When someone is narcissistic, they tend to be extremely self-focused, viewing the world and the people they encounter as being there to serve their needs.
I've been reading various blogs surrounding this issue with interest. As far as I understand, the doctor had sectioned this man several times in the past against his will. However on this occasion, he had apparently escaped during a consultation.
Granted, January is a pretty gloomy month (I was shocked to see a blue sky today, having forgotten what one looked like), but why is that particular day more depressing than any other? Well, of course, it's not. Blue Monday was actually invented by a psychologist to help promote some travel company.
At no other time of year is the gap between our fantasy of how things should be and the reality of how they really are wider than at Christmas. The bo...
I think that, as a society, the shocking level of treatment for some of our most vulnerable members should make us all angry - and that this anger should propel us all to take action, in whatever way we see fit, until we remedy this deplorable situation.
The largest association of psychotherapists in the UK has sent a letter to all of its 30,000 members, telling them that being gay is not a mental diso...
"Wait for the guy who wants to show you off to the world?". Exactly how does this work? I'm confused. Is he in to wife swapping? Husband swapping? That's just what I need, I've falling in love with a porno director and he wants to "show me off".
Andy Murray's historic victory appears founded on a mental rather than a physical transformation. Many attribute this new self-confidence to his recent Olympic gold medal victory over Roger Federer. It was positive feedback: confirmation of the ability we all knew he had but did he?
My therapy sessions helped me deal with my addictive personality and my ridiculous relationships with shopping, sex, drugs and food. I'd tried, tasted, sniffed and snorted, filled my flat with clothes and possessions I never needed nor wanted and ate and drank my way around the world - but nothing made me happy.
Rape and violence against women could, with care, become one of those issues we take over as comics and turn the message around - perhaps in the same way that non-white comedians have had to tackle racism over decades, or gay comics the topic of homophobia.
A French Psychoanalyst, Dr Thierry Lamote, claims in a book that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the religious group, The Church of Scientology, suffered a psychotic episode, which appears to be the foundation for the multi-million pound worldwide movement.
As the Dalai Lama says: "Everyone wants happiness; nobody wants to suffer." If this is true (and I firmly believe it is), why do we feel 'negative' emotions like fear, anger, sadness or hatred?
The truth is everyone has stuff from childhood. In fact the perfect parents do not exist - if they did you would never leave home. Also we ALL develop systems and coping mechanisms that come from past experiences or traumas.
Some psychopathic traits are positively encouraged in today's society: what we might call a lack of conscience, another would call a steely determination to succeed. One man's ability to dust himself off and start again is another psychopath's inability to learn from failure or pain.
In the United States and Britain, with resonances in other Western countries, a full-scale war has broken out regarding emotional distress and illness: how we talk about it, whether we try to measure it or not, and - crucially - what we do about it.
Why would anyone choose to be unhappy? It's a tough question to answer, but one all therapists must wrestle with on a daily basis.
Perhaps I sound like a Luddite, or possibly as a middle-aged man my values are distinctly pre-digital. Perhaps I just don't get the whole social media thing, which is moving so fast that old-fashioned values and morality are no longer relevant.
