Looking after ourselves has got a bad press: it’s seen as selfish, narcissistic, new age, you name it. But when we are taken through the safety procedures on a plane, we always hear that should pressure in the cabin decrease and air masks drop down, we should always place our own over our faces first before putting them on our children…

Many carry out the pretty irrational act of buying Lottery tickets out of “anticipatory regret”: those who choose the same set of numbers simply cannot bear the thought of their coming up one day when they hadn’t bought a ticket. Anyone out there carrying on doing the best they can in a dysfunctional relationship with a similar mindset?

A study shows that just a subjective awareness that we are doing something healthy causes actual improvements in our health. Does this give any clues about how therapy works?

Thoughts on the Counsellor’s Creed, which has been making the rounds. Item 1: I will give you my undivided attention. However, I cannot be your parent, spouse, or lover, nor can I be master or servant. I’m just me, and I’ll be as real as I can.

An article by Connie Miller defines the concept of co-dependency beautifully, as “an absence of relationship with the self”. By looking outside to others for confirmation of who we are, and that we are OK, we lose contact with ourselves.

“Everything happens for a reason”, they say, and “their” opinion has become pretty mainstream. This supposedly positive thinking is an undeniable part of how we human beings are; we’ve been making myths and stories and religions out of reality for as long as we have been human. I nonetheless want to scream “oh no it doesn’t!”

‘If you never feel sad, it is because you have never become attached to someone, and that is a very lonely way to be.’