by Richard Amaral | May 22, 2013 | Addiction Psychology
Over the past few days, the mayor of Toronto has been receiving some unwanted attention. It’s alleged that he smoked crack cocaine with known drug dealers and criminals. Since one of my specializations is in addictions counselling, I couldn’t help but use this...
by Richard Amaral | May 15, 2013 | Counselling and Psychotherapy, Mental Health
A client once asked me when counselling and psychotherapy would be over. It was a really good question, and there are actually a multitude of answers. Today, in honor of APA’s Mental Health Month Blog Day, I thought it would be an ideal time to share some of those...
by Richard Amaral | May 8, 2013 | All Entries
This week is the 62nd annual Mental Health Week (May 6 – 12) organized by the Canadian Mental Health Association. This year’s focus is on youth. One of the goals of mental health professionals is to eradicate the stigma surrounding mental illness. In my...
by Richard Amaral | May 1, 2013 | All Entries
You may have an illness, but you are not the illness. This was an important lesson I learned from my first counselling supervisor, Katherine Stetson. During my master’s program in counselling psychology, I did an internship as an Adolescent and Family Therapist. One...
by Richard Amaral | Apr 24, 2013 | All Entries, Depression
One of the first theories that highlighted the relationship between thoughts and moods was cognitive theory, or CT. This theory was created by Dr. Aaron Beck back in the 1970’s and focused on how people could change how they felt. Beck noticed that all his depressed...
