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Existentialism: The Basics

Irvin Yalom defines existential psychotherapy as an approach to therapy that helps clients face concerns of existence: meaninglessness, isolation, death, and freedom. This approach to therapy is based on the fact that human beings are free to make choices and they are responsible for their actions and choices. It emphasizes on freedom, choices, and existence of an individual. Existentialists believe that humans try to find meaning in their lives and make rational decisions.  Existentialism disregards the deterministic view of humans as suggested by radical behaviorists and psychoanalysts. This therapy is based on the fact that people are not victims of circumstances but victims of their own choice. Viktor Frankl in his book says that man can be deprived of everything but no one can take away his freedom to make choices. Life puts man in a situation and it is the man’s choice that defines the consequences. This therapy encourages clients to reflect on their life, look at alternatives, a
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4As of Stress Management

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Nowadays everyone has been under immense stress due to the changing routine and adjusting with the new normal and in this situation, it is important for us to find an effective stress management plan In this article I’ll be talking about the four important factors for managing stress:    AVOID It is not possible to avoid all stressful situation but avoiding certain stressor can significantly improve your mental health. Here’s how you can practice it Learn to say ‘NO’ Avoid people who stress you out whenever possible Plan ahead and rearrange your surrounding Create a to-do list and write those tasks which are realistic and achievable ALTER When you can’t avoid try to alter. It may require you to either change the way you communicate or operate the things in your daily life. Express yourself instead of bottling up your emotions Work on better time-management and create balanced schedule Communicate when you feel uncomfortable with an individual behaviour Set clear boundaries ADAPT If y
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Are You A Helicopter Parent?

Helicopter Parenting refers to parenting style where parents are overly focused on their children. They “hover” over their children’s lives like a helicopter. The term, “helicopter parent” was first used by Dr. Haim Ginott in his book Parents and Teenagers (1969). Such parents take too much responsibility for their child’s actions, experiences, successes, and failures.  Helicopter parents are always around their children, doing things for them that they can do alone; they take care of their children’s problems and chores. They micromanage every aspect of their child’s life and over-involved in their lives. As a result, the child becomes overly dependent on their parents. A common example of helicopter parenting is feeding your children at the age where they should be eating their food by themselves. Another example could be completing a child’s school homework instead of letting them do it. There could be several reasons for parents to become overly involved in their child’s life. Let’
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Understanding 7Cs of Resilience - What makes children resilient

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We all go through ups and downs in life and learn to navigate through tough situations. Resilience can be defined as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress. Resilience involves "bouncing back" from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth (APA) Resilience help children navigate in stressful situations. W hen children have skill set to confront and work through difficult problems they learn to prepared for similar situation in future and build up on better problem solving and stress management strategies.  Kenneth Ginsburg  in his new book- Building Resilience in Children and Teens talks about 7Cs of resilience that can help children to effectively cope with a crisis: 1. Competence Competence is the ability to handle situation effectively Children need to be recognized when they are doing something right  Give them opportunity to develop new skills Encourage and reinforce
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Emotional Hijack: When Emotions Overpower Cognition

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Emotional hijack, also known as the amygdala hijack, is a state where a person’s cognitions are overpowered by their emotions. This usually occurs during a stressful or a crisis when the amygdala in the brain “hijacks” or bypasses normal reasoning processes. This concept was first discussed by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence.  During a crisis or a stressful event, the amygdala proclaims an emergency, recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda. These hijackings, typically triggered by emotions like fear, anxiety, aggression, and anger were very vital to our survival as a species. To improve the chances of survival, the fight-or-flight response evolved to allow for automatic response to physical danger without thinking. This hijacking usually occurs very quickly. They trigger a fight or flight reaction moments before the neocortex, the thinking part of the brain, has had a chance to fully understand what is happening, let alone decide if it is a good idea. Th
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Is Your Man an Overgrown Child?

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Understanding Peter Pan Syndrome How many of you have heard Peter Pan’s story as a child? I am sure some of you would have read it while growing up. Peter Pan was a happy-go-lucky, soft, and effeminate boy who wouldn’t grow up. He tormented Captain Hook (the pirate), broke his heart, and sent him on a self-destructive passage on the side of the ship and into the jaws of carnivorous crocodiles. You can read more about the story here ( https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peter-Pan-play-by-Barrie ) People have loved Peter Pan. He is young, playful, and we are drawn to him. But there is another side to this classic character that people have often overlooked. He avoided growing up. He rejected all the things that came along with adulthood! Peter Pan is a fictional character meant for kids. In real life, all of us need to grow up. Do you know someone who never fully engages with the world? Someone who never seems to settle in a job, never has enough money and is always one step behind everyone
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On the Path of Self-Destruction: Why do we Self-Sabotage?

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All of us, actively or passively, engage in behaviors or activities that prevent us from achieving our goals. Self-sabotage is any action that gets in the way of your intent. This behavior impacts every aspect of our life, in a more or less, covert manner.  Have you ever been in a situation where you are on a diet and then you see a tempting chocolate cake? What do you do? Do you stick to your diet or do you take a bite (eventually eating the entire thing)? If you take a bite or eat the entire thing, you are engaging in self-sabotage. Eating the chocolate cake (behavior) prevents you from losing weight (that is, your goal).  Let’s look at another example. You have to finish your official report. Your deadline is the day after tomorrow and there is a lot of work which needs to be done. You get an invitation to a party. You are aware that if you attend the party, you will miss the deadline. What do you do in such a situation? Do you attend the party or do you let it pass? If you go out f
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The Subtle Art of Persuasion

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In the recent past, how many times someone has tried to change your point of view or attitude towards something? If you sit down and think about it, you will realize that every day we are bombarded with such attempts. Let’s understand what persuasion is. Persuasion is an attempt to change people’s attitudes through various kinds of messages and information. Persuasion is a very powerful skill which plays an important role in our daily life.  What influences persuasion? Let’s look at some of the factors that impact persuasion. Factors that Impact Persuasion The credibility of the communicator Would you listen to someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about? Do you take advice from your peers when you are sick? Credibility is an important factor that influences persuasion. People usually listen to and follow those people who seem to know what they are talking about or people who are experts or are trained in the field. For example, you will follow the advice of a doctor instead o
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5 Ways to Identify Emotionally Immature People

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Healthy, genuine, real relationships (both romantic relationships as well as other relationships) are built on trust, respect, and ability to talk about issues. In your relationships with others, have you ever felt that the other person is always blaming you or acting in extremely selfish ways? These might be the signs that the other person is emotionally immature. Emotionally mature people are often able to manage their emotions. They often talk about how they feel and take responsibility for their actions. These are some of the things with which an emotionally immature person struggle. We bring you five ways to identify an emotionally immature person. Emotionally immature people tend to blame others A client of mine used to blame her elder sister for all the failures in her life. If she scored low in her exams, she would blame her sister; if she had issues with her friends, she would blame her sister. This not only resulted in a lot of distress in the client but also led to a straine
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How Do You Spend Your Time in Groups?

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All of us are part of some or the other kind of groups. Some of us may be part of formal groups such as office groups; some of us may be part of more informal groups such as college groups. Our interaction with members of the group varies from group to group; how we spend time in a group also varies. Professor Eric Berne gave six ways of time structuring. Time structuring can be understood as ways in which people spend their time when they are in a group. Berne believed that a person needs to structure his/her relationships and time spent with people. The six ways to structure time are withdrawal, rituals, pastimes, activities, games, and intimacy.  Withdrawal It happens when a person is physically present in the group but is mentally absent. The person might be there in the group but may not participate in group activities. So for example, you are attending an office meeting. You are physically present in the group but your mind is somewhere else. Your attention is diverted. Some peop
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4 Ways To Practice Self-Compassion

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When you experience a setback in life two things can happen- either you defend yourself and blame the situation or you may blame yourself for not being good enough to work through it. In this particular situation you may realize neither of the reaction is helpful.  Now imagine if you friend went through a similar setback, what would you say to him/her? You would try to support them, provide unconditional love and kindness and probably try to work through the problem. Now why is it that you were kind and supportive to your friend and helped her/him with the difficult situation. Why were you not kind and loving towards yourself? You may come across many such situations where you may have been much harsher towards yourself. Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain you stop and tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I co
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Understanding 7Cs of Communication- Learn to Communicate Better

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Communication is the act of transferring information from one person or group to another. Every communication involves a sender, message and receiver.  The 7Cs of communication is a checklist or you can consider this as a set of criteria to improve your communication style. According to the seven Cs, communication needs to be: clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous. Clarity/Clear The message should be clear i.e. the receiver should be able to understand the message received without any difficulty. Receiver shouldn’t have to “read between the lines” and make assumptions on their own to understand what the sender is trying to say. The message should emphasize on a single goal at a time Concise Keep the message short and brief The short and brief message is more comprehensive and helps in retaining the receiver’s attention Avoid lengthy messages Concrete The communication should be concrete, which means the message should be clear and particularly such that no
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5 Activities to Build Resilience

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“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good.” Elizabeth Edward How are you dealing with the new “normal”? How did you deal with the effects of the pandemic and lockdown? Most of us are now getting back to our routines, taking charge of our lives, and moving on. Resilience is an ability that helps us deal with adverse situations, adapt to the circumstances, and help us thrive in situations. Resilience is a skill that can be learned. We bring you five activities that can help you become more resilient. You can choose the one that suits you or you can use all five of them. Story Telling We all love reading, telling, or listening to stories. Stories, since our child
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Why Do We Get Bored?

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ALL OF US FEEL BORED!  We all know that feeling when time slows down, nothing is interesting anymore and there is this feeling of yearning (God knows for what!). Remember that class in school where you almost slept off because the topic wasn’t interesting or remember that workshop where you found yourself yawning because it didn’t make sense to you or remember that movie where you dozed off. When you are bored, things appear to be never-ending! Boredom is defined as “having nothing to do.” It is generally seen as an unpleasant state characterized by feelings of dissatisfaction, fatigue, and restlessness. It often leads to anger, restlessness, sadness, worry, and loneliness. Well, it is rightly said that boredom is the root cause of all evil! Boredom is universal; everyone experiences it. Research shows that 30 percent to 90 percent of adults experience boredom on an everyday basis. Almost 91 percent of youth experience boredom (there is a lot of scope for research on Boredom). Men ofte
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Understanding Communication Styles

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What is your style? The ways we present ourselves says a lot about us. The way we dress, the way we speak, the way we behave with others affect our relationships not only with others but also with ourselves. We have patterns and habits of how we communicate with others. We adopt unique communication styles which reflect on our mood, personality as well the type of conversation we have with people. Each person has a unique communication style. These communication styles come under four broad categories: Passive, Aggressive, Passive-Aggressive, and Assertive. Understanding different communication styles can improve the quality of our relationships with others. Let’s understand 4 types of communication styles. Passive Have you noticed some people who constantly say, “It really doesn’t matter” or “I don’t like confrontation” or “I want to keep the peace?” These are some of the things people with passive communication style say. In the passive communication style, people usually don’t expre
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