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 raises questions about the role of therapists in relation to friendship. What we seek in friendships – understanding, sympathy, solidarity – is
Is Counselling Therapy a Form of Paid Friendship? Read More »
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 spirits, but they cannot shirk their tasks. “My children need me,” they might say. “The team will cease to function without me.” Thus, they are caught in
The Logic of Burn-Out: Why We Tolerate the Intolerable Read More »
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 love for the world? Perhaps Merton suggests a fundamental relationship between the mundane and the sublime, the miniscule and the cosmical. Ask a brewer
I Love Coffee, and By That Very Fact, The World Read More »
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; others are worn thin caring for aging parents. Responsibilities multiply, but the hours remain few. Despite a profusion of duties, they are weighed down by expectations that
Simplicity: Sanity in Mad Times Read More »
On my way to work one morning in late April, I noticed that my surroundings were tinged in amber. The sky was a chalky gray and the sunlight was diffuse and faint, a hue that reminded me of previous summers when smoke blotted out the sun and shrouded Vancouver, where I have lived for over
The End of Summer: How the Climate Crisis Upends the Cheery Season Read More »
The premise of classic utilitarian philosophy rests on the fundamental status of pleasure and pain, each denoted as the countervailing opposites of experience. Pain is inherently bad and pleasure inherently good; the course of moral conduct aims to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the greatest number of sentient subjects. Modern proponents of act utilitarianism
The Proximity of Pain: The Role of Pleasure in Suffering Read More »
Is Critical Mindedness Good for Mental Health? Being a curmudgeon is more than a matter of disposition: it is a practiced art. Every social gathering bound by pleasantries and blandishments can do with a spicy dose of disruption. Is this the menacing habit of self-appointed contrarians, who cannot feel their own weight and
Is Critical-Mindedness Good for Mental Health? Read More »
David Chang Counselling is gratefully located on the territories of the the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. David supports and celebrates diversity in race, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, and neurological composition.
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