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This is a response to a provocative post in the Facebook Men’s Group titled Depression Isn’t Real. I’ve experienced depression, and took a deep dive into the root cause to work out what to do about it in my own life. I’ve also talked to a lot of other people who experience it, so here’s my take: I disagree that depression isn’t real, but I do think the way modern society and our health care…

Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy Really The Best Treatment For Panic Attacks? #MentalHealth @nadiya_official

I recently came across the most excellent 2019 BBC documentary Nadiya: Anxiety and Me offering profound insights regarding conventional treatment of anxiety and panic disorders. It follows the brave journey of UK celebrity chef and panic attack sufferer Nadiya Hussain as she seeks mental health treatment for her chronic anxiety for the first time, on camera.Continue reading

Confidence Coach reacts to Nadiya: Anxiety and Me #mentalhealth @nadiya_official #panicdisorder #therapy #cbt

As someone who has experienced a truckload of anxiety myself, I was very interested to come across the recent 2019 BBC documentary Nadiya: Anxiety and Me. In this video, I watch the documentary and capture my reaction to Nadiya Hussain‘s experience seeking treatment for her panic attacks; and I bet it’s not what the producers were expecting…Continue reading

How The Evolution of The Music Industry, Recording & Media Technology Caused Social Anxiety

Introduction Reebee Garofalo argues that making money from music and exploiting its related culture is the purpose of business in the music industry[1]. This summary highlights changes in the five irrevocably intertwined topic areas he explores: cultural development, technological advancement, professional organization, political struggle and economic power.Continue reading

The Healing Power Of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development, and Clinical Practice by Daniel J. Seigel, Marion Solomon, Diana Fosha et al

This fantastic book on affective and interpersonal neuroscience reads like a who’s who from many of the leaders in the field on the cutting edge of neuroscience-based psychotherapy. Big-name contributors include Jaak Panksepp (Affective Neuroscience), Stephen Porges (The Polyvagal Theory), Daniel Siegel (Interpersonal Neurobiology), Pat Ogden (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy), Diana Fosha (Accelerated…

How To Learn Powerful Communication and Leadership Skills

Our ability to communicate authentically with other people is one of the most important life skills that we can possess. We often spend a great deal of our education learning how to analyse, think, solve problems, and understand how things work; but tend to downplay the importance of subjects that teach us how to communicate. The ability to communicate, inspire and influence other people is also…

How To Overcome Distrust Of Authority

Individualist western cultures traditionally tend to champion our rights as individuals over our responsibility to others in the community. Things are kept in balance by the legal system which dispenses justice by limiting the freedom of those who choose to consistently break the law, and the capitalist economy which rewards us for providing value to other people who we might not even know or…

Using Music In Therapy To Help Heal Attachment Trauma

Introduction

In the article “The Effect of Integrating Music Listening With an Attachment- And Affective-Focused Short-Term Psychotherapy in an Individual With Relational Trauma: The Case of ‘James.’”[1], G. Paul Blimling describes a hybridized case study using music chosen by a client nicknamed “James” within psychotherapy to help them heal their early life attachment trauma. By facilitating…

Treating Music Performance Anxiety by Healing Attachment Trauma

Introduction

Kenny et al (2014) present a case study of a typical professional musician suffering from music performance anxiety: a 55-year-old senior strings player in a leading Australian orchestra, named Kurt[1]. During musical performances he typically reported overwhelming anxiety, distracting physical sensations and thoughts, inability to control his arms, and striated muscle tension. This…

How I Discovered Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

I first came across Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC) because I wasn’t getting my needs met in relationships with other people, and recognised that the communication skills I had inherited from my parents were terrible. I also wanted a way of communicating that would help me heal some of the pain from my past without forever going to therapy, and reduce the stress I felt around…

It looks like we’ve all got about 6 months to fill in social isolation. How you are going to spend the time? Are you going to use it productively, or waste it bingeing on NetFlix until you can’t see any more?

It’s times like these when thinking creatively is particularly important. And since I’m here to do your thinking for you, here are ten positive things to do during the COVID19 lockdown that…

The term Attachment Trauma describes the emotional wound created by growing up with one or more emotionally unavailable parents. It is extremely common, poorly understood, and can profoundly impact our emotional wellbeing, mental health and ability to create and maintain healthy emotionally connected relationships in adulthood.

In normal development, infants develop a sense of safety through a…

How I Released My Fear of Rejection and Abandonment

One of the consequences of being a sensitive child growing up with emotionally unavailable parents was that I didn’t feel loved and accepted for who I was. I developed a strong fear of rejection and abandonment which lasted long into adulthood. It would most often come up in conversations with women, especially if I got the sense that they didn’t like me or didn’t seem to want to talk to me.

For…

Why Am I So Anxious All The Time?

Journaling is a great way to release unexpressed emotions that can otherwise accumulate and make us feel anxious. Here is an example of some free-flow journaling that I did last year at a time when I was feeling particularly anxious. It helped me identify and release how I was feeling, so writing it felt very cathartic.

I am so anxious sometimes that it’s literally hard to breathe. Why, why, why,…

Hey guys. I just want to share where I’m at today. I don’t really want advice because I don’t want to be told that I’m getting shit wrong and fucking up my life; I just want to vent without being invalidated. The executive summary is that I’m finding life rather challenging and joyless at the moment. I’ll skip to the big-ticket items:

My dad is dying. He’s 87 and got cancer 3 years ago. The 18…