If you are feeling OK but planning on making some changes that might affect your mood, now is the time to do a little prevention work. A young man we know decided to go to visit his guru in Sri Lanka. It was a wonderful trip and changed his life for the good. It might have turned into a catastrophe …
The Antidepressant without Side Effects
Medications for depression can be life saving, but for many people they have disturbing side effects. But there is one antidepressant that doesn’t have side effects – behavioral activation (BA). Behavioral activation is a treatment that has been shown to work for people with moderate and even severe depression and, in some studies, it works about as well as antidepressants. …
Negotiation: How to Deal With Conflict
Some of the best ways of dealing with conflicts in relationships, whether business or personal, are contained in the books about negotiation written by Roger Fisher and William Ury. In our own lives and in the lives of people we have counseled we have often seen a situation that seemed to be incredibly scary and full of potential catastrophe turn …
Why You Should Journal
We are strong believers in the value of paying attention. We define what is important in our lives by what we pay attention to. And if we don’t pay attention to things it is practically impossible to improve them. The kind of journal that we have in mind is one that pays attention to the shifts in mood during the …
Acceptance: Helpful Readings
Acceptance. We have been influenced by many people in setting up this website. One of those great thinkers is a man whose vision of psychotherapy was founded in acceptance, Carl Rogers. In his book On Becoming a Person he wrote: “The curious paradox is when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” This phrase has resonated …
Changing Bad Habits: Helpful Resources
If you talk to anyone who has worked to help people with serious bad habits (smoking, sex addiction, gambling, drug use) they will probably end up mentioning the “Stages of Change” model of Prochaska. The notion that people don’t just “flip a switch” and change was pretty revolutionary at the time, and the useful notion of stages of change: from …