change therapy

every month i delve into the buddhasphere to come up with interesting tidbits in buddhist writing. this time around i was interested in the concept of right action. the poem we start out with today is the famous shin jin mei poem the perfect way knows no difficulties except that it refuses to make preferences; [...]

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my talk at mental health camp yesterday: it’s not about mental illness. it’s about mental health. in 1996, 510 murders occurred in canada. taking a prevalence rate of about 3% of violent crimes committed by people with mental illness, at the most, 16 of these people were killed by someone with a mental illness. i’m [...]

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the following is an interview with tony schwartz, who you may know as co-author with donald trump in the art of the deal.  tony just came out with a new book which i think everyone who has ever worked (so about 90% of the adult population) should read.  it is called the way we’re working [...]

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very few blogs make much money. in fact, the vast majority make no money whatsoever. but that’s not what you want, is it? you want to make some real money blogging, and that’s why you bought this book in the first place. congratulations! you’ve already completed the first step on your path to becoming a [...]

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earlier this year, you heard me rave about therese borchard’s book beyond blue a few times. she has a new book out, the pocket therapist. i just received it and haven’t opened it yet. because i have so much trust in therese, i’ll do this: i’ll look at three random pages, tell you what i [...]

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i just finished reading norm amundson’s new book metaphor making. it is written to assist counsellors in making better use of metaphors and includes theoretical foundations and intervention exercises. the most interesting part (for me) were the forty metaphoric images that offer an in-depth practical and personal opportunity to experience working with metaphors. i’d like [...]

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god is not one, for someone with my buddhist and ecumenical leanings, was a bit of a provocative book title so i started reading it with some resistance. was this going to be some rabid right-wing pseudo intellectual trying to persuade me that all gods are bad except his? really, the title of the book [...]

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aaaah, book reviews. let’s start with the bad parts: how to achieve a heaven on earth is full of conservative christian overtones, quite a few of the articles have a bit of “chicken soup for the soul” feel, and at times i thought i was dealing with an aborted e-book. but there were clearly good [...]

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is it valentine’s day yet?  what?  i missed it?  drat!  yup, that was one of the things that fell between the cracks during my trip to europe.  what also fell between the cracks was telling you about an ebook that chelle kindly invited me to participate in.  as a gift to her readers on valentine’s [...]

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my brain is still only functioning at 42.718% capacity (as opposed to the usual 60 7/8th) so i don’t find myself to be able to say much. what little brain power i had went to work today and another fabulous mental health chat on twitter. but i feel guilty for not blogging enough so i [...]

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by now you must have cottoned on to the fact that i really like therese borchard’s beyond blue: surviving depression and anxiety and making the most of bad genes. one of the things she talks about in that book is her run-ins with eating disorders. in the chapter BMI (body mass issues) – depression in [...]

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you don’t have to spend a lot of time leafing through therese borchard’s beyond blue: surviving depression and anxiety and making the most of bad genes to find some mention of suicide. here, for example i understand why people who haven’t experienced severe depression believe that a mother who commits suicide is extremely selfish and totally [...]

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therese borchard, who wrote the fabulous book beyond blue, has a dream about mental health.  i think dr. martin luther king would be totally okay with her being inspired by his famous words. i have a dream that one day i won’t hold my breath every time i tell a person that i suffer from [...]

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these days i really seem to enjoy to quote from books.  here’s one i have talked about before: the priority of love: christian charity and social justice, by timothy p. jackson.  let me give you some quotes. jackson puts the christian virtue of charity in close context of agape.  according to the stanford dictionary of [...]

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marshall rosenberg, the man known for his work in nonviolent communication, appears in the section off the cushion and into life in be the change: how meditation can transform you and the world). he works a lot in prisons. the people there have done some stuff that i really do not like, like sexually molesting [...]

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