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The Darkest Season of the Year: Notes on Difficult Family Gatherings

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Mental Health, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Reflection /

 It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so goes the carol.  But is it really?  December days are dreary and dark.  Rain presses down, and the chill of winter seeps into our bones.  It’s hard to rise from bed.  The holidays brim with stress: children’s activities and social occasions every week.  The shopping spree unleashes madness in the malls, leaving consumers […]

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The Misuses of Mindfulness

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Mental Health, Reflection /

Mindfulness has enjoyed a stellar career in the last 30 years.  Rooted in Buddhist meditation, mindfulness is now widely practiced in schools, hospitals, companies, and therapy offices across North America.  This blooming popularity stems from its reputation as a portal to inner stillness, a balm that soothes the stress of modern life.  Scientists have gathered compelling evidence that

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Living a Beautiful Life: Habits for Mental Health

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Mental Health, Philosophy, Reflection, Spirituality /

People come to counselling because they are hurting. Something has gone awry. A relationship ends, a career stalls, health declines. Clients come in search of healing and repair in the throes of adversity. Counselling therapy can be helpful as we navigate the difficult passages of life. However, if therapy is only for times when things

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Is Counselling Therapy a Form of Paid Friendship?

Leave a Comment / Culture, Mental Health, Reflection /

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

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The Logic of Burn-Out: Why We Tolerate the Intolerable

Leave a Comment / Culture, Mental Health, Reflection /

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

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I Love Coffee, and By That Very Fact, The World

Leave a Comment / Contemplation, Culture, Poetry, Reflection, Spirituality /

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

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“I know. . . but. . .”: Notes for Those Who Wrestle with Themselves.

Leave a Comment / Mental Health, Reflection /

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 are teenagers who struggle to assert independence against the authority of their parents, lovers who cleave to each other despite the call of

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DAVID CHANG COUNSELLING

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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