20/1/2007 - The power of the written word

Never was it so clear to me - the power of the written word - than the time I came to be in possession of a small book put together by an Ozzie bloke living in Phuket, about the Boxing Day Tsunami.  He had compiled a heap of stories, straight from the survivors' mouths, about that terrible experience.

I had seen all the news clips, heard all the stories on various docco's, read about the destruction from the third person perspective and was definitely affected, no doubt about it.  I actually even went to Phuket a few months later and saw the aftermath myself.  But nothing had prepared me for the feelings I had during and since reading the first hand accounts of people's experiences. 

That wave was absolutely huge!  I have been caught in some mother dumpers in the surf here (not a terrific body surfer but ever willing... :), and have come out of them happy to be alive and semi clothed!  This thing was like whole buildings big.  People were spinning around in it along with houses and trucks and walls and all sorts of stuff.  The other visual I got which hadn't been there before was the fact that the survivors that had been physically rolled in this thing, were all stark naked when they were beached.  It tore the clothes of every single one of them!  Just visualising the people dragging themselves up, naked, and trying to make it to higher ground immediately, as they all thought there was another one coming, is horrifying.  Some of the people just sat down and died.  Unbelievable.

Anyway, that's the moment I realised the pen is mightier than the box.  Nothing I had seen or heard about that disaster had even come close to the impact of the written word for me on that occasion.

The little book was sold over the internet to go toward some Tsunami orphans' education.  What great people us Ozzies are!  I'm not sure if it can still be got from the Net, it used to be http://www.tsunamistories.com

BTW, A clip of  The Secret can be viewed on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5yeHR3RUKo .

There's also some great reading in the comments section.  Some very negative stuff which is fun to read.  I'm coming to understand that things can get quite heated on the Net.  Words are very powerful.  The written word seems to have a life all of it's own.

20/1/2007 - Back to the mirror therapy thing

I'm still obsessing over the mirror therapy idea... if I get this out then it might be done with!  Here goes.

During therapy there are processes called 'transference' and 'countertransference' going on between client and therapist, which, simply put, means the total of all conscious and unconscious responses to each other as people in the same room together in this client-therapist relationship. The client experiences transference and the therapist experiences countertransference.

Some schools of thought would say that the therapy actually happens at this level of 'transference', where the client is able to work through their feelings, thoughts, subconscious and unconscious responses to the therapist in a safe, therapeutic environment. A simplified example: a person may have had formative experiences during their childhood with a domineering inflexible mother. The client then may transfer feelings of helplessness, worthlessness, fear and resentment onto the therapist at any given points depending on the strength of the therapeutic relationship and the perceptions of the client toward the therapist. How the therapist then deals with these transference responses is crucial to the therapeutic value inherent in the therapy. A therapist must be keenly aware of their own countertransference responses to the client in order to be an effective and ethical practitioner. For example: the therapist may have had a passive, helpless type mother/father who created much unhappiness and anxiety in the parentified child.

So here we have a process that can take years of building trust, playing with transference and countertransference and the finer nuances of the therapeutic dance. What I am proposing here with the mirror therapy angle is that perhaps all that is required, in some cases at least, is the simple process of the therapist getting to know the client in brief, ie. what the client values in a person etc., listening to their story over a brief period, and reflecting to the client the positives inherent in their own personality and being, over a short, sharp therapeutic timeframe.

As with Ramachandran's mirror box for the amputee phantom pain, not all people are going to respond to this type of therapy, but isn't it worth considering as a mode of therapeutic work for those it may suit? I know a lot of people who would not go to a therapist because they find the often extended time frame and the "digging into" their lives to be a great invasion into their lives.

Brief solution focused therapy works along these lines I believe. I think the "mirror therapy" could be even further simplified.

There it is, hopefully that's the end of it.  Next, some juicy life stuff.

16/1/2007 - Orient yourself to the best part of the people in your life

I find people hard work!

I can get into looking at the people in my life with resentment, judgement and overall dislike sometimes.  It's usually when I'm not running too well and everything is a pain in the arse, but people, usually those closest to me, cop it!

I love this piece of information that came through The Secret.

It's one of the singularly more useful things I've heard in a long time for me to use when people are annoying me.

I'm going to keep trying to do this and see where it takes me, and the people in my life.

Watch this space!

16/1/2007 - Whatever we think about and thank about we bring about

• Know your capacity to feel good and do it all the time
• Follow your bliss
• The better you feel the better you're going to feel
• Listen to music
• Sing
• Think of something beautiful and try to keep that image at the forefront of your mind all the time, blocking all else out
• Know what you want
• Ask for what you want
• Bring yourself into alignment with what you ask for
• Maintain an attitude of gratitude about the things you want, as if you already have them, the universe has to follow suit, rearrange itself, and provide these things for which you are grateful, whether you have them or not
• Have fun!

Most of this is from The Secret

15/1/2007 - The secret, and more...

I have just seen a DVD called "The Secret" which was pretty goooood! 

I have always been interested in ways to improve my life, and this show was a powerful reminder of the ways I have been told and shown I can be happy, joyous and free with minimal hassle to the world and me.  So if you're interested in any of the following for instance:

having and/or being exactly what you want in this life;

universal energies;

quantum physics;

the power of the mind;

science and spitiuality;

'God' as energy;

using healing imagery;

social control myth busting;

natural laws of attraction;

abundance;

joy;

happiness;

prosperity -  material, emotional and/or spiritual;

love; and

whatever else might make you feel all squidgy and happy inside,

then this is the show for you.  I had it sent to me but it can be got from the site www.thesecret.tv.  I believe there could be a small fee for it but I highly recommend it if you are even the least bit interested in feeling good and living a life in line with your wildest imaginings!  A clip of it can be viewed on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5yeHR3RUKo

Happy travels, friends.

11/1/2007 - Mirror therapy for psychic pain?

The mind-body conundrum is no more evident than in the psychological or psychiatric sciences.  They have spent a lot of time and resources exploring possible physical causes and/or treatments for mental illnesses and the day-to-day maladies of the mind and psyche.  I was surfing the TV late one night years ago when I came upon a documentary about "phantom pain", a phenomenon which tends to hit people who have lost a limb.  It is apparently incredibly painful and people can suffer from it all their lives post amputation.

A fellow called V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, did some work with survivors of amputation and found that some people who had suffered this phantom pain experienced some relief from the use of a "mirror box".  The unaffected limb would be put into this 'box' which had a mirror in it (so then the eye would see two limbs) for a period of time each day for a few weeks and the patient would be instructed to give their limb commands etc,  which served to trick the mind I suppose into thinking the limb was still there and the pain "telescoped" up.

What I liked about this story was that if this could work for some people who had endured terrible 'physical' pain for a long time in a non-existent limb, maybe the concept of 'mirror therapy' could work for people who had endured terrible psychic pain for a long time due to psychic losses (ie. loss of childhood through abuse, loss of loved ones, loss of jobs, normal body image, dignity, sanity etc).

I suppose it could look sometimes like an actual mirror, where people would/could use an actual mirror and do exercises where they recognised themselves and the well or "lost" parts of themselves for a short period of time each day for a few weeks.  Other times I suppose it could be used metaphorically so that the therapist/counsellor could provide a healthy or well 'mirror' for the perceived 'lost' bits of a person's life/image/self concept, intensively, daily, for a few weeks.  I wonder if this could serve to "telescope" the psychic pain away too?

Apparently one research project has used mirrors for young females with eating disorders and has had some small measure of success in terms of self esteem outcomes for the paticipants, but I've been unable to find any other research into this sort of concept in my years of cursory browsing the annals of health science literature.

Sounds simplistic?  Too black and white?  Maybe. 

I'd be interested to know what others think.