The end of anger
I used to have a bad temper. I’d get angry about a whole lot of things, including inanimate objects that didn’t bend to my immediate will. The ‘red mist’ would come down and I’d be...
Here’s the Freudian problem
Sigmund Freud raised some interesting questions, but I’m not a fan of the answers. There’s a world of difference between Freudian analysis and Time-Light, and here are just a few of the...
The cause of bipolar (and every other mental condition)
Bipolar disorder—once known as manic depression—is a serious mental condition. The alarming highs and lows associated with the problem are controlled by powerful drugs, but neuroscientists...
The three-question challenge
I want to be happy. I want to be rich. I want to be acknowledged. I want to be fulfilled. I want a better job, a new car, a bigger home. We all have these thoughts, but we...
How we can be free
I’ve been enjoying Sarah Bakewell’s new book At The Existential Café (Chatto & Windus), which explores the origins and development of existential philosophy. It traces the movement’s...
Depression is a memory
It’s blindingly obvious (when you think about it): depression is the result of events that have happened in our life. It’s not caused by our genes or by some chemical imbalance in the...
True transformation
It’s been called ‘therapy wars’: the Freudian psychoanalysts have been trying to win back ground taken by the newer upstart, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which has become the...
What John’s death can teach us
John, an old friend and work colleague, died the other day. Only he knows what death is, and what is beyond our death, because he has joined the millions before him who have made that journey....
Organizing the non-obvious
Marcus Aurelius, the go-to philosopher for the pithy quote and the Facebook meme, said something that rarely gets highlighted, but I think is especially profound. It’s this: The secret of all...
The past is still a headache
If you suffered physical or sexual abuse or domestic violence when you were a child, you are far more likely to suffer from migraines as an adult. This might be dismissed as mere coincidence by...
Thinking makes it so
Everything is energy (hold on to that idea). Yes, everything is energy, even including your thoughts. If a thought is energetic, what it is and where does it come from? All thoughts come from...
Mind the bear trap
Self-help and motivational teachers, psychologists and therapists fall into the biggest bear trap of them all. And we fall in with them. Here’s how the trap gets set: you’ve had some bad...
