Introduction I have to confess that I find politics fascinating, even if very painful at times like these, facing as we do another five years of Conservative rule. I remain though optimistic that eventually our politics will move onto a different, more conscious and compassionate plane. I do think that our societies consciousness is slowly… Read More
What is the psychology of Neoliberalism and how do we get past it?
George Monbiot in his Guardian article (11/09/19) about the power of ideology, and how it is always based on some philosophical ground, says, “We make a mistake when we assume that money is the main motivation. Our unreformed, corrupt and corrupting political funding system ensures it is an important factor. But what counts above all… Read More
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature. To read this as a pdf click here It has become increasingly clear to me that the negative effects of Capitalism subjugate and oppress most people. I agree with George Monbiot’s recent analysis (Guardian 25/04/19) that it is largely a… Read More
To struggle or not to struggle?
This question goes to the heart of the paradox and difficulties we have in knowing how to live our lives. Struggle is surely necessary for us to resist the negative forces within us that trauma generated and left us with. To give into those negative impulses leads us down a slippery slope of self-disintegration. To… Read More
Hopeless Hope
I think that hope has two aspects. This is not about its opposite of hopelessness which conjures up despair and defeatedness, something nobody wants to get stuck in. The point of this is to explore how hope has positive and negative aspects, and to argue that the negative aspect of hope is not challenged enough… Read More
Reality, Fantasy and Politics (v2)
Please see this piece on “Articles” page with the new title The Two Streams of Reality, and Politics
Boundaries with Love – The best way to bring up children
The ideal parenting, and indeed the ideal relational stance generally, is – reasonably consistent boundaries maintained with love. With children this is relatively simple. We insist on our version of what the boundaries are whilst maintaining a loving attitude, even in the face of rebellion of what ever sort. This does not mean that a… Read More
What is Psychotherapy?
To me, the basic premise is that people are good. All our negativity and destructiveness, needs to be understood in terms of compensatory processes emanating from our insecurity, which is, in turn, caused by trauma in its widest sense. Many of our difficulties revolve around our inner conflict, which is the direct result of this… Read More
The hope of Love
In response to the recent trouble in Charlottesville USA from white nationalists, Obama, in a celebrated tweet, quoted this passage from Mandela’s autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom. “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion… People must learn to hate, and if… Read More
Anarchistic Democracy
I recently watched a BBC4 Storyville documentary by Carne Ross called “The Accidental Anarchist: Life without Government” (23/07/17). I’m very grateful, the film “blew my mind” as the saying goes. It blew open the doors to seeing that maybe globally we are on the verge of a transition from old fashioned ‘hierarchical democracy’ with its… Read More
Our need for Philosophy
There was a lovely article today (9th Jan 17) in the Guardian arguing for philosophy to be taught in schools. It is from the point of view of enabling and teaching the young to think in preparation for a working life that will increasingly need flexibility, due to many factors including the computerisation of so… Read More
Therapy for Weight Loss
Yesterday (13th October) the BBC’s “You & Yours” Radio 4 program had a section on the success of therapy for those wanting to lose weight. It was a clear endorsement of therapy’s effectiveness in the long term, which is the “gold standard” for Weight Loss methods. All other methods have incredibly high long term failure… Read More
Is Trauma Inevitable?
As we develop from embryos through to adulthood is some sort of ‘trauma’ inevitable? There seem to be some people out there who live a charmed, creative and content life, not many perhaps, but there is obviously a scale of trauma that people live with,
Problems of solution focused approaches
There is always a great attraction to the ‘magic cure’, to that one thing that will make our lives better, we so much want to believe that a solution is just there and relatively easy.
Therapy is Scientific
Good therapy and especially good Gestalt Therapy, is scientific. This is because it is an open exploration of “what is”, we are simply trying to look at what is there, like any good scientist. The difficulty is that what we are trying to see, is often out of awareness to varying degrees.
