Hirayama is not a hero. He is not an allegorical figure who represents the plight of everyman. He is a plain individual, singular in his simplicity, ordinary by all measures. Yet in living his mundane...

I heard someone complain once: “I want my friends to listen and my therapist to give my advice. But it turns out, my therapist listens and my friends give me advice.” This observation...

I notice a pattern among clients who suffer from burn-out. In the clutch of demanding responsibilities, people fear that everything will collapse without their involvement. Duties wither their...

Finding the right therapist can be a tricky business. It’s hard to know where to start. If you have never been to counselling, there may be a plethora of questions about the format, the length...

Thomas Merton once wrote: “I love beer, and, by that very fact, the world.” This statement is at once whimsical and puzzling.  How does a fondness for pale ale stray into a confession of...

I meet clients who come to therapy when they are hanging by a thread.  Their careers are unforgiving, academic pressures unrelenting. Parents are walloped by the rigours of child-rearing;...

I am standing by the harbour, peering past the sailboats and skycrapers into the mountains in the distance. A bar of sunlight lifts the hillside, cold and deep. Clouds curl into flakes and break over...

In my clinical practice, I often meet clients who are at odds with themselves, caught between one commitment and another. They wrestle between aspiration and duty, self-care and care for others. There...

Festive lights during the holiday season brighten up the long cold nights, but the shorter days can dampen our moods and spoil our outlook. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is the common name for a...