Author: elzanfrank
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Pathways to Depression & Why Images are Necessary for Healing
In the following days I will write about Psychological factors that are pathways towards depression, as well as consequences of them. Finally I write why I believe that using only words in therapy is not sufficient for healing. The Absence of Adoration A baby is born, and there you have it – the expectation of…
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Depression I. Uncomfortable facts:
A. Medication & Genetics I have procrastinated writing about depression. It is such a monumental field: How do I cover this vast field in a few short essays? Here is a short piece about the most often heard untruth as well as the most honest route to ‘cure’. The most frequently overheard misunderstanding: 1. It…
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Thriving
I send out a whatsapp: “I am doing a small informal survey: Would you mind giving me 2 examples as a child when you felt like “thriving”. Mine, for example are, doing my homework on my own, and riding my bike from athletics back home.” I have some ideas about thriving, but like to keep…
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Thriving vs. Surviving
It is a common human experience this; surviving rather than thriving. Many of us live like that: We are grateful for small islands of thriving amidst an ocean of surviving. Living with satisfaction is an encompassing topic that covers a range of possibilities from “The Power of Positive Thinking” to “Man’s search for Meaning”, as…
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How Can I Interpret My Own Dreams?
Five guidelines that are generally applicable to most of our dreams: Dreams speak in metaphor. This means that the events taking place in a dream should not be interpreted as reality. Instead they offer sideways (and sometimes very obscure) reflections on something else that is happening in our lives and lifetimes. Somewhat like an idiom…
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Do Dreams Play a Part in the Continuation of Maladaptive Human Behaviours?
Why do eighty year olds still feel pain for having been inadequately parented, and this despite having been not-so-good parents themselves? Why does human nature not improve over generations? It seems to me that human nature, unlike science and technology, is repeating itself. This led me to wonder – do dreams play a part in…
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Letter to a Young Woman, Home from a Clinic.
Dear Samantha “First impressions counts”. My first impression as I look through the car window: Steely. Broken. Two oppositional realities. I notice a small internal movement; a sharp intake of breath. And have the immediate thought that I must meet you as an individual. You had arrived, pale and retracted, sitting at the back in…
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How to Respond to a Young Person in your Care once they Return from Rehab or a Clinic:
The precarious balance between caring and confronting. All parents of growing children have to find a balance between discipline and freedom. These are value-based decisions, and a familiar source of conflict between parents. You do want your children to be able to take care of themselves once they grow up, yet you also want them…
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Helicopter Parenting/ Parenting in Stressful Times: Seven Tips on How not to Over-parent.
As I sit down to write on “Helicopter Parenting, I find myself thinking about the labels that we place on parents’ foreheads, about the amount of judging that we do. About the pressure that is placed on parents today to be “successful’. It is not only students who are pressurised by the demands placed upon…
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Sharing Secrets from Therapy: When a Parent Comes for a First Interview, what is that I am Looking for?
Three probing questions reveal parental attitudes that psychologists believe influence problems. I receive a phone call from a parent. S/he is nervous, apprehensive. A parent who phones about a problem with a child normally feels a little embarrassed, maybe the anticipation of being shamed: How come their child has this problem and all other children…
Elzan Frank 