Self-Help is a massive and growing industry. Are these books really selling the secrets to happiness, thinness and wealth? Or are they making profits from the comforting illusion that these things are really for sale?

Using Facebook is like being back at school again. Except that you are trying to please the whole world at once…

I have just returned from the UK to my house in rural Poland and it is traditionally time for me to moan about the lack of colour. But sometimes this blanket whiteness makes a space and a silence in which I can hear all kinds of things…

A fever for change hits us all — to get healthier, slimmer, more productive, to be better people, whatever that means to us. To start again. But is this not aggression against ourselves? And does violence not breed violence?

One of Carl Rogers’ most important contributions to counselling theory and practice was to give up the idea of having goals, and be open to following whatever direction the client might uncover, wherever it might lead. What about Item 4, then: “It is important to discuss your goals with you. What brought you here? What do you hope to achieve?”

This is the first time I have touched the computer for over a week. Life seems a lot more spacious, and slower. I am making a new year’s resolution. I am going to write letters again…

While packing and in life, the question “what do I really need?” is such a fruitful one.