A meditation on time and change

About a year ago, I read this in a book on psychotherapy1: There cannot be change without loss. It struck me as a profound statement, because it carries many implications with it. I want to expand on what change means, looking behind and ahead in time, especially in our times. In retrospective, change is loss We often talk of “big life changes”: graduation, marriage, childbirth, and so on. But it’s wiser to think of them in terms of loss: what did I lose with this change? [Read More]

A systems approach to mental well-being

I am an engineer by profession but I like to read about psychology and psychotherapy out of interest. As I have become familiar with it, I’ve found it to be highly logical.

I will specify the system first, and then use it to make some suggestions for our improvement.

I originally started writing this in July 2021 but it took several revisions before I felt it was polished enough to post.

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Gottlieb and other tales of psychotherapy

Back in 2004, when I was in Bangalore and still fresh out of college, I was mesmerized by a book with a title that asked you to kill the Buddha if you met him. The murderous Zen title notwithstanding, the book was written by a psychotherapist who drew parallels between literary characters and his patients. I wanted to read more such books, but as I said, I was in India and it was 2004. Only in the last year have I delved deep again into the realm of psychotherapy.

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