Psychoeducation

Why and how to start journaling?

I am setting up a journal for a first time. Where do I start?

Despite the fact journaling often being connected to children years while we are in school, it gain a lot of popularity over the past couple of decades in between adults. In fact ones of the most successful people were using journaling and kept few of them throughput the life. The most memorable names would be Steve Jobs from modern era or Leonardo Da Vinci from the past.

Journaling started though much earlier than that and its first traces are as early as 554AD in China. Very first diaries of retrospective nature were written by ladies of the royal Japanese court in the 10^th century.

Journaling is a widely used therapeutic method in therapy, where clients are advised to journal as a self-reflective journey, as a healing tool for spiralling mind as a gainer of clarity and more.

What are the benefits of Journaling?

Human mind is a very complex to navigate and mostly we are unaware of its work. Our brain picks up on many cues throughout the day, mostly unconsciously to our benefit and help us function in everyday life throughout often automatic behaviours.

Maybe you noticed that a lot of ideas would come to you in the shower, or that your mind spirals in the mornings or you find yourself unable to sleep due to overactive mind.

Journaling can be of help here.

When we journal we are creating space in our minds. We are putting thoughts elsewhere and we don’t keep carrying them around. Due to multiple cues in a day and roles we need to fulfil our mind very easily fills up and keeping us away from present moment. When we leave the present or are mostly elsewhere in our minds we are as well slowly becoming less connected to our emotions, our bodies and often this might lead to unhappiness, depression and anxiety. It is a form of necessary self-protection specially if we experienced difficult experiences throughout the life or chronic stress. None of these are uncommon in nowadays disconnected society and maybe that is one of the reasons why journaling became popular over the past decades.

Saying above one of the main benefits of journaling would be SPACE and MENTAL CLARITY.

What are mental health benefits?

When we journal we are not only creating space in our minds, but we are as well processing events, experiences and ultimately our emotions. Journal can be often self-soothing tool or a tool how to access our emotions and become more aware. By putting thoughts down we become less judgmental or more aware of inner critique and so ultimately we experience less negative emotions.

According to PositivePsychology.com benefits of journalling are:

Reducing anxiety
Breaking away from a nonstop cycle of obsessive thinking and brooding
Improving the awareness and perception of events
Regulating emotions
Encouraging awareness
Boosting physical health

Writing about stressful and traumatic events can significantly benefit our physical and emotional health.

In fact, studies show that time spent journaling about our deepest thoughts and feelings can even reduce the number of sick days we take off work (Sohal, Singh, Dhillon & Gill, 2022).

Research suggests that journaling can help us accept rather than judge our mental experiences, resulting in fewer negative emotions in response to stressors (Ford, Lam, John, & Mauss, 2018; Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005).

How do you start?

If you’ve never journaled before it can feel quite intimidating sitting in front of a blank page.

There are various ways to approach this:

You can google some journaling prompts for every day journaling or you can find prompts and focus on some theme in your life – relationships, friendships, self-esteem, divorce, loss etc.
Morning pages – basically start writing whatever comes to mind in the mornings and until you didn’t fill 2-3 pages you won’t stop. No judgment over content, grammar, how pretty it looks. You are just taking thoughts as messy they are down on the paper.
Start with highlight of a day every day – just one sentence or one sentence what you are grateful for
Follow one of the methods of people who journaled before you – there is lot of ideas on youtube by ordinary people as you, there are journaling ideas from successful people like Leonardo Da Vinci and others which could serve as an inspiration to find out what kind of journaling suits best for you.

These are possible first steps how to approach journaling. As more you write as more you start connecting dots and clarity will emerge together with possible emotions. Journaling is in this sense amazing tool, because journal won’t judge you for your thoughts and emotions, you can pour them out as they come, name them, connect them to people, places, events and through this process slowly let go.

Setting up a journal for a first time and every time after that can be part of a self-care ritual. You buy a notepad which speaks to you, you research how to incorporate journaling to your life and you make it part of morning or evening routine or you keep journal with you at all times. If you are creative and visual person you might want to incorporate drawings, if you are analytical you might want to be able measure either your habits, sleep patterns etc.

I will end here for today, but throughout this month theme of JOURNALING will possibly appear in few more articles in relation to how to journal.

January 12, 2025January 10, 2025 by evach1988 Categories: Therapeutic ToolsTags: anxiety, anxiety in the morning, copying strategies, depression, how to cope, how to journal, journaling, journaling for beginners, journaling for mental health, journaling tips, mental clarity, mental health struggle, overactive mind, overwhelmed, overwhelmed mind, Psychoeducation, self therapy, spiralling mind, therapy, understand yourself, what works for anxiety Leave a comment

Do we have to celebrate Christmas?

Stress.

Exhaustion.

Overwhelm.

These would be certainly most common feelings I would hear from clients or experience myself in months leading towards Christmas and even once they arrive. Christmas is a beautiful time of the year, joyful and merry for many.

BUT.

For many it is time of sadness, remembering people we lost, time of stress and overwhelm from pressure Christmas creates for us financially, emotionally and mentally by the sudden energy and effort and resources we often don’t have and we need to put into buying or creating presents. Everyone on high alert and stressful energies gathering together with families when these stresses are released and people argue, blame and often forget about what the whole Christmas were meant to be about. Not talking about those who might not have anyone to celebrate with and whole Christmas is a reminder of their own loneliness.

Imagine how we would approach each other if we’d decide not giving each other presents or if we decide we won’t come to visit or we won’t make big meals?

For many this would create even more sad feelings, because Christmas are meant to be about celebration about gathering together about giving presents because we care about each other. Managing opposing ideas and wishes within groups of people can be difficult as one might be okey with not giving presents within entire family inbetween each other meaning it in the best possible intention – to reduce stress for everyone, but a family member or a friend might see it as they don’t care enough about the relationship if they can’t even think of giving a present, visit or cook big meal.

I would be curious if the answer is somewhere in the middle, if it is about recognising what we need and how we can fit this within others or if it is even possible. Maybe there’s place to have conversations about Christmas presents if this is too big of a restrain on us, maybe it is having conversations about visits, if we want to have a quiet time within small family or inbetween partners only, maybe it is having conversation about cooking duties and how much can be done and for how many people.

And ultimately if it feels too much, too stressful or too overwhelming it is okay to not celebrate at all as well. Many years ago I couldn’t even imagine not celebrating Christmas, but there are actually many people out there who don’t and it is same valid because this is the way it works best for them.

Bringing such ideas within specially family can be difficult and you might be met with no understanding. Possibly approaching it from compassionate place where you understand this might be painful in some way for them, reassuring them that your relationship towards them is still the same, but you just find it too much at the moment, might be one of the ways going about it.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own ideas and how we consider world to work best, that we don’t allow needs of other people to come forward, we stop being open to different possibilities and realities other people might be living in. I get it and certainly I’ve been guilty of such many times. It is after all how our brains work, we have a ‘blind spot’ towards ourselves where we can’t see ourselves just the way we are. It’s quite human in fact. But especially when other realities are just so alienated to ours this might ultimately mean that these relationships might not survive and carry on, at least not in connected genuine way, because we are just way too different people. It might all lead to acceptance of others people realities, acceptance of the dynamic it creates and even acceptance of possible end. But here I am going to a completely different topic possibly for another day.

As a society in countries celebrating Christmas we jump on the whole Christmas roller coaster either we want to or not because it is expected of us. Some of us really enjoy this time period and some of us would rather not to celebrate at all and both options are equally valid. If you want to celebrate, please do by all means, but if you don’t, please do by all means as well.

This one is a bit different one to previous articles, but as it is Christmas and there is so much of cheering I felt that it might be important to speak towards those who feel the overwhelm this holiday creates helping you allowing yourself to be just you within the pressure. Allowing yourself to take care of your own needs and practice self-care. Allowing yourself to listen to your body and take on board what it has to say.

In all honesty I am one learning exactly that myself. It is not a sprint but a marathon, where we sometimes go and are not yet able set appropriate boundaries neither we are able to not get into arguments. It is okay. It is a trying pool where we can observe where we stand.

So I wander do you celebrate Christmas?

Do you enjoy this festive season or does it bring up mostly negative feelings for you?

How are boundaries working for you in this season?

December 22, 2024December 22, 2024 by evach1988 Categories: ThemesTags: aelf-care, christmas, christmas season, emotions, grief, holiday, how to cope, mental health, overwhelmed, Psychoeducation, self therapy, self-care, strategies, subconscious, therapy, understand yourself Leave a comment

What constant social media scrolling does to you – Vicarious Trauma talk

Have you ever felt low even depressed when consuming social media content?

Have you ever felt such when watching news in the TV?

I am not sure about you, but I am sensitive person who gets feels from things happening around. The connection to my emotions makes me often feel even through the screen what is happening with people or animals there. I find social media and internet itself to be very dangerous and detrimental to our mental health in this sense. One of the things which I will focus on some other time is the lowering attention span we are experiencing by consuming social media content. Another one which we will be focusing on this week has a fancy name in psychology world – Vicarious Trauma.

What is Vicarious Trauma?

British Medical Association defines Vicarious Trauma as follows:

‘Vicarious trauma is a process of change resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors. Anyone who engages empathetically with survivors of traumatic incidents, torture, and material relating to their trauma, is potentially affected, including doctors and other health professionals.’

This is often something experienced by people in health professions, but as well therapists, social care workers, carers, journalists, police officers etc. but as well by you consumer of traumatic news and content. Nowadays culture is based on sharing everything happening in the world. One side of such is staying informed and getting often first hand news and experiences from people directly where the events are happening, but another side of the coin is that you consume and experience as if it to be your own traumatic experience.

How does Vicarious Trauma influences us?

Let’s take for instance any war in the world you might identify with for cultural, geographical or any other reasons. This is a huge traumatic event survivors are going through, likely experiencing as trauma. They share content about it to raise awareness and get necessary help, which is absolutely right thing to do, because it is important for the world to know.

BUT.

You as a consumer of such content in your home on your sofa is emotionally engaging with the trauma these survivors are talking about. It is sort of natural human healthy interaction, but normally we do this with people around us which is often a small group of people in our family and friends which if we take care properly for ourselves we are able to handle.

BUT.

What happens when you do this a lot one post after another, which algorithm on social media often makes sure you do, you are consuming trauma of other people by emotionally engaging with the content which ultimately might lead to following symptoms:

experiencing lingering feelings of anger, rage and sadness
becoming overly involved emotionally with survivors
experiencing bystander guilt, shame, feelings of self-doubt
being preoccupied with thoughts of survivors once away from social media
over identification with the survivors (having horror and rescue fantasies)
loss of hope, pessimism, cynicism
distancing, numbing, detachment, cutting people off, staying busy. Avoiding listening to stories of traumatic experiences

All of these apply as well for already mentioned health care professionals, another layer they might experience is difficulty in maintaining professional boundaries with the client, such as overextending self (trying to do more than is in the role to help the patient).

Unfortunately health professionals apart of therapists and psychologists often don’t have an outlet where to go and process Vicarious Trauma. Therapists usually have a supervisors and supervision groups where they bring such things as Vicarious Trauma because their job is very much related to shared trauma. But other professionals often don’t have incorporated such in their work and so often this brings them to people like me, therapists, as they recognise change in their behaviours and mentioned symptoms.

I have to say it is not only health professionals who suffer from such. There are multiple clients I had over the course of years, who’s profession did not include dealing with traumatic events, yet they would exhibit symptoms of Vicarious Trauma. Some was due to family and other relationships dynamics, but some was purely from consuming internet content.

These people than stopped being functioning for their immediate circle and this is something we see often happening in nowadays society, when people are distancing themselves from close people due to inability to deal with anything heavier and more difficult to handle. To a degree this is healthy as it is not our responsibility to deal with all the issues our loved ones and people we care about might have and there is responsibility on their shoulders to reach for help from professionals if people around find it to be too much. But if we become dysfunctional and emotionally distant to people around because of engaging with content on internet that is a red flag for us, that maybe we are the ones who need to put in place some actions to become again functioning and emotionally available.

I am not trying to say here we should all become ignorant to world events and close eyes when there are atrocities happening around the world. But what we might need to do is being aware that we can only pour from a full cup. We need to be maybe aware of such things such as Vicarious Trauma and recognise its symptoms and put in place actions which will help us deal with such. We might maybe need to be honest with ourselves and recognise that all we can truly influence is our physical environment around and that is the true and genuine help we can really offer to the world. By all means share what you feel is important to share with the world, but stay aware of the impact consuming a lot of such content has on you.

Never before was self-care so important as it might be in the world of internet and social media. Never before was self-awareness and connection with ones body and emotions so important as it is these days, because only if we understand what is happening with us we are able to change something. Only then we are able to put in place necessary boundaries or actions to be able show up for the world around us in constructive way and pour from our own full cup.

What can we do to prevent Vicarious Trauma?

When professionals experience Vicarious Trauma the nature of their work make their colleagues, supervisors or other professionals alert about symptoms and they often might be encouraged to seek professional help in order to work through what is happening for them. Despite them recognising effects of Vicarious Trauma someone around them might point symptoms out for them and due to their responsibility for patients or clients they might have to seek some help. The awareness might be as well a bit greater within themselves as the nature of the work they do pushes them to seek information or is getting to them through professional workshops etc. Ordinary person who’s job does not involve dealing with traumas of other does not get to such information and that is why I feel importance of bringing these terms out into open and talk about mental health.

So what can you do as a consumer of traumatic content in TV or social media do in order to prevent Vicarious Trauma? (following points were taken from British Medical Association with my own commentary)

Increase your self-observation – recognise and chart your signs of stress, vicarious trauma and burnout.

I get it learning about yet another aspect of your life – mental health can feel overwhelming and daunting. But in fact it is the most what you can do for yourself in order to live fulfilling live. Without attending to your mental health other aspects in your life might be one way or another falling apart.

Take care of yourself emotionally – engage in relaxing and self-soothing activities, nurture self-care.

If self care feels selfish there is a chance some of limiting believes within you need to be addressed. Many of us were told that not sharing with others, being ourselves, expressing what we are not okey with, taking time for ourselves and many others are selfish and we shouldn’t be like that. Act of self care is in fact one of the selfless actions specially if our intentions for doing so lie in being able to contribute to lives of others in professional or personal sense. If we take time for ourselves to fill our own cup only means we will be able to give others in the long run.

Look after your physical and mental wellbeing.
Maintain a healthy work/life balance – have outside interests.
Be realistic about what you can accomplish – avoid wishful thinking.

In this sense it might apply to our need to save others and help absolutely everywhere around. Maybe it is important to realise we can not in fact help people in their difficult situations on the other side of the globe or maybe not even within our own country because we just don’t have financial, emotional, mental or physical capacity of doing so and that is okey. It does not make us worse people, it makes us honest and aware people who maybe one day will be able to put their strengths somewhere important when their own circumstances allow them.

Don’t take on responsibility for your patients’ wellbeing but supply them with tools to look after themselves.
Balance your caseload – mix of more and less traumatised clients, victims and non-victims.

Even though these two point apply for professionals mostly it is something what we often need to learn in personal lives as well. We can not take responsibility for everyone around specially if they are functioning adults. We might not understand their path or even agree with their actions, but they are after all responsible for their own lives. We can share our own tools or experiences we think might be helpful for them specially if they ask, but it is their autonomy and freedom to decide if they want to use them or take something from them.

Take regular breaks, take time off when you need to.
Seek social support from colleagues, family members.

Consuming only sad, emotional and traumatic content might be a bit too much for our psyche to process. After all as humans who just entered technological era we are not equipped to handle and cope with such a fast pace emotional overload media push onto ourselves. Social media detox, stop watching news or sometimes tv altogether, stop reading newspapers or articles online might be a necessary action for us to take time to time in order to reset our mindset and ease emotional overload we are consuming on day to day bases.

If you need it, take up group or individual therapy.

Ultimately if you find yourself experiencing mentioned symptoms and they have effect on your mood, relationships, work or life in general it might be time for you to discuss and gain clarity what’s going on for you with a professional.

December 15, 2024December 6, 2024 by evach1988 Categories: PsychoeducationTags: compassion fatigue, emotions, feeling sad, how to cope, mental health, overwhelmed, Psychoeducation, sadness, self therapy, social media, stress, therapy, vicarious truma Leave a comment

Winter Blues – What is Seasonal Depression and is it unnatural state?

It has been past few years since I am aware how my body and mind changes every winter. Autumn is an amazing season full of colours, but it always reminds me of what is coming next. Dark cold winter when my whole body wants hibernate, slow down and do as little as possible. I used to beat myself up for such feelings, thinking that somehow my body is malfunctioning and something must be wrong with me if I experience low moods and lack of motivation, heaviness in my body as winter moths approach. I used to push myself and I still do at times as our society is certainly not accommodating these changes.

As time passed as more I have seen every year what is happening with me, I have started to understand that these feelings I have are quite common across society specially within more sensitive individuals and they are not unnatural to have although are considered to be part of depression. They have a name and in fact might be much more natural to human kind than we might think.

As someone who experiences and quite likely suffers from seasonal depression or correctly called Seasonal Affective Disorder and is slowly creeping in this time of the year, I thought there is no better moment to bring on the table this term, debunk some misconceptions in relation to it and help us understand our changing moods a little bit better.

What is Seasonal Depression

According to NHS in UK: ‘Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern.

SAD is sometimes known as “winter depression” because the symptoms are usually more apparent and more severe during the winter. Some people with SAD may have symptoms during the summer and feel better during the winter. Symptoms of SAD can include:

a persistent low mood
a loss of pleasure or interest in normal everyday activities
irritability
feelings of despair, guilt and worthlessness
feeling lethargic (lacking in energy) and sleepy during the day
sleeping for longer than normal and finding it hard to get up in the morning
craving carbohydrates and gaining weight
difficulty concentrating
decreased sex drive

For some people, these symptoms can be severe and have a significant impact on their day-to-day activities,’ in which case you should talk to your GP or therapist.

As we can see winter blues are defined as a form of depression, which affects people in relation to changing seasons. Interesting part here and something I am quite curios about is if this is somewhat more prone for people living in northern countries. I mostly came across with such feeling here in Scotland due to the fact there is bigger extreme in between summer and winter when comes to light access and so vitamin D.

Mersch et al. (1999) have reviewed the relationship between SAD and latitude of residence. Patients with climatic conditions affective disorder have episodes of major depression that tend to recur in cold weather. This conclusion is an indicator that maybe population of colder countries experience such more often and even maybe I have developed such here due to the cold and dark environment. In fact the whys here are not as important. Important is the awareness of the condition and how can we help it.

Is seasonal depression quite a natural state?

Before we get there I would like to talk a little bit more about the fact that this is form of depression and such realisation might be a little bit difficult for some people to hear. Depression has a lot of negative popularity and many people are scared to be associated with such serious negative term. Yet there is high possibility we all experienced some depressive period if not more than one throughout our lives knowingly or unknowingly. The label again is not as important, but recognition of such feelings might be.

You might be asking why do we need to be aware, isn’t it better if we don’t and just get on with it?

What get on with it really means?

I would be assuming it means we find ways how to function despite having such feeling, we would want to help ourselves with means possible and available to live fulfilling life. In fact many of us do that, but awareness of it is the link inbetween pure surviving without addressing the issue and actually living.

Can we get on with cancer if we don’t know it is spreading inside of us, how can we treat it if we do not even know it exists. With physical health it gets easier we can see broken leg, spots on the skin or feel strong pain in different parts of our bodies, but with mental health the symptoms might be often more subtle and less if even visible. Without awareness of depression we might feel in relation to changing seasons, we are denying the fact something is happening within us what in fact might be more natural than we might think.

Where it comes from?

This is pure speculation and I did not find actual research which would back this theory – in fact it is not even possible, because we don’t have this kind of health information from our ancestors, but I wander if our bodies are in fact build to experience seasonal depression as an ancestral inheritance.

We have no means to study if our ancestors in experienced mental health issues, but we recognise slow forming of rituals when comes to celebrating death, social aspect of creating community and times of more intense and less intense work of hunting and gathering. One could easily speculate if they were just more connected with their bodies and so if tired they would sleep, if hungry they would eat, if sad they would honour their death or stick with others or likely find solitude of sorts. We don’t know these things, but what we know is if we are not in connection with our bodies and we push our bodies against natural rhythm which our technological and industrial era demands of us, we are finding ourselves feeling more low and with mental health issues.

If we’d look at our ancestors of past 12 000 years, who became farmers and settled, I wander if seasonal depression might be something natural to happen. They would often work hard, outdoors within communities in summer, whereas their body would naturally slow down and they’d take more rest in winters, being more inside with less people. We can only speculate if our bodies are responding to a natural occurrence in mostly cold months, something what human kind have always experienced or if even depression related to seasons is a form of illness in modern world, maybe because we are less connected to our bodies than ever before.

Is SAD really depression?

As we learnt earlier SAD is classed to be a form of depression due to its symptoms. We could agree if symptoms are the measure it certainly sounds like depression. What if we go a bit farther into more complex interconnected and take as the measure environment and natural responses of body to such environment. It has been proved that depressive episodes are mostly present in colder weather conditions.

One could think if our bodies are in fact accustomed to outdoor warmer or more light conditions if we move indoors during dark and cold periods our bodies naturally slow down getting ready to more hibernation period which in fact all our ancestors seam to experience. So if we are looking at SAD from this angle, is it really a depression or is it even a disorder or is it just a natural response of our bodies to the environment and ancestral way of functioning.

Hunters and gatherers maybe used to be more in connection with their bodies and farmers maybe slowed down in winter months. Suddenly in past few centuries we’ve started demanding same amount of work all year long, we’ve stopped listening to our bodies and what once was natural to do in connection to nature and our bodies became a disorder because it is not profitable to have slowing down and hibernating individuals in the society half of the year.

How can we deal with SAD?

If the symptoms become severe please talk to your GP, but if you more experience just winter blues, when your body is asking for more rest, more quiet, slowing down and feels a bit more low, maybe just listen and acknowledge it. Don’t try to push it away or beat yourself up that you are not keeping up with everything as you might be able to do in summer periods. It is likely quite natural rhythm of your body, which is just sensitive to changes in the environment and in the nature. Everyone is different and everyone will need something different, but listen what is your body is asking of you.

Is it more rest?

Is it more solitude and quietness?

Is it more balance or less workload?

Is it need for interactions?

Is it need for outdoors?

Is it need to move as you were sitting too much?

Whatever you find that will be likely correct answer. Keep an eye on disguised cravings and in fact unhealthy impulses, which might be telling in their own disguised way what you really need. But that would be a topic for another day.

Let me know if you experience winter blues, were diagnosed with Seasonal affective disorder and how you experience it? What is helping you?

December 8, 2024December 3, 2024 by evach1988 Categories: PsychoeducationTags: coping tools, depression, emotions, how to cope, Psychoeducation, SAD, sadness, seasonal depression, therapy, winter, winter blues Leave a comment

Where am I and this website going from now on…

I feel that it is important for me as a professional and human who always felt calling in writing and researching and understanding to address my motives for this blog/account going forward. It has been few years now since I have started therapeutic practice and I gained a lot of insight and experience, but of course much much more to come in future years. I recognise that my training and work with clients shaped me to the professional and human I am today and I would like this to reflect here as well. At the beginnings I was trying to find my place within this field now I am starting to be shaped into a certain directions within the field, which reflect who I am as a human. One of the main goals of therapy is to help people become their true version of themselves aka. Themselves and so I am doing the exact same following a direction reflecting who I am.

First focus I would like to have here is..

What I have seen a lot in clients who I have worked with past few years is often little understanding of aspects of our psyche and how big role this play in their everyday lives. It is absolutely normal and common and I have been there myself before I set on a journey of psychotherapy, but I recognise as well a need for psychoeducation out there. There is a lot of great therapists and professors and educators pitching their bit of knowledge into the world, but as not every therapist will fit to every client, not every information might be received same way. Not to mention how much misleading information is out there, but we get there. Here comes my corner of a psychotherapeutic knowledge and experience.

The way I would like to structure this blog and what might come with it is bring psychoeducation on the table in the time of very diverse and often misleading information pool out there due to social media and internet. I often come across with snippets of psychology or terms used in wrong situations or jumping into conclusions about others people experiences. I often recognise these to be misleading or used by people without formal education or solely based on personal experience. Here I am not trying to say, that personal experience is not valuable, it is and sharing it brings valuable topics on a public table. What I am trying to offer is a possibility for critical thinking and understanding that if something worked for one person does not necessarily means it will work for you. Same to be said about what one person recognise as their views on life and experiences doesn’t mean it apply same way at yours.

I recognise it is a learning journey and there is not inherently something wrong with sharing personal experiences – it brings very valuable topics out into the open, but the issue is that often people use these experiences and little knowledge they might have as a building stone to create paid courses and become gurus and coaches, unsupervised and not abiding any ethical ethos. I am not talking about valuable life long experiences in different fields combining with maybe professionals from therapeutic realms, but rather gurus and coaches claiming to have a magic answer to your problems when in fact they are using the vulnerabilities of people for personal gain. This I find highly problematic.

Not only one client would share certain image of themselves based on what social media portraits to be a narcissist, what social media portraits as desired life style or what social media portraits as happiness and success. And as we worked through therapy together there were no signs of narcissism other than ones we all have and carry within, meaning these people were completely average people, but social media would make them believe they must be narcissist because they recognized some narcissistic traits within. We all have them but it is a spectrum and having narcissistic traits does not make us having a disorder. As we worked through therapeutic process we would find out that in fact desired lifestyle portrayed by social media does not resonate with a person and they in fact desire something very different for their life. As we worked through therapy they would find out that success and happiness claimed by one person to be ultimate one everyone should thrive for on social media was in fact in absolute disconnection to what success and happiness means in the core for them.

I am not sure at this point how exactly I want to structure and handle this, but I certainly feel it to be present in my work and environment past few years.

Second focus would be…

More and more I work in psychotherapy field more and more I am aware how three simple things in our everyday life have massive impact on our mental health – sleep, food, exercise and sense of adventure.

The last one specially sparks a sense of passion within as I love outdoors and over course of my life I have always seen benefits in stepping out of my own comfort zone into unknown and having the sense of adventure present. I won’t lie I overdone it at times and jump too soon too far or I had period of time in comfortable and safe, but as more I work within the field and getting to know myself I recognise how much adventure plays role in my own mental health, how much outdoors plays in me feeling grounded within myself and being able to show up in constructive way for not only people in my life but as well and specially for clients.

Theme of adventure, stepping out of a comfort zone, outdoors and connection with nature is something I feel strongly passionate about and would like to connect as much as possible with my therapeutic approach. I believe that part of this passion is based on seeing raising disconnection with nature in the society and raise of mental health issues as an outcome of that. Only in past few decades we disconnected and moved into indoors to almost 100% in some cases than ever before in thousands years. Our bodies and their genetic propositions passed on through generations are equipped to function mostly as hunted-gatherers did because that is the most chunk of time we experienced in the whole life span of humankind. Such a quick turn around of settling down becoming farmers within thousands years and then into industrial age and now technological only in decades is something our bodies are not entirely equipped to cope with, because of such a rapid way it all happened. Only industrial and technological era happened within couple of centuries.

That being said another theme I would like to focus on here is outdoors and sense of adventure in connection to our mental health. Outdoor adventures offer simplicity of life and I believe this is something strongly tithed to our ancestral upbringing as human kind, which we find comforting and where we find skills within we forgot we had, but often need to be used in our lives to feel connected and grounded within.

Third and last focus would be…

The best is left for the last. Art and creativity has been present in my life profoundly in past decade. In fact I believe art saved my life and fact I was brought by some inner voice and wisdom to painting was curtail event to become my authentic true self. It has not been easy and I had breaks inbetween due to circumstances and very limiting believes passed on to me, but I can say today that art has been my way of relating to the world and searching a connection with it. Creativity and art itself helped me to be authentic and real in an inauthentic world and this is something what informs my therapeutic practice.

I won’t lie it has not been an easy path and I am still not where I would like to be when comes to my artistic pursues, but I see it as a lifelong journey. At times I am not creating I recognise my mind still thinks creatively, observing world around. At times I create I enjoy the flow.

Saying that creativity is a big part of my therapeutic approach. It doesn’t always mean that I use artistic tools in therapy, in fact I often don’t, but the way I work with clients is relational and is creative. I have noticed that therapy works best if I let it happen and so does art. I have heard many artists over the years expressing how their paintings happened to appear on a canvas. When I paint even though I use certain tools for painting, it as well appears on the paper often without me knowing how. Therapy is somewhat similar process. It seams as a lot of unrelated pieces specially at the beginning and as we move through the process, different themes and different topics come to the surface until it eventually comes all together in the form of self-awareness. As much this sounds as artistic process in fact it is not and can be suitable for everyone even if not artistic at all. There are different forms of therapy and if you prefer structure, following step by step approach the way I work might not be suitable for you and you might need a different kind of therapist.

I would like to share here creative process and connection to therapy, somewhat outside of the box sometimes, less walked by professionals and possibly less backed in research, but yet proven through mine or other’s therapists practice to be working and valuable. Research in therapy might be in fact another theme and topic I’d like to bring light onto as there is a trend nowadays pushing forward certain one approach to therapy which is heavily funded and so researched, but doesn’t necessarily mean that is better approach than ones less funded and researched with long tradition in therapeutic practice.