Tag: Counseling Quezon City

The Invisible Forces That Shape Who We Become

“The unifying theme is unmistakable: the group to which an individual belongs is the ground for his perceptions, his feelings, and his actions. Most psychologists are so preoccupied with the salient features of the individual’s mental life that they are prone to forget it is the ground of the social group that gives to the individual his figured character.
Just as the bed of a stream shapes the direction and tempo of the flow of water, so does the group determine the current of an individual’s life. This interdependence of the ground and the figured flow is inescapable, intimate, dynamic, but it is also elusive.”
— Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics (1948)

Beyond Good or Bad: Looking at Context

In counseling, I do my best to avoid labeling my clients’ behaviors as good or bad, right or wrong. Instead, I ask a different question: In this particular situation, is this behavior helping the person move toward the aspirations they have for their lives, or is it getting in the way?

Are You Moving Towards Life or Running Away From It?

If you’re living life feeling tossed around by difficult thoughts and feelings, maybe it’s time to discover what truly matters to you. Once you do, your only job is to live it purposefully and intentionally, one challenging moment at a time.

The Values and The Logic of Living

Values are not conclusions reached by logic.
They are directions of living that organize logic.
Values supply the direction, logic provides the route.

Coping With Anger

Anger is a feeling.

It is not the problem.

Feelings are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong.

The question is not whether anger should be there.

The question is what happens when we follow it.

Can we express our anger with dignity?

Can we use it in the service of what matters?

It is never about perfection.

It is about becoming more aware of the consequences of our responses and choosing the path that works best.

When We Treat Ourselves and Others Like Things

The problem is not that we describe people.
The problem begins when our descriptions become explanations.
Personality becomes a thing.
Intelligence becomes a thing.
Diagnosis becomes a thing.
Attachment becomes a thing.
Before we know it, we stop asking what happened and start assuming we know what someone is.
We begin treating ourselves and others as things to be fixed rather than people to be understood.

The Importance of Context

We often assume behavior comes from who people are.
But some of psychology’s most influential thinkers argued that behavior can only be understood within the dynamic contexts in which it occurs.
“No simple mechanistic law relating particular stimuli to particular responses is possible, given that behaviors are always embedded in dynamic contexts that alter and constrain their effects.”
— Kurt Lewin (1951), quoted in Ross & Nisbett, The Person and the Situation (1991)
Context does not explain everything.
But without context, we often explain very little.