of paper. now i have a number of small piles of paper. i can't think straight. what do i do now? i have anaesthesized myself with food: 6 or seven rice cakes and two cups of orange juice. that'll do the trick. i am amused by the person who thinks addiction only refers to drugs. i am addicted to subtle forms of mood alteration. the crunch, crunch, crunch of the rice cakes in my brain, the brittleness of the dry rice and the sting of the orange juice acid on the roughened edges of the roof of my mouth will do. i cannot handle anything. i just pretend. i do a good job at pretending. and one day everything will blow up. - ok, i guess i am depressed. so what now. what if i let myself fall into this hole of depression. but of course i won't. and how much longer? how much longer won't i look into this hole? how much longer will i paste it over with rice (sic) paper? but if i fall into the hole i won't know what to do anymore. all my knowledge will fall through and because it is heavier than me, this thin nothing-body, it will fall faster and disappear. and i will not even fall down the hole. i will just disappear into nothing somewhere half way. oh, she's gone, oops.

i am depressed because we are going to visit my parents. i am depressed because i feel so goddam helpless. i am so sick and tired of all my coping mechanisms. but i don't know what else to do.

i give up.

no: i have to give up. that is the only way.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

blog archive

2006-04-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

hello there

soon, i hope, i will have a better organized blog, one where i can automatically categorize postings, tag the entries, etc. for now, i have categorized all my blog entries by hand. you can find them here. the categories include emotional health, interesting books, eating disorders, etc.

and now for these therapists: plato, st. augustine, darwin, freud

2006-04-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

i wrote this some years ago, trying to elucidate how some of the fathers and grandfathers of psychology would look at contemporary problems:

After a stormy, decade long marriage, JU and his wife separated after she found out that he had sexually abused their two sons. JU explained he was "sexually educating them". There was also a daughter. JU is extremely unhappy that he cannot see his children; they do not want to have much to do with him, not even the daughter who he used to be very close to. He blames it all on his vengeful wife who he said only brought up the abuse so that she would get an easy divorce. He cannot comprehend that his wife and children remember him as a tyrannical, abusive and erratic man rather than the loving, free-thinking, sexually liberated and generous person that he sees himself as. JU does not believe in God. There are indications that JU might have been sexually abused as a child.

Plato

Plato might concentrate on JU's unhappiness, speculating that it stems from JU's lack of reasoning and being a slave to his passions. If JU would have thought about his acts before he committed them, he would have realized that the satisfaction of his desires were incompatible with the laws of the society he lives in and would have abstained from them. Another source of JU's unhappiness, the discrepancy between how JU sees himself and how others see themselves, could stem from the lack of ability of JU's untrained mind to compare the two viewpoints and judge reasonably which one is true.

St. Augustine

What makes life difficult for JU is that he does not believe in God and does not live God's way. The ultimate cause of JU's deviance is probably original sin; however, this could have been remedied by devotion to God. Nevertheless, Augustine is keenly aware how easily we fall prey to our sinful inclinations; he knows especially of the dangers of the lust for freedom as it is expressed in JU's penchant for sexual liberty and free thinking.

Darwin

JU's behaviour could be an adaption, even though to us it may look both other and self destructive. Events may have occurred in JU's life that made it seem to him that the only way he can survive - at least psychologically - is by being an abusive, tyrannical and eccentric father and husband. Since this behaviour seemed correct to him at the time, it is now again more adaptive to justify it and to put the blame for any problems on his wife's shoulder.

Freud

Freud would concentrate on JU's sexual "perversion". A pre-seduction fantasy account would speculate that in sexually abusing his two sons, JU just acted out the sexual abuse perpetrated on him. Part of an aetiology according to a post-seduction could be as follows: Insecure in his gender role, by engaging in sexual activities with his sons, JU attempted to reinforce his masculinity. This reinforcement was two-fold: via the sheer homosexual contact with them, and also by attempting to turn his sons into his sexual clones (through "education").

hope everyone'e doing well ... take care ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

a few buddhist sayings

2006-04-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

i realize that i haven't said anything about buddhism in the last little while. so, to remedy that, here are a few sayings that i really like:

As a bee--without harming the blossom, its color its fragrance-- takes its nectar & flies away: so should the sage go through a village.

-Dhammapada, 4, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Hard to hold down, nimble, alighting wherever it likes: the mind. Its taming is good. The mind well-tamed brings ease.

-Dhammapada, 3, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Overcome your uncertainties and free yourself from dwelling on sorrow. If you delight in existence, you will become a guide to those who need you, revealing the path to many.

-Sutta Nipata

'I have sons, I have wealth'-- the fool torments himself. When even he himself doesn't belong to himself, how then sons? How wealth? A fool with a sense of his foolishness is--at least to that extent--wise. But a fool who thinks himself wise really deserves to be called a fool.

-Dhammapada, 5, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

The Buddha was joined by his own son, Rahula, a young boy. He advised him: "Cultivate Rahula, a meditation on loving-kindness, for by cultivating loving-kindness, ill will is banished forever. Cultivate, too, a meditation on compassion, for by cultivating compassion, you will find harm and cruelty disappear."

-Majjhima Nikaya

For those who are ready, the door To the deathless state is open. You that have ears, give up The conditions that bind you, and enter in.

-Majjhima Nikaya

Empty and calm and devoid of self Is the nature of all things. No individual being In reality exists. There is no end or beginning, Nor any middle course. All is an illusion, As in a vision or a dream. All beings in the world Are beyond the realm of words. Their ultimate nature, pure and true, Is like the infinity of space.

-Prajnaparamita

time management and exercise

2006-04-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

“i can’t exercise. i don’t have time!” yoga teacher cyndi lee’s got something to say about this. and this is not only for people who are thinking about exercising but also about how we use time:

My observation is that there is a direct relationship that goes like this: thinking about what has to happen in the future equals less time available; moving slowly and mindfully now equals more time.

…

A complete yoga practice involves the following: forward bending, twisting, backward bending, side bending, inverting, breath awareness, resting and meditation. This can be accomplished in five minutes. Once you do this yoga program a few times, I can almost guarantee that it will be less difficult to find a spare five minutes than it was before. If you still don't think you have five minutes, just pick one of the things on the list above, and do that for five breaths. (Hey, you can even do the last two in bed!) Then later in the day, do another one. By the end of the day you will have done a complete yoga program. Who knows? Maybe those five breaths will evolve into ten breaths, which is about one minute, and then that minute will turn into five. Only time will tell.

look here for the rest

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

inflicting beliefs?

2006-03-31T11:15:00.000-08:00

in ragamuffin's most recent blog entry, there is talk about the writer, steve, inflicting beliefs on someone, concerning his post on "top 10 reasons why men shouldn't be ordained".

what interests me - what does it mean to "inflict" a belief on someone? it conjures up an image of capture and wounding. i'm thinking of the windows of the scientology church into which i used to be able to see clearely from my office window in toronto, many years ago. i could see two or three people literally ganging up on a person, physically cornering that person and talking to/at them (i was told later on that that is a somewhat typical practice).

that is what i call inflicting beliefs. if indeed it is possible to inflict a belief on anyone.

if you don't do that, what is the mechanism of inflicting? how easy is it to inflict a belief? a belief, after all, is something that is personally held. by definition, it's not necessarily something that anyone else shares.

a belief is

"an acceptance that an idea is true" (according to here)

okay, so if it's an acceptance - how can i inflict my acceptance on someone else? i mean, how does that work? i can try to force someone to also accept it (= ram it down their throats, literally - what comes to mind is one of the episodes of startrek TNG) but how can i make them accept my acceptance? at best, i can try to make them believe that i truly believe something.

trying to inflict a belief on someone seems a bit like trying to make someone else sense their sensations or think their thoughts. that's just not possible. what i sense and think is, in its essence, not communicable to anyone. we can talk about these sensations and thoughts, we can describe them, but we cannot transmit them.

what do you think?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

biting the dog

2006-03-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

i was digging around some old files and found this, a short story i wrote which came out of a journal entry which was turned into a poem and then another poem and then this ...

i'll tell you that process another time. it's quite interesting, i think. for now, i got it in my head that i want to ask you - the people who read this blog - what you think this story might be about. how it continues, how it ends. nit quite sure why i'm intrigued by that quesion but here we go ...

the other day, some friends and i went to see naomi. we sat by the fireplace. it was evening. the atmosphere was warm and quiet but we all knew that in the back of our heads there was a thought, a question mark: some years ago, naomi had bitten a dog. we never found out what exactly had happened, only that naomi had been in a strange state of mind that time, and we were wondering if she had gotten over it. this managed to give our gathering a bit of an unreal air. i suspect that some of us wondered if they could ever do something like that. could we all of a sudden turn mad? is it something that could happen in a flash? tomorrow? so we sat there, with all those thoughts in our heads, talking little, enjoying the setting sun and the light breeze that came through an open window.

i for my part had been in a dark state that time. i had felt old, dark and cold but somehow also pregnant with the seed of new things to come. totally broke, i couldn't bring myself to make money. once in a while i would admonish myself to pull myself up by the bootstraps but it wouldn't work. it was an uncomfortable situation, but not catastrophic.

so anyway, we were all sitting around in naomi's living room, pondering our thoughts. and then abruptly, naomi started to talk.

"you know, three years ago, or actually, it's almost four now - it was - my life was over. my life was over. i was over. done. finished. i realized that back then, he had trapped me. totally. i was this beautiful, light, colourful butterfly and he came and slammed his net over me."

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

guided visualizations

2006-03-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

here are some working, good quality links to online audio guided meditations

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_207.html

http://www.drweil.com/u/Page/Audio/

http://csd.mcmaster.ca/natural_high/cd.htm

http://www.soundstrue.com/

http://www.briandavidphillips.com/

9/11 - four and a half years later

2006-03-28T23:53:00.000-08:00

i just came across an article i tucked away for future use a few years ago. it was written a few days after 9/11 – september 17, 2001, to be precise.

in it, one of my favourite authors, psychologist mihaly csikszentmihalyi talks about happiness and harmony post 9/11. csikszentmihalyi specializes in studying creativity, happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction. his bestseller flow talks about the state that is experienced in moments of creativity or concentrated work, when you just feel in the groove.

here are two quotes:

"We are focusing on retribution and not understanding, and that worries me. If we focus on where hatred comes from and how to make it go away, we wouldn't be talking about retribution only. I hope this will end in the fact that the wonderful sense of togetherness America has shown will include other countries in the world. The best outcome is not only global policing but also global responsibility. Unless we find this type of balance, we are going to always have people who want to destroy us."

"What we had before -- in the sense that people felt like, basically, nothing could go wrong -- was not normal. It was really unusual. In human history, we have never been in a position for long where we could feel secure. The plagues that used to devastate the world would often come one or two a generation and decimate the population. Despite that, people were able to create new, important advances. We will need to be creative and make progress in spite of the fact that we now know life is fragile -- in spite of the fact that we now know civilization is fragile. That is a much more mature way of living than expecting that everything will be fine."

what does that sound like today? to what degree has america included other countries? has there been a focus on where hatred comes from and how to make it go away? do we have a new awareness of the fragility of life and civilization?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

pema chodron on laziness

2006-03-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

a few words about laziness by canadian buddhist monk pema chodron:

Looking into Laziness

Rather than feeling discouraged by laziness, we could get to know laziness profoundly. This very moment of laziness becomes our personal teacher.

Traditionally, laziness is taught as one of the obstacles to awakening. There are different kinds of laziness. First, there’s the laziness of comfort orientation, we just try to stay comfortable and cozy. Then there’s the laziness of loss of heart, a kind of deep discouragement, a feeling of giving up on ourselves, of hopelessness. There’s also the laziness of couldn’t care less. That’s when we harden into resignation and bitterness and just close down.

Comfort Orientation

Comfort orientation comes in a variety of forms. Sogyal Rinpoche writes that in the East, for example, laziness often manifests as flopping down in the sun with one’s cronies, drinking tea, and letting the days pass by. In the West, he observes, laziness frequently manifests as speed. People rush from one thing to another, from the gym to the office to the bar to the mountains to the meditation class to the kitchen sink, the backyard, the club. We rush around seeking, seeking, seeking comfort and ease.

Whether we flop or rush, and wherever on the globe we happen to be, the comfort-orientation brand of laziness is characterized by a profound ignoring. We look for oblivion: a life that doesn’t hurt, a refuge from difficulty or self-doubt or edginess. We want a break from being ourselves, a break from the life that happens to be ours. So through laziness we look for spaciousness and relief; but finding what we seek is like drinking salt water, because our thirst for comfort and ease is never satisfied.

Loss of Heart

The laziness of loss of heart is characterized by vulnerability, woundedness, and not knowing what to do. We tried just being ourselves and we didn’t measure up. The way we are is not okay. We chased after pleasure and found no lasting happiness. We took time off, went on vacation, learned to meditate, studied spiritual teachings, or spent years dedicated to certain political or philosophical views. We helped the poor or saved the trees or drank or took drugs, and we found no satisfaction. We tried and we failed. We came to a painful, hopeless place. We don’t even want to move. We feel we could gladly sleep for a thousand years. Our life feels meaningless. Loss of heart is so painful that we become paralyzed.

Couldn’t Care Less

Couldn’t care less is harder, more icy, fatalistic. This particular flavor of laziness has an edge of cynicism and bitterness. We feel that we just don’t give a damn anymore. We feel lazy and mean at the same time. We feel mean toward this disappointing and lousy world, and toward this person and that person. Mostly we feel mean toward ourselves. We made a mistake. We’re not exactly sure what this mistake was, but we got it all wrong; and now, to hell with it! We try to forget in any way we can. We stop doing much. We feel as if we can’t do much anyway, and frankly, we don’t care.

if you want to go on and find out what pema thinks could be done about this, go to the shambala web site and read the rest of the article.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

phew! our brains don't think coca-cola is our friend

2006-03-24T12:15:00.000-08:00

Brain Scanning Technology Reveals How We Process Brands And Products

In a groundbreaking new study, researchers from the University of Michigan and Harvard University use cutting edge brain scanning technology to explore how different regions of the brain are activated when we think about certain qualities of brands and products. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research, is the first to use fMRI to assess consumer perceptions and has important implications for the use of metaphorical human-like traits in branding.

"[fMRI] allows one to gauge, for the first time, the degree to which the underlying thought processes are similar," write the researchers. Subjects were given 450 adjectives such as "reliable," "sophisticated," and "cheerful," and scanned while indicating whether each word was applicable to themselves and someone else. The sample group was also scanned while making similar judgments about brands they know and use.

The researchers discovered that even when the consumers were judging products on unmistakably human terms, they still used the part of the brain associated with inanimate objects. "Although we may use similar vocabularies to describe people and products, we can't say that the same concepts are involved," explain the researchers. "Companies building brand images and icons should be wary of taking the legitimately useful metaphor of brand personality too literally, since it's now apparent that consumers themselves do not."

... thus writes suzanne wu. if find this piece of research somewhat comforting. apparently, there is a sliver of hope that we are not that easily roped in by advertising ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

celebrating our relationships

2006-03-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

at our fireside chat at sacred space yesterday, we had bobby o’neal as a guest. bobby has a fascinating story. he is a professional forester, a real guys’ guy – and he’s come up with a relationship game. it’s called syncrohearts – check out his web site. it was great to hear about the process of dreaming up the game (literally – it came to him during mediation), “coming out” with it (can you imagine, here he is with his logger buddies and he says, “hey guys, i’ve designed a relationship game!”) and then building the business.

what i like about the game is that while it is primarily about romantic relationships, it can also be about any kind of relationship. it only takes 45 minutes, 1 hour to play, and it can be played on different levels. you can do it in a really lighthearted way, or you can use it as an opportunity to really delve deeply into your relationship. bobby also sees these relationships in a broader context – it’s not just about two people but also, in a subtle way, about how our personal relationships influence the world around us. this is beautifully hinted at in the graphics for the game, which feature doves of peace and an image of the globe – mother earth. i realize only now how fitting this is because bobby is also deeply concerned with having a good relationship with his natural environment.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

focusing

2006-03-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

through the practice of focusing, we get in touch directly with our “felt sense” – the body's awareness of all the situations and processes that go on in our lives. it is about notcing inwardly, in the body, all of how it feels.

for instance, i’m thinking of the tingling in the soles of the feet that can accompany a fear of heights. the need to move around that often comes with being excited is another example, or a feeling of heaviness around the shoulders when there is just too much tiredness. this “inner body langage” happens all the time – it’s just that we rarely listen to it.

when we sense the whole way that some situation feels, in a fresh way, not in our usual way of thinking but just as it feels right here, right now, we can get valuable insights; and not just that, we can feel easily moved – motivated – to approach difficult situations in a new, better way.

focusing is something that was brought to the public's awareness by eugene gendlin, who found in his research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy that those people who automatically focused in such a way tended to get more out of therapy than those who did not. buddhists such as pema chodron or david rome also talk about focusing.

here, from the focusing web site, is a short instruction on how to do focusing:

Focusing: Short Form
by Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D.

1. Clear a space
How are you? What’s between you and feeling fine?Don’t answer; let what comes in your body do the answering.Don’t go into anything.Greet each concern that comes. Put each aside for a while, next to you.Except for that, are you fine?

2. Felt Sense
Pick one problem to focus on.Don’t go into the problem. What do you sense in your body when you sense the whole of that problem?Sense all of that, the sense of the whole thing, the murky discomfort or the unclear body-sense of it.

3. Get a handle
What is the quality of the felt sense?What one word, phrase, or image comes out of this felt sense?What quality-word would fit it best?

4. Resonate
Go back and forth between word (or image) and the felt sense. Is that right?If they match, have the sensation of matching several times.If the felt sense changes, follow it with your attention.When you get a perfect match, the words (images) being just right for this feeling, let yourself feel that for a minute.

5. Ask
"What is it, about the whole problem, that makes me so _________? When stuck, ask questions:What is the worst of this feeling?What’s really so bad about this?What does it need?What should happen?Don’t answer; wait for the feeling to stir and give you an answer.What would it feel like if it was all OK?Let the body answerWhat is in the way of that?

6. Receive
Welcome what came. Be glad it spoke.It is only one step on this problem, not the last.Now that you know where it is, you can leave it and come back to it later.Protect it from critical voices that interrupt.Does your body want another round of focusing, or is this a good stopping place?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

achieving weight loss

2006-03-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

as you know, one of the things that i assist people with is dealing with overeating, undereating and related food issues.

often we really cling to the food - giving up that chocolate bar in the afternoon or the bag of chips while watching TV just seems too, too much. food has become such a good friend, and we tend to cling to that friend even more when we're stressed out or otherwise ill at ease. of course that makes losing weight and eating in a more healthy really difficult.

what can be helpful here is to put some time aside - it doesn't take much, even 10 minutes will do - and write down when we eat in such a way, what we feel, exactly what we do, and how we can substitute unhealthy eating behaviours with more helpful, healthy behaviours.

you know those troubleshooting lists they have in equipment manuals? ("if your printer spits ink, don't panic, turn the power off, and replace the ink cartridge"). it's a little like that. we can write our own troubleshooting manual.

here's an example:

when:
my son is out playing hockey and my husband works late

what i feel:
lonely, bored

what i do:
make stacks of peanut butter jelly sandwiches and eat them in front of the TV

what i can do instead:
go into the bedroom, light a candle, turn on some nice music, and sit on the bed and solve crossword puzzles

if overeating is a problem for you - the people at chicago personal trainers, who have a very extensive web site chock full with health tips, have a checklist you can download for this purpose.

good luck!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

time & tantra

2006-03-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

my friend danielle has recently become quite fascinated by the year 2012, the time at which the mayan calendar ends – and some claim it’s the end of time. i tend to be skeptical of such claims but on the other hand want to remain open-minded. so as usual, i looked around on the internet to see what i can find. the most interesting article was by steven taylor, aka gyrus. here is an excerpt, slightly edited and hyperlinked:

Time & Tantra

Is end-of-time thinking a gender issue? It's not really discussed, is it? I'd be interested to find out about any exceptions, but as far as I can see, all the cultures and religions that are big on apocalyptics are pretty patriarchal.

The idea of a point at the end of history, or the universe is the flip-side of everything exploding out from a singularity at the beginning. The Omega Point and the Big Bang are like bookends at either end of the flow of time. They can also be seen as Vast Ejaculations (now there's an album title). The Big Bang isn't really that far from Egyptian creation myths where gods bring things forth by beating off. And the Timewave [envisioned by Terrence McKenna of Year 2012 fame] is breakneck rush towards a crescendo of connectedness and barrier-dissolution — a Cosmic Climax.

This all sounds great, but I also wonder: where's the female orgasm? What about continuous waves of full-body, non-linear ecstasy, with no focal point and no singular 'explosion'? Such experiences of wave-orgasm are the focus of most sexual mysticism, for both sexes. There's no Point to this ecstasy, but it ain't 'pointless'! Would the concepts of the Omega Point, the Apocalypse, Judgement Day, Timewave Zero, etc. even exist if this experience was more common than the "sneeze in the genitals", as Alan Watts has called the average male orgasm?

Are we yearning for a quick and catastrophic explosion to relieve the tension — the tension of information overload, the tension of tightly measured time, the tension of too much undigested history? Dare we step back for a moment amidst this frantic rush towards the Climax, and question the assumptions behind linear, masculine end-of-time thinking? As Mogg Morgan says,

If you feel yourself approaching the point of 'no return', maybe ask your partner to pause, and make any adjustments necessary to prevent ejaculation or climax . . . . As the urge for ejaculation or release subsides, you may feel the warm sexual glow spreading throughout your whole pelvic region, opening out other energy centres sometimes called chakras. A strange thing happens: you become like an erotic landscape, a sea of sensation. Try to regard the time you have spent in this 'build up' to ejaculation as part of the orgasm. Viewed this way, perhaps you can see that an orgasm, for both men and women, is actually a lot more intense than those few moments of ejaculation or climax.

The aim of mysticism isn't always the total inhibition of coming — it's more to do with intensifying the orgasmic trance through diffusing the 'explosion' of coming throughout the body, and relaxing more fully into every nuance of psycho-physical sensation that arises. A key part of it is perhaps one of the great tenets in many mystic practices — avoiding Lust of Result, a.k.a. attachment, goal-oriented consciousness, striving, or 'pushing the river'. Paradox time again. Orgasmic trance is more intense if you don't try to intensify it, or even try to reach orgasm at all. This is the heart of Taoist philosophy: wu wei, 'not pushing'.

[…] Would the shamans who gave birth to Taoism have put a Full Stop or an Exclamation Mark at the end of their universe, and carefully knitted it into the structure of their sacred symbol system? How about a Comma, maybe — or a Question Mark?

This isn't to say I think that there definitely is not a stupendous hyperdimensional object hovering 14 [now 6] years ahead of us, inexorably drawing all matter and consciousness into its pulsating heart of light.

I jokingly told a friend that I had 'Cancelled the Apocalypse'. He told McKenna this when he met him, and the reply was, "That's a bit presumptuous!" And that it is. Well, I haven't really cancelled it. I've merely tried to stop pushing the river.

Let It Flow...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

how judgment affects memory

2006-03-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

from medicalnewstoday:

Viewing a person as dishonest or immoral can distort memory, a Cornell study suggests. So much so, that when we attempt to recall that person's behavior, it seems to be worse than it really was.

"In other words, our study shows that morally blaming a person can distort memory for the severity of his or her crime or misbehavior," said David Pizarro, assistant professor of psychology at Cornell.

Pizarro and three colleagues gave 283 college students a story about a man who walked out on a restaurant bill, including what the man ate and drank and the amount of his bill. Half the participants read that the man walked out on the bill because he "was a jerk who liked to steal," and half read that the man left without paying because he received an emergency phone call.

"One week later the people who were told he was a jerk remembered a higher bill -- from 10 to 25 percent more than the bill actually was. Those who were told he had an emergency phone call remembered a slightly lower-than-actual bill," said Pizarro, the first author of a study to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Memory and Cognition. His co-authors include University of California (UC)-Irvine's Elizabeth Loftus, whose groundbreaking work put memory distortion on the map in the late 1980s when she showed that subjects viewing a film clip of a car accident estimated the speed of the cars differently depending on whether such words as hit, collided or mashed were used in the question.

Previous studies have found that leading questions can influence memory of an incident, and that thinking that someone is good (or bad) in one area tends to influence judgments about them in other areas.

"But this is the first study that we know of that looked at how blame might affect memory regarding objective facts, which you usually think of as less susceptible to distortion," Pizarro said. "It suggests that negative evaluations are capable of exerting a distorting effect on memory as well."

The findings have particular implications for eyewitness testimonies, Pizarro noted. "Spontaneous evaluations made by an eyewitness about a defendant may influence their memories about the event in question -- memories that often serve as the very data that judges and juries use as input into their judgments of guilt."

In addition, eyewitnesses who hear information about the moral character of a defendant, "even long after the events have occurred," may misremember the events in question, such as the severity of the crime, putting perpetrators at greater risk.

pooh, heinlein and douglas adams

2006-03-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

for today’s entertainment, here’s a bunch of quotes to muse on, taking from aoiko.net, a rather strange web site

pooh, who felt more and more that he was somewhere else, got up slowly and began to look for himself.
taken from 'the house at pooh corner (p.107)'

'hallo, rabbit,' he said, 'is that you?'
'let's pretend it isn't,' said rabbit, 'and see what happens.'
taken from 'winnie-the-pooh (p102)'

history teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
abba eban, representative of israel in the '40s and 50s, minister from the 60s on

you can't change people with your fists; i've learnt that... they see something strange, something they don't understand, and they get afraid... you show them the beauty of that strange thing, and they are no longer afraid because it has become part of them.
bruce lee

i really didn't foresee the internet. but then, neither did the computer industry. not that that tells us very much of course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.
douglas adams

never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
(this is hanlon's razor - nobody knows who hanlon is, but some guess that it's a corruption of 'heinlein', particularly as there is a similar sentiment in one of his stories... see here.

i used to think i was serving humanity... then i discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. so now i do what pleases jubal harshaw.
heinlein – jubal harshaw in ‘stranger in a strange land'

always listen to experts. they'll tell you what can't be done, and why. then do it.
heinlein, taken from 'time enough for love', said by the character 'lazarus long'

i fart in your general direction... your mother was a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries.
monty python, taken from 'monty python and the holy grail', said by some frenchman in a castle to the obnoxious english knights

william roper: "so now you'd give the devil benefit of law!"
thomas more: "yes. what would you do? cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?"
william roper: "i'd cut down every law in england to do that."
thomas more: "oh? and when the last law was down, and the devil turned round on you - where would you hide...the laws all being flat?"
robert bolt, taken from 'a man for all seasons'

"slave is an ephebian word. in om we have no word for slave," said vorbis.
"so i understand," said the tyrant. "i imagine that fish have no word for water."
terry parchett, from 'small gods (p125)'

i want to be free, but my chains are broken.
taken from 'zen grafitti'

wilson is going round the country stirring up apathy.
willie whitelaw

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

tom fox: peace, love and respect vs. dehumanization

2006-03-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

here is what tom fox, the slain christian peacemaker, said just before he was abducted:

I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" is the word "agape." Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as "never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow human beings."

As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages.

It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

thank you, hugo, for pointing to this entry in your blog.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

more happiness

2006-03-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

remember yesterday? i wrote the post inspired by little emily, the toddler who really seems to know what having fun in life is all about. well, on the heels of this comes an email from my friend ken, the happiness guy. he’s got his own blog now!

here are a two samples:

ClutterMind: The Unexamined Scourge
There is a blight on the land and in our minds. A relentless, eternally patient and everpresent interloper that saps the concentration of many. Most of us have experienced its symptoms: confusion; inability to focus; forgotten goals; the chaos of cluttered thinking. This master of mayhem I call ClutterMind.

more here …

The road to happiness
Happiness and I were so unacquainted in my younger years that I firmly believed its portrayal in movies, books, articles, etc. was false, just a fairy tale tease.

more here …

ken also sent me a link to this web site that has tons of articles on happiness, some quite good, some a little on the kooky side. i liked this one on happiness on the web.

Why do you have a website? Is it your dream to share your ideas with the world? Do you feel you have a product or service that can help society run more smoothly? Do you feel lonely and feel that the Internet is finally a place to connect with others? Do you just want to express yourself to the world and if no one checks it out its O.K, because it has helped you to know yourself better? Each and every website on the Internet is a human being attempting to move forward on their life’s path

more here …

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

claiming what's ours

2006-03-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

the other day i was wondering whether some of the difficulties we experience stem from the fact that we don’t understand what our share of the world is. our share of love, food, comfort, adventure, security, knowledge – all these things we all want (hunger / lust for?) this came from observing emily, a delightful little 11-month-old girl who i have the pleasure of seeing once a week. the second she is loose in a room she sets about exploring it, with this huge grin on her face. she claims her space with glee and vigour. when something goes wrong, she starts crying, looks for her mom, and mom comes and picks her up and soothes her. also, when she goes too far, she quite willingly accepts being moved somewhere where it’s safer and more comfortably for all around. she is totally in the moment, knows what she wants, goes for it, and accepts natural limits.

i don’t know about you, but this is – unfortunately – not how i would describe myself. at worst, i am in the past or future, don’t know what i want, don’t go for what i have a hunch i might want, and don’t know, see or accept natural limits. and at best, i have moments like this delightful little girl.

what is my share of the world? what would it mean to have/own it? where/what is "my world", anyway? geographically, my world is, say, the southern stretch of british columbia, the circle that goes from the kootenays to vancouver, victoria, tofino, pemberton, kamloops and back to the kootenays. looking at the square kilometres available, the overall population figures and the population density in this corner of the world, i figure that my share of the land is about .112 square kilometres. i know that sounds silly. but since i am confused about what my share of the world is, it’s helpful – for me at least – to have some kind of picture. .112 square kilometres is what i can potentially claim as my range, my territory.

that also means, of course, that i am responsible for it. but it’s interesting how i have to say that right away. i would feel terribly uncomfortable about "claiming" something without immediately talking about my responsibility for it. i am an adult, after all, i have responsibilities!
it may just be that this is the problem. perhaps if as a child i am not allowed to range freely, or if on the other hand nobody shows me my natural boundaries, i get confused. then i have to somehow come up with a way of making sense of this wide space around me all by myself. my way of doing this was to claim responsibility as soon as i possibly could. i used to be very proud that people would call me "wise beyond my years!". what it means was that i found i had to become an adult "before my years".

other people deal with that in other ways. greed and hoarding can be another way out of the confusion. this, in turn, can take various shapes. it can be naturally assuming that everything is up for grabs, it can mean an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, it can mean a life filled with jealousy and envy (because someone else "got there first"), etc.

be that as it may, here we stand – all of us who did not develop a healthy sense of what’s ours to claim – and what do we do now? how do we learn to claim what’s ours: our truth, our share of love, our share of wealth, our share of sorrow?

i don’t know what the answer is. (i guess that’s partly because i think there is rarely the answer to anything). one way of looking at it could be to make it more concrete, as i did a little earlier. another way that occurs to me is what is done in many forms of buddhism: to learn that ultimately, there are no boundaries. that "mine" is an illusion because "i" do not exist, at least not in the way i think. we are all one, we are not separate.

great ideas, isabella, but they’re very abstract. i can’t go out and claim a piece of british columbia for myself today, and it’s unlikely that i’ll wake up enlightened tomorrow morning, secure in the knowledge that we are all one.

so what do i do in the meantime?

at least i can state my confusion. because that’s clear – this is my confusion. i can claim that.

and i’m not really saying this tongue in cheek. because this is what i can truly do: i can leave the cave of my fearful confusion and show my muddled thoughts to the world. at least i’m not in the cave anymore. at least i’m venturing out, like my little friend emily.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

more on emotional intelligence: alexi - what???

2006-03-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

a very nicely written article by victoria counsellor michelle morand, director of the CEDRIC centre, which specializes in eating disorders and related concerns, on the connection between eating disorders and the inability/difficulty to express emotions:

A study was conducted by psychologists about 5 years ago that looked at childhood experiences of trauma, (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and verbal abuse, and neglect), and the later development of disordered eating behaviours. What they were looking at was to uncover what the mediating factors were that lead someone with childhood trauma experience to later develop an eating disorder. And what they discovered was that it was a condition called Alexithymia that came hand in hand with depression, and the two supported the development of disordered eating on any level.

Alexithymia is characterized by:
(a) difficulty in identifying and describing feelings in self or other, (b) difficulty in distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations associated with emotional arousal, (c) restricted imaginative processes (few positive dreams or fantasies - can have frequent intrusive ideation*), and (d) thinking that is concrete and reality based.
[Hendryx, Haviland, & Shaw, 1991; Taylor, Bagby, Ryan, & Parker, 1990]

In other words, Alexithymia makes it really hard for us to know what we are feeling, or even if we are having a feeling. It makes it difficult for us to tell whether the sensation we think we're having is physical or emotional. It makes it difficult for us to dream or imagine positive, fun things. And we get stuck in very concrete "logical" thinking, which can make us rigid, most often with ourselves.

The good news is that you can learn to distinguish what you're feeling, and move through that feeling very quickly. Even better news is that in order to be able to let go of what you're feeling, you don't even have to know where the feeling came from.

Since you've very likely been distanced from awareness of your feelings since childhood, you may feel some resistance to connecting with them again. You may believe that there will be a great big back log of feelings that will sweep in and overpower you if you were to open the door. That's just your drill sergeant, (otherwise known as your ego), trying to maintain the status quo. He knows that if you begin to connect with your authentic feelings in the moment, and learn how to effectively release them, you're going to become more powerful and competent at taking care of yourself than he's ever been.

Now, again, if you've lived your life disconnected from your feelings for the most part, you are very likely wondering what the value of being connected to them would be - in fact your drill sgt. may be saying something like: feelings make you weak; other people won't respect you if you let your feelings show; I'm just a cry baby if I can't control my feelings; etc. Check in with yourself for a moment and ask yourself where in the past may you have either heard those very words spoken or witnessed significant people in your life modeling the behaviour of stuffing and discounting or denying their feelings?

The experience of Alexithymia is what leads us to discount and deny our life experience now. Have you ever had the experience of suddenly feeling totally overwhelmed? You are certain you're overreacting, and in addition to feeling emotional, you're judging and berating yourself for feeling emotional? You're certain there is nothing going on in your life to justify you reacting so strongly in that moment. Does that experience sound familiar? I assure you that if you were sitting in my office, recounting a recent experience like that, we would be able to put our finger on the underlying trigger(s) within moments - and it wouldn't be me spoon feeding or forcing those thoughts on you - you would be able to list for me quite clearly all the things that are going on in your life right now, issues with work, home, relationship with others, food and body image would of course be right up there on the list, issues with money, and others, would all appear from within you, and be highlighted for you to see up on my fabulous white board. At which point you would look at me and say, wow, I guess I do have a lot going on, no wonder why I feel so overwhelmed right now.

for the rest of this interesting article, go here.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

emotional intelligence vs. emotional literacy

2006-03-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

we’re always delighted when we find like-minded people, aren’t we? how do we find them? how do we know we’ve found them? well, for me, one way it can happen is when i come across someone who has a neat idea, or who happens to know something i was looking for – and then the more i find out about that person, the more connections i notice.

this is what happened to me when i came across claude steiner. i was playing in my head with the idea of games – the life games that i play, the games other people play. this was prompted by dealing with my tendency to “play small” at times. i wondered whether eric berne, the man who invented transactional analysis and wrote the bestseller “games people play” had anything to say about it. leafing through the old book (i have a dog-eared old copy of the original 1967 paperback edition) i could not immediately find anything, so i went on the web and encountered claude steiner. i loved how he talked about strokes – “units of recognition”, was pleased that he is connected to radical psychology (something that interests me, to no great surprise of anyone who knows me), thought like he looks like a really nice guy – but what i liked the most, and where i truly felt a connection, was how he talked about emotional literacy versus emotional intelligence. here are a few excerpts:

The fact that the emotions matter and that emotional competence is as important as intelligence to help people do well is an idea whose time has come. It has initiated a culture-wide "paradigm shift" readying people to confront the long neglected emotional realm.

It is important to realize, however, that emotional acumen can be organized around a variety of purposes, some not neccesarily humane.

One extraordinarily successful version of emotional intelligence is the skill that is displayed by animators of feature films like The Little Mermaid [where] we see conveyed the most subtle, moving nuances in a wide gamut of emotions with a few lines on a two dimensional surface. The effectiveness of these emotional triggers is far more reliable and cheaper than any flesh and blood actor can provide.

If what we want is to be able to influence people to buy or vote, we can again use information already available to sophisticated ad agencies which are quite successful in using people’s emotions to accomplish their client’s goals.

Finally, if what we want is to intimidate and terrorize people into compliance there is intelligence that has been used from time immemorial and constantly updated by torturers around the world (the Inquisition, the Nazis, the CIA, the School the Americas, etc) who achieve their purpose by emotional means.

On the personal level we can use our emotional skills to develop self control or to soothe and isolate ourselves emotionally or we can control others by creating guilt, fear or depression. These skills can be seen as a form of emotional "intelligence" as well. I see signs that many who agree that emotional intelligence is an important capacity have lost sight of what we really want; those emotional skills that improve people’s lives; not just one person’s or group but all people’s. The only emotional abilities that improve people’s lives in that long term, humane manner are the love centered skills.

The idea that love holds a central place in people’s emotional lives is not a foregone conclusion. The classic book The Emotional Brain; The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life by Joseph LeDoux fails to mention love even once in its index while fear is mentioned more than seventy five times. Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence has twenty index entries related to anger, and only three index entries on love in Chapter One, and none in the rest of the book. Even as everyone, deep in their heart, realizes the importance of love, it is an emotion seldom discussed in detail by experts in the field.

more here ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
moritherapy
www.moritherapy.com

the therapist as a person - pt 3

2006-03-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

this is a continuation from the entry of february 27, about the inner lives of therapists, and some of their motivations and personal styles:

What follows are four short vignettes of roles therapists might take on as a result of these (usually unexamined) personal and social influences. These vignettes I have compiled from a rather arbitrarily assembled body of literature, where some instances of the influence of the personal were either discussed by various writers or which I have observed in therapists (including myself during four years of counselling and group facilitation). All vignettes have eight components: The name of the role; a few brief examples of the therapist's interventions typical for that role; some personal reasons why the therapist might choose these interventions; the type of client these interventions might be useful for; the dangers inherent in the role; theories that endorse or condemn such interventions; and, finally, the types of environments these roles and interventions might fit into.

Following each vignette will be a brief discussion of some of the elements of the role and interventions discussed. A caveat: because of their brevity, the vignettes are almost caricatures - it goes without saying that the "real-life" therapist will feel and behave in a much more complex way, that she does not always take on that role, and that more likely than not, she will play more than one role with a particular client, even within a particular session. Also, my discussion is informed mostly by North American psychotherapy; some of the points I make, especially about social context, may not entirely apply to therapists outside this geographical area.

The Good Parent

What she does: Is supportive of client at all costs; often colludes with client against uncovering neuroses; does not confront

Why she does it: Has a need to "kiss and make it better", perhaps because her parents did not do that for her; shies away from looking at her own neuroses; is afraid of confrontation

Useful for: Clients who are unable to trust other therapists

Dangers: May turn against client if "rejected"; her shadow is unchecked

Model: The Ideal Mother

Theories: Explicitly scorned by Singer (a psychoanalyst), Kopp (a Jungian), Corey (eclectic); conceivably more likely to happen among Rogerians and some feminist therapists

Examples of environmental fit: Where preservation of status quo is important; some church-affiliated institutions; some women's centers

While the above-mentioned theories explicitly scorn this type, the Good Parent is a very common trap for therapists of any stripe - after all, the desire to help, to ease suffering, is the stated goal of the majority of those entering the helping professions. Also, the warmth and caring which are typical of the Good Parent are seen by many as indispensable qualities in therapists. It is a very short step from the desire help and feelings of warmth and caring to becoming overly solicitous and somewhat possessive, especially when driven by the needs described above.

The Good Parent is also a societal ideal - it is a mother-ideal: all-giving and all-forgiving, nurturing, supporting. Therefore, while therapeutic theories generally slight the Good Parent, there is not much opposition against her from other parts of society. But if the Good Parent is like the Jungian Great Mother archetype, it also incorporates its dangers: for example, the solicitousness can become suffocating (perhaps when well-meaning advice is not taken). The Good Parent may also have a tendency never to refuse to take on a client, no matter how difficult - only to end up "getting rid of patients unwittingly ... by unacknowledgedly evil ploys aimed ostensibly at helping the patient". Indeed, Singer calls the "urge to appear angelic ... one of the most dangerous compulsions".

stay tuned for the next vignette, about "the irreproachable professional".

isabella mori
couunselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

women, therapy and blogging

2006-03-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

a few interesting thoughts on women and blogging:

Writing, as a form of therapy, is as old as ink itself. Universally understood as a transformative process, the simple act of putting pen to page can effectively jump start personal growth and healing.

Over the years I’ve had more than a handful of sessions on a therapist’s couch sorting through the baggage I’ve built, bought, borrowed and inherited in my 48 years. Without exception, each qualified practitioner proposed the following recommendation: start and keep a daily journal.

Seems much angst and worry can be worked through with pen and paper. Yet for reasons that can only be explained as part of ‘my personal charm,’ my journal keeping would start and lapse in record time. Nevertheless, I knew the writing process to be powerful despite my inability to be consistent. Once, after managing to hold my journaling nose to the grindstone for 13 weeks, I leapt tall buildings made of artist block and landed on the other side, with renewed energy and fabulous paid work.

And yet, despite my success, I quickly discontinued putting my thoughts on paper.

Miraculously, last spring, my lifelong writing inertia evaporated with the click of a computer button. As easy as one, two, three, I started my own on-line journal, more commonly known as a blog.

more here ...

fractals, chaos and psychotherapy

2006-03-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

fractals, like the one here, and one of its associated disciplines, chaos theory, have long fascinated me. according to wikipedia

Fractals can be most simply defined as images that can be divided into parts, each of which is similar to the original object. Fractals are said to possess infinite detail.

fractals in an of themselves are a thing of beauty. i also think that, like poetry, they can illustrate the vast complexity, dynamics and beauty of the human experience.

anytime we engage in repetitions or experience patterns in our lives, we can see it as an example of a fractal. for example, writing is something that i have engaged in all my life, starting from my first attempt to write a mystery novel at age 11. if my life was an abstract painting, and writing was a particular shape, you could see this shape, or something similar to this shape, repeated over and over in my life.

other life patterns that are widely known are being attracted to men who are like our fathers, switching addictions (e.g. from alcoholic to workaholic) , any kind of habits - from brushing our teeth in the morning to sitting on a specific chair at the dinner table, not being able/willing to engage in certain emotions (e.g. not grieving), etc.

when we look at the fractal above, all the shapes and "sub-shapes" in various shades of mauve, we can see how they change and shift, for example, from a hexagon to a triangle to a trapeze - always similar (e.g. the hexagon isn't suddenly followed by a totally different shape, say, a bubble) but always different.

however, while there are definitely patterns, these patterns are not preordained and are highly sensitive to being influenced by even small changes, or the introduction of a a new item, however small. for example, the colours above are obviously very different - there's green, there's mauve.

just like in fractals, our life patterns can shift and change, and we can introduce new patterns. for example, a person who is workaholic can channel that pattern into something that serves her and/or the people around her (e.g., go from being a 14-hour-a-day lawyer to shifting some of her drive to provide legal help for people on welfare). that's a bit like the dark mauve pattern above turning into a lighter mauve pattern.

or a new "colour" could suddenly appear in a person's life - a new person, a new job, a special experience. this could give this person's life a new twist, and perhaps one for the better.

that's where i see the connection between fractals (or chaos theory) and psychotherapy. my job is to help people stay true to themselves while changing the colours and shapes of their lives to a pattern that works better for them.

if you're interested in reading a bit more about this, here are a few links

- a seaman and boater talks about the changing patterns of water and life
- a great book by john briggs and david peat, seven life lessons of chaos - spiritual wisdom from the science of change
- and, if you like it academic, a great book on chaos and psychology by michael buetz

btw, i designed the fractal above with xaos, a great little free piece of fractal software.

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

breast cancer

2006-03-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

for the third year now, my friend haedy, a cancer survivor and now again living with breast cancer, is going to walk 60 km during august's the weekend to end breast cancer. finally, i'm going to join her and our close friend danielle, and we'll walk together.

i'm excited and frightened and nervous and giddy. excited because the walk is such a high! frightened because of all the loss people have to stare in the face in preparation and during the walk. nervous because i don't know if i can walk that much, and i don't know if i can raise the $2,000 i need to raise in order to participate. giddy because it's already such a ball!

so i'll be posting all kinds of stuff about this in the next little while. for today, here are a few links to sites that talk about the emotional side of living with breast cancer:

Coping with Cancer: 10 Steps Towards Emotional Well-Being

A list of books on the emotional aspects of breast cancer

The American Psychological Association's "Breast cancer: How your mind can help your body"

Atlantic Breast Cancer Net: Living in the moment & Emotional health

Climbing mountains in the fight against breast cancer

Couples communication: When the wife has breast cancer

Contrary to psychologists' expectations, breast cancer survivors don't experience an extended emotional crisis after their treatment regimens end (Research)

please also visit our web site dedicated to the cancer walk!

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

who do men tell their stories to?

2006-02-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

here's an interesting blog entry by hugo schwyzer on feminism and "liberal white men". my comment (if you take the trouble to scroll down or search for my name in the post) is about my disagreement regarding hugo's idea that men should stop "burdening" their women with their stories, and find men to talk to. not that i think men shouldn't talk to more men - i decidedly wish they would - but i think it's pointless to make gender a deciding factor regarding who to share our hearts with.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
moritherapy
www.moritherapy.com

the therapist as a person - pt 2

2006-02-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

this is a continuation from an article started a few days ago …

The influence of the therapist's personality and history on the therapeutic process is recognized in psychoanalysis and is subsumed under the notions of countertransference and counterresistance. However, although psychoanalytic theory recognizes the existence and importance of countertransference, it is not a topic writers of the psychoanalytic persuasion are eager to discuss. The term countertransference is first mentioned by Freud in 1910. Johansen explains that in the controversies over countertransference, there are two main categories of definitions. One sees it strictly as conscious and unconscious responses to the client, the other includes all personal responses to the client, including those that arise out of the therapist's past.

Many writers insist that countertransference consists of "emotional" and "irrational" responses that interfere with therapist objectivity. Racker, an oft-cited writer on the matter, speaks of countertransference as "psychopathological processes" in the analyst, indeed a form of neurosis, which influences the therapist's perception and/or interpretation of the unconscious processes of client and therapist in the therapeutic context. Singer contends that countertransference can be grouped into roughly three categories: irrational kindness, irrational hostility, and anxiety reactions. Robertiello & Schoenewolf, in "101 common therapeutic blunders", a delightful - and sometimes frightening - book of teaching tales, give examples of the following categories: erotic (e.g., "The therapist who feared his sexual feelings"), sadomasochistic (e.g., "The therapist who had to be The Boss"), and narcissistic (e.g., "The vain therapist and the slob").

Robertiello & Schoenewolf also discuss counterresistance, a phenomenon that other writers often subsume under countertransference. While countertransference can be understood as a type of projection in which, for example, the therapist treats the client as if he were her father, counterresistance can be seen as therapist behaviours which influence the therapeutic process through such "blockings" as (hostile) silence, attempting to change the subject, or otherwise preventing unwanted ideas or feelings from rising to the fore. Counterresistance can result from a therapist's colluding with the patient's resistance to explore or work through unpleasant issues but can also originate exclusively from the therapist. Robertiello & Schoenewolf's tales of counterresistance have titles like "The therapist who denied his own obesity" and "The religious therapist and the atheist". All of the titles cited speak for themselves as illustrations of some of the types of countertransference and counterresistance that can be found.

Generally, however, countertransference connotes therapist irrationality and unwanted lack of objectivity, even though many writers stress that countertransference can be used productively. Partly because of this connotation, I will avoid the use of the term "countertransference", preferring in my discussion terms like "the influence of the personal", "social influence", etc. If the influence of the personal is not a favourite topic for many writers, social influence is even less so. It appears that when issues of social influence arise, they are frequently decontextualized or dealt with by tokenism. For example, a therapist's values might indeed be recognized as intruding in the therapeutic process - but implicitly they are HER values. The question of how these values relate to prevailing ethics, politics, or other social contexts, and how THAT influences the therapeutic process is rarely asked.

(stay tuned for the next instalment before the end of this week)

isabella mori
moritherapy
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com