UNPACKING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAYERS OF OBESITY: It seems that much of what we experience these days is a polarisation between the concrete and the symbolic. In politics the world stage is seeing polarising forces of conservatism and liberalism. In social economics there seems to be an ever-growing disparity between the super rich echelon and the...Read More

EMBRACING THE DEPTHS OF SELF: “At first, the encounter with the Self is indeed a defeat for the ego; but with perseverance, Deo Violente, light is born from the darkness. One meets the “Immortal One” who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large – in a word,...Read More

EMBRACING THE UNCONSCIOUS: As the gnostic Gospel of Thomas observes, if we bring forth what is within us, what we bring forth will serve us, and if we do not bring forth what is within us, what we do not bring forth will destroy us. Hollis, James, Ph.D.. Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in...Read More

“A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.” – Carl Jung(1) Mental health is becoming a universal concept, infusing the realms of business, psychology, everyday life and the media. The rise of this ubiquitous concept is in response to global awareness of psychological functioning brought into...Read More

“Trauma is about pain so utter that it swallows up normal developmental processes, leaving an abyss or “basic fault” (Balint, 1979) between self and world outwardly and ego and self inwardly (Edinger, 1972 ). Fortunately the story does not end with this cleavage because the human psyche has enormous self-curative powers. It covers the abyss...Read More

In a world where trauma has become a common experience it is easy to become despondent. A melancholic tinge permeates consciousness, playing a sad fiddlers lament in the background. Traumatic experience, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic, sometimes vicarious, shows its presence in every person’s life. Trauma shapes the person you are, leaving with some… a feeling...Read More

The Archetype of the Human Shadow: The concept of the shadow was derived at by Jung after much influence from both Freud and the neuro-psychiatrists like Janet, who spoke of the phenomenon of double consciousness (Casement, 2003). There is a long history of humans grappling with the concept of the shadow, not in the form...Read More

A look at symbolism: The baobab tree has a strong symbolic link to our psyches and spiritual symbolism. The baobab in African myth has been described as the upside down tree, as well as the tree of life. According to one legend, these beautiful trees were uprooted by God and planted upside down with their...Read More

in the pandemic?: I thought about all the sage advice that is being put out there…mindfulness, setting goals, using this time to re-evaluate your life, and spending quality time with our family, among many other good suggestions out there. This is a time of incredible uncertainty, a time of grappling with parts of ourselves that...Read More

Some days our souls stand up & fight: I see people struggle every day through not just one problem, but a myriad of conflicted confluence of emotions, thoughts and beliefs. They walk into my practice desperate to understand their psyches, desperate to find ‘the answer’; thereby ending all suffering in one fell swoop. And here...Read More