Your fitness tracker reminds you to walk away from your computer every hour to get needed movement – and then counts how many steps you do all day. In conjunction with the app on your phone, it tells you how well you’ve slept – or not, and whether you’ve gotten your heart rate up enough on your daily run. Other apps on your computer remind you when it’s time for meetings, help you focus to meet de... »
In the first article of this series we proposed the radical idea (to some) that a new paradigm for mental health helping is emerging: one in which we cannot ignore the burgeoning research showing that the gut affects our psychological health as much as psychological health influences our physical (gut) health. »
If you’ve been at the game of counselling for a while, you know the ropes – and the rules. The client comes and you listen to their presenting issues; often those are anxiety and/or depression or unbearable angst at some aspect of life. You work out if it is within your sphere of competence to work with the person, and outline a treatment plan – or at least a suggestion of a modality that would wo... »
Dr Matthew Bambling (2014) approaches the question of why (how?) nutrition might affect our brains by noting that nutrients serve numerous functions, such as energy metabolism, maintenance of healthy mood, protection and growth of neural structures, and the up- or down-regulation of genes involved in healthy brain metabolism. Most importantly, however, nutrients are involved with neurotransmitters... »
Many people have suspected for a long time that we human beings are designed to be able to experience things happening for another person: in good times or in bad. So we see a stranger clumsily bump their head on a low-hanging branch at the park, and we flinch, too. We hear that a friend has gotten some good news about a medical diagnosis, and we are genuinely happier. Yet although we have suspect... »
The research in neuroscience is highly supportive of counselling’s emphasis on deep listening, empathic understanding, strength building, and wellness (Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, & Quirk, 2011). Counselling is shown to change the organisation of the brain: a learning process as the brain responds to stimuli and creates neural pathways to accommodate new information (Ivey, 2009). “Information” includes... »
The research in neuroscience is highly supportive of counselling’s emphasis on deep listening, empathic understanding, strength building, and wellness (Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, & Quirk, 2011). Counselling is shown to change the organisation of the brain: a learning process as the brain responds to stimuli and creates neural pathways to accommodate new information (Ivey, 2009). “Information” includes... »
When we look at a face, it is not just a special object amongst objects. The face is uniquely perceived and interpreted. The brain has even evolved a dedicated area in the neural landscape, the fusiform face area or FFA (Kanwisher et al, 1997), to specialise in facial recognition. This is part of a complex visual system that can determine a surprising number of things about another person. The ... »
Our work is not an enviable task. People come with difficulties that range from social dysfunction to emotional disturbance. We do our best to help people to find direction and understanding, but it is not uncommon to see the same people again some time in the future. There is a disappointing amount of recurrence of disturbance and difficulty. Making therapy stick is not an easy task. »
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