Kyle MacDonald: How to Give Good Advice
It can sometimes be difficult to give good advice to someone who may be depressed, Kyle MacDonald has tips to help you help others
In an earlier column you talked about what not to do if someone is depressed. Why is it bad to share one's own experience of depression, if useful tools have been found?
One of the common clichés about therapists is that they never answer a question, instead you get one fired straight back at you:
"Why is it important to you to talk about your own depression?"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: How Much Can You Really Help Someone With an Addiction?
Kyle MacDonald looks into addiction and answers the question "How do you survive a relationship with a control freak gambler who blames every problem with money on me?"
There is little doubt gambling is an addiction. I worked for a gambling helpline while I was training to be a therapist. Here I heard firsthand the terrible effects and destruction uncontrollable compulsions to gamble inflict on people and their loved ones.
One of the things I heard time and time again was the way partners were often shocked at the extent of the problem, and that it had been hidden from them for so long. It isn't obvious a person has a gambling problem...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Family Violence: Kyle MacDonald: Domestic Violence is a Male Problem
Kyle MacDonald looks at the relationship between gender and domestic abuse
There's a sad fact about violence in this country: how safe you are is determined the second you are conceived. Your gender is the single biggest predictor of your lifelong risk of physical assault, childhood sexual assault, adult rape and intimate partner violence.
Privilege is invisible to me most of the time, as a Pakeha middle aged professional man who lives in a nice part of town. I've never been yelled at in the street, or abused because of how I look. I feel safe walking the streets at night, and I've never had to wonder if my partners over the years were going to assault me when they got angry.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: Why Do People Self Harm?
The news has been reporting suicides in the Nauru detention centre, and described self harm as being an "epidemic" among the people detained there. Why do people deliberately harm themselves?
From the outside in, it can be very hard to understand how people overcome the natural and inbuilt desire to live and avoid injury and deliberately inflict physical pain on themselves.
Deliberate self harm is as old as humanity, and in modern psychiatry considered a symptom of mental illness.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: What's the Best Way to Deal With Trauma?
Kyle Macdonald answers the question "Do you have to have therapy to address past trauma in order to recover from depression and anxiety?"
Firstly, it depends on how you define "trauma". Usually, people think of it as a threat to life and limb: Getting shot at, beaten up, raped, surviving a plane crash... these things are undoubtedly traumatic, but a useful definition of trauma is one which focuses on impact: Trauma is any event that overwhelms our capacity to cope emotionally.
It's also true that exceeding our capacity to cope is affected by both our capacity to cope, and the intensity of the event...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: How Depression Impacts Motivation
Kyle MacDonald answers a question about how a lack of motivation could be a key indicator of depression
Motivation may very well be one of the most written about self help topics. This might say nothing, or may tell us it is key to the human condition and something we all struggle with at times. And it certainly is a key indicator of depression.
It's common to think about motivation as a "thing": you either have it or you don't. If you don't, the answer is to find it. Where might one find it, and how to go about the search? Well for many, including those that are experiencing depression, finding motivation can become the Holy Grail.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: How Do I Show My Wife More Empathy?
Today Kyle MacDonald answers a question of empathy in a marriage and provides helpful tips for strengthening communication in the relationship.
"I need to be more empathic towards my wife and not shut off when she's telling me about her day at work. I want to contribute more to conversations without trying to provide solutions to what she's talking about." -Hopeful Hubby
Like many things empathy is a skill, and requires practice. But what and how to practice are tricky questions that require an understanding of how empathy works.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Southland MP Says Current Mental Health Care is Putting People At Risk
NZ First MP Ria Bond has been approached by families who have been denied the help they need due to a lack of funding in our mental health system.
A recently released independent review into the mental health system in Wellington has found serious failings after five people died at the hands of mental health patients.
The Green Party has called for a nationwide mental health services review.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/88826991/Southland-MP-says-c...
Kyle MacDonald: Does Therapy Make You More Crazy?
At some point I will have told all my clients "there is no wrong way to feel when you're sitting on that couch." It's a simple idea that in practice is very hard to follow, because so much of what makes us miserable is the ongoing struggle between ourselves and our feelings.
Often this conversation comes up when people talk about feeling dependent on therapy, relying on their therapist and missing them when they take a vacation. They can be left wondering "is this what it's supposed to feel like?"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
Kyle MacDonald: Are You a Victim or a Bully?
The Nutter's Club resident psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald inspects bullying in todays society.
"Regarding bullying, reality is, it's killing many through suicide. Why is it so rife?" Concerned
Bullying is a word that has been redefined, a word we used to associate with schoolyard taunts. But the singling out of one child for physical attack is now synonymous with the cruel online attacks increasingly putting the lives of young people, and adults, at risk.
But is it any different? Or is online bullying (as tragic as the outcome can be) just more visible, and therefore more easily reported? And how does it drive some to take their own lives?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Kyle-MacDonald/news/article.cfm?a_id=1027&obje...
