Dr Simon has asked me to thank you for all your comments on his recent posts about distortions of thinking. Due to a bereavement, Dr Simon won’t be able to respond right away, but he hopes to be able to catch up again after Christmas.

For neurotics, behavior such as denial is an unconscious defense mechanism that protects against the experience of unbearable pain. With disordered characters, what we commonly perceive as unconscious defenses (e.g., denial) are more often deliberate tactics of impression-management, manipulation, and responsibility-avoidance.

Somehow I managed to ride through the shock, the agony, the chaos and emptiness and finally a kind of saying goodbye, and a kind of acceptance, and she fell into a different place in my life. But now, a few months on — after all that work I did — she’s still dead!

Is this what therapy is about — just removing what is holding us back, what stops us growing properly, what hides our beauty and is sometimes downright painful? Well, if nothing was planted in the first place, then removing the weeds would only make room for more weeds…

I know what I am talking about is almost too personal to be articulated properly and also something that everyone either has or will have gone through at some time in their lives.

Death makes people uncomfortable. People will do anything to keep their equilibrium, their own personal illusion that they are not going to die, and no one wants to be the one to upset the person who is starting to get their life back together. So what can people do? From my position on the frontline I would say — acknowledge it. Acknowledge it, please.

Our popular blog contributor Sarah Luczaj is taking a few weeks away from writing following a bereavement. Our thoughts and hearts are with her and her family, and we wish her all the best.