Here at Counselling Connections this week we were sitting down to our weekly meeting when somebody raised a question that is on a lot of people’s minds at this time of year. The question is whether Santa exists. Well, we have some fairly clever people here who have been to college and know a little about important things like psychology and philosophy. These are people who are used to seeking answers to the big questions in life. So we set aside the other items on our agenda and talked for a while about Santa Claus and whether or not he really does exist.

A first piece of evidence is the presence of Santa in almost every shopping mall. But I guess we all know from an early age that these are really Santa’s helpers because the man himself can’t be in all these different places at the same time. There seems to be two main problems to be addressed when looking into this. Firstly, how does Santa exist? And secondly, how does he manage to get all those presents delivered all over the world in just one night? The answer seems to be linked to these questions because it is in trying to figure out where the presents come from that we get some clues as to where he might be.

It seems that belief plays an important part in this conundrum. The World, it seems, is divided into two kinds of people; those who believe in Santa and those who don’t. But we figure that if you put a grown up who doesn’t believe in Santa in charge of a child who does then on Christmas Eve night Santa would bring a gift to that child. So does that prove that Santa exists? Because there is something in grown ups, even those who may not believe any more, that wishes to keep the magic alive for little ones who do believe. It’s about giving. It is about giving a gift and about giving proof to the belief in this magical person who inspires so many to keep on giving.

Some grown ups have memories of magical Christmases when they were children. They remember waking early, excitedly rushing to the bottom of the stairs and heading for the tree to find out what presents Santa has left. People like this try to make sure that their own children and nieces and nephews have lovely memories of Christmas too. Some grown ups don’t have very good memories of childhood Christmases for various reasons. Sometimes this has to do with lack of money or maybe because of illness or alcohol. When mothers and fathers fall out of love and live in different houses this can be difficult for children too. Grown ups will generally try to make Christmas as happy as possible for children.

Whether or not you believe in Santa it seems that he can still exercise a strong influence. This manifests itself in trying to make Christmas a magical time for children, of all ages. How Santa exists still remains somewhat of a mystery. He seems to exist quite strongly in the imagination of quite a number of people; both children and grown ups alike. The evidence which is hard to ignore is all those gifts. Where do they come from? They seem to be proof that Santa really does exist at some level. That is the conclusion that we came to anyway. We are in no doubt that Santa really does exist. We believe in him.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about how bereavement and loss surface at this time of year. One of the things that struck us in talking about it is the wide variety of different kinds of loss and how these are experienced. There is the loss of a baby either postnatally, by miscarriage or stillbirth. Then there is death brought about by lifestyle factors such as alcoholism, obesity, smoking or other addiction. Death by suicide can also bring its own particular difficulties for those left behind and struggling to come to terms with it. All of these losses can be felt particularly poignantly at this time of year. We remember times past spent with our loved one and how we celebrated Christmas with them.

How we mourn a loss is a very personal thing. Often the course of mourning follows a similar path to that of our relationship with the person whom we have lost. If for example it was a fractious relationship characterised by falling out and making up we may experience the process of mourning as a very stop start affair. We may feel we are coming to terms with our loss only to find an old anger resurfacing again. And the appearance of feelings of anger as part of mourning can be a real source of difficulty. Anger is said to be a natural part of the mourning process but if for whatever reason we feel we can’t express it we may get a bit stuck and prolong the mourning period.

An example of anger becoming difficult to express can be in death which is caused by lifestyle choices. We may feel abandoned by a loved one who has died as a result of alcoholism for example. The question of the part the deceased played in their own death may be very difficult for us to face. It may be that we cannot freely admit to feeling angry at the choices they made. This can be the case with addictions or illnesses caused by complications of obesity like diabetes, heart attack or stroke. Our grief is added to if we rue that our loved one did not take better care of themselves.

Death by suicide can leave a similar legacy. It can leave a number of unanswered questions. Sometimes we hear of people deliberately falling out with loved ones before taking their own lives. The reasons for this are complicated but in part it may be because they feel it will make their loss easier to bear. This is not true of course and can serve to make the process of mourning all the more difficult. It also raises so many ‘what if’ questions that it is difficult to try to make some sort of sense of it all as part of coming to terms with it. Friends and work colleagues can also find it difficult to know what to say and this can lead to increased feelings of isolation or shame.

Christmas is a time for family and in particular for children. It feels wrong to us that a child dies before its parents. It feels like the natural order of things is turned on its head. Sometimes people say to us that they never fully get over the death of a child. Maybe that is the case with all loss. Perhaps we never do fully get over it but only come to terms with it to the extent that the strength of feeling eases and the loss gradually becomes more bearable. Loss of a baby is particularly strongly felt at this time as we imagine of they had lived what way they would be responding to and enjoying Christmas. This is probably a loss that a mother feels in her heart like no other. This is no less true for a loss by miscarriage where the mother may have bonded with her baby and where this loss might feel less real for others.

There is no prescribed path for dealing with bereavement. It is experienced as such a personal thing and it depends on the nature of our relationship with the one we have lost. It is good to talk about it; if we can. Sometimes this is with a friend or family member; or sometimes with a counsellor. There are times too when it is good to have some quiet time alone to reflect and remember and maybe even shed a few tears. Grieving is a natural process as we acknowledge and try to come to terms with the loss. Different family members will deal with a loss in different ways and to a different timescale. With patience and understanding we hope that the loss becomes less difficult to bear and that our loved one can be talked about and remembered as life following a death gradually returns to some sort of normal. We get along with living knowing we have been influenced in one way or another by the person who is now gone.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk. 15^th December 2011.

Christmas can be a very stressful affair. Here at Counselling Connections we try to keep our heads and not get lost in the hysteria. December the 8^th was the traditional shopping day for many, as people travelled to the capital in search of a festive atmosphere and presents for loved ones. And as we sat down to our weekly meeting someone made an off the cuff remark which got us all thinking. The talk was of all the work we put into preparing for Christmas at home. There are presents to buy, cards to send, food to be bought and prepared. There are Santa letters to be thought about, written and sent. There’s an amount of cleaning to be done before the decorations go up, not to mention the stress of where one will have Christmas dinner or who to invite. Then someone said ‘I won’t even get to sit down to the Christmas dinner; I feel like Christmas is devouring me’. That got us thinking.

Christmas can be an incredibly stressful time and yet we can get so caught up in it that we do little to prepare for it on an emotional level. All around us marketing messages spread the notion of family togetherness and reconciliation with images of families coming home for Christmas and having a meal around a beautifully laid out table. Wonderful idyllic scenes are conjured up with everyone smiling and snow falling gently outside. We can get caught up in this ideal and may try to aspire to this perfect Christmas. There is pressure to create the Christmas of our dreams and we will almost inevitably be disappointed when it doesn’t work out the way we expected it to. Tuning into how we feel in the run up to Christmas can help us manage our expectations around it. Accepting where we are at emotionally, provides a good basis for getting through.

Our experience of Christmases past will have an effect on us emotionally over this Christmas period. Memories, good and bad will influence how we feel at this time. In order to emotionally prepare, we have to be honest and real with ourselves. This means feeling whatever way we feel and being comfortable with that. It also means removing the pressure in so far as you can and refraining from placing too many demands on yourself. Making emotionally costly efforts to reconcile difficulties in relationships at this time is not always helpful as working through these issues is a process that can’t be rushed. Trying to have everything okay for Christmas day may mean differences don’t really get sorted but rather are swept under the carpet only to resurrect in the future. And families report huge stress in being cooped up together over the holiday period.

Those who have lost a loved one may feel their absence more over the Christmas season. This is particularly the case if the grief is still raw due to a recent bereavement or if it is the type that resurfaces because we have not yet come to terms with the loss. There isn’t a right or wrong way to feel, it is a personal experience. Nor is there a pre determined length of time that dealing with loss should take. Being aware of what is going on for you can help one to feel more grounded and therefore more able to deal with difficult situations.

Reflecting on these matters at this time helped us hereto put the stress of the preparations into perspective. It’s good to have friends and family around us when we can. And it is sad to think of those who we miss. How the Christmas season is spent has become prescriptive and while traditions can be comforting, it may be time to change the script so that it becomes a time for rest and repair, for resourcing oneself in order to face the challenges of the New Year. It is easier said than done and we hope that managing our mental health through the month will help us all through the holiday feeling renewed rather than exhausted.

Counselling Connections Dundalk. December 8^th 2011.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been reflecting on the subject of suicide which is very much in the news following high profile deaths both here in Ireland and in the U.K. To mention the names is only to intrude on those families’ private grief. We have been listening with interest to the public reactions; the confusion; the loss and the struggle to understand. We hear people wonder what leads a person to the point where they feel there is no other option but to end their own life. If you are considering taking your own life please don’t. If you are reading this because you have clicked on here in the search for some answers then please read on. There is help available. If you are reading this because you are worried about a loved one then please stay with them. And ask for help.

If you have reached a point where you are actively making plans then please pause and look for help. There are many help lines and services available to come to your aid and support you through these difficult times. You may have come through times in the past when you felt this way and you will know that the worst will pass. And it will pass again. You can get through this crisis. Sometimes a ‘no suicide’ pact is useful. This may be by way of an agreement with one or more close friends or family. It can involve a code word to be used, say in a text message, which you have agreed is a call for urgent help. It can be as simple as ‘I am not good today’. The goal here is just to get over the immediate strong feelings you have and to keep you well enough while you get more support and longer term help.

It may be that you can’t find the words or that you don’t know how to go about getting help. It may be that you can’t see how you will ever feel good again. If you have come to the conclusion that your family or friends would be better off without you then we are here to tell you that this is not the case. Nobody here underestimates how difficult it can be to climb out of the pit of depression. To do so is a difficult road with setbacks and ups and downs along the way. But you don’t have to travel that road alone. We understand that this may be a journey you have tried to make before and come up against what seem like immovable blocks. We would appeal to you to keep trying. If the person you sought help from before let you down or couldn’t understand then try someone else. Try to find someone who you feel can understand your world. This might be the right counsellor; or the right friend. We know that this is not an easy thing to do.

Our experience has taught us that someone can come back from the brink of suicide. Sometimes it is just chance that stops someone taking that final, fatal step. But then they manage their way through the immediate crisis and slowly put one foot in front of the other in the search for a way out. It can be slow and it can be painful. But it can be done. There is a way out of the most painful depression; even one that has lasted for many, many years. It is possible to connect with the richness available in life in ways which you may never have experienced before. It is possible to reconnect with life and to love and be loved. Hold on there. Keep trying. Look for someone to give you a hand. It will pass. And you can feel better.

Counselling Conections, Dundalk.

Today we take a look at perfectionism. In our modern, media-driven world there are everyday offers to seduce us. Advertising focuses on the achievement of the ‘perfect’ body, the perfect house, the perfect life. These are, of course, illusions. So what does it mean to be a perfectionist? Ironically, it is not about being perfect, as this is never really possible but rather it is about setting extremely high, maybe even unachievable standards for yourself and going to huge lengths to try to meet them. The perfectionist believes these standards are achievable and consequently judges his self-worth on whether he achieves his goals or not, which, almost inevitably he doesn’t.

Ironically, lots of people who are high achievers are perfectionistic and there are times when being this way facilitates excellence in many walks of life. However the perfectionist is never happy with his efforts and spends a lot of time mulling over the tiniest of mistakes, affecting his mood and sense of self-worth. It is rumoured that Michelangelo strove for perfection in painting the ceiling in the Sistine chapel. It is said that he was never quite happy with it even though it is recognised as a masterpiece. So we understand there are some benefits to being perfectionistic in terms of achievement and doing things well but there is a difference in the healthy pursuit of excellence and the unhealthy striving for perfection which comes at a cost. It becomes a very stressful way to live as one struggles to maintain the perfectionistic cycle and attain the ideal.

So what motivates the perfectionist to be the way he is and how does he come to place such demands on himself? Many theorists believe that it is as a result of having hypercritical parents, for whom whatever you achieved was never good enough. The child going forward into adulthood internalises the voice of the parent and he becomes his own worst critic. He develops all or nothing thinking, where the end goal is all that matters and the process of getting there is irrelevant in terms of measuring achievement. For this individual the fear of disapproval, criticism or making a mistake are fears to be avoided at all costs. These he equates with failure and worthlessness. Self-worth becomes dependent on the achievement of high standards.

In our work as therapists we also see that perfectionism can be a way of ‘balancing up’ negative feelings of guilt or shame associated with childhood abuse. The child who is abused can often be left feeling ‘bad’ or ashamed of the abuse and can develop perfectionistic behaviours in order to compensate. When self-esteem is low, perfectionistic behaviour can temporarily raise feelings of self-worth but this are only dashed again as the negative cycle continues. We can go to great lengths however to try to do a perfect job and gain the approval of another.

Sometimes the ideal we are trying to achieve is so high that we know it is unattainable. This can lead to a sort of giving up. Then we can feel guilty and re-double our efforts only to fail and give up again. Another paradoxical aspect of this is the fear of success. We are familiar with the notion of a fear of failure which can drive us on. But we find too that we can be overcome with a fear of what responsibility or leaderships might await us if we should succeed and we can scupper our efforts in fear of this. In any event, the origins of these things and their manifestations in our every day lives can be explored in therapy as we seek to relieve ourselves of the stress of trying to be perfect and become comfortable with being good enough.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk. 24^th Nov 2011.

Here at Counselling Connections this week there was one of those occasions when we got sidetracked and the most important issue arose outside of the intended setting. As we settled down to our weekly meeting one of our number was recounting details of a positive customer service experience. So impressed had she been with the service she received that she rang the young man’s boss to say thanks. So, rather than have our scheduled meeting we turned the agenda on its head and began with A.O.B . This was the whole issue of thanks and the positivity and feel good factor it can generate.

Of course, being thorough about this meant that we had to look at both the good and bad of the whole issue of thanks. So, what does it mean to say thank you to someone? There can be an inequality to this exchange. What is it that we are thanking them for? It may mean that the other person has done us some kind of good turn and that we owe them something. One kind of thanks can be repayment for some favour done; perhaps even a favour that we didn’t ask for.

So, some forms of thanks can involve an unequal relationship; one in which we thank another for something they have done and where maybe the inequality surrounds the notion of them retaining some hold over us. Such a person may deftly avoid allowing us the opportunity to do them a favour of some sort in return thus retaining whatever upper hand seems to pertain in such a relationship. Maybe this points to a deeper meaning where being able to graciously accept a gift is a gift in itself. Where to receive is the favour in return.

There is something then about being comfortable within the relationship that allows us to receive and to say thanks. This points to a comfort and a trust in the other but more so also some sort of comfort in our own self. This may be down to feeling worthy of whatever gift the other has bestowed on us. It may also be that because of our positive experience we don’t have to worry unduly about repayment or what price the other may try to extract. An open kind of thanks, free of obligation is one borne of the genuine nature of the giving.

Another aspect of thanks or gratitude is nothing more complicated than passing on good will to another. It has a measurable positive effect. This is the kind of experience that we can have in any day to day transaction let alone within our intimate relationships. One really good aspect of this kind of thanks is that it can be consciously begun. Imagine if you pause for a moment as you put your change into your purse or wallet; make eye contact with your sales assistant and say a smiling thank you to them. We would expect that event to have a positive ripple through that person’s day and through them to other people of good will whom they encounter.

There is no doubt that this kind of positive experience has a cumulative effect. One positive experience begets another and a little thanks or complement will enrich both giver and receiver. With all the bad news about; with all the negative discourse about money and weather it is very encouraging to think that we can create some good cheer just by spreading a little good will around. We can give good service and we can acknowledge it with thanks when we receive it. Let us then start the ball rolling by thanking you for reading this week’s post. If you liked it pass it on.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

This week at counselling connections we thought we might take a look at dependency in relationships. For the purpose of this journal piece we will look at how this manifests in adult romantic relationships. Dependency, although often described as love, is not love in the true sense. It is based on one having one’s needs met as a primary concern, with little regard for the other as a person in their own right. A relationship based on dependency will eventually choke itself to death. If there is a co-dependency where each depends on the other, the relationship may last but there is little room for growth individually or as a couple.

Inherent in us all is a desire to be cared for and nurtured. We like it and it is an indulgence from time to time. For the passive dependent person, however, being cared for is a necessity. It rules his life. He cannot survive without it. He all the time is seeking to be loved and therefore has little energy left to love. Dependency in adult relationships usually results from failure of parents to provide the love the child needs. This failure leaves a child feeling insecure and unloved. Naturally then, he goes about his daily life looking to fill the void, the emptiness within. He elicits the care and attention he didn’t get as a child. Once he finds this love, he clings to it desperately and will often stay in relationships that aren’t good for him in order to have his emotional needs met. This type of person also lacks self-discipline because he was not taught it. As a consequence, it is difficult for dependent people to wait for attention and care as they are desperate for it. Waiting for a text or a call can be excruciatingly painful.

Dependency causes people to form overwhelming, unhealthy attachments to lovers. This is why it is often mistaken for love. To hear someone utter the words, “I can’t live without him”, signals dependency rather than love. To be dependent on the other for survival leaves the relationship void of real choice and freedom and these are necessary for a healthy relationship. The dependent person gives their partner little or no space to be themselves. They relate everything to themselves and can only live their lives through the other.  In the face of rejection or perceived abandonment, the dependent partner may turn to suicide because the pain they feel is intolerable. Loneliness is unbearable and so they will go to great lengths to avoid it.

In marriage and long term relationships we see examples of co-dependency in everyday lives. He deals with finances, while she sees to the housework and the children, for example. Stereotypical roles like this should be interchangeable so that respective partners know they are capable of success in either role. Too often in these types of relationships, both partners are happy with leaving it up to the other. It assures the other that their partner will never leave them and so they have their needs met. This is a classic co-dependent relationship in which both partners will never have the opportunity for spiritual growth. Often these couples will die in quick succession of each other, literally being unable to live without their partner.

We also see examples of this with some parents towards their adult children. Parents who live their lives through their children refusing to let them separate out and become independent individuals are sucking the life out of their children in relying on them to have their own emotional needs met.

In therapy we can work through the dependent feelings and teach people skills in order to be able to deal with the intense emotion they feel. This can lead to healthier, more fulfilling relationships where both partners can live without each other but they are choosing to live as a couple. It is not restrictive and encourages the other to grow as an individual. Of course this is the ideal we are striving towards and perhaps the place to start is with an awareness of how your relationship works and how you are in it.

Counselling Connections, 10^th Nov 2011

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been getting up on our soap box. The issues we were discussing were stigma and prejudice. Often in therapy the issues that are covered are historical. These are the life events and relationships that shape us. Our parents, siblings,  family, schoolmates and teachers and our wider communityare all influences that help to shape our personality. We can spend a good deal of time in therapy reflecting on these influences and considering ways to change their ongoing effects.

The stories from our past which we remember and work through in therapy can include incidents where others have taken it upon themselves to criticize or condemn us. These can be hurtful and harmful and depending where we encounter this it can have a major effect on us. This can be worked on in therapy. Sometimes this criticism can be because of prejudice and it can be current. It is this which we want to address today. For all that we can work with these issues in therapy they also reflect the society in which we live.

We wonder if our highlighting these issues can help towards making life a little more bearable by encouraging a little tolerance where we find difference. And this seems to be important to the kinds of things which we come across in our work. Even though it’s the twenty first century and social norms have changed a great deal we still come across examples where clients are stigmatised and discriminated against. It might seem like we are talking about things that belong to previous decades but we find that these things are still happening in 2011.

When you make the decision to get married and commit yourself to another you expect that it will last for life in line with the vow. You don’t expect that the relationship will come apart and end in separation or divorce. Nobody expects to encounter a period of depression or even repeated periods of it through life. Many people struggle greatly with the process of facing up to their own sexual orientation. In all of these things the support of family, friends, colleagues and community can be a huge force for good. It is that force for good which we would like to appeal for today.

If you take tolerance to its ultimate conclusion it would mean that we must show some understanding of those who hold views that are in opposition to our own. The balance that we are trying to find is between holding firm views and the harm that expressing or attempting to enforce these views might cause. Our appeal is for understanding of those who may be gay or lesbian; who may be trying to establish a second relationship after a marriage has ended or those attempting to put their lives together after a period of depression. Our plea is simple. It is to show a little understanding and tolerance and not to stand in the way of someone trying to become the person they want to be.

Here at Counselling Connections we have been considering the problems couples and individuals face in their relationships.  Amidst other issues one’s perception of love seems to play a big part in relationship difficulties. We often hear “I just don’t seem to love him anymore” or “he doesn’t love me the way he used to”. Through exploration of comments like these we arrive at an individual’s perception of love. So….what is love and what does it mean to truly love someone? To understand this, we must differentiate between ‘Falling in Love’ and ‘Real Love’.

Most of us will recognise the ‘Falling in Love’ phase of a relationship where the other is ‘everything’ to us. We feel like we have surely met ‘the one’ and that life will be wonderful as long as we have that other person in our lives. The concept of two becoming one seems very attractive and we will never have to face being alone again. The problem with this phase is that it is temporary and so, will always come to an end. It is inevitably linked to sexual attraction, whether conscious or unconscious, which is why many psychologists have described it as nature’s way of continuation of the species. We don’t seem to have control over who we fall in love with or when. It often happens when we least expect it, something that seems to happen to us, rather than requiring real effort. Romantic love is everywhere…. It begins in the childhood fairy tales we once read (and continue to pass on to our children), where the Prince and Princess live happily ever after (overcoming all the odds). Throughout our lives there is a continuation of the myth of romantic love seen in the movies, in the theatre, in music and poetry. Subtly, it is set out as something to aspire to, a measure for how our real relationships ‘should’ be…..So deeply is it set in our unconscious, that we forget to remind ourselves that it is fantasy.

However, just as we fall in love, so too will we eventually fall out of love. It is at this point the opportunity for real love presents itself. One of the differences with real love is that it is conscious and requires effort. Real love requires us to act in loving ways even when we don’t feel like it, to listen to the other even when we are tired. It requests that we appreciate the other and ourselves as individuals and looks to nurture the growth and separateness of the other. This is the basis of true love. In true love there is freedom and choice and we make a decision to love. It is not a feeling but rather that this person is important to us and so we choose to love them. The cornerstone of real love has to be commitment. Without commitment the normal issues that present in every relationship cannot be worked through, for fear the relationship would not survive it. Genuine love requires hard work and attention but the benefits in terms of personal and spiritual growth make it lasting and worthwhile.

It may interest you to take note the next time you watch a romantic movie at the cinema. Note how caught up in it you get and how good it makes you feel. Contrast that feeling to when the music ends and the movie’s over and the lights go on. Romance quickly dies away when reality encroaches. In contrast real love begins when the lights go on.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we enjoyed a good discussion over a pot of coffee. It was a longish discussion, with a good case to be made for each side of the argument. Then one participant stood up and said ‘I should be getting back to work; I don’t want to get into trouble’. This was a joke. We counselling folk do like a little therapy humour although this particular attempt was met with more groans than laughs. The reason for the joke; the point of expressing the feeling that we might get in trouble was that the discussion was about our inner critic; that sometimes loud and harsh; sometimes quiet and encouraging inner sense or inner voice that plays an essential role in regulating our personality.

Tuning in to our inner critic plays a part in every therapy. In some cases it is a central theme with long, painstaking, almost archaeological sifting through the layers backwards through time. This is where therapy digs into the deeper issues as we undertake the work of getting to know our own internal critic. The questions are about this inner critic’s origins; its effects and how it might be challenged and changed. One of the characteristics of it seems to be the severity by which it is experienced. And this leads us towards the reasons for its presence and how it can be either a positive and creative force or a negative and destructive one.

That part of our personality which becomes our inner critic has its origins in our early experiences. It is the result of the day to day routines of life which are governed by minor rights and wrongs. Our parents may admonish us or try to steer us gently in particular direction; maybe a direction we don’t want to go in. The result can be either a tantrum or desire to please by doing the right thing. The two sides of the compliance/defiance coin are played out energetically during these times and often are revisited again years later in therapy. An important part of how these experiences effect us seems to be how well they sit with us at the time and also how lightly or not the regulations are introduced and enforced.

In dealing with depression it is quite common to find an inner critic or internal parent that has turned against the self. In this case the harshness of early admonishments are revived and relived with a real and destructive ferocity. We can experience strong feelings of self reproach which can result in reduced self esteem and feelings of utter worthlessness. These self reproaches are echoes of criticisms received over time from others which become a part of how we regard our own self. Often we defend ourselves against them; maybe even for years but at times when things seem to be going wrong for us on different fronts they can assert themselves and leave us feeling overwhelmed. This cruel self reproach from internalised rebukes is central to the feelings of low self worth which often accompany depression.

We do however need an internal critic. Its purpose is to regulate the personality, particularly in a social capacity. We benefit by becoming masters of our own fantasies and impulses and by channelling these energies into creative rather than destructive endeavours. If the regulation behind the internal critic is aimed at achieving a certain standard in a particular field of life; if it is benignly learned and compatible with how we would like to behave and like to be regarded then it can be a positive and creative force. In this way too in therapy we can tune into our internal critic; its effects and the obstacles it can erect. We can consider these in the light of how we would like to be. In this way we can learn to realign it to revised personal standards and goals, freed up from old blockages. We can replace a harsh internal critic with a more benign one of our own choosing.