I would like to share with you my thoughts on the spot reparenting technique (and other techniques using the same phenomenon) in psychotherapy. Let us begin with the nature of memories. They tend to be changeable and unstable, and in fact seldom reflect reality. Psychologists and neurologists have discovered long ago that every time we recall a certain life episode, we seem to rewrite it with minor alterations. This may sound like a paradox, but our most t...
I don't care if it hurts,
I want to have control.
I want a perfect body,
I want a perfect soul. (Radiohead) Sometimes it feels as if you’ve got to do everything perfectly – to be perfect, in fact. It’s like a voice ringing in your head: ‘Don’t you dare get it wrong! Surely you’re capable of doing everything right, so go on, seek options, work hard, pay attention, analyse, and obtain the best result!’ So you set to work, and you’re constantly se
A 12-year-old told me recently how the teacher asked her class to think about whether most people on Earth were happy. As a result, the class ended up discussing what is happiness, actually. A difficult topic, apparently, but one relevant to both schoolchildren and adults. I would like to share a theory from transactional analysis, which, in my opinion, tackles this question best. I must start with a disclaimer: we won’t be talking about feeling happ
…or, What Is Written on Our Face. Do you like T-shirts with funny captions? Transactional analysis has a theory about “psychological T-shirts”, on whose front we carry the message we send to the world. This is a message people usually notice at once: it is perceived in conversation, tone, behaviour, looks, facial expression, gestures, and sometimes even in dressing style and posture. We all wear such “T-shirts”, but some of us will have a dozen, changin...
