Category: Blog
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The Games we Play
“Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy.” Eric Berne “Why am I always the one picking up after you?” she moans… “Stop talking to me like a child!” he yells…. She responds, “Well stop acting like one!” Some of you may recognize the dialogue. It’s two fully grown adults and yet…
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Our need for a secure base
“Life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base” John Bowlby British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. The other day, I looked out my window from my cosy little room in Bloomsbury and noticed something strange. The BT Tower which stands only a few blocks away from my building had completely disappeared. …
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A life more ordinary
“A great man is always willing to be little.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher and poet I’ve noticed a growing trend, particularly with us 30/40-somethings, a fear of being average. To live a life deemed to be mediocre seems to be something not just to actively avoid but dread. Our lives apparently must be extraordinary…
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Goodbye 2018. Hello 2019!
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next years words await another voice” TS Eliot Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a restful and enjoyable festive holiday. For this month I wanted to focus on the potential opportunity, which a new year can bring. Over the past few years I’ve developed…
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Stuck on you
“If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” anon When I think about co-dependency, I always recall a sign my mother had in our kitchen growing up which inscribed the above quote. The sign masqueraded as a “family joke” but as an adult I can see what a powerful message it sent out about who ruled…
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Thief of time
“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.” Benjamin Franklin “First you defrost the refrigerator.” Ernest Hemingway’s response to the question, “how do you write a novel?” You know what’s ironic? I’ve really struggled to write a decent opening to this piece about procrastination. I’ve drafted many sentences,…
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Facing our shadow
“The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light” Ram Dass As the nights begin to draw in and we live more in the dark than the light, I got to thinking about our own dark sides, what we call in therapy, our shadow. What is it? First conceived by Carl…
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The masks we wear
“The greatest battle we face as human beings is the battle to protect our true selves from the self the world wants us to become.” poet E. E. Cummings During my early days of therapy training we were asked to draw our masks. These being the masks we show to the world. The masks we…
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My Summer reading
“We read books to find out who we are.” Author Ursula Le Guin “Leisure without literature is death” Seneca the Younger We are now in the full swing of Summer (heatwave and all) and one of the first tasks I undertake before any holiday is to decide what books to read. This rather delicate selection…
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Feel the burn
The summer holidays are fast approaching (a collective “hurrah” I hear) and it’s got me thinking about burnout. Not the kind involving excessive sun exposure (ouch), but the one involving complete and utter exhaustion (double ouch). Burnout, in a nutshell, is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It…
Suzie Chick 