What Does Trauma Look Like? When most people think of ‘trauma’, they picture a severe or life-threatening situation such as a natural disaster, serious accident, being the victim of a crime, or experiencing abuse. While these incidents often cause traumatic responses, other life events like a chronic illness, being a caregiver to a dying loved one, witnessing pain inflicted on others, being exposed to persistent uncertainty, or fear for personal safety can also be experienced as traumas. These instances tend to be experienced as traumatic when they pose restrictions or threats to one’s physical or emotional integrity, and when we respond with fear or helplessness. How Does Trauma Affect Us? The psychological impact of experiencing a traumatic event has been… read more →

Difficulty communicating is one of the most common reasons couples seek therapy. All relationships experience conflict, but how you and your partner fight can have a significant impact on the quality of your relationship. Effective communication can move couples from familiar patterns of arguing, to a place of being heard and feeling understood. Improving communication can also create a healthy foundation from which to navigate difficult situations or work on fixing deeper issues. To improve communication in your relationship, try the following: 1. Listen to your partner During an argument, it can be easy to take the familiar position of trying to convince your partner why you are right, and they are wrong. This may also include interrupting, talking over… read more →

Cannabis: Paranoia, Hype & Public Perception Then and Now Until October of 2018, if you wanted cannabis, you had to know a guy, someone willing to risk serious jail time. Since October, many ‘weed dealers’ have either left the business or they went legit. They might wear an NSLC cap and apron, offering a printed receipt upon purchase. Cannabis is just another consumer product: packaged, marketed and branded for public consumption.     As cannabis sheds its taboo reputation as a street drug, social norms have yet to adjust. Is it, like alcohol, something for dinner parties, bars, and backyard BBQs?  Or does it function more like a coffee? The answer, of course, is that it’s not quite either. Cannabis has… read more →

A while back, I read an online essay by David B. Feldman, titled: “Is Mental Illness Real?” The subtitle reads: “Some psychologists argue calling emotional difficulties ‘illnesses’ is nonsense.” I have been thinking a lot about the concept of mental illness and wanted to engage this piece, as a way into debates about the meaning of mental illness and disorder. My primary focus here is the issue of mental health diagnosis: what does it really tell us? I am also choosing to focus on the more common mental illnesses – roughly, anxiety and depression – as I believe there are important differences between these, and other disorders that are perhaps more biologically defined (e.g. neurocognitive disorders, Schizophrenia, etc.). Diagnosis: Causal… read more →

What a strange thing to do I remember as a young kid seeing cross-legged monks in meditation on the pages of National Geographic, fascinated by the strangeness of it. I couldn’t compare it to anything in my life. It seemed peculiar because of the robes, painted temples and the shaved heads, but it was most mysterious because meditation is an invisible practice of some sort, a deliberate task done in the secret realm of the mind while the body sits waiting. I would often wonder about what sort of existence it must be, within the heads of those monks.  Who could have guessed that years later meditation would be everywhere around us. It’s recommended by doctors, governments, the tech sector,… read more →

Sex can be hard to talk about. We seem to live in a paradoxical society where sexual imagery and connotation is ever-present and pervasive, and yet for many of us there is also a sense of discomfort, embarrassment, and even shame around this topic. This can start from an early age due to experiences growing up (for example, if sex was treated as a taboo topic), or develop later in life, once we start engaging in sexual interactions. Either way, sex can be an uncomfortable topic for couples at the best of times, and it can be particularly difficult when things aren’t going well. Many, if not most, of the couples that I see have some issue with their sex… read more →

After an exhausting pregnancy and a challenging delivery, you have finally returned home with your baby. You expect the weeks and months that follow to be the happiest time of your life but instead you find yourself feeling quickly overwhelmed and frustrated. One minute everything seems fine, and the next you feel a wave of sadness and are unable to stop crying. You hold your baby, expecting to feel an instant bond but instead you are filled with anger and resentment, or maybe even nothing at all.  You start feeling guilty because this isn’t what you expected motherhood to look like, and you begin to question whether you are even cut out to be a mother. Looking online only serves… read more →

Anger is an emotion that’s experienced universally, and can vary in degree of intensity from frustration to rage. Definitions of anger differ slightly between sources; “a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism” (Merriam-Webster), or “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility” (English Oxford Living Dictionaries). While anger is a normal part of the human experience, for some people it can become problematic. The most obvious problem is anger that leads to aggressive or violent behavior.  Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help reduce the likelihood of aggressive or violent behavior as a result of anger (Henwood, Chou & Browne, 2015).  Self-directed CBT resources are widely available in the form of on-line resources, books, and workbooks. CBT interventions can… read more →

It’s that time of year again, when themes of death, evil and horror briefly seep into mainstream culture to play upon our excited imaginations. Yes, Halloween is upon us. Ghosts and zombies are everywhere as people are out buying costumes and decorating their homes and workplaces in preparation for the annual haunting event. The fact that many people love to scare others and be scared is not new. For ages, people have been trying to find ways to frighten others by jumping out from behind doors, using surprise stunts and gimmicks, wearing creepy make-up, and writing haunting messages on mirrors in order to stir up fright. The popularity of horror movies, video games, books and television shows is a testament… read more →

This is a two-part video series on suicide. The first video outlines some of the common misconceptions or areas of confusion, such as the conception of suicide as an event caused by a biologized depression, as opposed to a deeply personal act. I then suggest two very general (though noninclusive) pathways to suicidal contemplation: as an escape from some intractable emotional or psychological pain/suffering, and/or, as a response to a perceived lack of meaning in one’s life. The second video explores how the above understanding might guide intervention and/or prevention, including taking a hard look at the role played by attitudes and assumptions within our cultures and communities. I give some of my own opinions on what might be wrong… read more →