Rory Nicol, Counselling and Psychotherapy Services

Imagination (and I would include dreams) have a much greater effect on us than science previously realized, but many therapists already understood. I often work with imagination in sessions to complete unfinished business, or to better understand oneself. I believe that a strong imagination, connected to ourselves, those around us, and the world we live in, is a hallmark of a healthy and wise person.

Ive come to the realization on how important it is to look around us, see how weve set up our society, and understand how it contributes, or harms, our mental health.

Fascinating research. The science behind the gut, and the fact that our ego sense of self isnt the only factor determining our experience.

Equine therapy seems to be one of the most powerful forms of ptsd therapy available.

Theres a common belief that how many Psychotherapies work is not biological. That couldnt be farther from the truth.

I often bring up "the myth of Sisyphus" in my sessions, in the context that life can feel as if were pushing a heavy boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down, and for us to start over again. Stuck in this way can leave us feeling bored, numb, and disinterested. But its important to ask ourselves questions when we realize life feels this way, such as: how does it feel to be living this way? When did life begin to feel this way? and more so, what do I need to risk with this pattern in order to experience my vitality again?

Have you heard of the Vagus nerve? We now better understand that traumatic experiences that persist after the event seem to be trapped in the Vagus, which we may experience as (to name only a few) feelings of numbness, floating above ourselves, quick jerks, or tension/chronic pain. This is the reason that psychotherapies working with emotion and body awareness are key to accessing the Vagus nerve in order to heal.

I feel this is something many, many of us can relate to.

Opening up to ones story of past trauma can be painful in the short-term, and life changing for the positive long term.

This article speaks for itself. https://www.theguardian.com//our-goal-is-to-halve-the-male

Have you heard of attachment theory? As deeply tribal and relational beings, we all inevitably attach to others. As children, we learn about how the world works through attachment to our parents or caregivers. As adults, we relive our old attachment patterns with those around us. This helps us have happy lives, or causes us greater suffering, often not understanding why. We are not permanently defined by our attachment patterns, even though it can feel that way. Psychotherapy has been shown to greatly help heal old attachment wounds.

Learn about it and get support if you find yourself in it. Or learn about it to support those around you. It could happen spontaneously, through recreational drug use, or through meditation.

From the Gestalt approach, we see this as a result of an inner polarity, when two internal personalities struggle against each other causing other painful symptoms to appear. One approach to the work is to bring those polarized parts back into communication with each other, to have them support each other, rather than battle, which can ease or alleviates the symptoms (of OCD and anxiety in this case).

On intergenerational trauma: The son needs to remember what the father wishes to forget. Yiddish Proverb In psychotherapy, we are not only doing our own work, but likely also the work that has been the elephant in the room for our family.

What is mindfulness? And more importantly, what it isnt.

Have you ever experienced boredom and wondered what was going on? https://buff.ly/2GYG2DC

In some ways, I feel our European Western approach is still catching up on what it means to be a good person living a wise life. In other ways, through philosophy and science, we are bringing fundamental understanding and changes that can deepen our experience of development and wisdom. But if we miss important pieces, for example, reducing our meaning fulfillment through consumption, we will devastate ourselves.

The brain, like our bodys muscles, gets strengthened in specific ways depending on how we use it. https://buff.ly/2tAfdNx

The research is in, time to get dancin!

A short piece on what we know regarding the inheritance of trauma, as seen through the lens of Holocaust survivors.

Is social media making you depressed?

Always been curious about couples therapy? Watch this video.

Having a kid had changed my worldview significantly, more so than I could have previously imagined. My son asks me to exist more in the present moment and to be responsible of my actions more so than Ive ever had to in my life. This year, Ill be training in therapy approaches to help parents raise their young kids while supporting parents towards healing their own pasts to minimize the impact of sharing inter-generational trauma.

Helping and giving to others has been shown many times to increase better self care as well (I always think of Bernie Glassman and his New York cheesecake factory as a massive example of the power of altruism) but its also important to note that care for others is a path best travelled in the middle. Care for others, without losing yourself.

There is something important about us dwelling on positive times in our past. What is it about bad weather that can bring about better mood and self esteem? One idea that comes to my mind is that we so easily fall prey to our need for survival, which can trap us in negative, fearful feeling. Nostalgia can help break that cycle by reminding us that our lives have also, at different points, been lived with love. Bad weather slows us down, maybe in more ways we can realize, and reminds us to feel the caring moments, rather than present moment survival.

On the connection between your physical heart and your emotions.

Introverts struggle with self-worth when they compare themselves against the social backdrop of extrovert idealization.

"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment." In a talk equal parts eloquent and devastating, writer Andrew Solomon takes you to the darkest corners of his mind during the years he battled depression. That led him to an eye-opening journey across the world to interview others with depression -- only to discover that, to his surprise, the more he talked, the more people wanted to tell their own stories.

Theres growing evidence, beyond reported evidence, to show that reading can help heal the effects of trauma, loneliness, and social isolation.

Nurses, paramedics, firefighters, social workers . . . those are just a few professions which both support people struggling with trauma but can sometimes feel ignored for their own struggles. Support is also available for you.

The idea of compassion, what it is, and how it works in us and between each of us often comes up in sessions. This man, Dacher Keltner, is doing the research on compassion.

On the differences between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud for those of you who are psychotherapy nerds: "There is a current misconception which sees in Jung an early disciple of Freud who subsequently deserted his master. Nothing could be more misleading. From the very beginning there were differences of procedure and of outlook that were bound to lead to divergent results. Freuds work is based on a scientific method restricted to the principle of causality: that is to say, it ...is assumed that everything that happens has an explanation in prior causes, and is merely the result of those causes. The world is a mechanism that can be taken to pieces and we can only understand how it works if we know how to dismantle and reassemble its constituent parts. Jung does not deny this causal principle, but he says it is inadequate to explain all the facts. In his view, we live and work, day by day, according to the principle of directed aim or purpose, as well as by the principle of causality. We are drawn onwards and our actions are significant for a future we cannot foresee, and will only be explicable when the final effect of the impulse becomes evident. In other words, life has a meaning as well as an explanation; a meaning, moreover, that we can never finally discover, for it is being extended all the time by the process of evolution. " - Sir Herbert Read See more

Its time for men to talk about depression #depression #Toronto #Kitchener #Waterloo ... #mentalhealth See more

Ive seen this article popping up in my feed and, appreciating the care that the researchers wrote about personality types, I felt it worth a share. You can say this is an update to the popular Myers-Briggs personality test. My issue with Myers Briggs is it over simplifies who we are. Gestalt therapy works with field theory which says that the personality we become is dependent upon our environment, and while we have some preset personalities, we are not restricted to one.

This article speaks for itself

One big thing Im learning about children, and adults too, is we need repetition, repetition, repetition to grow, learn, and heal.

After being a part of the International Gestalt therapy conference in Toronto all week, Im even more certain about the efficacy of Gestalt therapy and so excited about the direction its moving as the future becomes present. This article presents a tiny piece of Gestalt therapy by talking about a technique that Gestalt therapists, and many other approaches now use, called the Empty Chair technique.