Of course, therapy and its vernacular are not solely to blame for our era of isolation. Rather, therapy and other tools of introspection have become ways to justify our lack of access to external stimulation. Instead of using therapy to untangle our desires and fears so that we may effectively act on them, therapy becomes the goal in itself—to... See more

Et c’est généralement en fonction de l’épistémologie dominante que le patient perçoit son problème. Il le ressent et le présente dès lors, la plupart du temps, comme une pathologie individuelle. Le questionnement du thérapeute l’amène à le formuler autrement, l’amenant à lui conférer un sens différent. Le thérapeute met le problème en relation avec

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Now, two decades into my career, I practise, lecture, supervise and write about all of these things, but increasingly I reject everything that I learned. Instead, I practise the art of ‘being for another’, an idea that arose in conversation with my colleague Sophie de Vieuxpont. I’m a mentor, a friend in an asymmetrical friendship, and a sounding... See more

If you’re told that you must listen to your momentary and subjective feelings of annoyance and hurt, and view them as your truth, minor interpersonal discomforts are much harder to let go of gracefully. If you’re then told that your troubles with relationships stem from your parents’ failure to be fully present and meet your needs in childhood, the... See more

when an army of trauma counsellors descended upon the nation after the tsunami of 2004, the University of Colombo pleaded with them to cease seeing suffering as traumatisation as it was undermining people’s resilience. Sri Lanka happens to top the charts for wellbeing in the ‘The Mental State of the World in 2023’ report despite such denial of the... See more