Category Archives: Structures of the self

Characterological diagnosis: labelling or liberating?

Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapists can get very squeamish about the use of diagnosis in psychotherapy. Diagnosing characterological or personality types is seen as a step too far towards the medical model: clients are pathologised in the diagnosis and subsequently treated as if they have a psychological flaw that requires ‘fixing’ or ‘curing’. We tend to […]

Dealing with the internal critic

Don’t we all have one: the internal voice that judges our actions and behaviours against a moral compass to keep us on the right path? Or do you also have a more persecutory and pernicious version that tells you that you are stupid or talentless or embarrassing or a big head or ugly or unloveable […]