July 10/10 – Why Talk Therapy is Helpful

There are many forms of help for people in emotional distress. Many of them speak of ‘new methods’ that are effective in the treatment of psychological problems. They can vary from medications to spiritual interventions. There is often much made of how effective the methods are due to the assertion that they are based on a ‘new found discovery’ that can greatly help those suffering from emotional illness. Quite a few of these methods appear every year, often in the form of medication or medical treatments.

When I examine these treatments I find that clients are  often put in a passive role. In other words it is up to an outside source – medicine or person – to cure a person or, in other cases, it may be up to the person, but it is based on a rigid method, often simplistic, that the person can employ. What seems to be lacking in most of these methods is something that has helped people for thousands of years – a deep, heartfelt communication between people.

In my Toronto therapy practice, I tell prospective clients   that much of what I do involves talk therapy. For people who are looking for the latest methods, I explain that talking about your life can be a very powerful experience. Especially if what you say about your deepest thoughts and feelings is attended to by another person who is empathic, caring and understanding. We are social beings who need to connect to other beings.

There are many people who come to me who have been unable to speak to others about their problems. People who suffer from depression often fall into this category. They are people who have been exiled into silence because their pain has been ignored or ridiculed in some way by those closest to them. Being able to speak honestly about their lives and their pain, when they are listened to in a caring and non judgemental manner, can be very healing for such people. They need to be reconnected to others and emerge from their solitude. People who experience addiction are often in a similar place. They are alone with their pain and need to talk about it to another person.

People often criticize talk therapy because, ‘It is only talk and just keeps you in your head.” I say to them that talk and the connection that it gives can be very healing. In addition, talk does not have to be solely from the head. The most effective talk that occurs in therapy is holistic, where the head and the heart are joined. It is honest and clear, certainly the type of talk that children of alcoholics did not experience in their family of origin. Learning that such communication can safely exist between people can open many inner doors for people from this background.

Many of my clients have been reduced to silence through shame. Their sense of self esteem has been shattered as  children and they feel little or no trust for others. I see this quite dramatically in people who suffered childhood sexual, physical or emotional abuse. For them, the opportunity to finally release the words, thoughts and feelings that have been hidden within them, can be life giving.

Speaking to another human being is very low tech. It does not have the allure of science or the drama of the ‘latest findings’. However, the basic truth of human connection through face to face speech, and the freedom that it can bring to an imprisoned heart, can never be surpassed.

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June 30/10 – We Are All Emotionally Vulnerable

In my work as a Toronto therapist I see many people with a variety of emotional problems. What most of these people have in common is their shame. They are ashamed that they have had to come to me in order to get help. They are also ashamed that they are too ‘emotionally weak’ and ‘screwed up’, as they put it. Indeed, this opinion is echoed by people who do not believe in therapy. However, what they fail to see is that we all suffer from emotional and psychological problems, since we can find life too demanding from time to time.

For instance, those who suffer from depression, are criticized for being, among other things, ‘weak’, ‘self–centred’, ‘lazy’ and ‘attention seekers.’ Yet, all of us can feel depressed during our lives. Usually we have to hide it for fear of being criticized. The same is true for people who suffer from addictions. They are said to be ‘weak’ and lacking ‘self control’. However, the number of people suffering from some form of addiction, whether it be the internet, shopping or workaholism is very high. A similar reception is given to people who are experiencing stress and anxiety. Even people who have suffered from childhood abuse are criticized when they speak of the pain related to this. They are usually told to ‘get over it’ as it was ‘in the past’.

When I speak to people who make these accusations, they may admit that they have these problems; however, they will add that they keep their problems to themselves and are able to deal with these problems by themselves. Yet I believe that, in many cases, they really have not dealt with the problems. They often just ignore them. Take the case of a woman I saw who was a child of alcoholic parents. She had many problems including lack of self-esteem, anxiety and co-dependency. In fact she came to see me, not because of her problems, but because of trying to fix everybody in her life, including her husband. I talked to her about her co-dependent tendencies and she refused to acknowledge she had a problem. She just kept talking about other people who had problems.

This is what happens when we will not own up to our own problems. Repression does not work. Our problems will emerge in one way or another and often harm others. In this case the woman meddled in other people’s lives and often did damage. In other words we do not just ‘get over’ our problems, we have to face them or we do damage in one way or another.

I would like people to realize that vulnerability is part of the human condition. It is not good or bad, it just is. We need to redefine emotional strength to mean those who have the courage to face their wounds and do something about it.

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June 15/10 – The Importance Of The Early Years of Life

The first years of our lives, from about 1 to 5 are extremely important in our development as human beings. This was always know to a certain degree, and present scientific research is corroborating this fact.

During the first years our brain is the most plastic it will ever be, and the influences that come to bear on us will determine the course of our lives. In this period brain cells and neural connections are being formed at an astonishing rate and the possibilities for growth and, unfortunately, damage are tremendously high.

Because of this, the environment we are born into is crucial to the formation of the skills that we will have for the rest of our lives. This includes our intelligence, emotional and psychological maturity, physical abilities and our general outlook on life. In other words, our initial environment becomes a lottery of sorts. Some people will win and some people will lose; the healthier the environment the more that a person has in order to deal with their lives and vice versa.

In my Toronto therapy practice I deal with the early environments of people and how these environments damaged and helped them. Over the years I have learned the power of these early years. I have learned that I can’t take away the damage, but I can help a person manage and minimize this damage, and that can make a big difference. For example, a person with problems of depression and addiction reported to me that he came from a home where there was alcoholism and violence. As a child of alcoholic parents his early years were very difficult. He was unable to develop his capabilities and later developed more severe problems as an adult. However, despite this he was able to modify his behaviour so that he could manage his depression and addiction.

Therefore, even though our early years are crucial in terms of brain formation, we have the ability to make changes that can alter how we think, feel and behave. Indeed recent studies have shown that the brain has a degree of plasticity all throughout life that can result in positive adaptation. In other words we can positively alter our outlook on life so that we can overcome the problems that the first years have produced.  

In another instance I worked with a woman who had many problems that resulted from a difficult childhood. She had low self-esteem, anxiety and co-dependency issues. When we looked at her childhood we saw that she suffered from childhood sexual abuse as well as having to deal with an alcoholic parent. There was very little chance for her to develop many coping skills because of these early years. Nevertheless, when I began to work with her I could see that she had a great deal of motivation to change. She also had certain qualities of intelligence, courage and perseverance which I knew would be of help. In time, she was able to manage her feelings better and could deal with her problems in a way that made life more positive. Her qualities of hard work paved the way for this change.

I want to emphasize that change does take hard work, because, though our brain plasticity is present it is not what it was as a child. It is the same thing as learning a language, which is effortless in the early years and difficult later on.

Ideally we should live in a world where the environment is optimal in the early years; where children could get the best parenting, emotional guidance and education possible. Certainly we all need to work toward this goal. However, given the present situation we need to do the best we can to make ourselves as healthy as we can in order to be the best we can with those around us and those in our care.  

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May 28/10 – Genuine Self-Esteem

In my work as a Toronto therapist I encounter people with a wide range of problems. What most of these people have in common, no matter what their difficulty, is a lack of genuine self-esteem. You will note the word ‘genuine’, because this is a key feature that comes up in therapy.

For example, I see many people who are suffering from problems with addiction. Many of them are high achieving. They are looked up to by those around them for their accomplishments. Yet when I talk to them I realize that they do not have a genuine sense of feeling good about themselves. They realize that they have achieved high goals and are admired, but this does not really make them feel good about themselves. Because of this, they can never achieve enough. They are always feeling a lack, and therefore the stress of this keeps pushing at them and causing them a constant anxiety.

This pattern repeats itself with people who are dealing with depression. In many cases they have achieved life goals that would seem sufficient to help them feel a good sense of self-esteem, but they too do not feel good about themselves at their core. Their depression is directly related to this absence. As with addicts, they may hide their wound from others and appear happy, but inside they are suffering. Deep inside them they need a better sense of self which they cannot seem to find in life. For them and many others, they do not know what it is that will give them an authentic self-esteem. So the question becomes, what is genuine self-esteem and how do we find it?

I believe we are all born feeling good about who we are. It is a natural feeling. However, as the years go by and we encounter people and situations in the world, this sense of well being is often lessened to one degree or another. Because much of it happens gradually, or it happens at a very early age, we lack the awareness of our condition. Therefore, in the process of healing, it is important to understand how and why our self esteem was damaged.

For instance, in the case of Adult Children of Alcoholics, it can be helpful to understand how the relationship with the addict affected our self-esteem. In this way we can see how our co-dependent behaviour was formed, which saw our well being compromised in the home environment. This realization can begin the process of changing self-esteem. However, we need to further this by becoming aware of what genuine self-esteem can be.

I refer back to the original state in which we are born. In that state we do not have concepts that limit our enjoyment of who we are. We do not compare ourselves to anyone else, we do not feel that we are bad, we do not judge or criticize ourselves; we just exist in a simple yet deep way. We are connected to our bodily sensations, the wonder of the outside world and a deep feeling of well being. While it is true that many of these pure feelings are compromised later on, it doesn’t mean that they do not exist within us. We still have the same potential of pure enjoyment. That does not leave us. Healing is about returning to this original state.

Of course we cannot fully return, due to our history and the development of mind that limits our ability to be fully connected to our life force. However, that does not mean that we can’t get back a good portion of this elemental feeling. The more we can understand what messages get in the way, the more we can work at realizing how we have strayed off basic life, the more we can find ways to be in touch with the love and connection that we are born with. We can then slowly begin to feel and appreciate the simplicity of our needs. In this way we can begin to connect to genuine self-esteem.

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May 9/10 – The Importance of Relationships

In my Toronto therapy practice I see people who are experiencing a variety of problems. These problems can be quite varied yet they all generally have something in common: they are all associated with how these people have related to other people.

Studies have shown that the most important factor in the formation of mental health is our early relationship with our caregivers. We use this initial experience as a model for our future affiliation with other people, for better or worse. In addition, this early model exercises such a powerful influence because it is formed at such an early age, specifically preverbal. Because of this, people find it very hard to change how they relate to others, and this is where much of the work of therapy happens.

For example, many people I see who feel depressed often feel this way because they are so weighed down with feelings that they are unable to express. When I look at the origins of these feelings I see that the person learned at an early age that they could not safely feel certain things within their family. As a result the person always feels like they are in a kind of straitjacket with their feelings. I find many people suffer from addictions also suffer from an inability to express emotions, also related to their early upbringing. In both depression and addiction this inability, is continued in present day relationships.

I also see stress and anxiety similarly entwined with early relationships. With both conditions, I often learn that people so afflicted had others around them who were anxious, intense and exhibiting emotions such as fear, distrust or anger. For these reasons my clients continually feel pressured and frightened within and without.

Many of my clients also experienced early relationships that were characterized emotional, physical or sexual abuse. In addition to the severe effects of such relationships, which can include the previous conditions I have mentioned, these people constantly suffer from a lack of self esteem that affects them very deeply. They also often form relationships where they either are abused or abuse others.

Many of the people who see me are children of alcoholics who are affected by their early relationships. They often experience addiction themselves or become involved with addicts. Their relationships with addicts often mirror the caretaking relationships that they had with their parents. In this way they become very codependent and over involved in a harmful manner with the people they are close to.

It is very important to be aware of our early relationships and how they have shaped both our inner and outer lives. Thus the work of therapy is often concerned with these questions and tries to help a person come to new ways of conducting relationships that are healthy.

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April 10/10 – Happiness –What Is It?

In my Toronto therapy practice, people come to me with questions. A common question is - “How can I find happiness in my life?” We all use the word ‘happy’ in so many ways. However, many of us really don’t know what we mean when we say this word.

Certainly, for a person suffering with depression, happiness will mean the ending of the constant pain that they feel. For a person with addiction issues it will mean stopping their particular addiction. However, with both these conditions there is some goal that, for them, will signify a better state of mind that will produce happiness. Yet often when I talk to people in these states I see that what they may be looking for to make them feel better is unclear. Why is this the case?

I think that there is a lack of clarity because many of the goals that society sets for us involve our egos and the attainment of fame and fortune. If we don’t attain such goals we feel a sense of failure. If we do attain them we often find ourselves still looking to feel better. This is because the goals were ego driven and did not go towards our deepest natures.

For example, in children of alcoholics, I often see a drive towards money and fame. They are still hoping that what they do will make their alcoholic parent happy. Similarly in codependent people there is a striving to attain happiness through giving to others in order to win their approval. In both cases the search ends in failure because it ignored what the people themselves needed in order to be happy. When I tell this to people they will often answer that they just don’t know how to look inside themselves, and when they do, they mostly don’t see or feel much of anything, merely an absence. It is my belief that this ‘absence’ comes from many sources that are connected to our life histories.

When I look at babies, I rarely see an absence. There is usually a strong sense of self, a continual flow of feelings, a keen interest in the world and a desire and ability to connect to others. Fast forward to the adult self and we can see that this powerful sense of self with a strong life force has declined in many people to a shocking degree. Without going into the reasons for this too much, I find that the absence of mental health in most families is the main instrument in the  decline in the sense of self. We come into the world fully alive and we meet our caretakers who may drain our lives away with their own absence (which in turn was caused by their own parents’ absence, and on down the line).

So what I am saying is that, when we are separated from the natural life force of our beings, we come to be in an unhappy condition. In place of our vitality we feel stress, anxiety, depression, anger, and fear which cover up an abiding sense of emptiness. When we are in these states we act in public and private ways that are destructive since we have turned against life itself. It is things like childhood abuse, violence against women, wars, destruction of our own habitat and the many small and large cruelties that pass between people that result from this turning away from life. How do we end this and come back to our true life energies where happiness and contentment reside?

We need to confront the truth of what has happened to us in our life. Those who I see in therapy have often reached this point of honesty. Usually this has come through a crisis. They cannot fool themselves any longer. Their lives are unravelling or have unravelled.  Honesty also demands that they look at all the circumstances that have led them to this place, their childhood, their decisions, the people they have chosen to be with, their wrong paths etc. It can be quite sobering to face this; however, it is liberating to look at our lives in such a direct and truthful manner. Yet the search is much more than a negative one, it ultimately involves a positive outlook. We begin to look at who we actually are underneath the wounds. This includes our strengths, our goodness, our positive choices and our life. It is about learning to make new decisions that enhance our lives. This is the route to happiness. It is not things to shore up our egos, it is coming back to the truth of our essence as humans, which in turn will lead us in the direction of living within ourselves vitally and with contentment.

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March 27/10 – Consciousness, The Goal of Therapy

Consciousness can be defined simply as awareness, though it is larger than that. When I think of consciousness, I think of seeing something as it truly is. For example, many people with anger management problems are not conscious that they are angry. They often see themselves as victims who are just trying to defend themselves. They are stuck within an incorrect perception of their reality. I say ‘stuck within’ because this perception or false consciousness was true at one time in their lives. They likely were victims of people who hurt them when they were younger, and their anger is a false consciousness that has become frozen in time.

Consciousness is often impeded by our histories and how we were treated as children, especially in our families of origin. As a Toronto therapist, I see this in people who are suffering from depression and a lack of self esteem. In many cases they were told as children that they were inadequate and had faults, so that is how they see themselves. They are not conscious of their strengths and goodness. They deny
their true natures.

The denial of consciousness can also be a defence against pain. For example, people with addiction issues repress  childhood pain through the addictive substance or action. In my Toronto therapy practice I have seen many alcoholics (though not all) who have suffered childhood abuse. For them, the awareness of the abuse is a threat that they must constantly repress. However, the problem with repression is that it prevents us from truly moving on and healing from our pain. Consciousness heals wounds. Therefore, the work of therapy is to promote consciousness.

Helping a person to become conscious of who they are is hard work, because consciousness, while a healer, can also feel like a threat of pain. I see this with children of alcoholics who often live a life of stress and anxiety within a framework of codependent behaviour. They can spend much of their lives defending against the pain of a childhood where a parent exhibited addictive and destructive behaviour. Such behaviour could be hurtful and result in childhood abuse. It is often very difficult for people raised in this environment to allow themselves to be aware of such a degree of pain. Often these clients will exhibit a great deal of denial.

How do I help people gain a greater consciousness of their lives?  There are a number of ways to go about this, and it is generally a gradual process. With many people it begins with a crisis that shatters the false consciousness: a marriage has ended, an addiction becomes severe, a criminal charge is laid, a loved one dies, etc. In other cases it can be a lesser change that promotes a realization or a desire to find a different way in life. It is these types of opening up in  people that allow them to begin to see things differently. When they begin to talk with me about their lives, this new perspective allows them to start re-evaluating their lives.

Many years before the idea of therapy began, people around the world in various spiritual practices were trying to expand consciousness. We were always aware that we only knew so much about ourselves and our world, and that there was something constantly there beyond the known. As people who want to grow in life,  this is our work.

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March 8/10 – Emotional Abandonment –How it Harms Children

In my Toronto therapy practice, I meet people who are suffering from a variety of emotional and psychological problems. What many of them have in common is a core feeling of insecurity. When we examine the roots of this feeling we often discover that it comes from their childhood.

Many clients do not understand what emotional abandonment is. They tell me that their parents were caring and loving because they fed, clothed them and took good care of them. When I inquire further about their childhood, I ask questions that tell me about their emotional and psychological environment. I ask, “Were you able to talk to your parents when you had a problem or were in pain, and how was their reaction?” What often comes out was that my clients felt emotionally abandoned as children because their parents, for one reason or another, were not emotionally available.

This is often the case with children of alcoholics (COA). Their parents were frequently good physical providers, but not able to respond to their children’s emotional needs. I recall one such man, an addict himself, with issues of severe stress and anxiety, who always felt ‘unheard’ by others. When we looked at his childhood we saw that this feeling came from his parents who never ‘listened or understood him’.

I encounter similar circumstances in many of my clients who suffer from depression. They often speak of feeling ‘isolated’ and ‘disliking themselves’. It often turns out that their feelings of being isolated came from parents who were not attuned to their feelings. Their feelings of being unlikeable came for parents who judged their feelings. Environments such as these will often produce a lack of self-esteem within the children who experience them.

Children who feel emotionally abandoned often become caretakers of their parents in order to make some connection with them. I even see this happen with people who have suffered childhood abuse from parents. The children who employ this strategy will often exhibit codependent behaviour later in their life with the people around them. Because they learned that who they are doesn’t matter, they will try to matter by taking care of others and being praised for it.

I find that such people have difficulty understanding that they were emotionally abandoned as children. Often parents appeared to be emotionally present while not being so. For example, parents with narcissistic tendencies talk to their children, but the conversation often revolves around the parent and not the child. Or a parent who suffers from depression is often unable to fully engage with the child.

It is important to recognize whether or not we have suffered from emotional abandonment during our childhood. It can help us to understand why we have certain problems associated with this experience. Not only that, it can help us to see that, in many cases, we may be repeating this behaviour with the people we are close to. Certainly learning to understand our emotions and learning how to better connect with others can be an important part of emerging from the affects of emotional abandonment.

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Feb. 22/10 – The Power of Making Amends

There is a great emphasis on forgiveness when people are talking of healing. However, much less emphasis is given to making amends for hurtful behaviour. I think that this has something to do with people seeing themselves as just victims rather than the wider perspective of being both a victim and victimizer.

As a Toronto therapist I see that taking responsibility for one’s actions is very liberating. It gives a person a greater sense of their own power and fullness of personality. It also gives them the opportunity to change their relationships with themselves and others.

For example, a client who was a child of alcoholic parents, was always focused on the damage his parents did to him. He worked hard on this aspect of his life, but it was harder for him to see that he had hurt his own children. I think that, like him, it is easier to see ourselves as victims and not aggressors. We are often ashamed of our hurtful parts. Nevertheless, when he was able to admit this and make amends to his children, it gave him a chance to repair the relationship with his children and feel better about himself.

Similarly, people suffering from depression often just see themselves as victims. I worked with one person who was suffering from an addiction to alcohol and was also very depressed. She felt very weak as she only saw herself in one perspective, that is, as a person who had been hurt by others. However when she gradually learned that she had also hurt others, she was able to make amends and take responsibility for herself. In addition to helping her and those she hurt, she also began to see that she was not a powerless person, and this helped her. She also helped those people she had hurt.

Certainly, I need to emphasize that saying we are sorry to others in a genuine manner can help them a great deal. When people are hurt they often feel that they are bad. This is especially true for children who take responsibility when they are hurt. When we take responsibility for hurting children and others, we are telling them that another person can own their behaviour and re-establish their connection with them. It is an act of true responsibility.

As I have said, it can be very difficult for people to take responsibility for hurting others and making amends. This can often be the case for someone who suffered from childhood abuse. Such people can feel such shame at repeating abusive behaviour that they can be in great denial of it. And so, many people with anger management problems do not see themselves as victimizers who need to make amends; instead they see themselves as victims.

In the spirit of such denial, people will often disguise their aggression with passive aggressive behaviour. I see this done by people who are exhibiting codependent behaviour. They are often angry people who hurt others with their controlling and judgemental behaviour. Nevertheless, they continually hide the hurtful aspect of this behaviour under the guise of ‘helping’ others.

Therefore, for people who hurt other people, the first step in making amends is becoming aware of their behaviour and taking responsibility for it. We need to realize that, as human beings, we have all been hurt and we all hurt others. It is the natural order of things. When we can see this and make amends for our behaviour then we can start to go in a different direction.

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Feb. 8/10 – Shame – A Powerful Negative Emotion

When I think of shame, I think of acid. Like acid, shame eats away. In this case, it eats away at the identity of a person. In my Toronto therapy practice I have seen the power of this emotion and how it deeply scars people.

People often confuse shame and guilt. Guilt is associated with doing something wrong. I hurt a person and I feel guilty about it. Whereas shame refers to a globalised feeling of being bad, unfit, unworthy, etc.  Guilt says I did something wrong and shame says I am wrong.

Shame is transmitted in families as well as society. Families who deal with addictions are often shame based. When I work with children of alcoholics I hear a repeated story of how the family put all its energy into hiding the shameful secret. Shame goes hand in hand with secrecy. Within the secrecy of such homes shame grows and each family member becomes a victim to its negative consequences.

What are the consequences of shame? Since shame makes a person feel fundamentally bad, a major consequence is that the person must do whatever they can to hide from or run away from this feeling. People have many ways of running away from feeling defective. The ways that they run away often bring them into therapy. Certainly, addiction is one of the most common ways to run away. Codependent behaviour is another way they flee as they wish to submerge their personality in the personalities of others. Anger is often a defense used to hide shame, so that anger management in therapy will frequently need to look at the shame beneath the anger. In addition, depression, anxiety and stress are associated with shame.

Children naturally take on shame. I see that children blame themselves for what happens around them and, as a result, take on shame. For example, children who grow up in dysfunctional families where the relationship between the parents is negative will often feel that it is somehow their fault. This is not helped by the fact that they are often blamed or victimized in these situations. Victimization will result in shame. Childhood abuse, whether it be physical, emotional or sexual, gives a child the message that this was done to them because they are bad. From then on their sense of being is defined by shame and they will be deprived of feelings of self esteem.

How can we deal with feelings of shame? Because shame has the effect of isolating a person, healing from shame requires breaking out of this isolated place. Relationships can be an important part of this process. Certainly, loving intimate connections help to heal this wound. However, shame can be very deep and make it hard for a person to reach out to others. Here, therapy can be helpful because a positive therapeutic relationship entails safety, which is needed for a person to talk of the most humiliating episodes in their life.

As well as connecting with others, a person dealing with shame often needs to learn self care. I often find that people with this type of wound are very hurtful to themselves. Such a person needs to start learning kind self talk and treatment. Part of this self care involves learning to have positive relationships, since shame based people often form hurtful codependent ones with no boundaries. All of these healing practices are intended to foster a clear and positive self identity.

Healing from shame is not a simple procedure. It requires a thorough and honest self inventory in order to face the shame. At the same time we need to take responsibility for our lives in a compassionate manner that promotes the opposite of shame - pride.  

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January 27/10 – We Are All Going To Die – What Mortality Can Teach Us

All of us have certain basic things in common. We are all born and we all die. Before birth and after death we are faced with a great unknown. In my Toronto therapy practice I have come to realize the great importance of death to the people who come to me for help.

They come with a variety of problems: depression, addiction, stress, anxiety, co-dependency and other difficulties that have made their lives hard to live. For many of these people I see the fact that they will die plays an important part in what is going on with them. For instance, for many people suffering from addiction, I sense a need for meaning. Many of these people have said to me that they have trouble seeing why they are here in this world where their lives are relatively brief. Others, such as those with stress and anxiety are pursued by a sense of fear which I feel is connected to their knowledge of death.

However, I feel that for many of these people the knowledge of death takes two forms, both of which are not healthy. One is an intellectual knowledge of death and the other is a kind of unconscious knowledge of death. The result of both of these is a virtual denial of death. It is known somewhere but not felt or lived. I feel that if this knowledge were closer to people it could take the form of greater emotional health.

For example, I can think of a man who came to me with great problems related to childhood sexual abuse. His life was very painful. Nevertheless, after a few sessions he left me saying, “I just can’t do this now. I need to wait on it.” Yet he was not young. He was in his mid forties and had waited for years and done nothing. I can’t help but think that if he had truly felt how brief life was, he could have been motivated to act as soon as possible. The same holds true for  people I see who pursue money or fame. They often give little time to their families, the people who they love and who love them. I have heard many older people mourn the loss of these important relationships that they ignored in favour of a career.

Indeed, if people could be more aware of death they could more easily sort out the true values of life. I think of one man, a child of an alcoholic father, who himself drank and treated his family with anger and disdain. However, when he spoke to me I could see that he had trouble seeing that his behaviour was like his father’s. Nevertheless, soon after his mother died, he began treating his family with much greater kindness and sensitivity. When I asked him about this he said, “When she died something inside me woke up. I realized that I was in denial and that we have very little time on this earth. This caused me to face myself and really take responsibility for my behaviour.”

In summing up, I would repeat that death is a frightening topic. But if we run from it, it will only cause us trouble. We need to face our mortality in a positive and life-affirming way in order to fully live.  

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January 12/10 – ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ –Important Lessons for Anger Management

Recently I saw the movie, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. It was about a young angry boy, Max, who, feeling misunderstood at  home, runs away. He ends up on an island with large monsters who befriend him. He eventually becomes king of the island.

The monsters teach him about himself and human relationships. One monster in particular, Carol, is frequently in a rage. Max sees his own anger in Carol and begins to understand anger. Max realizes that anger is composed of many feelings: hurt, dislocation from others, confusion, fear and a loss of control.

Like Max, we need to look beneath our anger in order to see what it is trying to tell us. For example, a man came to see me about his anger towards his family. He tried to cope through various addictions, but was still angry most of the time. I helped him see that underneath his anger was depression, anxiety and stress that he felt unable to deal with. These feelings had originated in childhood when, as a child of alcoholic parents, he suffered abuse. When I was able to help him deal with these underlying feelings, he was then able to manage his anger.

As a Toronto therapist I see many people who feel consumed by anger. One woman I saw was alienating those close to her because of her frequent angry outbursts. When we looked at what was underneath, we saw that before every angry episode she would be feeling great stress and particular feelings of low self esteem. I showed her that her anger was about flight or fight; therefore when she felt these overwhelming feelings she would lash out at others. She had suffered from childhood abuse. The trauma of this history and her inability to have positive relationships added up to an intolerable situation she was unable to cope with. As she began to understand the full scope of her feelings and gain more coping behaviours, she was able to better manage her feelings.

Like Max, in ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ we are sometimes faced with angry feelings that we have difficulty managing. It is important then to understand that anger management is about understanding the depth of our feelings. When we see the roots of our anger and understand the various feelings underneath, we then have a better opportunity to deal with this anger.

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