From Where I Sit

Sam (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) was hooked on sex, he loved how sex made him feel. He said he was addicted to sex, and given that he didn’t have a regular partner he was hooked on sex with casual partners.  However upon talking with Sam it soon became clear that while he thought his addiction to sex was a problem, in fact it was actually a symptom of another underlying problem.

While Sam enjoyed having sex, what he enjoyed more, what he found more valuable to him was the feeling that came from the knowledge that someone had found him desirable enough to want to have sex with him.  For Sam sex was a surrogate for self-esteem. [Read more →]

This is another post in a series on overcoming procrastination. Like the others it will focus on one technique or aspect of the larger project on overcoming procrastination. This post will deal with the motivation behind the things we want to achieve or get done. It will look at the reasons why we want to do something that is blocked by procrastination. It will help you check whether the language of your thinking is playing into the hands of procrastination, and if so will help you change your thoughts into more productive language. [Read more →]

This is the third post in a series on overcoming procrastination. The first dealt with not listening to the thought “I can’t be bothered”, the second post tackled tasks by getting started with just five minutes of activity, while this post deals with the “will I – won’t I” trap.

Despite popular beliefs, procrastination is not about laziness, although people who suffer from procrastination will often report themselves to be lazy. Laziness is about not wanting to do things, procrastination is about desire to do things but facing blockages and obstacles on the way to getting things done. Procrastination is the product of thought patterns that work against getting things done. This article will address one particular thought pattern that causes blocks and suggest how to overcome the block. [Read more →]

Pete (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) came to counselling hoping to understand why the relationships he formed never lasted very long. He would meet someone he found attractive; embark on a relationship only to find that it would end after a few months. This had happened often enough for him to consider it a worrying pattern. He was at a loss to understand what was going wrong. He had a healthy circle of friends so he assumed he was not suffering any serious personality flaws that would drive partners away. He was able to attract initial interest so he figured he must be reasonably good looking, but inevitably things broke down and he was back where he started and none the wiser.

In talking with Pete about what being in a relationship meant to him, he spoke about how different life would look and feel as a partnered man. He saw his whole identity change as a result of being partnered. In some ways Pete saw being partnered as evidence that he was a worthwhile, valuable, desirable person. If someone wanted to be with him in a relationship then he must be OK as a person. Pete was investing an enormous amount of personal identity in his status as a partnered person. He wasn’t just considering life to be enhanced if he were partnered, he was imagining being partnered made him a more valuable person! He was using relationships to feel better about himself. He needed a relationship to convince himself that he was OK as a person. Was this the reason Pete’s relationships were short-lived? [Read more →]

Like many people, Tina  (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) was facing a task that was proving so overwhelming and so daunting that she just couldn’t face it. Each time she remembered the task she broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about the enormity of it. This was enough to push it out of her thoughts, and there it stayed not getting done and not getting any smaller. For Tina the task was three years of unfilled tax returns, but for other people it’s any task that feels so big they don’t know where to start.

As in Tina’s case, these situations can become compound problems, the longer they go on the harder it is to tackle and resolve. In other words Tina originally missed filing a tax return in the first year because it was too daunting, however when it came to the following year she was faced with two year’s worth of paperwork which was even more daunting, and this only became worse when the third year rolled around. Tina knew she had to get this task done, but what she needed even more were the strategies to make it possible. [Read more →]

Graham (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) had been profoundly affected since his partner of nine months suddenly announced that the relationship was over and he was leaving. It had been two months now, and it wasn’t just that Graham missed his partner, he was suffering from the other effects that people suffer when a partner suddenly ‘jumps ship’ and takes off.

Graham was struggling to understand why his partner had without discussion and without any prior warning signs, decided that he no longer wanted to be in the relationship and left. Above and beyond the pain of losing a relationship, it was the sudden and unexpected nature of the decision that was producing the lasting disquiet in Graham’s life. [Read more →]

Beth (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) was having a hard time keeping on top of marking the assignments her students had handed in. The papers had been transferred between her desk at school to her desk at home over and over but Beth was not getting around to sitting at her desk and marking the assignments. This was symptomatic of Beth’s life, things kept getting put off until the very last possible moment when it was just not possible to delay any further. This was driving Beth to distraction. She was sick of living like this, always leaving things to the last moment, always waiting until the pressure built up and pushed her through the paralysing procrastination.

Beth hadn’t always suffered under the burden of procrastination, and she wanted her life back the way it was before. This post will detail one small part of the techniques Beth used to push through procrastination and get her energy, motivation and momentum back. Beth called it the “five minute technique”. [Read more →]

David (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) came to counselling looking for ways to get through the dark periods of depression that had recently become a feature of his life. David wasn’t entirely sure why the blight of depression had suddenly descended on his life, but it was having a severe impact on his ability to function let alone his ability to derive joy from life.

Over the last four months the pattern of depression in David’s life was such that it was not uniformly black. Some days were better, brighter and lighter than others. He would have periods of a few days in a row where he felt like depression wasn’t touching his life so heavily, before it descended on him again and swamped his life all over again. At other periods it was day after day of unrelenting darkness. David still had hope of getting through and reclaiming his life from depression, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Over the course of David’s tussle with depression there were several strategies he used, including medication, however this post will look specifically at one he found quite useful. [Read more →]

Procrastination had been getting the better of Frank (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) for many months, well years actually. He hadn’t been happy about the way procrastination had taken over his life, but he’d been feeling pretty powerless to regain control. Procrastination made it difficult for Frank to do small things like tidy up his flat, do a load of washing, shop for food, or cook a meal, but it also made it difficult to call friends to go out for dinner, or to look for a more satisfying job, or think about getting the much needed repairs on the car. It touched pretty much all areas of his life.

Frank was very unhappy about the state of affairs and he’d made some efforts to push through procrastination but wasn’t getting anywhere fast. In a perverse twist each time Frank tried to tackle the problem of procrastination, he was struck down by procrastination, robbing him of the energy and motivation needed to overcome the problem. Even when he thought counselling might help it had taken months to get around to making the phone call to book an appointment. So here we were trying to figure out how procrastination had taken hold of Frank’s life and put a stranglehold on him, and how it had convinced him that he “couldn’t be bothered” [Read more →]

Jason (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) faced a number of issues in his life but the one that was most debilitating was indecision. Whenever Jason faced a decision that he considered significant, he froze, unable and apparently unwilling to commit to a course of action. This meant that Jason was stuck in an unfulfilling job, living in accommodation that didn’t particularly suit him, stuck in a relationship he didn’t really enjoy.

The picture of Jason’s life was the picture of things that had happened to him. There was precious little in Jason’s life that he made happen. Jason was a passive passenger in his own life. The problem was that every time Jason considered a decision for his own life, he came up against the idea that he might make a bad decision. This worry about making a bad decision was made particularly strong (and immobilising) because the doubt in Jason’s mind reminded him of a multitude of ‘bad’ decisions from the past. [Read more →]