I get a steady trickle of emails from concerned people asking for advice regarding the blackmail email about their webcam being hacked. Often, the email contains their password, which causes them concern as it gives gravitas to the claims in the email. By adjusting the email headers, it also looks like the email has [falsely]..
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Jon Ronson – Strange Answers to the Psychopath Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c&rel=0 Summary: A TED talk by Jon Ronson about the psychopath checklist and how mental disorders are catalogued. He begins with the DSM manual and its growing list of disorders, then describes a conversation that led him to interview people in a high-security hospital and to look at how the checklist is applied, ending with..
Read moreManufacturing Demons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK_IA9CBTHY&rel=0 Summary: Andy explains how a concept such as depression can be turned into a 'demon' through everyday language. He describes the shift from feeling depressed to saying 'I have depression', where the experience becomes a thing or person with its own will that seems to attack and ruin a life. Depression is the main..
Read moreJordan Peterson – Depression
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_2zmX6Akc&rel=0 Summary: A clip of Jordan Peterson answering a question about how psychotherapy compares with medical treatment for depression. He says medical interventions should not be underestimated when depression is severe, and goes on to talk about meaning, personality traits such as conscientiousness and neuroticism, and making progress step by step. The clip is Peterson's..
Read moreMetaphors of Movement Levels 4 & 5
Metaphors of Movement Levels 4 & 5 are now available. This program is only available online and you can purchase a membership here: https://businessmetaphors.com/ For current courses, recorded programmes and study libraries, see Training Courses with Andrew T. Austin.
Read moreRandom Day
I just thought I'd share a strange story. There's no moral, no punchline, and it isn't particularly amusing. It's just a strange thing that I experienced one day. Some readers may already know, but I used to get myself in quite a lot of trouble by refusing to blindly accept things and also by asking..
Read moreCripple Sex
Many years ago, I briefly worked in a residential unit for severely physically challenged people. Now, I say "briefly" because my employment lasted exactly one day and 90 minutes. The first problem arose on day one from my candid conversations with a small group of 16–19-year-olds about how exactly sex is possible when one’s body..
Read moreThe problem with Nigel
The phone rang in the therapist’s office. The mother on the other end outlined the problem, Nigel, her son, now aged 44, had been in care for nearly 8 years in a state of catatonic schizophrenia. Various drugs and electroconvulsive therapy have been tried with only moderate and always temporary success. Neurological assessments revealed nothing..
Read moreHow to Make a Promotional Video
There appears to be a set formula for how one should produce a self-promotion video if one is a coach, NLPer, hypnotherapist, or whatnot. To make it easy for the new alphabet therapists (IEMT, EMDR, NLP, CBT, EFT, NAET, TFT, TAT, etc.) to fit in, I'll briefly outline what you need to do to make..
Read moreHow much to charge?
A very common theme in the hypnotherapy and complementary therapy world is that of "charging as much as you can" and "the higher you charge, the more you will be respected." Something I have encountered a lot is "If it is important to the client, then they will pay anyway." I'm not so sure about..
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