What can Psychology teach us?  A series of short articles about useful ideas from psychology. The Fundamental Attribution Error This is a psychological phenomenon coined by the Stanford Psychology professor Lee Ross based on a psychology experiment by Psychologists Jones and Harris (1967). The fundamental attribution error describes a tendency we have to excuse our […]

Introduction to EMDR The precise neural mechanism for how eye movements affect emotional status is unclear, but the fact is they do. It is almost as though a broad view of the horizon from left to right, and right to left also helps the mind to place events within the broader context, or for both […]

First prize: Help those less fortunate   An extraordinary Catholic priest in Australia, Father Bob Maguire, is running a competition with a top prize that ‘guarantees happiness.’  See: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/24/father-bob-offers-people-chance-to-win-happiness-guaranteed He is is offering a third-placed prize of five nights in a chain of high-end hotels, with the second-placed prize being five flat-screen TVs. However, it’s […]

We are delighted to hear that the organiser’s behind the Movember movement are turning their focus this year to men’s Mental Health. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29841063 It is our considerable experience that physical and mental health are not separate matters but two aspects of well-being and resilience that overlap and have a clear cause and effect relationship; […]

Spring is hopefully just around the corner and so is a great prompt to introduce Horticultural Therapy to Hay Farm. We have such a beautiful setting here, with 12 acres of farm land, so it is perfect for those who feel that this therapy might help them. Horticultural Therapy is an active process which engages […]

The peace that passeth all understanding The Heart is the messenger of Life, I discovered that with my spiritual partner Carmel in the summer of 2005 while working on the creation of a new spiritual workshop in a small cottage on the wild and beautiful Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Ireland. We had been earnestly […]

Not so long ago Alcoholics Anonymous was regarded with condescension by many professionals working in the addiction field. A common view was that science-based techniques, like Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) had made the Anonymous Fellowships seem like a quaint and outmoded quasi-religious cult. At the same time, there were encouraging signs of scientific method being […]

‘Natural recovery’ is a term used to describe recovery from addiction without the help of professionals. It’s a term that rather implies there’s something unnatural about the professional or even AA route. However, other terms that have been used are also problematic, given that they all embody an explanation of the phenomenon that is open to question. For example, Tuchfield (1981) was one of the first to describe what he called “spontaneous recovery”, although the recovery his alcohol dependent respondents described were generally the product of a sense of shame that had grown over a long period of time, even if the ultimate decision was sudden.

A couple of weeks ago (16th August, on BBC3; “Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery”),  Russell Brand launched a hard-hitting attack on conventional approaches to drug addiction: first, he lambasted the view of right wing tabloid commentators who favour the view that addicts recklessly and freely abuse drugs, and could as easily choose differently. And […]

We have all experienced that deep sense of unfulfillment, that emptiness that is just crying out…screaming to be filled. In these seemingly dire circumstances, we immediately start working out new ways to fill ourselves once more, to fill this seemingly unbearable emptiness. The behaviour is familiar: find someone or something new to make a new […]