Metamorphosis Psychotherapy

  I have had an interest in self-esteem for a long time and decided to challenge that knowledge and myself in 2019 (action or no action paradox). I sent a proposal for a presentation during the ‘Current Counselling Trends in Ireland and United States Conference’ in Dublin 2019. My proposal got accepted and I began to wish I had never done it!! Until the very moment I stood in front of over 100 people, I had wanted to run. I didn’t run. Somehow I delivered a talk about something I am very passionate about. Ohh... complicated human nature… Ironically to some degree it gives an idea about how self-esteem fluctuates. On one hand there is a passion and conviction: yes, I can do it!! On the other hand there are doubts: am I good enough to do it? What if my presentation is crap? I kept comparing myself to a PhD presenter who delivered 6 hour long workshop on self-esteem a few month prior…funny that I neither went to that workshop, neither new anybody who participated or gave a feedback… ...

  ‘Kill them with love’ - S. used to say to me while working together and dealing with extremely difficult customers. So we did… We killed them with love. S. used to make sure at the beginning that my killing was as good as hers. It progressed. The more I got the idea down the better it went. ‘Kill with love’ is a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Love doesn't kill, does it? What S. meant is - no matter what they say or do - have compassion for them and patience. They are unwell. They might have no awareness of horrible they are being to other people. They have a very narrow tunnel vision of their own misery and perhaps feel better if they spread that misery around? If we treat them in the opposite way, perhaps it will plant a seed, which will grow and bear fruit in the future? It is a lovely way of changing the world and I am 100% for it, despite difficulties and frustrations it brings at times. It is so much easier to simply snap or ‘eat someone’ than feel loving kindness towards the...

  Who am I? It is a big, philosophical question that people have been asking since the beginning of time. From the Ancient Greek aphorism: ‘know thyself’ and the ancient Chinese Chuang Tzu butterfly dilemma, through Kant’s inner and outer self-constructing the self, to modern suggestions that you are what you eat. The question that people begin to ask themselves from an early age. That question develops with time, becomes multidimensional and might relate to different parts of being a human and life as a bigger picture. Who am I in terms of family dynamics, birth order, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, image, religion or moral beliefs, political views, and so on. That question is never separated from belonging. Who am I and where do I belong. Belonging to a family, a community, a county or a country, a religious group or a political party. These are external definitions and concepts that attempt to describe ‘self’ or ‘myself’. Do they really describe ‘the real me’? The real...