I feel lucky to live and work in a place where I am in contact with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. Many seek me out as a therapist to talk about their personal struggles with cultural identity and belonging. Difference is something which is deeply felt in one’s skin and bones and living in a…
I wonder how you have coped with the forced isolation imposed on all of us during the corona virus. Has the weekly hand clapping made you feel more part of your local community providing some small contact with others during the week? Or have you been part of a family meeting on Zoom or with…
“The passions, these “magnificent monsters” (Nietzsche, 1967, p. 521), can we consider them a gift in which something valuable can be learnt? Below is a consideration of the multiple, dynamic, creative and sometimes conflicting forces of energy that are often competing for dominance within us – what Fredrick Nietzsche sometimes described as ‘the passions’. Others…
I admit the shameless plagiarising of the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ – ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ as it fits as a Segway into considering the tresses and strains of both finding love, and holding onto in, in the current pandemic. The statistics Disturbing statistics are emerging of surging rates of domestic violence,…
The medical definition of sexual dysfunction in women is hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) that is low or no libido. Like men, women’s desire for sex is effected by all sorts of factors such as relationship issues, bereavement, physical illness and the side effects of medication, job loss or work stress, depression and anxiety, recreational…
Following on from my earlier blog about the physiological effects of Viagra, in this blog I am going to discuss some of the psychological and social issues that make young men pop a blue pill. There is common notion that young men are constantly getting erections and always up for having sex. Various sources indicate…
How many of us are seldom more than an arms length from our mobile phone? Our bags, clothing, even our sports wear is designed with special pockets for its’ safe keeping. For most of us it has infiltrated every sphere of life, a constant companion. Staying connected has never been so easy. Mobiles are for…
We have just celebrated the ending of the year, welcoming in a New Year. It provides a shared / collective opportunity to reflect on the past, think ahead to the future. Likewise, psychotherapy invites us to think about the past, how it contributes to who we are, what is important to us, how the past…
Since the early 1960s, psychologists have been interested in the relationship between parenting and the emotional, social and behavioural development of children. Of particular significance to this field of study, is the early work of psychologist Diana Baumrind and colleagues, who conducted the first longitudinal study of more than 100 preschoolers through to their adolescence,…
The arrival of Viagra (sildenafil citrate) came on the market in 1998 as the first drug to treat impotence. Impotence is the consistent inability among men to achieve and sustain an erection sufficient for sexual intercourse and/or to achieve ejaculation. Like the contraceptive pill in the 1960s it was greeted as a life changer giving…
Long-term Psychotherapy is all about leaving the family – not literally – but in the psychological sense. This is a much more complex process than it sounds. Why? Because it takes years of back and forth, and it is a journey which although slow, in my view essential for psychological health. If you were lucky…
The urge to migrate twists through the marrow of our bones; the restless energy moving our ancestors across vast wastelands in search of a better life mirrors our journey to self-actualisation. With global migration on the rise what happens to your relationship to yourself and to others when you leave your birth country for a…