I mentioned in my previous piece how much importance I give to all subjects and issues concerning equality and discrimination. I am convinced that they are also crucial for a healthy society as a whole – because they concern everyone without exception. Even those who count themselves as part of a “majority” (many of my clients, fellow immigrants, have discovered through their own painful experience how easily one switches from being part of a “majority” to...
I’m going to be honest here: for me this article is a manifesto inspired by personal therapy (yes, I have a therapist, too). A manifesto about legitimising one’s feelings and accepting all sides of one’s personality. Probably like many others, I tend to use rationalisation as a defence mechanism. To put it simply: sometimes I think instead of feeling. What is the source of this defence? As a therapist, I can answer that it comes from our childhood. W...
Recently I have noticed an interesting comparison, and I’d like to share with you my thoughts about it. But first let me show you some famous optical illusions. Most likely you’ve already seen them somewhere on the Internet, but let us look at them one more time. For example, here is the well-known illusion of the girl who rotates in an undetermined direction. I recall a number of lengthy discussions, when it first appeared online, as to which way sh...
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...
I think that in some way, everybody is familiar with procrastination - postponing important things, mindlessly scrolling through news feeds on social networks, and watching dozens of episodes of mindless sitcoms, as well as many other irrelevant and useless affairs that somehow become wedged into our more important and rational plans. I was planning to write this article a few months ago. But, of course, I had a lot of other important things to do - rep...
