"No man was ever wise by chance."     Lucius Seneca

"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger."   Franklin P. Jones

I recently wrote about the fifth week of meditation practice - chapter nine in Mark Williams & Danny Penman's book.  This post is about the sixth week of practice and chapter ten "Trapped in the past or living in the present?" (pp. 183 to 208).  The week-by-week programme summary (p. 60) comments "Week six develops this process (turning towards difficulties) even further, exploring how negative ways of thinking gradually dissipate when you actively cultivate loving-kindness and compassion through a 'Befriending Meditation' and acts of generosity in daily life.  Cultivating friendship towards yourself, including for what you see as your 'failures' and 'inadequacies', is the cornerstone of finding peace in a frantic world." 

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database -

I began thinking yesterday about what I actually do as a psychotherapist.  This lead to a light-hearted first post describing a "two-seven-two" model of integrative psychotherapy.  The initial "two" acknowledges the importance of an overview of what has been going on for the client and a good working alliance.  The "seven" describes a series of overlapping therapeutic areas that I pay attention to.  The first three of these are probably used by most psychotherapists - problem solving relevant outer issues, problem solving unhelpful internal response styles, and - where appropriate - looking at "ball & chain" contributions from the past that may be holding back progress in the present.