Wise Wednesdays

Most of us can recognise harshness in someone else’s voice, particularly when they are talking to someone else and we are witnessing the attack. But it’s more difficult to recognise this voice when it is speaking to us as an inner voice. Often, it can only be recognised by the symptoms it causes (including a sudden drop in mood; procrastination; analysis paralysis; shyness; feelings of guilt and shame, etc). It's equivalent to the Freudian superego, or a part of our cognitive function that regulates our behaviour and is thought to be at the root of feelings that there is something wrong (with us). Where does the inner critic come from? The inner critic is an aggressive energy that is used for survival reasons. It comes from millennia of survival and adaptation history. It is integrated into our psyche through collective and individual experiences including through family, school and society. It also helps to regulate us as individuals living in groups within cultural sys...

It depends what you’re trying to do... Of course, I’m biased towards coaching but I have done therapy (group and individual) and found it helpful as part of my personal journey and realising my career and personal aspirations. A spectrum of practice exists in therapy, from the purely psychoanalytic to the behavioural and some of it overlaps with coaching. The practice of therapy stems from Freud’s (re)discovery of the unconscious and his observation that the motivation behind our consciously stated intentions is dwarfed by and often in conflict with powerful instincts. However, Freud acknowledged that the best that therapy could do with the neuroses he was treating is to return people to a common variety of unhappiness! And this is where the coaching approach comes in. Coaching aims to take individuals from an ordinary level of dissatisfaction with some aspect of their lives to an extraordinary experience of creativity and flow where what seemed previously impossible,...

Watch this short video or read on... Let’s start with some definitions: Although used interchangeably, they are not the same. Guilt is the feeling we experience when we’ve violated one of our rules – it is adaptive and helps us make sure we are in integrity with ourselves and with others. It's the answer to the question: "Is it OK to do X, Y, or Z?". Shame is the feeling that there is something inherently wrong with us – it is maladaptive as it usually leads to dysfunctional behaviour.  It's the answer to the question: "Is it OK to be me?". In psychological terms, with shame we experience a breach in the self-concept - i.e. the construct that makes you “you” - as if “you” were fundamentally flawed. With guilt on the other hand, you are aware that you have breached one of your rules but you know that the rule does not make the whole of you.   Why do we feel guilt and shame? Guilt and, possibly, shame in very extreme circumstances...