Psychology Articles

A Fairy Story for the Chinese Female Single Patient:

Introduction

Often in therapy a story can help the client to understand their own emotions and feelings about their own situation. At first they just hear the story as a narrative but soon as with most good stories the client puts themselves into the action and associates with the plot line, as they try to make sense of how they can assimilate the underlying psychological message to their own lives.

In China many young girls under 27 years old are obsessed with finding Mr. Right, the boy who is from the good family, with a good education, with a good job with good prospects and has a good character. I use the word “good” here many times because it is easily understood by the girls themselves to mean a boy (young man) that can offer them a future that contains security for her, her family and material wealth. Love is always low on the list of requirements prior to marriage in China but woefully regretted later when actually betrothed.

After the age 27 in China girls go into panic mode, Mr. Right has not appeared and the range of available bachelors has narrowed considerably particularly as a myth about baby health in a woman’s 30’s is wide-spread and believed to be true. At this stage many girls despair and find themselves under considerable family pressure (and peers) to get married at any cost. Many rush into loveless marriages to men they hardly know but are willing to “take them on” so to speak.

So why did many of these older girls struggle to find a Mr. Right? Partly the problem was expectations and partly the belief that their purity (virginity) would be attractive to a suitor and that by remaining a good girl they have a better chance of a high alpha male prospect. A second aspect is education, as girls become more educated and so see any man below their own achievements as excluded from their ideal.

The Fairy Tale

The aim of therapy here is to enable girls to be more realistic about what boys actually have to offer. In the story we relate Mr. Right to a Prince Charming and to the girl as the perfect Princess. We see all other men as “frogs” those who are just the everyday normal young men who are starting out in life with average jobs and average ambitions. All stories are, “once upon a time” and end, “they lived happily ever-after” if only real life was so simple!

A Tale about a Princess:

Once upon a time there was a Princess who was looking for a Prince to marry. In the land Princes were rare and hard to find. So many frogs came to call for the Princess to spend time with and consider but none could match her ideal of her Prince (Mr. Right). Although some frogs had some of the attributes of Princes, good looks, money, education, high family connections etcetera none could bring all the gifts of her perfect Prince. After a while many frogs stopped trying to woo the Princess and in fact avoided her as unattainable and not worth wasting time on.

Meanwhile at her castle her parents (the King and Queen) reminded her that only good girls find Princes and that bad girls will fall prey to frogs and bad men. So the Princess held her purity in high esteem and often told frogs how perfect she was.

A long time has passed and now the Princess is over the age of marriage and finds that many Princess’s she knows about are married to other Princess’s and she is still alone. Her parents now constantly berate her for her poor judgment in not accepting earlier offers of marriage. They talk about her not being wanted soon as she reaches thirty and that she should start to consider many of the frogs she had once rejected. Some of those frogs have now changed into Princes and have good posts, material wealth and spoiled wives. How had she not seen these frogs had potential at the time? Her married friends worry about her, they have babies (just one) she will soon only be able to birth a poor sickly child as she ages. The Princess reflects on the wasted years of searching for the Prince that never existed to her standards, that was perhaps a frog in disguise, a frog that became a Prince perhaps.

However not all is well in the Kingdom. Many other Princesses married what they thought was a Prince who offered the good job, with the good prospects, with the good family and appeared to be the good boy for many a Princess. As these young men grew many did not reach their early ambitions, settled for an everyday life, accumulated some possessions and saved some income for the future but never enough for a castle. The girl’s Prince was in fact just a frog. Had always been a frog if she had just realised. Deep down many Princesses knew they married a simple frog but hoped over time they could change them to become a Prince and give them the dream they had been told was theirs by right of passage into marriage and motherhood.

Alas in our story we learn a simple truth, a frog is just a frog and with the best will in the world will probably remain a frog forever and ever until the day they die. So our lonely Princess has passed the magically age and around her are the frogs who are left. The mostly unwanted, discarded (divorced), despicable and unworthy. What is she to do – what happened to that dream of a handsome Prince to whisk her away to security, comfort and happiness? Now she felt regret, how could she had been so foolish to believe that she was so special and above those around her for so many years.

Fairy stories should have happy endings – after all they are meant to give us hope and a positive feeling. However this is real life – not every story has a happy ending and so through change we can only hope to adjust to a new reality that we misjudged our future prospects and around us live many many frogs – content with their lives, maybe not the best, but not alone and forgotten.

Discussion:

In the above tale of course our princess is the girl who is waiting so long for Mr. Right but rejected so many suitors as not ideal. Many of the other Princesses decided to marry the frog in hope that through a kiss and encouragement they could become a Prince but most if not all just wanted to be happy frogs and not become something they were not. So when the girls chose to wait for the cultural ideal they of course missed the thought that some are late developers. Some girls realised that Mr. Right (the Prince) was in fact a myth and decided instead to marry Mr. Good-Enough, someone not perfect but acceptable. When these girls lowered their unrealistic expectations of young men they actually found that a good enough young man (frog) could be the right one for them.

The above story and analysis is a fair reflection of Chinese society as far as young girls from about 22 to 27 years old pursue their likely marriage partner and the post 27 dilemma of being alone and unwanted. It is this cultural outlook that leads to many girls losing out on the chance to find suitable partners and fooling themselves that a Prince actually exists and will rescue them from their dull lives in the castle with baba and mama. What does the girl do when that time has passed, still pure, still at home, still inexperienced in the ways of men, still stubbornly believing that even at this late date a Prince will appear and save the day?

Therapy

In therapy this tale is often told to young women (27+) who complain of no relationships, that there must be something wrong with them. That they see no future now with no marriage and a child. They come to therapy hoping to learn about why they are alone, unhappy, rejected now by men as too old to be wanted. Depression is the usual presenting issue with anxiety brought on by an unsure future. By telling them the fairy story of the lonely Princess we hope to get them to realize that their own unrealistic expectations led to their current position and that cognitive faulty thinking about young men and societies pressures to a material goal was perhaps misplaced and that where love, passion and natural curiosity took no part in their youthful outlook towards what men want and do not want led them to reject many perhaps good enough young men earlier in their 20’s. It is not the therapist place to tell the women directly this but allow her to explore the tale from her own perspective and make her own conclusions. Some patients whole heartedly accept the comparisons other reject the idea (mainly as they still cling to the hope of a Prince) and open up other areas of dialogue that can by the provocation of the tale help them to explore their historical behaviour more objectively than perhaps they had done previously before coming to therapy.

Conclusion:

Although therapy can take many forms the use of mythology, stories, tales, metaphors can all help a client to see more clearly their own story and relate to the characters in the fairy tale and make some sense out of the confusion of depression and anxiety. Of course other tales can also make for good therapy bases, such as the Princess in the Tower, whose long hair dangles down for all the frogs to see. This is the woman who wants rescuing from her dull life thinking that a Prince will save her and give her the life she thinks she deserves, there is the Princess whose finger is pricked and falls into a deep sleep. Here she is the woman once bitten twice shy, that rejects all suitors in case she is hurt again. The lowly girl who lives in a dysfunction family with half sisters who hate her and a mother determined to treat her as a servant. She runs away, lives with several men and hopes that the Prince will come and find her but when she does meet one she is rejected again by his mother as not good enough. (Every Chinese girl’s fear of the mother in law). She perhaps is not so Snow White or a Cinderella, as she leads others to believe?

I hope that Chinese girls will read this article and feel free to comment about its cultural implications and insight. Perhaps there is more to learn here and for some girls they will help themselves by realising that the Prince is just a frog after all and that for a real happy ending then perhaps Mr. Good-Enough is just around the next corner?

End……

Dr. Stephen Myler is from Leicester in England, an industrial town in the Midlands of the United Kingdom. He holds a B.Sc (Honours) in Psychology from the UK’s Open University the largest in the UK; he also has an M.Sc and Ph.D in Psychology from Knightsbridge University in Denmark. In addition to this Stephen holds many diplomas and awards in a variety of academic areas including journalism, finance, teaching and advanced therapy for mental health. Stephen has as a Professor of Psychology many years teaching experience in colleges and universities in England and China to post 16 young adults, instructing in psychology, sociology, English, marketing and business. He has been fortunate to travel extensively from Australia to Africa to the United Sates, South America, Borneo, most of Europe and Russia. Stephen’s favourite hobby is the study of primates and likes to play badminton. He believes that students who enjoy classes with humour and enthusiasm from the teacher always come back eager to learn more. Currently Dr. Myler is head of clinical psychology at St. Michael Hospital, Shanghai.

The achievement of true and total happiness emanates from a number of sources. There are many authors who have tried to capture the essence of it. The closest I have heard to the key ingredients named four vital sources of happiness.Having described them, I shall share with you a fifth of my own.

Those five sources are, I believe, essentially interlinked and inter-dependent. They could be said to relate to five levels of our life and activity as humans.

The first level amounts to the simple pleasure and happiness of the spontaneous enjoyment of a particular food or one-off activity. It could be a particular favourite flavour of ice-cream, of pizza, a particular fun-ride in a pleasure park. It is experienced, enjoyed greatly, and then it is gone.

The second level, just as important as the first, has been described as the experience of the joy and happiness of competing successfully. Success by winning or by doing well feeds our sense of self-worth. It is not so much the feeling of somehow being able to lord it over your fellow competitors for having done well. It comes more from the feeling of pleasure and happiness that the work, the training and the preparation done to enable us to compete well, has all been worth while.

The third level or source of happiness stems from our community involvement. Here, it is said, we gain happiness from contributing to our community for the good of that community. Community can be described in any number of ways and yet still be applicable. It could be our village or town. It could be the community of an interest group involving our education, our health, our local environment. But it is our sense of connection, of giving and taking, of communing with like minded people or by using our skills for the betterment of others in the community which is significant. More, it is the third vital integrated source to achieving happiness.

The fourth and highest level of activity in terms of our perception of Life, could be said to be the pursuit of our ultimate purpose in life. The commitment to a purpose which we can only contribute to in our lifetime, which will out-live us and which has some true spiritual context for us, bringing to us the ultimate level of happiness. It could be a religious commitment. It could be a commitment to banish disease or protect the environment. Importantly it is of spiritual dimension, bringing to us that sense of happiness derived from a commitment to a cause far greater than ourselves..

My own fifth source could conceivably be two sources, but I would say it is the combination of unconditional love and gratitude for and from another. This, with the four sources described makes for a happy life.

However there are dangers lurking in all this and I have written a sequel to this article, describing them. Should you wish to establish the name of the author of the happiness research, you can obtain if from my blog.

More articles by and information can be found on Gerry Neale by going to http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com and http://cognitivementors.blogspot.com

Learning the psychology surrounding a particular character trait or behavioural problem is without doubt a vital first step towards achieving change in oneself. Yet, if for a single moment, we forget that the feature we are trying to change has been patterned into our behaviour, then achieving permanent change in the way we behave becomes less and less likely.

Our learning identifies for us the way we are, but it does not of itself initiate change in us. Only by applying ourselves – to walk the talk- does that occur.

The mistake is made in various forms. We can imagine that we behave as we do because we do not “know” any better! Yet, we quite often know exactly how we are behaving and how it causes the adverse effects we would like to rid ourselves of! In fact, if we are comfortable with our existing behaviour, privately acknowledging it to be unhelpful, the irony is we can be caused to defend it even more vehemently when we know we could change!

To accept that a thought about change does not of itself change our behaviour permanently is a key admission. It is not until we can reach a way of thinking that predominates in our minds in relation to given situations and paints the way that we feel and believe that we want to behave, does thinking begin to impact on behaviour.

Only then do we begin to walk the talk. Only then do we apply the psychology and begin to break down the previous adverse pattern.

So being aware of a short-coming is the first step. Acknowledging it in our minds as such a short-coming is the second. Ascertaining and internalising on its history, maybe from our childhood or an early relationship is the third. Acquiring guidance from a counsellor or from one of the many excellent books published on virtually every aspect of human behaviour is the fourth.

The fifth step is a touch more challenging: to decipher under the guidance of the counsellor or the author the best course of action to cure it

Remarkable it is how many then just leave it at that! The thorough investigation completed: the sixth step – the action to apply the results never started.

Imagine suffering more and more from inexplicable back or pelvic pain. Imagine seeking professional help. Visualise the specialist examining you thoroughly. Then see him or her opening a door in the consulting room to reveal a long corridor. He or she asks you to walk the length of the corridor and then walk back.

Back at the desk, you are told exactly what’s wrong. It is not due to illness. For some reason you have learned to walk with both your right hip and shoulder ahead of your left hip and finally your body is objecting to the twist.

Now can you hear the medical caution! “If you think that by knowing that, you will now walk correctly, you are much mistaken! We have to re-pattern the way you have learned to walk since you stood up and took your first steps, Can it be done? Absolutely! But you need to want “to walk the talk!”

The strength of cognitive patterning is extraordinary. It can impact on us in all manner of behavioural ways. Yet so is our ability to change them if we want to take the steps to achieve that.

Do remember that so much more can be achieved if you want to than if you feel you have to. There are more articles on Ezine on this and this is covered in eBook soon to be published by Gerry Neale who can be reached on http://cognitivementors.blogspot.com and http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com.

Luca Bosurgi, a defining voice in the emerging field of mind-spirit therapy, transforms psychoanalysis to spiritual evolution. He has developed an original mind coaching technique: The CognitiveOS Hypnosis. For the first time he has agreed to talk about the power of the CognitiveOS Hypnosis and why it’s the next step in psychoanalytical therapy. – Nadine Aurel

Luca, you and Nadine Aurel are the founders of the Cognitive OS Hypnosis Institute and the initiators of the Hunab-Ku People philosophy. Your friends call you “powerful master” and your clients rave about the miracles you perform. Luca, what is all this about?

The medicine to conquer our own miracles is in each and every one of us. We all have the tools to gain power, love, success and spiritual advancement using our own resources. I am not a master, I am a teacher who helps to prepare and trigger conditions where miracles can happen – and then miracles happen.

The CognitiveOS Institute is a recently formed institution established by Nadine and I to host my 20 years clinical experience and the Hunab-Ku philosophy. Nadine is a young Medicine Woman and has deeply contributed to the development of the Hunab-Ku concept.
What is a mind coach?

In order to understand mind coaching, we first need to agree on a few philosophical concepts:

• The purpose of our life on earth is to develop our spiritual awareness: this is primarily done by acquiring new knowledge through our life’s experiences.

• In order to gather experiences and transform them into spiritual evolution, we have a sophisticated, robotic system, our tool of life, which are our body and mind. They are powerful pieces of equipment that allow our spirit to live and operate on earth.

• Good control and management of this equipment provides us with balance and efficient lives.

• Bad control of this equipment results in depression, addictions, lack of self-esteem, eating disorders, pain and confusion among many other problems. The first step is to help my clients gain control over their mind and body by eliminating past psychological traumas and unhealthy conditional behaviors. I then train their minds to live a more effective life by developing their personal powers to enhance their professional, artistic, social and healing skills. This translates into balance, success, love and spiritual advancement: It changes lives. This is what I do and this is why I am successful.

You founded a new school in mind therapies, the CognitiveOS Hypnosis. How does CognitiveOS Hypnosis compare to the traditional psychotherapy?

CognitiveOS Hypnosis is a way to teach the meaning of life. It explains the value of and how to perform our life journey more efficiently by learning how to manage our body and mind. CognitiveOS Hypnosis is the next step in psychotherapy. It is a mind-spirit therapy that grants permanent and effective results much faster than any classical psychoanalysis. Within a few months I am able to coach my clients to take full control over their mind, clearing past psychological traumas, fear and pain. Most of the teaching is done with guided meditation in hypnosis.

Hypnosis is generally used to quit smoking and for pain management; to many it’s a scary word. What are hypnotism and CognitiveOS Hypnosis in fact?

The word hypnosis is often associated with a process where the hypnotist uses mysterious powers to take control of a person’s mind. This appears to render the patient helpless similar to a marionette. However, that is far from the truth; hypnosis is one of the most powerful and safe mind teaching techniques. During a hypnotherapy session the patient is mentally awake, in full control, and afterwards will remember each moment of the therapy.

Milton Erickson, the MD psychiatrist, father of the clinical hypnosis, was the first to give a medical connotation to hypnotism introducing the concept of a valid alternative to traditional psychotherapy. Unfortunately, he was ahead of his time and his voice remains limited. Traditional hypnosis is a symptom driven therapy and only used to clear specific conditions.

CognitiveOS Hypnosis, instead, is a method of teaching that uses tailor-made, guided meditations within a natural theta trance stage of the mind. CognitiveOS Hypnosis can be divided into two main elements:

Meditation: a natural sensorial language effortlessly absorbed by the mind. CognitiveOS Hypnosis uses this ancient language to teach clients how to take control over body and mind. This is accomplished by clearing past issues and psychological traumas while developing personal powers.

Theta-trance: a natural stage of the mind positioned between awake and asleep. A ‘magic mind’s place’ that happens naturally when we fall asleep or we wake up. We often experience it before getting up in the morning; our mind is awake but our body is still asleep. Our thoughts are similar to dreams but perfectly managed; crisp, brave and incredibly creative. While in this state, everything is still possible as in dreams, but it doesn’t last long because as soon as our body awakens the magic is gone. Hypnosis is the way to artificially open and maintain that ‘magic mind’s place’ for the period of a session.

Is CognitiveOS Hypnosis the only way to do that?

It is the fastest way. The alternative is training, but it takes many years; consider the difficult and demanding process of the eastern meditation schools.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, during one of his teachings, talked about an experiment organized by his team together with a team of hypnotherapists. He personally witnessed untrained minds able to produce similar EEG theta waves under hypnosis like highly trained monks during deep meditation. He found it fascinating that hypnosis could produce the same level of meditation in untrained minds in just a few seconds which his monks achieved after livelong training.

What does CognitiveOS mean?

The Cognitive Operating System is the interface connecting our spirit to our life’s tool, a super structure that we use 24/7 to manage our mind, body, and energies. Imagine a space shuttle, the CognitiveOS would be the interface that the astronaut uses to drive the ship.

In the western world we are rediscovering that each one of our cells has its own intelligence and energetic interaction with the rest of the body. Each cell makes mini decisions that affect the balance of the entire system. Therefore, it becomes obvious that the mind is only a part of the decision making process. CognitiveOS is the frame, the co-coordinator and the conductor of the global intelligence that regulates, motivates and develops our life.

Eastern ancient disciplines such as Kundalini Yoga have been designed to awaken, master and regulate the CognitiveOS. The CognitiveOS Hypnosis is the first psychotherapy school that operates at the CognitiveOS level.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung warned that Kundalini Yoga could lead to dissociation in which the mind purposely attempts to separate from its bodily restrictions, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis… what you think about that?

Jung was the first psychiatrist that understood the importance of integrating spirituality in our life, therefore he deserves respect. However his theories were developed before the mind revolution that took the western world by storm during the second half of the last century. Prior to the mind revolution, the ability to have free thought and the power to make independent decisions was very limited. Roles imposed by culture, religions, and states were strictly regulating life. Modern life with its many choices, freedom of movement and new technology required people to think and make choices. The focus shifted from physical strength to using our intellect. This shift created, among many others, the women’s movement, one of the most important developments of the last millennium.

To summarize, in my opinion, Jung’s worries are unjustified. I value Kundalini Yoga as a powerful CognitiveOS training and I recommend it to all my clients.

Is this why you opened one of your practices in a Kundalini Yoga center?

Absolutely. Working with the correct energetic environment is important plus it enhances the effects of the CognitiveOS therapy. The Golden Bridge Yoga center in Los Angeles, where I recently opened my new practice, is a sanctuary of vital energy. The owner and lead teacher Gurmukh, her husband, their team and all the Goldenbridge Community constantly create an environment full of light. It is a joy to operate there.

What is the Hunab-Ku and who are the Hunab-ku people?

Hunab-Ku is a powerful Mayan symbol which signifies the God of the Gods, the purest representation of the Big Creator above every religion. We adopted the Hunab-Ku symbol after a dream, as sign of our total commitment to the army of God. An army with no flags or structure, just people working in the name of love.

We are using the Hunab-Ku to define the coming generations who will bring the Earth to the next level. People trained to master their CognitiveOS, “life’s professionals”, working to restore and upgrade our wonderful, however seriously wounded world.

You are also a Medicine Man known as Red Cougar, do you perform shamanic sessions?

No, I integrated my Medicine Man powers within the CognitiveOS therapies. It’s one of the powerful tools that I use in my sessions. I have spent most of my life gathering teachings and techniques around the world and assembling the tools that make CognitiveOS Hypnosis. I remember how excited I was twenty years ago when I first discovered the tremendous healing power of hypnosis; it’s from that point that everything started to make sense.

Does CognitiveOS Hypnosis work for everybody?

Every person can benefit from it, but at this stage I only work with a limited number of clients who demonstrate powerful minds as well as a desire to change.

If I understand correctly, hypnosis only positions the client’s mind in a specific place, but the real therapy is the meditation that you create for them. Consequently, the success of your therapies comes from years of clinical and philosophical studies combined with your natural gifts. Will CognitiveOS Hypnosis become a main stream therapy?

My work defines the new way of healing by managing minds and spirits. It works because the conditions in our society are ready for it. People want to have control over their bodies and mind instead of the other way around.

Imagine that you are riding a horse that is out of control. You need that horse in order to travel your life’s journey; how would you feel? Would you feel afraid, depressed, confused, angry, even hate for the horse? In order to keep you in the saddle and to keep the animal going you might come up with all types of harsh or kind strategies or follow foolish advice. Perhaps you would drug the horse or tire it with endless exercise. What a nightmare! Well, this is the battle most western people are enduring daily.

Imagine the opposite situation. You know and love your horse. Your horse is well trained and responds with joy to all your commands and requests. How would you feel? You would feel happy, safe, relaxed and empowered, knowing that your journey will be efficient, enjoyable and successful.

After a century of preparations we are now ready for the big change. The era of the Aquarius, characterized by the newly balanced male/female mind allows us to take advantage of all the efforts and achievements and learn from the mistakes made by past generations during the “revolution of the mind” and the “new age” movements. We are finally ready to move to the next level, to reassess our priorities, to identify ourselves with our spirit and to allow our spirit to take full control over body and mind. The CognitiveOS is a universal and natural concept that will spread fast and will be taught in schools.

What about mind altering substances like Prozac, alcohol, drugs?

We all have the tools to achieve a powerful life and to defeat addictions, depression, pain and confusion. We all are powerful spirits driving perfect and intelligent mind/body robotics. We need to face our issues and work hard to allow the change to take place by taking charge and learning how to control and trust our tools of life. Life is a gift of God and it is our duty and responsibility to capitalize on each and every moment.

CognitiveOS Hypnosis Institute of California
6322 De Longpre Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90028
http://www.bosurgi.net
info@CognitiveOS.com

The term counseling intervention has taken on a little different meaning since the A&E show about addictions interventions, although this particular kind of intervention has been around since Vernon Johnson began it in the 1970’s, I believe. To me though, as a domestic violence and anger management trainer, the words counseling intervention mean interventions that I use in my counseling sessions.

Those interventions come from Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Existential or Experiential models, from the 12 Steps, from Grief Counseling, from journaling models, from Gestalt, from T.A., from any number of counseling models, from brainwave and heart rate variability biofeedback, from sound and light and binaural beat technology, from Chi Gong, but most importantly they reflect my orientation toward Solution Oriented Brief Therapy, Positive Psychology, and the Pillars of Brain Fitness. Brain fitness is a great lifestyle and counseling intervention which is the foundation for the growth of new neurons.

I have been involved in my own personal growth for 30 years, and have sought out tools to try out that have continued to move me towards what I believe is an effective and efficient use of my strengths. I have been blessed to walk with others who are making similar transitions, so there is an experiential truth for many folks that finding strengths and operating from them is healthy.

So What Counseling Interventions Do You Recommend?

The most important counseling intervention is listening. Understand that listening is a discreet skill with discernible steps. Listening non-judgementaly is usually perceived by the speaker as confirmation that they are basically OK, even though a significant part of their life right now is occupied by some current problem.

Once clients have managed to relax a bit, and begin to get comfortable that they can find a thinking or feeling or behavioral or some combination of all three kind or road map, we can begin to discuss signature strengths and solution orientations.

Sometimes clients will profess powerlessness over their thinking or feelings or behavior, and at that point, I like to take them to a biofeedback tool called heart rate variability biofeedback, which combines a number of what I believe to be very helpful tools together in one package, including feedback from the computer screen about how they are learning the skill.

Once clients get it that they can exert some (or a lot, it they practice) control over something like heart rate variability coherence, which is usually a subconscious physiological process,they are more confident to tackle thinking and and behavioral interventions which offer less clear cut feedback.

The thinking goes that if I can do the heart rate variability thing, then I can surely dispute irrational thoughts, or communicate assertively, or set boundaries, or do the 12 Steps, or go to a Holotropic Breathwork.

So what happens in heart rate variability biofeedback?

Clients are hooked up to a computer which monitors the time between their heart beats, and gives them audio and visual feedback about the coherence between heart beats.

Clients are taught to pay attention to the area around their hearts, and to remember a positive fun time, then ask their heart for a less stressful way to handle this kind of event in the future, and when clients get the breathing and thinking for a bit, they will see their heart rate variability move into coherence, and they also can track how problem thoughts lead to incoherence and stressful feelings.

With practice folks learn that they can feel relaxed for long periods of time, by attending to their thinking and breathing, and if they get untracked, a simple reminder will cue the relaxed physiology again. After all, biofeedback means that the process is learned by the brain in the heart.

Relieve stress and increase mental clarity

Your Heart Has a Brain?

Your heart has enough neurons in it to learn and make decisions, and nobody knew about your heart’s sophisticated nervous system until a few years ago, so that is why heart rate variability biofeedback is not a widely know counseling intervention yet.

Clients learn quickly that changing or controlling the external world actually has nothing to do with changing how they feel, and if they change their thinking to the inside (ask the heart a question), they can feel better quicker, and can continue to steer their thinking and feelings for long periods of time. Ever Heard of Neurogenesis or Neuroplasticity?

Probably not. No one had until about 10-15 years ago, when it was discovered that we grow new brain cells every day, and that we could lay the ground work for that by attending to the pillars of brain fitness. The two key terms to be concerned with in regards to counseling interventions here are neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.

Neurogenesis is the growth of new brain cells, and we can encourage that capacity of our brain, just as we can encourage the increased connectivity of neurons, which we call neuroplasticity, by taking care of the pillars of brain fitness, which are physical exercise, nutrition which will include lots of anti-oxidants and omega three fatty acids, sleep, stress management (heart rate variability biofeedback), and novel learning experiences.

Those novel learning experiences can include learning a foreign language or a new instrument, or perhaps one of the newly available computerized brain fitness programs like the dual n back task, which will train attention and memory for heart rate variability biofeedback, and has an interesting side effect of increased IQ.

So we counselors should start with tools that enhance our clients efficacy and skills, increasing their confidence, and increasing skills on the dual n back and heart rate variability biofeedback are excellent for that. Then we can go on to the more traditional depth counseling intervention. What a great model for a counseling intervention.

Michael S. Logan is a brain fitness expert, a counselor, a student of Chi Gong, and licensed one on one HeartMath provider. I enjoy the spiritual, the mythological, and psychological, and I am a late life father to Shane, 10, and Hannah Marie, 4, whose brains are so amazing.

http://www.askmikethecounselor2.com

The representational perception exists either in the level of internal representations of objects that do not have a physical manifestation in the environment, or in the level of representations in relation to the objects that do have physical manifestation in the environment. If one for example sits on some lane and perceives the scenery opening in front of him or her, what he or she actually perceives is are the contents of the representational perception rather than a scene that is context free from information.

What this means is that although representations of objects that do have physical manifestation in the environment at the same time they are perceived, the content such as colors are in fact only associated type of information to the representations of the objects, as are for example sounds. When one hears another one speaking, instead of hearing only the sound waves, he or she automatically hears them as words if the sub-conscious has been taught to interpret those patterns of sounds as the words that are then heard, and so it is also in case of everything in the semantic content of the representational perception. There just aren’t any content free objects in the representational perception, because it can have only the information given by the sub-conscious brain functions and what it is able to receive through receptors.

In case of environment not having enough semantic, explicit or implicit information for it to be recognized, after semantization and identifying the phenomenon, the conscious valuations done in relations to it are automatically added to its content, increasing the complexity and is afterwards recognized having also the content given to it. The fact that we are for example able to perceive combined dots, circles, curves and lines as words and them, when combined with other words as sentences speak of the recognition of information even before they enter to our consciousness. The fact that we are able to recognize familiar faces having immediate responds to them speaks of the existence of a representational perception we are constantly connected to through the perceptive abilities and the sub-conscious brain functions related to it.

Now, the representational reality and the cognitive representations are composed of combined smaller entities that as combined patterns produce the representations as they are. These representations can again be combined together in relativity with category and each representation can be considered as an outlined and recognized phenomenon. Thus, every valuation concerning any phenomenon or already existing representation is an act of changing its value-relative content via changing the combinatory whole in the phenomenon relative lower-level entities and thereafter the content perceived in the representational perception. One therefore alters the reality one is surrounded with, since the sense of reality is constructed of representation in the level of the conscious mind. This act of altering the content of the representational reality can be of automatically generated content in the sub-conscious or of conscious perception and the valuation related to it, producing both, conscious and unconscious levels to the increasing complexity of the sense of reality, as it alters the interpretational level that produces the representations to consciousness. And as semantizations are made in relations to the complexity one perceives in the representations projected to the internal representational perception, when consciously perceiving and analyzing them, their internal, given and existing complexity can be recognized and after that, recombined by altering the combination in the lower-level entities, producing relatively different entity in the higher-level of the scope.

Henry M. Piironen is a contemporary European philosopher of consciousness, cultures, and reality. His main focuses are in the ethical development and in the creation of cross-cultural awareness of globally dominant major religions between the merging cultures of the 21st century age of information exchange. To purchase his latest books, visit barnesandnoble.com

As I and others have explained in articles, books and eBooks, follow a prescribed and well-tried process and you carry a pretty good guarantee of achieving a goal. Yet for many, as they progress towards the point of achievement, they sometimes feel themselves easing up, or even beginning to bail out. This can happen even when the goal is virtually achieved. There are psychological reasons for this which, if addressed, can be dealt with.

Like so many things, with the psychology simplified, goal-setting becomes clear. But leave it unexplained and you travel through life psychologically shackled and chained to your past. And you travel all too often unaware of the presence of the inhibiting force within us.

Looking at the problem, it will soon become obvious you can have varying degrees of difficulty with this. It will depend on how deep-seated the issue is in the inner sanctum of your mind as to which is the most effective remedy.

If you have a minor “attack” of easing up on your goal, when otherwise things are going well, make sure you listen objectively to the negative self-talk in you head surrounding the “attack” Usually, your subconscious will be responding to some latent and poor image of yourself. It causes it to surface when that poor image is about to be challenged and even dismantled by your impending success at a goal you have set.

Remember, research shows you cannot hold two conflicting thoughts at the same time. You cannot believe yourself to be effective and ineffective at the same time. You cannot be a success and a failure at one thing at the same time.

So you have this dilemma as part of you originally embraced the goal and set off to achieve it, then another part of you still has unresolved problems of a different origin. In serious cases, rarely would you get very far, even if you had started on a goal, before the power of the negative thoughts neutralise your motivation.

Dealing with minor attacks can be achieved by writing out positive affirmations in the present tense and as if achieved already. Each affirmation should express the opposite to the negative voice you are hearing in our head.

But if I look next at the major and relentless attacks of negativity next, then a spell of introspection is worthwhile. This can be achieved best with professional counselling where you are clueless as what is causing you to bail out.

My belief is that the cause most probably rests deep in your childhood and you have carried the issue into your life as an adult. May I say counselling has mush less of a stigma to it these days. So much more is known about cognitive thinking now. It can be incredibly helpful in dislodging us from thoughts that have dogged us since our childhood

In middle of the road cases, where you know you will have to battle against yourself to achieve your goals, of course counselling is an option, but there are some excellent books on the market that can tutor you on how to diffuse your inner gremlins.

And if it helps you, I have posted on my blogs the titles of some I recommend.to students whole-heartedly. I will post some examples of this dilemma. I know that the psychology of goal-setting is not an exact science and I have tried to include more material which could be helpful to you. I am also pushing an eBook before the end of the month Gerry Neale can be found at.

He can be reached on http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com and http://cognitivementors.blogspot.com.

The cause can be expressed in a number of different ways but it always amounts to the same thing. It could be said to be:-

Expecting a goal setting process to achieve success for you while you wait.
Imagining a get rich wealth creation system will do it all for you
Believing you have always been in good place, but still just need to find that winning formula.

But there is more to it than that!

Would you believe it, but the vast majority of get-rich quick schemes actually work! Very few of them are fraudulent scams. Yet when clearly most work, doesn’t it strike you as really odd – and significant – that each method has a trail of people who have failed when trying it.

Could it be that it is not the system at fault at all, but the way people are interacting with it?

Conversely and most fundamental of all, isn’t it undeniably true that not one single system works on its own? And equally, not one single goal, whether, in the mind or written down succeeds of its own accord.

These may sound a desperately elementary statements to make, but unfortunately they are unavoidably true and reflect a self-made trap they fall into.

Yes, of course our success lies to start with in our minds, following our decision and commitment to strive for it through our goal we have set.

But by far the greater part of our potential success lies in our own hands and how we take action. If we are following any formatted system and the detailed instructional notes which accompany many of these offerings, then the psychological moment we transfer ultimate faith in and accountability for our success from ourselves and to a system, we are damned.

The distinction may seem pretty academic, but is absolutely key. But do reflect on it!

We will have reviewed the opportunity. We will have decided on a route to take. We have found a formatted solution in a product or system. We have bought it.. We are are now working alone, or working via webinars or interactive programmes with the founder or promoter of the programme.

But note carefully and precisely what happens psychologically when we hit a rock. We blame the programme, because it should be able to solve it but it cannot. We tell ourselves it doesn’t work and we lose faith in it. And the feedback we give ourselves is not a good way to go either!

In fact, if we vest ultimate faith in systems and never ourselves, what happens! We go on buying more and more seemingly infallible products for success, and yet none of them work, because we don’t stay completely accountable.

Always stay ultimately accountable for your future in your mind.

Then tell yourself – with all that done – that now the action must start. Then go and get it done, day by day, week by week and month by month. And do so each step of the way, by reminding yourself of the wonderful motto: “If it’s going to be, then it’s up to me”

And if you would like more insights and recommendations on suggested systems.do go to either of my blogs but do that with the acceptance that these are aids to success not guarantors of success. As always I wish you every success. Gerry Neale can be reached on http://cognitivementors.blogspot.com and http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com And he plans to publish an eBook on Goal-setting during May 2010.

The Goal-setting psychology, however simple, can be thrown out of the window if one is not keeping an eye on ones own physical fitness and well-being. The body – unfit and under-nourished – guarantees lower resilience in ones thinking and increases the tendency to give up easily. So we need to cover that.

It is not making goals, or even achieving them that are the greatest psychological challenges to us with goal-setting. It is coping with difficulties on the journey and weathering the hardships and overcoming the seemingly irreversible challenges.

These can happen with any goal but can present more of a problem the more significant and testing the goal is we have set. The problem could be a train strike, a car breakdown, a broken phone, but we can find a away round

But set a medium or great sized goal, and the test of our endurance are almost always proportionately greater.- the greater the challenge we have set the greater the likely obstacle.

What happens though is not a physical reaction directly to the obstacle. It is the impact on how the psychology we have adopted which can be rendered useless. A goal to be effective requires that our mental picture of it is so vivid and represents so much more of a preferable state for us than where we are currently. It is this gap between where we are now and the prospective achievement which provides us with the mental and physical motivation and energy to bridge or close that gap.

Facing the obstacle we have now a physical challenge in terms of the way our body and brain need to respond. I can tell you, to respect and cherish our body and the physical well-being of our brain is essential.

If we don’t do that, the psychological pressure valve for our motivation fails to function, makes the goal seem far more of a mountain to climb, and reminds us that our current position seems once again a much more acceptable comfort zone.

Our goal is left no less achievable in real terms. Our actual ability, if properly fit, remains unchanged, but we have failed to feed ourselves with the right ingredients. Body, mind and soul are each needed to help us achieve.what, psychologically, we have prepared ourselves to achieve..

Yes, excessive drinking or smoking, late nights, unrelenting stress, can sap our energy and dramatically dilute our motivation.

To make a goal is only the first step. Bad diet, insufficient and ineffective relaxation time, lack of exercise can each seem to be irrelevant aspects if you want to raise your sense of self-esteem over, say, your professional work as a architect or an accountant. Yet tiredness alone can be lethal..

So even a goal to keep all the physical faculties well-honed can be well worthwhile adopting for when you hit a large proverbial hole ahead of you. Make sure you are not just to tired to keep working for the goal.

And if you would like more insights into the mechanics of goal-setting then please leave a comment on either of my relevant blogs. I am also about to publish an eBook on Goal-setting, so watch out for that. In the meantime, do please cherish yourself as well as you commit to your goal-setting. In that way you can help your body and brain “set your mind to achieve it”.

And if you would like more insights into the psychological mechanics then please leave a comment on either of my relevant blogs. I am also about to publish an eBook on Goal-setting, so watch out for that. In the meantime, do please cherish yourself as well as you commit to your goal-setting. In that way you can help your body and brain “set your mind to achieve it”.

Gerry Neale can be reached on http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com and http://cognitivementors.blogspot.com

Does psychology as an import from Western culture adequately explain Eastern behavior? Are all human brains and thus, development, cognition, and behavioral patterns essentially alike? Are its methods of therapy appropriate or displaced? Are the goals for outcome similar regardless of geography, or must they be modified to reflect the values of the dominant culture? And perhaps most of all: is the overlay of a Western model of the mind effecting change on the cultural psyche of the East?

Psychology as a scientific study has the pathology-driven Western medical model at its foundation, overlaid by the values of ancient Greece, such as individuation, self-control, and self-efficacy. The cultures of Asia have at their core the values of ancient China, such as hierarchy, moral development, achievement, and social responsibility, and a non-dualistic medical system that is based on principles of balance and harmony. Some, such as Richard Nisbett in The Geography of Thought,argue that these phenomenally diverse core systems result in very different processes of cognition. In the West, cognitive process is one of logic, critical analysis, and direct, rational thought, in which the universe is conceptualized as the sum of its parts which can further be categorized, and is generally termed Analytic Cognition. In the East, cognition is abstract, paradoxical, circular and indirect, the universe a web of infinite connections; this is known as Holistic Cognition. If cognition and constructs of illness are phenomenally different, how can the same model for human behavior and development adequately apply to both?

One’s sense of self is also quite differently defined in these two disparate regions of the world: either sociocentric or egocentric. In the former, which describes the cultures in Asia, one’s concept of self is formed within the social context, and defined by it at any given moment; a sense of selfhood requires social connectedness. In the Western world, the egocentric model is dominant; each person’s sense of self is considered autonomous and unique, individuated, and largely consistent regardless of context. Thus, while a primary goal of psychology in Western society is one of self-development, in an Asian setting it would be one of self-transcendence toward enlightenment.

The process of psychotherapy depends upon the orientation of the individual. In Western societies, this is one of dispositionism, in which the internal disposition of the person is the primary consideration. In the East, however, the orientation is one of interactionism, in which the presence of complex causalities is assumed and the focus is on relationships and reactions between persons or the person and the surrounding environment. Of course, neither of these orientations stands alone, but both are present in each setting; however, one takes clear precedent over the other. In each, the approach of psychotherapy would be rather obviously different, in focusing either on internal processes such as self-esteem or internal locus of control, or on relationships, methods and patterns of relating, and one’s place in the grand scheme of society.

Creativity is another area in which these regions of the world differ greatly. While novelty isn’t well suited to Eastern cultures, and can feel threatening to the overall social cohesiveness, it’s inherent in Western modes of thinking and behavior, and deemed crucial to problem-solving. In the West, time and one’s developmental processes are conceived of as linear and finite with a beginning and an end; thus, innovation and breaking with tradition are required to effect change, and to grow. In the East, however, development consists of successive reconfigurations and is dynamic, involving reinterpretation and new uses of tradition rather than a break with it. The spiral, not the line, is a more accurate image of progress, whether personal or societal. Creativity is both a by-product and a necessary component of the former model, while of minimal use in the latter.

It’s often said that psychology with its concepts of mental illness and health is, or was until recently, taboo in Asian cultures, and the mentally ill stigmatized and marginalized as a source of family shame. While the latter has been true at one time or another in all societies, East and West, it’s an oversimplification of the Eastern conception of health. In classical Chinese medicine, which springs primarily from Taoism with influences of Buddhism and Confucianism, health is inclusive of all aspects – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social – and conceived of as a state of harmony and balance, illnesses termed as ‘patterns of disharmony’. These patterns include symptoms from all aspects of the person. Never having adopted a Cartesian duality of mind and body, Asian cultures thus never conceived of mental illness as a distinction. This too represents a profound dissonance in the Eastern and Western conceptions of and treatment approaches for mental health. Further, various Asian philosophies view the universe, and the person as a microcosm of same, as being in a continual process of change and impermanence, while Western psychology deems the self and the personality to be largely fixed at an early age, with a sense of continuity throughout one’s life.

As the Western, largely American, model of mental health and illness has made its way to Asia, scholars have begun questioning its universal applicability. Geoffrey Blowers, an assistant dean of psychology at Hong Kong University, is one who has written and presented on this subject. Some Asian models of psychology have emerged, based upon the philosophical constructs which have strongly influenced Asian societies and individual psyches. One such example is Buddhist psychology, developed primarily in Japan and other parts of Asia. It differs profoundly from that of the West in several ways, notably in lacking a fixed concept of self but rather one in a constant state of flux; the path to enlightenment is transpersonal, one of moving beyond a sense of personhood and of the self. Some aspects of Buddhism, in particular the concept and practice of “mindfulness”, have been widely adopted within Western psychotherapeutic practices as well. Hybrid models of psychology are also being attempted, and one promising model is Chinese Taoist Cognitive Psychology. Mental health as viewed from a Taoist perspective, another of the pillars of Asian mentality, include a transcendence from self and secularity, the dynamic revertism of nature, integration with the law of nature, and ultimately a high level of transformation and transcendence.

In contrast, a recent article in the New York Times, “The Americanization of Mental Illness” [08 January 2010], identified growing trends in Asia toward not only the Western model of conceptualizing, diagnosing, and treating mental illnesses, but in the incidence of the disease patterns themselves. As an example, eating disorders were unheard of in Asia until recently, and are now fast on the rise, as are schizophrenia and several personality disorders. The concepts behind these disorders are very much a product of Western cultural values and beliefs, yet are appearing now throughout Asia. While mental disorders as conceived of in the West were largely somatized in Asian cultures, this is changing rapidly. And, with increased exposure not only to Western ideals but conceptualizations of mental illness, the manifestation of such illnesses is undergoing substantial change. Along with this, an increasing dependence not only on a pathological model but on pharmacological treatment is widely seen. A growing body of scholars protests this trend, arguing that mental health and illness have never been conceived of in the same way throughout cultures, and that this represents profound cultural alteration.

The argument can be made that science, in the form of western psychology just as in western forms of medicine before it, has made great progress in understanding human illness and treatment. Thus, a conclusion might be drawn that Asian societies would do well to adopt these methods. But a simple adoption of a system which is in many ways antithetical to that of the culture is inadequate at best. It can equally be said that Eastern philosophical systems have contributed greatly to the understanding of human behavior and, in particular, to that of consciousness. More consideration, and more care in its application, is needed, with great cultural sensitivity, and an integration of models is an obvious outcome.

Dr Anne Hilty is an health psychologist with a transpersonal orientation; she has a clinical practice in integrative psychotherapy which is additionally influenced by classical Chinese medicine, somatic psychology, and Asian shamanic traditions. Located in the Central district of Hong Kong, she can be contacted at: annehilty at gmail dot com.