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Beginnings

January 2, 2012
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I swore to myself that I wouldn’t write something about New Years, resolutions, change, etc.  But this word “beginnings” is on my mind for a couple reasons.  One, I am teaching a Human Development course at the University of British Columbia and I’ve titled the first class, “Beginnings” to both address the beginning of the [...]

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Generation Possibility | the paralysis of younger generations

December 5, 2011
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I wrote a piece not too long ago entitled “The Lost Generations” that addressed some issues with the younger, more postmodern generations.  I want to write on this topic again using some theoretical concepts from two authors.  Ernest Becker, who wrote The Denial of Death, and Soren Kierkegaard, famous philosopher and writer. The reason for [...]

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Denial of Death

November 21, 2011
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I am currently reading Ernest Becker’s revolutionary book, The Denial of Death.  It has me thinking about many things: my own personal life, the life of my clients and my practice in general, and my future studies.  Becker’s treatment of our denial of death is powerful and hauntingly accurate.  Because we live with the reality [...]

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Letting Go of Your Partner’s Addiction

November 6, 2011
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Term: I’m going to use the term “addicted relationship” to mean when one person has an addiction and the other does not. Being in a relationship with someone who has any sort of addiction can be downright exhausting and maddening.  I want to address an aspect of what happens in many relationships where addiction is [...]

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The Yin and Yang of Explanation and Experience

October 24, 2011
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We all want an explanation for our lives, our behavior, our thoughts, and for how the world works.  We search it out, we think about it, we observe our lives and those of one’s close to us.  We are told it is possible to figure things out if we just think about it long enough.  [...]

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De-Cluttering the Mind

August 29, 2011
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What makes you feel simple and grounded?  For me, it is the smell of the inside of a certain type of book, or watching my children play.  Sometimes it’s just walking outside.  What helps you get back to the basics.  Yoga and meditation focus on the breath because it is the closest thing to focusing [...]

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The Lie of Psychotherapy

August 8, 2011
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In any growth endeavor we can often feel that once we do the work and experience some healing, we’ll have arrived, living happily ever after.  I know I fell/fall prey to this lie and there is nothing better than life itself to smash this kind of naiveté to pieces.  I’ve noticed other clients wanting to [...]

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Relationships for Adults

July 18, 2011
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One area of relationships that I tend to help clients pay attention to is their own self in the relationship. We can often become quite preoccupied with what the other person is doing wrong that we miss our own ability and power to either do something about it, or not let it affect us so [...]

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Shame and Modern Thought

June 6, 2011
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One could say that a huge reason people seek therapy or struggle in life is due to some aspect of shame. Shame is a sense that something is wrong with us, that we are flawed to the core.  Guilt is about doing something wrong and shame is more about being wrong.   Now, you might say, [...]

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When Things Are Going Well

May 30, 2011
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Although there are many great aspects to psychology and psychotherapy, one pitfall is that sometimes we can get too focused on problem solving.  This can sometimes keep us stuck in only seeing the world as problems to be solved.  For a lot of the time in therapy this is necessary otherwise people would not really [...]

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Who are You?

April 25, 2011
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So often in counselling/psychotherapy/social work and many self-help books, the focus is on “fixing” pathology. The focus is on exploring one’s life to find the problems so that we can fix them. In many theories, the focus is on looking backwards to childhood to find where things went wrong. In psychology and the practice of [...]

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Addiction is Good For You

April 19, 2011
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I’ve written before on the idea that addiction can give a person reason to look more deeply into his/her life, resolving issues, hurts, and longings previously ignored.  The person might never have honestly looked at their life.  I want to take a brief moment and spend a bit more time on this subject.  In my [...]

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I Don’t Love You Anymore

January 4, 2011
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“I don’t love you anymore,” is a phrase that gets thrown around either in the middle of a deteriorating relationship or at the end. One person does not FEEL that they love the other because of a handful of reasons so they express this. They do not feel drawn to, or close to that person [...]

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Coloring Outside the Lines

November 9, 2010
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“Hey, you! Yea, you! Why you trying to be so perfect? Who do you think you are anyway? Do you really think you are going to work so hard that you never let yourself or anyone else down? Do you really think anyone cares if you make a mistake? Do you really think anyone is [...]

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We’re All Addicts

August 31, 2010

I believe a major problem in how the general public, as well as some professionals, sees addiction is that it is too narrowly defined. When we say the word “addiction” most people just think of an alcoholic or drug addict. Some might think about sex addiction or gambling, but overall we tend to only think [...]

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