Author: William Bishop, LPC, LMFT, AAMFT Approved Supervisor
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'narrative means to theraputic ends' – book summary and review
Quick summary: Below is a book review for ‘Narrative means to therapeutic ends’ written by Michael White and David Epston. I use this opportunity to highlight the major themes of Narrative therapy in general. This is a great book!
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Rogerian (or Person Centered) therapy summary
Rogers maintains that if a therapist offers a setting in which he/she is genuine, empathetic and can offer unconditional positive regard to the client, then the client will naturally grow into an effective, affectionate, empathetic, accepting, self-aware, secure and happy person.
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Combined Wellness intervention
Quick summary: this is a template for a psychotherapy/nutrition combined service which mainly looks at the psychotherapy intervention. A psychotherapist and a nutritionist offer a combined service to assist a client’s mind, body and spirit to work together in achieving optimal health.
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Gestalts vs. Math and deductive reasoning
Does Gestalt theory (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) display one of the limitations of math in general? In other words does gestalt theory show that not all reality can be quantified with mathematical equations? As far as I can see (and I am far from an expert) math is based…
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Is it ‘cheesy’ to be positive?
I have been noticing lately in both professional and personal settings that there seems to be a somewhat consistent belief in the US culture that being positive is cheesy, self-righteous, or otherwise a negative process (ironic). Whether you are a modernist or a postmodernist (or something else) most people agree that our thoughts and beliefs…
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Fear of Snakes is from the fear of snakes
Quick summary: A fear of snakes is one of the most common fears held by humans… why? Many would answer, “they are poisonous and can kill you,” but many things kill significantly more humans than snakes (especially in the US). I am going to offer a hypothesis that I have been thinking about. The fear…
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Love with the mind, the body and the spirit
Quick summary: We experience love with the mind the body and the spirit… to maximize the love in your relationship you can focus on all three…
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Ignorance is Bliss?
Quick summary – Applying a ‘lack of knowledge or beliefs’ onto your perceptions so as to intentionally use ‘ignorance’ as a means of attaining ‘bliss’. ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ is a very common saying that is interpreted many different ways. I intend to offer one explanation as to why ‘ignorance’ can lead to bliss… I will…
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Anti-dogmatic types have a dogma themselves
Quick summary: for this post I am reporting on the following study – Bartlett. j. psychological underpinnings of philosophy. metaphilosophy. vol. 20 1989 – As I consider myself somewhat of a philosopher I am using this post for humor… the joke is essentially on me. the study examins the personality traits which are suggested to…
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Postmodernism – making an ‘out there’ philosophy useful
Quick summary – By allowing yourself to investigate how your relationships, actions and emotions are governed by your perceptions you may find that by offering yourself a freedom of perception you can change the way in which you are impacted by your reality. – By using open-mindedness and an adaptability in relation to your beliefs…
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Chaos is the result of resisting what is
Quick summary: what is, is simply what is until we try and capture what is with structure… as we move forward and find no structure to apply to what is then we resist our acceptance of this dilemma and by doing so create the chaos itself… in other words chaos does not exist without resistance……
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Selfishness is also Selfless
Quick summary: If you allow yourself selfishness you can increase the effectiveness of your selfless intentions. There are many different types of people and people are impacted by the drives of selflessness and selfishness in differing ways and by differing degrees. The message here is most suited for the people who act with intended selflessness…
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Motivation v.s. Dedication … Can dedication be created?
Quick summary: My coach at Easton Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Boulder Colorado chose to talk about the difference between motivation and dedication to illustrate an important point that he arrived at while contemplating the journey in becoming a black belt. I believe he had two intentions – one was to inspire and the other was…
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Love is something we experience with our emotions
This sounds very obvious – what is less understood is that many people impact their ability to love by using logic and other defenses to guard themselves from the suffering that love can bring. As a couples therapist I can suggest that when you guard yourself from being emotionally impacted from your partner, you often…
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Labels, identification, and judgments from an existential view
Quick summary: Sometimes the masses seem to all engage in a consistent behavior … and when such an occurrence happens it is easier perhaps to take the phenomenon for granted so as to not put all too much thought into what motivates such a seemingly universal behavior. Most humans pass judgment, assign rigid labels, and…
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Forgiveness is the Heart of Justice
Quick Summary: Forgiveness is the heart of justice… by this I mean to say that the ‘justice’ we seek can often be deconstructed into meaning simply vengeance. There is no justice is vengeance as the suffering which we seek justice for actually tends to grow with acts of vengeance (these acts which perpetuate suffering are…
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Fear
“Fear is a choice… it tempts you to follow… what will you choose to do… to believe…to feel?” Quick summary: So I was contemplating feelings of discomfort that I was holding some time ago and I started to think about this article that I had just read concerning a scientific discussion about our universe and…
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Forgiveness
“As I forgive I become free… I learn to accept… I gain purpose as forgiveness opens the door for me to help a wider range of people… and I gain love… unconditionally.”
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Chaos, structure, rigidity, compassion and acceptance
Quick summary: The path to “enlightenment” is indeed a bit confusing and as I was contemplating my own journey I came to an interesting point of discovery. I have not reached enlightenment and therefore do not know exactly what it is … perhaps until you reach the state, the experience of enlightenment in mostly inconceivable;…