a house full of stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. 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)
2. spending the afternoon hanging out with my my sweet little 9-year-old daughter
3. my beautiful office
4. my laptop
5. my house plants
6. how patient and easy-going my husband is
7. my saturday morning friends
8. the red tulips in my front yard
9. my ongoing, inexhaustible interest in things psychological
10. my connection with the divine
11. that my work and study related books are in an order that enables me to find whatever i'm looking for
12. that bailey, my older daughter's cat, is half way through being in heat (only another day or two of listening to her yowling)
13. 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

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:

1. 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”.
2. 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.
3. “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.”
4. study finds government overstated danger of obesity
5. “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.”
6. 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.
   

7. suggests that there are more deaths in north america due to underweight than to overweight.
8. “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.”
9. “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.”
10. “among individuals that are not severely obese, weight loss is associated with increased mortality rate and fat loss with decreased mortality rate.”
11. 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.
12. "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.”
13. “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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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