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Recently, I had a conversation with someone on the topic of anger. He wanted to understand why he was always so angry in his relationship with his partner. So, I pulled out my dry-erase whiteboard and drew an iceberg. I think the iceberg is a really powerful metaphor for how we think, feel, and behave. According to most estimates, about 10% of an iceberg is above water and about 90% is below water. This means that we

I attended an innovative and uplifting conference recently in Kelowna, BC. Successful entrepreneur and local businessperson, Fred Sarkari, organized and hosted the event. There were about 7 speakers on the panel, all from a variety of industries. I was honoured to be invited as one of the speakers and to talk about work addiction. I remember having a conversation with someone who asked about the role of passion among

One of the issues I have recently been working with has been the topic of “parentified children.” Typically, a parentified child is someone who takes on many of the parenting responsibilities within the home. This sometimes happens when a parent, for one reason or other, is unable to follow-through with their roles and responsibilities within the home. One example occurs when parents suffer from an addiction: they’re

Here in Toronto, we’ve been dealing with some very hot temperatures lately. While I’ve heard my share of people complaining about the heat, I’ve also heard my share of people expressing gratitude for the beautiful weather. So, I thought about what life might be like if the weather were hot throughout the entire year. I remember  reading about a study which said that hot cities had higher crime rates. So, I Googled th

I’ve been really busy these last couple of weeks. As a result, my blogs have been coming out later and later. One of the things that has kept me busy has been my private practice. Since last week was a shortened work week (Canada Day weekend), I had fewer hours available for my clients. I also had to prepare for a workshop. So, as you can see, there were a lot of external reasons for why I was unable to release a pos

A couple of weeks ago, many news-sites published findings from a Canadian survey on the prevalence of mental health issues in the workplace. One statistic from this survey indicated that 12% of respondents said they were currently experiencing a mental health issue in the workplace, and another 32% said they had faced one in the past (click here for a cbc.ca news article). In other words, 44% of all workers have expe

I received a lot of positive feedback from last week’s blog. A few friends of mine wrote or called me up to talk more about what to do when a friend is a victim of relationship abuse (e.g., physical, psychological, verbal, financial). In particular, one friend asked about the specific role that a psychologist had in counselling people living with abuse. Specifically, she wanted to know whether a psychologist would co

A friend of mine, who happens to be a criminal lawyer, visited me recently. We spent many hours in good conversation discussing a myriad of topics. Both he and I are fortunate to be in professions that allow us to connect with people on a deeply personal level. In my capacity as a psychologist, my clients share with me things they may have never share with anyone else. Similarly, lawyers hear deeply personal stories

One of the things that I’ve been working on changing has been daily exercise. Since childhood, I have always enjoyed physical activity. From playing organized sports to individual activities such as walking, the physical and mental benefits of exercise have been rewarding. However, I also go through days (ok, weeks…) of inactivity. In fact, I would like to exercise more regularly, but something always seems to

We’ve all tried to change something about ourselves – perhaps it’s an addiction to something (e.g., smoking, drugs, video gaming), or simply a behaviour that we no longer wish to have in our lives. Change happens in stages The Stages of Change model was first created by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s. Initially, they wanted to understand the process that smokers went through a