Vancouver Psychologist Dr. Gordon Reid

“A world that can be explained even with bad
reasons is a familiar world”. (Camus)

People seek the guidance of a therapist when there is disruption and distress in their lives and their usual self-limiting, risk-avoiding way of operating are not paying off. Such patients arrive full of fear, pain, and turmoil expressing strong and genuine wishes to deal with their situation. As surprising at it may seem however, most of these people are not truly serious about actually doing something to change. Rather, their primary motivation is to get the pain to stop.

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Studies indicate that 15-30% of adults in the general population experience depressive episodes often of moderate severity at some time in their lives. While many individuals will be seen by their family physicians and G.P`s, only only a minority of people with clinical depression seek professional health from psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health workers. Because of difficulties in gaining access to treatment, financial disadvantages, stigma and shame etc., most people suffering from depression do not receive professional help.

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We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!Shape without form, shade without colour
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;…
(“The Hollow Men”, T.S. Elliot)

Across the years of offering psychotherapy with thousands of patients, I have been continuously struck by one remarkable and puzzling phenomenon. Almost without exception, psychotherapy patients seem to have tremendous difficulty in presenting the subjective experiences associated with their reported problems. For example, they might say they are sad, but they smile; they say they are angry but they cry. At first glance, this may seem to suggest an intentional hiding or distorting of what they actually feel, a willful attempt to disguise or hold back. In fact, this is not the case.

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It has been clear to psychologists for some time that anxiety lies at the heart of most patients’ difficulties. In many cases, people come for therapy because they are afraid of aspects of their world or their own experiences that only mildly affect others or even seem harmless to them. One example that fits into this category are the various phobias people report and these cover an immense range of feared events such as flying, elevators, animals and so on. In such instances our work together consists of finding ways to overcome such fears so as to live life more freely and enjoyably.

But the difficulty faced by numerous other people is not due to such overt anxiety, but rather stems from the strategies they have developed in order to avoid such anxiety. This general tendency to avoid what causes anxiety is what psychologists typically refer to when they use the term psychological defense. It is because of this tendency to avoid events we find distressing that the effects of avoidance operate in a silent and often hidden manner. Read More