You should just let your anger out (or not)

If you are prone to angry feelings, which is the better strategy? Let it out, or hold it in?

The answer is neither, because there’s a far superior option. It’s much more effective than that old favourite “You must releeeease your anger” – usually by pummelling a pillow, taking a boxing class, or sealing your doors and windows and yelling at the top of your lungs.

Welcome to the second post in the Self-help Hooey series that myth-busts some of the more damaging beliefs of popular psychology. Read more…

No, you don’t have to ‘love yourself’ before being in a relationship

Self-help Hooey - love yourself

I’m not against self-help literature. I’m a shrink, so I’m all for it. There are a few fashionable self-help myths, though, that drive me up the wall because they are not only nonsensical, but it’s actually cruel to lead others to believe in them.

So I’m creating a series of Self-help Hooey posts that expose and put right some of this silliness. I hope to make you feel a whole heap better about yourself along the way, and equip you with much better strategies.

We’re going to start with these two doozies… Read more…

Lies and Perception

Settled into a comfy chair in a hotel room in the 1990s, at a time when online forums were new, I was counselling my troubled and pacing friend. He was very upset by some things that had been said about him online.

He was in the public eye just enough to garner gossipy interest from fans and hangers on. They chatted and gossiped as if he were out of earshot, with comments ranging from the flattering, to invasive and disrespectful, to exaggerations and outrageous falsehoods. Read more…