Areas of Focus
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I treat depression, bipolar mood disorder, various forms of anxiety, OCD, trauma, relationship difficulties, grief, and loss. I focus on these manifest symptoms, as well as the factors underlying these difficulties. For example, poor self-worth may underlie a depressive state, guilt may keep us in an unhealthy relationship, or feelings of doubt may generate anxiety. Personality characteristics also influence most areas of our lives and therapy aims to increase the understanding of these less visible aspects of ourselves.
Depression
I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.
NED VIZZINI
Anxiety
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE
Bipolar
Bipolar mood disorder is a nice way of saying that you will feel so high that no street drug can compete and you will feel so low that you wish you had been hit by a Mack truck instead.
CHRISTINE ANDERSON
Fear
The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. … Nothing else really counts at all.
TED HUGHES
Self-Criticism
Nothing can be hidden from the superego. Not even thoughts.
SIGMUND FREUD
Loneliness
God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. The loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.
SYLVIA PLATH
Anger
Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
ARISTOTLE
Betrayal
We must concede that adultery cannot be a workable answer, for no one can be its victim and not feel forever cut to the core. We can hear their defence as often as we like, but we'll be sure of one thing in our hearts: that every ounce of their love has evaporated … .
ALAIN DE BOTTON
Grief
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.
ELIZABETH KÜBLER-ROSS & DAVID KESSLER
Guilt
If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Trauma
The child trapped in an abusive environment … must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness.
JUDITH HERMAN
OCD
Some people with OCD are compelled to pick up pieces of broken glass from the street. They worry that, if they don’t, then someone else might cut themselves on the glass. If the person fails to prevent that happening, they think, well I may as well have … deliberately hurt them.
DAVID ADAM