The Sushi Train
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The Sushi Train

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

Ride the Sushi Train of the Mind My daughter used to love those restaurants where sushi dishes paraded past on a little train track.  Long-time Edmontonions may remember that there used to be one in WEM.  In this new video, Russ Harris uses the sushi train as a beautiful metaphor for the relationship that we all…

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The Difficult Art of Self-Compassion

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

The Difficult Art of Self-Compassion “To survive in this high-pressured, crazy world, most of us have to become highly adept at self-criticism. We learn how to tell ourselves off for our failures, and for not working hard or smart enough. But so good are we at this that we’re sometimes in danger of falling prey…

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The Joy of Missing Out

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

According to Wikipedia, the fear of missing out or FOMO is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”. This can show up as “a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing”. FOMO is everywhere in modern, urban life. Most of the time it’s a minor irritant but it…

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Don’t get gripped by the script!

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

January is a time when many of us consider making personal changes. Inevitably, we also reflect on some of the resolutions to change that we made last January. And we might well come to the conclusion that change is just too darn difficult.  This article discusses how this plays out with the specific concern of weight…

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The Grizzly Momma

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

Grizzly Momma Imagine that a mother grizzly has five cubs, conveniently named Cub Number One, Cub Number Two, Cub Number Three, Cub Number Four, and Cub Number Five. At first they don’t do much. They stay in the den, where they nurse and sleep and their mother cleans them. After their eyes open, they start…

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Why Long-Drawn-Out-Therapy (LDOT) is not the way to go

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

Have you ever thought about trying therapy but been concerned about getting drawn into a long-drawn-out therapeutic process? Well it turns out that your instincts are probably correct. There is now a body of evidence to suggest that Long-Drawn-Out-Therapy (LDOT) is not especially effective. Most gains (including lasting gains) come in the first few sessions of therapy. This…

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“I’ve blown it so I might as well go out in style!”

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

Researchers actually do call it the “what the heck” effect (or something close to that). It refers to the moment when you realize that you’ve blown your calorie goal for the day, so you might as well order pizza and beer. Or the moment when you have one cigarette at a party and go on…

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Waiting for the wrong train

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

Imagine you are going on a journey. Somewhere really special, where you really want to go, somewhere you’ve wanted to go your whole life. When you get to the train station you see two trains. One is a bit odd-looking and strange, some of the seats look a bit hard and overall it looks a…

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The Rip Current

ByPaul Brennan RPsych

When caught in a rip current, swimmers often intuitively swim towards the shore, unwittingly swimming directly against the rip. This is the main reason rips are so dangerous, because the strong current keeps pulling the swimmer back into the ocean, so even the strongest swimmer makes little progress, risking exhaustion and drowning. Experts advise us…