change therapy

the following is a press release from vancouver’s north shore schizophrenia society.  since no-one seems to have picked it up yet, i’m publishing it here.  it addresses the important question of when involuntary admission for serious mental illness is applicable, and the involvement of family members. vancouver coastal, in a review of the death by [...]

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in my long-suffering attempts to organize my internet life better, i’m going to see what it’s like if i post the occasional link article.  so here’s a stroll through the links open on august 1, with the first paragraph of each post so that you can get an idea what it’s all about.  you may [...]

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after my post about small and SMART goals on garfield’s blog, i got inspired to write another one at brainblogger about the pitfalls and benefits of goal setting, this time taking a bit more of an academic slant. larry ferlazzo took up that post and talked about goal setting in the classroom. it made me [...]

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exercise – it works for depression is the title of a post i wrote for brainblogger the other day. it is about a large-scale study, the SMILE study (standard medical intervention and long-term exercise, conducted at duke university), which found that vigorous exercise three times a week for half an hour or forty-five minutes reduced [...]

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today please visit over at brainblogger, where i talk about research on how some psychologists view people with mental health issues, especially those with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.  interesting points that are being discussed in the comments are the place of diagnosis and the importance, or limits of, of objectivity.

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the other day i received a phone call from william (not his real name), very distressed. he was in the psych ward, on his third week now. “i gotta get better, i gotta get better!” he kept saying. his hospitalization had been preceded by a good six weeks of progressively worsening mental health. anxiety, depression [...]

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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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the CMHA (vancouver-burnaby branch) will be holding a depression and anxiety screening the evening of monday, january 18th 2010, which they call ‘blue monday.’ blue monday is traditionally the third monday in january, a date chosen because it occurs after the holidays but when the days are still dark and dreary, new year’s resolutions may [...]

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today, please visit marie at coming out of the trees.    about her blog she says i’m passing along a collection of excerpts from my personal and therapy journals to whomever needs to read them. i’m sharing my story so that those of you who are on a similar journey can know that you aren’t the [...]

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grief is not something that i have a lot experience with as a counsellor, so it was interesting to read through psychologist roberta temes’ solace – finding your way through grief and learning to live again. the book’s no-nonsense, empowering tone is set right in the first paragraph of the introduction: you are experiencing this [...]

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a few weeks ago we had a conversation about acceptance. one of the things we discussed there was this: acceptance is about the past not the future … a common trap that we fall into in our thinking is when we jump without reflection between what is and what should (ought) be. in philosophy, that [...]

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last month we had a conversation about acceptance, and i’d like to continue it. evan said, “i think changing the world can be valuable, too.” maybe there is no either/or between acceptance and making changes. to accept comes from the latin, meaning to receive (as in “UPS delivered a parcel for you, and i accepted [...]

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as you know, questions have a special place in my heart (see this post on encouraging questions, for example.) as i was preparing for a little workshop i facilitated today on solution focused coaching and counselling, i realized that my first discovery of the power of questions was not back in 1999, when i first [...]

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soft, these sounds steal again into my heart. how’d he do it? he played on the piano like he knew all about our souls. this is a little tanka – a short japanese poem – i wrote after listening to the CD of the wonderful sounds craig addy created when my friend and soulmate haedy [...]

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