whitestonetherapy

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Bump... (5.4.20)

Things that go 'bump' in the night Should not really give one a fright. It's the hole in each ear That lets in the fear, That, and the absence of light!

(Spike Milligan)

I’m deleting all News apps on my phone for a few days.  It can’t do any harm, and it may just do some good...

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Feeling alone?... (29.3.20)

I follow quite a few therapists and ‘wellbeing’ channels across social media of all types, and most of these are awash at the moment with ‘top tips’ to deal with the Covid-19 situation.  That’s great - I respect the motivation and I know this will help some people - but, honestly, I think therapists are flattering themselves if they imagine that too many people are tuning in just at the minute.  

As demonstrated by the headlong rush to stockpile toilet roll in recent weeks... when faced with an existential crisis, most people’s focus shifts to making sure that very basic needs are covered.  This is something predicted by Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) with his theory of human needs.  Called the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’, this is a motivational theory in psychology that suggests that there are five tiers of human needs that are connected to, and follow on from, each other.  This is usually depicted as a pyramid.  Here we go:

The idea here is that the needs of any individual must be met in a relatively sequential way, starting with those at the bottom of this pyramid first.  Once physiological needs are met (for example) you gradually move your focus to safety & security needs, and so on.  If you successfully find ways of getting these needs met, you will begin to move upwards towards self-actualization.  

So, you can see that the epidemic has jolted many of us right back down to concern about basic physiological needs (loo roll, food etc) and safety & security, which I’m sure many of you have considered too.  I think this answers the ‘why toilet rolls?!’ question that many people have wondered about recently.  It’s tough to think about self-improvement when we’re worried about medicine running out and supermarkets being emptied.  We revert back to basics - to essential needs.  I’m going to acknowledge this reality by sparing you my own list of ‘top tips’ for now!

Instead, I’ll tell you what I’m doing in quarantine:  Exercising in the house. I’m improvising a workout and mostly sticking to that every day.  I’m limiting time reading up on the coronavirus as too much of this wears me out and does little good.  I’m playing more computer games. I’m trying to watch some of the many shows on TV / Netflix that clients have recommended over the last year.  I’m trying to keep work going on a few fronts, and that takes a lot of time and has been difficult in the last three weeks.  I’m sitting in the sun if it’s warm enough.  Things are ok with us here, but I find that whatever I do, I feel I should be doing something else, which is also draining!  There we go.  We’re all still well and that’s something I’m grateful for.

There is one ‘tip’ I keep seeing that I want to say something about - and this goes out to any readers that are lonely and are doing this alone.  I keep seeing a handy tip recommending that you should ‘contact all your friends!’.  Well, I don’t know what conversations some people have with clients, but I find that plenty of people I speak to just don’t have some extensive network of friends or family to fall back on.  I think therapists should be a bit more careful about this particular ‘tip’.  While it makes obvious sense if possible, there’s a large number of people for whom this either isn’t an option or at least doesn’t feel like an option.  If the best advice to these people is ‘call your friends!’ then this is a recipe for despair.  To any of those people who may read this, I want to say that you are not alone.  In fact, many people I’ve spoken to in Haywards Heath, in London and further afield, feel isolated and are going through this without jumping on the phone or Skype every couple of minutes.  So know that many other people are just like you, many more people than you’d think.

If you’re going through lockdown on your own and you can relate to what I’ve written, then grab a pen and paper.  Put on some music you like and sit down for twenty minutes and do some writing.  We’re stuck in this lockdown for now, but I’d like you to write about where you would like to be in two and/or ten years time.  How will you, personally, have changed your life and done something that feels important to you?  In what ways will you be different?  What are the key events you’d like to happen in your life?  Take some time to visualise this as you do it.  What will you look like? What will you feel like?  What will be around you?  Who would you like to be around you?  If it feels right, you can write about family and how you would like that to be, relationships, career, and personal changes (physical and psychological)

Let yourself be creative.  The idea is to write freely, almost letting your hand run away with itself.  If you catch yourself judging your own work, then gently remind yourself that the objective is to let your creative juices flow.  Be careful to watch out for being judgemental while visualising your future self... if your own inner-critic is cynical or shouting for attention, then accept that this is also part of you and try to feel a sense of compassion for yourself.  Then keep on with the exercise.

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Relationships... (23.3.20)

I’m going to avoid the elephant in the room tonight by writing for a few minutes about relationships.  

A friend of mine is a couples therapist and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of couples therapy jokes.  There’s no shortage of them, which isn’t surprising.  Many couples enter therapy with one partner having either secretly or openly decided the relationship is over, while the other partner wishes to save it.  I’ve seen this quite a few times.  Quite often in such cases, the outcome is a split in the relationship...so, if you’re a couples therapist, a dark sense of humour is a great advantage in dealing with (and a by-product of working with) difficult situations where the result will often not be an agreeable one to at least one person involved.

If you’re in a relationship you’ll know how important good communication is to make the relationship work, but so often we communicate in ways that seem to actually cover up what we really mean.  For example, instead of telling a loved one we’re worried about their health because we love them, we instead nitpick about their laziness and argue about it.  Or instead of saying we’re feeling anxious and upset about money issues, we argue with our partner about each and every direct debit on the joint statement (and how bad they are with money) without ever actually properly talking about our emotions.  In other words, we fail to articulate our needs properly.  

For every person in couples therapy, there are, of course, reasons why this may be so -  things like family culture, attachment history, beliefs about oneself and others etc.  But being drawn into constant repetitive arguments with a loved one is highly destructive, and is also a sticky habit to change.  I try to encourage clients to think about what the function behind the behaviour is.  What is your partner really trying to say, emotionally, when they engage in (what feels like) argument or provocation?  In this way, self-defeating ways of communicating at least have a chance of being examined before the relationship is further damaged.  Underneath the unhelpful communication is very often a positive intention, but you’ve got to dig deep to find it.  Even if you do find it, many couples might have grown wary of each other emotionally, and are reticent about sharing vulnerability that could be weaponized against them in the future.

It’s simply not a great idea to argue the whole time with someone you are voluntarily choosing to spend so much time with - it’s just not a good strategy at all.  There are much better ways of showing you care - or asking to be cared about - than falling into a groove of argument and recrimination.  Nobody wins when this happens.  Whoever ‘loses’ an argument often simply bides their time, ready to obtain revenge by being ‘right’ in whatever the next argument will be about. It’s a deep and unhelpful rut to be in, and progress often involves both parties giving up on ‘being right’.  That’s tough too, but forms the basis of some good jokes. 

I think relationships are really about negotiating some kind of compromise - accepting that relationships involve personal change on both sides and that differences are ok too.  This is the one close family relationship we really get to choose, after all....  I think that’s the best way of getting to some kind of lasting peace.

The Prime Minister has just announced a total lockdown for 3 weeks to tackle COVID-19.  I expect this will test some relationships too!

Hoping everyone is safe and well.

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Uncertainty....

The last couple of weeks have been scary and quite surreal. Here we are with a problem that is deadly serious, but it is also an invisible problem that, as yet, still feels a bit remote. It’s an odd feeling.   Things have so far seemed normal enough, and this is another thing that makes the new restrictions announced by politicians seem almost unreal.  Until today the Pubs and Cafes have remained pretty full, and really it’s only the empty shelves in some areas of the supermarkets that have indicated there is something serious happening.  

A thing I see all the time in therapy is that uncertainty is unsettling  - the human mind wants to have a good story to hold on to.  Like any good story, there needs to be a satisfactory beginning, middle and end, and our mind will insist on filling in any blanks that exist through processes such as ‘ruminating’, ‘worrying’, ‘having anxiety’, or ‘over-thinking’.  But these normal processes can often get out of hand for some people when things feel uncertain. As far as this pandemic goes, we’ve no choice but to accept a lot of uncertainty for now.... and turn this into a spiritual practice if we can.  We can remind ourselves that while we can’t control everything, we can bring focus to the things that are under our control - and focus on those things.

One thing is for sure, the Chancellor has announced a huge package of economic support on the TV just a few moments ago - some £330 billion.  Just for scale, this dwarfs the £137 billion bolstering the economy in the 2008 financial crisis.I think there will be massive quantitative easing heading our way....  debt deflation may be the only way out of the huge guarantees that governments around the world will undertake to shore up flattened economies.  Inflation will have to be induced...  

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COVID-19... update(12.3.20)

(12.3.20)  The situation with Coronavirus/COVID-19 has continued to develop, and the Government strategy is currently to slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible.  To help with that, and to keep therapy as safe as possible, I'm offering three options to all clients: 1.  We continue to meet in person, and hold our session inside at my premises at 56 Wood Ride or 23 Austin Friars (i.e. a normal session). 2.  We continue to meet in person, but hold our session outside (a walking session). 3.  We hold our session over SKYPE. If you would prefer anything other than Option 1, then please email, text or call.   I will otherwise assume we meet as normal per Option 1.  Option 2 is subject to reasonable weather (e.g. not raining).   Please also check out my note on COVID-19 and therapy attendance on my website (here).  At the moment I feel fine and have no symptoms.   Best wishes Steve

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COVID-19... (28.2.20)

A note on COVID-19 that I’ve just uploaded to the home page of my website, and copy here too.  

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A precautionary note on COVID-19 for clients and anyone who is considering getting in touch and arranging to meet.

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COVID-19 has been in the news a great deal, and although there are relatively few confirmed cases in the UK it is reasonable to assume the virus will spread further.  Some people have asked if they should come to therapy sessions if feeling unwell. It's a good question, and one that obviously applies to me too,  in terms of what I should do if I begin to feel unwell or receive a diagnosis. Please note I am currently just fine!

Having read the advice from the Government for schools and other educational settings (where people mingle in close proximity), I would ask that:

If  you feel unwell – particularly if experiencing a cough,  difficulty in breathing, fever/high temperature - please refrain  from coming to therapy. If you can, please let me know via text/email etc.

If I feel unwell – and if I experience the above symptoms – I will cancel all face-to-face therapy for the duration of the potential incubation period for COVID-19, which is between 2 and 14 days. In these circumstances I will try to let all client know via email and text where possible.

Should the above circumstances come up, I will do what I can to offer sessions over Skype/Facetime to those who would like to do that.

Best wishes,

Steve

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If you are concerned about symptoms you are experiencing, call NHS 111 service or contact your  GP surgery. Some general points here on steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

There are general principles anyone can follow to help prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, including:

washing your hands often - with soap and water, or use alcohol sanitiser if handwashing facilities are not available. This is particularly important after taking public transport

covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throwing the tissue in a bin. See Catch it, Bin it, Kill it

people who feel unwell should stay at home and should not attend work or any education or childcare setting

use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser that contains at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available

avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands

avoid close contact with people who are unwell

clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces

if you are worried about your symptoms or those of a child or colleague, please call NHS 111. Do not go directly to your GP or other healthcare environment

see further information on the Public Health England Blog and the NHS UK website.

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Qualifications... (2.2.20)

The BBC website recently carried a report about the lack of regulation of the therapy industry.  The report explains that anyone could potentially take an online course and then advertise themselves as a “trained therapist” without any training at all, and tells the story of clients who have been unlucky enough to work with such people.

I thought it was worth a post here to explain a bit about therapist training, qualifications, affiliations etc.  Hardly anyone actually asks about this, and this way any readers who are considering entering therapy have at least a bit of information before making a decision.

While it’s true to say therapy is unregulated (i.e no central government involvement), this doesn’t give the full picture.  The industry is very heavily self-regulated, and professional bodies such as the UKCP and BACP exist to make sure practitioner standards meet adequate levels, and that therapists work ethically with clients. The BACP and UKCP play important roles in maintaining clinical standards and ensuring academic rigour (by assessing training courses, checking members’ ongoing training and so on).  There are other smaller bodies too, such as the AICTP.  These tend to offer memberships to therapists who specialise in certain areas (such as ‘addiction counselling’) and will have stringent membership criteria and quality-check practitioners.  

Although it’s not mandatory to apply to join these professional bodies, I know of relatively few cases where practising, properly qualified and competent therapists are not registered members of a body like the BACP or UKCP.  If you’re thinking of entering therapy, then you could check this when choosing a therapist.  Both the BACP and UKCP will have ‘find a therapist’ functions on their websites.  

In terms of qualifications, the clinical qualification required to join a professional body and work with clients is a PGDip (post-graduate diploma).   This is achieved via completion of a counselling course (university/therapy school etc) that is accredited by the BACP/UKCP and checked for quality.  It will usually involve academic work, clinical work, skills practice, personal therapy, case studies and more.  Importantly, it will require a certain number of training hours working with clients - aka ‘experience’.  This normally all takes between 2-3 years to complete.  I’d suggest that this qualification is a ‘must-have’ - I’d certainly check this with any therapist you meet if you don’t see it on their website.

Then there are various types of enhanced memberships of the BACP/UKCP such as becoming an ‘accredited’ member etc.  This requires the completion of further assessments and an application process but is a visible indicator of a practitioner with greater experience. Plenty of experienced therapists don’t apply for accreditation though, as this is an extra (not insignificant) yearly cost, so I would think of this just as a useful bit of info.

Further studies - such as Masters & Doctorates - are heavily academic.  This means that the focus isn’t necessarily on clinical work, but is on research that sheds new light on an under-researched area.  There are exceptions and it’ll depend on the overall programme you choose to study. Some research may go hand in hand with practical work with clients, but, in the overall scheme of things, this often isn’t a huge amount of hands-on experience.   To achieve these qualifications can take anywhere between 2-7 years, and can be a long and very expensive process.  I think it’s partly for those reasons that many therapists stop after PGDip clinical training, the exceptions being those who are passionate about research or wish to move towards academic roles.  At this point, therapists might already have racked up 5-6 years of higher education study to obtain their PGDip, and often simply want (or need) to get on and work with clients.  

As I’ve written about before, the best thing when looking for a therapist is to check out the basics above (membership of body such as BACP/UKCP), then trust your instinct and maybe ask the therapist a little about their experience.  That’s what I would do.  Of course, this won’t guarantee the ‘result’ of therapy, which is more an unfolding art than a science, but it should help avoid the worst of the unscrupulous shadow side of the therapy industry - and I hope this is helpful or interesting. 

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Prospects... (24.1.20)

Last week a friend came around to chat about how he might make some investments with his savings.  His concern, as a french citizen living in the UK during the Brexit saga, is that his salary and savings are in Sterling (£) and that these might lose value against the Euro (€).  The fear was one of a collapse of Sterling and problems if he decided to move back to France in the future.  Savings and investments are certainly not my forte, but it was interesting to talk through his (and my) thoughts of what the next year may hold in store for the currency and economy.  

The last year has been all about geopolitical factors, and concerns about Brexit have kept Sterling down.  The political shenanigans have led to fluctuations, but these have essentially ‘held in’ to a reasonably tight band that we could call the “I don’t know what will happen” zone.  But the Eurozone has struggled too.  The Euro has been around for twenty years, and in that time has strengthened against Sterling by around 25%, but has struggled itself against the dollar.  The impacts of the US-China trade was also felt in Europe because of European exposure to Chinese markets.  And politically across the Eurozone there was (and is) a lot of turbulence too, just as here in the UK.  

Now we move into the Brexit ‘transition period’ that will end in December 2020, and I see more of the same for the coming year, with markets moving sideways in the “I don’t know what will happen” zone. Sterling will remain turbulent and susceptible to short-term fluctuations with every leaked press briefing about the negotiation progress with the EU to reach a trade deal, but I expect things to remain fundamentally stuck.  Importantly, predictions of economic doom that dominated news reports for the last years have yet to materialise (or have been plain wrong), and after the UK leaves the EU next week I (speaking only for myself) predict that satellites will not fall out of the sky and that we won’t run out of food.  There will, I think, be a move from prophecies of doom (see the last three years) back to greater reliance on economic measures (such as PMI, GDP, business confidence etc) as a measure of our economic health. 

And here the news is really quite positive for the UK.  The IMF just published its growth forecasts a few days ago and expects the UK to achieve 1.4% growth in 2020 - higher than Germany and France, and much higher than Italy.  This is also higher than for the Eurozone as a whole.  That’s interesting, although the IMF is talented at being wrong about things.

Finally, there are other things to consider like the new attitude of the incoming Bank of England Governor - there’s talk of a cut in interest rates that may suppress Sterling too. Who knows what bumps are incoming, but the point here is a general one about overall confidence.  And I think it’s ok to feel confident about keeping Sterling in your pocket without panic.

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2020... (2.1.20)

"You have done what you could - some blunders and absurdities have crept in.  Forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day.  You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Happy New Year everyone.

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Politics... (30.12.19)

A hot topic in recent weeks... The last three years have been defined by an unhappy stalemate in Parliament, and it's been so hard to predict what would happen.  At times it's looked like a second referendum on Brexit was inevitable, that Corbyn might win, that a LibDem surge was possible, that the Conservatives (under May's leadership) would be squeezed to the sidelines by the Brexit Party, even that "Change UK" might (just) change something.  That's the tip of the iceberg.  Any predictions I've made along the way haven't been based on confidence in my own ability to read the tea-leaves, but on the general sense that reality has been suspended for three years; an Alice-in-Wonderland sense that the rabbit hole might just go even deeper...

But here we are with a whopping Conservative majority and an inquest on the Labour side as to what happened.  I hope the inquest is thorough, because whether the government is 'red' or 'blue' it needs an opposition.  So Labour has to move beyond standing in front of the mirror and telling fanciful tales.  Obvious stuff first then: Corbyn was clearly kryptonite to those who probably wouldn't vote Labour anyway, the front bench was weak and (I believe) simply not up to the task of governing a country or a company, and the Brexit policy was muddled and pleased nobody.  

But the real story was the collapse of the Labour vote in the north.  This goes beyond the above important points.  I put this down to a couple of things:  firstly, the culmination of a thirty-year shift in the Labour movement from focusing on the experiences of the "working person" to focusing instead on progressive, liberal policies - things such as 'social justice' and so on.  The latter is chiefly a concern of people in the more affluent, usually urban areas and, as the election has shown, is perhaps of limited appeal in other areas.  Secondly (but related), is the over-use of catastrophising language by this new 'progressive liberal' strain on the left of British politics (as argued excellently in the Guardian by Anne McElvoy 29.12.19).

Boris Johnson evidently had enough personal appeal enabling him to build a coalition of voters across the political divide.  I don't think this is because he is bumbling or a clown or because people would like to have a beer with him (although probably all true), but because his optimism is a tonic when contrasted with the shrill doom-mongering from Labour.  I would encourage Labour to rein in the pessimism. This may involve some moderates offering a challenge to the more extreme 'progressive left', whose chorus has too often involved predictions of calamity, and, at times, shown an intolerant underbelly.  This is at least somewhat understandable: 'liberalism' at its root is supposed to be about harnessing the best of human endeavour - championing the individual and 'society' against an inflexible and ruthless state.  So a steely-eyed focus on 'what is wrong' rather than 'what is right' of course makes sense.  But has this group not become a little too inflexible itself, and somewhat too preachy at times (and here we bump up against the 'cancellation' culture that seeks to silence those who hold different views)?  Is it not too locked into predicting disasters and focusing on selective outrage rather trying to reconnect with and understand, say, the actual experiences of the 'working person'?  These are genuine questions that need answers. The voters have given their verdict for now.

This kind of analysis could have been done by Labour after the Brexit vote, but instead their general policy seemed to be one of suggesting people either didn't know what they were voting for, or worse, were stupid enough to have been duped by some vague background force into voting for an act of self-harm (and that "one day you'll come to regret it, mark my words!").  This vision has been rejected, and Labour must quickly move beyond the temptation to sit on the sidelines selectively saying "I told you so" when difficulties emerge.  It must move beyond pessimism and work with what is in front of the country in a spirit of optimism.  We need that strong opposition more than ever.  

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Robert... (16.12.19)

I'd like to pay my own short tribute here to my friend Robert Entenman.  Robert died in 2015 after a medical blunder left him with brain damage.  Here's the piece published today in the Daily Mail:   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7797077/Widow-children-banker-died-private-hospital-error-win-2-1m-payout.html

In finding the hospital (HCA) culpable for negligence, the Judge made some comments about Robert.  He said:   'Perhaps the greatest compliment that I can pay Mr Entenman is that he was a man I would very much like to have met.  He sounds a really admirable renaissance man who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the world around him.  He was dedicated to his job and, in particular, to his family.'

Well... Robert was certainly all those things and more.  He was also a stickler for detail, so I know he'd have whipped off an email to the Mail to have them remove the hyphen erroneously added to Unicredit!  I worked right alongside Robert for years and eventually stepped into his shoes as the Global Head, and, although I'd learned a thing or two, I won't pretend that I managed to fill them.  He was very knowledgable about many things, just as the judge says.  But more than that he was great fun to be around, very passionate, loyal to those around him, a natural story-teller.... and, yes, also flawed in ways that only seemed to add to the sum total of his charm.   It is no exaggeration to say I would not be doing what I do now without his influence.  Robert, I miss you very much.  

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“Keeping it together”... (16.12.19)

A client I've worked with for years said to me earlier in the week: "I can't imagine you ever getting stressed about anything....". I had to smile. Me? Never stressed? Hah!

I recall saying something like this years ago in my personal therapy. It would have been a time in my life where being stressed was a pretty normal state for me, as it came with the territory in my job as a financial trader. Well… thank goodness I don’t do that for a living anymore, but I haven't been that far from those old feelings this recently...  I’ve just finished a long piece of research on the mental health experiences of financial traders, hence things have been quiet here. Anyone that’s done research knows it can be quite an uncomfortable and drawn out process - until the very end you can’t imagine everything coming together and yet it somehow does.   I hope it will be published sometime next year.

Back to stress…. I suppose the things I brought to my therapy sessions must have had a circular feel to them - groundhog day - and my therapist did a great job not telegraphing impatience, nor jumping in with interventions that would almost certainly have been of little use. This is often, of course, the real skill on any therapists part, and I came to value just spending time with someone who seemed so solid.

I put this down to a couple of things: firstly the essential character of my therapist, and secondly my own need to project onto my therapist the character traits that enabled me to experience him as an older, wiser, solid figure. Someone to learn from. I’d leave my sessions feeling calmer and more able to keep things in perspective.

It’s my example of something important: how we experience others is always a blend of how things may actually be, mixed with our own, active ‘story-telling'.  There are all kinds of story-telling.  Sometimes this involves, for example, the displacing of one's feelings onto a different person.  But other times we may project outward onto others the character attributes we would like them to have - or psychologically build upon the attributes we see in others with a 'good story' - and in this way they might be able to give us what we need. So underneath every calm Yoda-like person may well be someone who rages at the heavens when he gets a parking ticket (err me), or someone who gets anxious from time to time (yep, still me), or someone who…. Ok, I’ll stop.

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Loneliness... (2.12.19)

Here's an interesting article by Mark Gaisford about loneliness.  In particular, how middle-aged men can be especially susceptible to feeling lonely.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7741723/Why-middle-aged-men-like-absolutely-NO-FRIENDS.html

It's a problem that seems to be getting worse (Age UK research) and may play a part in contributing to the elevated suicide rates for men, who are three times more likely to kill themselves than women of the same age.  

I think there are lots of factors are involved here, but the author suggests (based on his own experience) that men try to 'live up to' a stereotypical set of character traits that limit their ability to make new friendships easily. I would summarise these traits as importance being placed on being self-reliant and independent.  Men, perhaps, are not so good at maintaining "just for the sake of it" relationships, and so miss out on a crucial form of social support.  Important friendships from childhood - often the strongest relationships - can also easily be lost and friendship groups dispersed as people grow older and marry, raise families, and move for work.

See what you think.  

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Halloween... (31.10.19)

The doorbell keeps on ringing this evening and that's ok with me.  One of the best things about moving to Wood Ride was finally having some trick-or-treaters coming to the house.  Before we moved here we lived on a private road in between Haywards Heath and Cuckfield.  It used to scare me walking home at night, never mind anyone else. No chance of any decent footfall.....

By far and away my favourite thing about it is how seriously the younger children take the activity.  I just opened the door to a 3ft Count Dracula, gazing up at me with a critical eye...  I held out a bowl of sweets and he inspected the offering like a collector of fine diamonds or a curator of Faberge eggs.  Taking his time he selected various sweets, considered them, before gently placing them back and continuing the search.  The great news is he eventually got the perfect treats.   I'm surprised he didn't bust out a monocle and get in close for an inspection...  Halloween is not to be taken lightly when you’re four years old!  I love it.

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“Gotcha”... (22.9.19)

I've caught a virus of some kind and have been feeling pretty ill over the weekend. I'm no good at being ill, so my partner has had to display heroic patience as I keep reminding her that I am, in fact, very ill indeed..... It's meant some enforced time on the sofa, as the dog walk this morning was like wading through treacle.  I just have no energy.  

Not being a Rugby fan, I switched over to the politics shows instead as these interest me much more.  But relaxation was impossible as I just got more and more fed up with journalists pushing for "gotcha" style moments with gunshy politicians.  It's tough to sit through these programmes and I should really revisit why I put myself through it.  What does anyone really learn from this pantomime?  Don't get me started on BBC Question Time...

In particular, when interviewers try to reduce topics that are complex and nuanced to demanding "yes or no" style answers my blood pressure shoots up.  The media seem to have the idea voters can only handle simplistic answers and sloganeering from politicians - but isn't this what's got us into the exact mess that now pulls at the fabric of society?  And isn't the idea that voters can't understand a bit of complexity or subtlety a patronising insult?

This is turning people off in droves.  People will often tell me they hardly watch TV any more - at least not 'traditional TV' (the Beeb etc) - and I count myself among that number.  But a lot of people do have an appetite for more depth when it comes to politics, and now simply get their news from elsewhere online.  People don't find anything other than frustration in watching journalists try to make a name for themselves with "gotcha" interviews.  I hope this trend changes and fast, but I'm not sure it will.

In the meantime, it feels like autumn outside today after the hot sunshine at the weekend. The sudden change in weather led me to reflect a bit on what was going on this time last year when things were not so great on the personal front. Throughout October and November, my partner had two serious health concerns which, thank God, are now under control.  A cancer scare (all good after long investigations) and another issue (now under treatment) both of which rumbled on throughout autumn last year into January 19, looming over everything.  These things also came on top of a very busy period of work inside and outside the therapy sphere.  It was hard to keep stress levels in a comfortable zone and I'm glad it's behind us.  We're both hoping this autumn is very different!

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Negativity... (2.9.19)

If you're anything like me, you'll know that sometimes your mind can be your own worst enemy.  

Most of us have times that our mind can't settle - times when we're prone to making just about every 'thinking error' in the book.  Catastrophising, jumping to worst conclusions, making generalisations that are unhelpful, being highly self-critical etc.  We might find ourselves increasingly focusing on the negative side of life and feeling pessimistic.  

When this happens we'll often give more thought to negative situations in our lives.  We might think of all the things that could go wrong at work next month, or dwell on the times we've been treated badly in the past.  Then it's easy to get stuck in a loop of unhelpful thinking.  Roughly speaking, when you focus on the negative, your mood becomes lower, and so you focus more on the negative things. Boom...

The human brain has an inbuilt bias that tends to veer towards focusing on 'negatives', and this is just part of how the human brain seems to work.  We also have a tendency to notice the bits of information that support our state of mind (and so 'the way we see the world').  This means, for example, that if we are in a bad mood we're more likely to remember any unfriendly interactions when we visit our local town.  Dwelling on these unfriendly interactions will reinforce our low mood and may reinforce an idea that "other people are rude to me", and over time this becomes a fixed prediction for how people are likely to treat me in future.  (And so our negative predictions begin to colour future interactions).  

In scenarios like this, friendly social interactions are more likely to be ignored, and we'll assign more focus and attention to the negative experiences we have.  These become 'proof' of our theory about others.

This kind of inbuilt cognitive bias plays a big part in therapy too.  In therapy sessions sometimes people will say "I want to be happy" - something I can definitely understand.  But it is a fact that our brains are not evolved to produce happiness but to focus on survival.  Problem-solving has been the chief concern of the human brain for all of our evolutionary history.  The main goal of the brain is to solve potential problems, to automate tasks and take the need for conscious thinking out of as many of our daily tasks as possible, and to make 'predictions' to ensure we survive.  

This means we have natural default settings in our minds that ensure we allocate much more attention to problems than we do to situations which go according to plan.  It is because of this tendency to focus on solving problems (above, say, counting our blessings), that our perceptions of the world can become quite skewed, often to the pessimistic side of things.  

Hans Rosling (a Swedish researcher) quite famously demonstrated this tendency in a piece of research in 2013.  His research asked the question:  " Has the percentage of the world population that lives in extreme poverty almost doubled, almost halved or stayed the same over the past 20 years?"   Only 5% of respondents correctly answered that poverty has actually halved.  Our bias towards pessimism or a negative appraisal of situations sometimes means we can be really, really wrong...  In fact, this is the case with almost every quality-of-life metric.  Things have improved so much in the last fifty years, and yet the sense of pessimism remains high.

Like moths to a flame, we seem to be particularly drawn to 'problems' in all forms.  In 2014 a study at McGill University examined people's consumption of written news media and looked at the stories participants chose to read in what they thought was an eye-tracking experiment.  What the results showed was that even the participants who said they wanted more good news stories were much more drawn to 'negative news content'.  And in the absence of any sizeable problems, our minds will often work overtime to create some new ones - to find some new angle, some new (hitherto unimportant) issue on which to rest our attention and focus our concerns.  

This is partly due to "prevalence-induced concept change", a theory that suggests that as the prevalence of a problem is reduced, humans are naturally inclined to redefine and broaden the nature of 'problems' themselves.   This means that as things improve all around us, our definition of 'bad news' is just widened to find new things that are bad to report on.  We recast our 'problems' and simply discover a load more of them.  I suppose this is far more common in the developed, capitalist, liberal West  (where to some extent the 'problems' that have made life miserable for countless generations before the last several have now been solved) than in developing nations.  And so we see a recasting of 'problems' in new and unresolvable directions, one example being the current obsessional focus on 'identity politics'. Closer to home, I recently spent many hours looking at YouTube reviews for a new iPhone, obsessing about a choice between LCD or OLED screens as though something serious depended on my choice (both screens are far better than anything remotely possible even five years ago - and both are effectively identical to the normal eye).  Perhaps it fills the time in the absence of survival-critical problems...

We are also subject to something called "availability bias".  This bias was noted in a study by Tversky and Kahneman in the 1970's, whereby respondents seriously overestimated the frequency of crime, due to the overwhelming reporting of crime on the news.  Random violence or sudden, explosive bad things make the news because they shock and happen suddenly.  Good news - such as acts of kindness - are common and tend to form part of the clement background conditions in which life unfolds.  The good news doesn't have the power to make a sudden splash that changes perceptions that, say, warfare, accidents or disasters have.  Bad news is sudden and explosive, and so is exaggerated in our minds.  Real tragedies are thankfully rare, but never in history has each tragedy had such global coverage.

So, bad news arrives in ways that are far more eye-catching than good news. Then our mind focuses on problem-solving in ways that exclude more positive appraisals of the situation.  In evolutionary terms, it simply makes sense for us to dwell more on risks.

Add to this that people tend to think in relative and not absolute terms.  It matters how you are doing compared to others around you, far more than it matters how you are doing in a general sense.  This is why, whatever goal we reach, we experience a short burst of euphoria before quickly resetting and then taking for granted our new situations. It's why, for example, acquiring a new car only brings temporary satisfaction, before the problem becomes, say, a small scratch we've noticed on the rear bumper.  It's why a big promotion and pay rise quickly leads to wondering whether the person next to you was given an even bigger pay rise.  When things get better in our lives, this relativizing behaviour means we quickly reset our expectations and focus on the next set of problems.

During my years trading derivatives, I remember we would leave the trading floor and go to one of the pubs in Leadenhall Market after the close of the trading day.  One topic always came up - "losing trades".  You'll always find traders talking at great length about losing trades.  In fact, many traders remember their losing trades and losing days for far longer than they remember profitable days.  It's the days that everything goes against you that stick in your mind.

This is a long way round of saying that it's actually very hard to overcome your tendency to dwell on the negative side of things!  People often say "I don't want to feel so negative about everything", and it's useful to understand that your brain is doing what it is evolved to do.  

But this can be debilitating if it runs unchecked.  We can try and counter this tendency and bring some balance to our inner-lives, and it is possible to take steps in this direction.   There's lots of way of approaching this, but here are some questions you can ask yourself if you find yourself stuck in a cycle of negative thinking.  You can check your thinking by asking:

Where is the evidence for my belief(s)?

What impact is this way of thinking having on me?

Am I jumping to conclusions?

Is there any evidence to disprove my belief?

Am I concentrating on my weaknesses, and neglecting my strengths?

Am I taking things too personally?

Am I thinking in all-or-nothing terms?

Am I overstating the chances of something bad happening?

Am I predicting the outcome instead of experimenting with it?

Am I expecting total perfection?

Am I being open to evidence that 'disproves' my worst fears?

If I had to come up with a more balanced/helpful belief, what would this belief be?

If you have a problem situation in your life, you can try sitting down somewhere and taking twenty minutes to write out answers to these questions.  Really explore your own style of thinking.  If you spend some time doing this, you'll begin to condition yourself to avoid getting stuck in a spiral of negative thinking and hopefully more able to take a balanced view of your life.

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Resting... (16.8.19)

Ever wondered what the best way of getting some rest is? This from the BBC...

18,000 people completed the world’s biggest survey on rest – The Rest Test.  People were asked to choose which three activities they found most restful and these came out top:

1) Reading

Reading came out on top in the survey, with 58% of people saying they find it restful. People who scored high on a scale which measured whether they felt they were flourishing in life were even more likely to choose reading.

2) Being in the natural environment

This backs up research showing that many people find it therapeutic to be out in nature. Slightly more women than men picked this one and it was less popular in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the UK

3) Being on your own

It’s striking how many of the top ten activities are often done alone. Seeing friends and family or drinking socially came much further down the list. In the Rest Test even the extroverts rated being on their own as more restful than being with other people. Women and people under 30 were even more likely to choose this one.

4) Listening to music

More men than women and more younger people than older people chose this activity.

5) Doing nothing in particular

This is an interesting one. Every age group liked this a lot apart from the 31- to 45-year-olds. Some people say they find it hard to do nothing and it was striking that in the Rest Test, almost 9% of people said resting made them feel guilty or stressed.

6) Walking

For some, a long walk can never feel restful but for others it’s perfect. Some find that by exercising the body they can clear their minds. 8% even find running restful.

7) Having a bath or shower

This gets much less popular with age. Almost twice as many 18- to 30-year-olds put this down as people over 60.

8) Daydreaming

There’s long been debate amongst psychologists about whether letting the mind wander is good for you. Ruminating over negative thoughts is common in people with depression, but increasingly there’s a sense that our minds are so prone to wander that it might bring benefits.

9) Watching TV

More women than men chose this one and more young people than older people, but it came way behind reading in every age group.

10) Meditating or practising mindfulness

With the recent rise in the popularity of mindfulness, maybe it’s not surprising that it makes it into the top ten above gardening, seeing friends or sex. Would it have been there a decade ago?

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