Posts tagged with 'family'
Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships
28th January 2019
Over the next two days I'm due to run a two day training workshop in Glasgow on "Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships". Here are the downloadable slides for the first day on "Working with couples" (sadly with the cartoons removed for copyright reasons) and here the slides for …
How to live well: 8th meeting: nourishing relationships, conflict & wisdom, and attachment
24th October 2018
"The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart." Dhammapada We introduced the first of three sessions on relationships in last week's meeting - "How to live well: 7th meeting - relationships, roles, Dunbar, needs & dyads". We looked particularly at Funeral speeches/current progress, Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 …
How to live well: 7th meeting - relationships, roles, Dunbar, needs & dyads
17th October 2018
"Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship." Epicurus "Friendship is the single most important factor influencing our health, well-being, and happiness." Robin Dunbar, Oxford emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology Last week we talked about "How …
Personal social networks (5th post): the frequency of conflict
11th March 2017
Personal social networks are hugely important for our health & wellbeing, as I've underlined in the first of this six post sequence - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model". However our personal networks are also regularly affected by conflicts, especially with those we're close to. It's not a …
Personal social networks (4th post): birds of a feather flock together
10th March 2017
I've recently written three blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network" and "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing". Towards the end of the second of these posts I …
Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing
8th March 2017
If you'd like to clarify and potentially look after your personal social network better, a good place to start is to chart it. You can download a simple blank chart here either in Word doc or PDF format. Filling in the whole "Personal community map" can take a good hour …
Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network
7th March 2017
I recently wrote a blog post on "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model". I emphasised the huge importance of our social networks for improving life expectancy, protecting against psychological disorders, and boosting our happiness & wellbeing. What's not to like?! I went on to introduce Robin Dunbar's work …
Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model
6th March 2017
Relationships are immensely important for both our health and our wellbeing ... for how long we live, our resilience to psychological stress, and for our levels of happiness & life satisfaction. This is crucially relevant for pretty much all of us. The post "Strong relationships improve survival as much as …
Family psychoeducation: is this a major step forward in relapse prevention for depression?
12th June 2011
There was a pretty startling paper published in last month's British Journal of Psychiatry: Shimazu, K., S. Shimodera, et al. (2011). "Family psychoeducation for major depression: randomised controlled trial." British Journal of Psychiatry 198(5): 385-390. Background The value of family psychoeducation for schizophrenia has been well established, and indications for …
30th wedding anniversary ceilidh: celebration, social networks & gratitude
31st October 2010
Yesterday, Catero and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a ceilidh. This is Auld Lang Syne at the end of the party. I'm the loudmouth (on one glass of wine), with dear Catero on my left (to the right in the picture). Laura, precious stepdaughter, is three places to …