Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist

Parents with young children are totally involved in caring for and protecting their kids. They are enmeshed with their young children. That deep level of codependency of parent and child ensures the survival of the children.

But change comes quickly. Your kids learn to do things for themselves, and then demand to do them. They develop their own personalities.

You celebrate each time your young children learn to do something independently, like tie their shoelaces, hammer a nail or write a story. Then they enter the teenage years, those few years of rapid physical and emotional transition from childhood to adulthood. They feel sexual urges. They feel very “adult.” They begin to flex the independence you so strongly encouraged up to now.

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I want to thank www.More4kids.info for the insightful article, Does your Child Have an Imaginary Friend?  Both the article and a movie (below) could be really helpful to parents who are wondering about whether or not they should push reality or participate with their child in interacting with their imaginary friend. Dealing with your child’s imaginary friends is an interesting part of parenting.

We just watched the excellent movie entitled, Opal Dreams, in which a child with two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan, interacts with her parents and community. Opal Dreams is available on DVD and is set in Lightning Ridge, the opal capital of Australia. It’s a family film worth watching. Enjoy.

Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist, maintains an active psychology and life-coaching practice on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He is a member of the treatment team at Sunshine Coast Health Centre, an alcohol and drug treatment center for men. His goal is to help you to help yourself to a better life. http://www.neillneill.com

One time I heard a man I knew say to his wife "I don’t trust you. But don’t take it personally; I don’t trust anyone."

What made his statement particularly bizarre was that this same man expected trust from everyone else—his employees, his business associates, his creditors, and yes, his wife.

The fact is you need people to trust you to order a meal in a restaurant, to have a credit card or a driver’s license or even to be out in public. You can’t get on in life without others trusting you.

But neither can you get on in life without trusting others too. You trust your employer will pay you. You trust the driver of the car arriving at the stop sign will stop and not run into you.

How does trust develop? The fact is you started off in life in a state of trust.

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Dr. Neill Neill

It was with sadness that I heard the news of the death in our small community of a five-year-old boy, accidentally run over by a backing truck. And now I see from the local newspaper that his grieving parents are struggling with an insurance company.

What distinguishes an accidental death from other deaths is the suddenness. Most of what I write below applies to other deaths, although the timing may be a bit different.

Last year I suffered the death of a son. But the death of a child? My son was 41 and we saw it coming; this little boy was vibrant and healthy and only five. When a child of that age dies, it is as if a part of the parents dies. What horrific trauma for the parents!

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A new website is about to launch. It could be big and it is already multinational. It’s called "School Made Much Easier" and it’s designed for students, parents, educators and EFT practitioners. The website is www.SchoolMadeMuchEasier.com. Check it out and get your name on the advance notice list. The expected launch is in a couple of weeks.

School Made Much Easier is the brainchild and passion of Paul Widdershoven, an experienced EFT practitioner.

Emotional Freedom Technique, commonly known as EFT, is an energy-healing technique developed by Gary Craig (my teacher) in the 1990s. It has been so effective in reducing emotional distress that it is now used by psychologists, counsellors, medical doctors and educators around the world. What’s even more exciting is that tens of thousands of non-professionals use EFT as a valuable self-help tool.

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By Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist

Mental illness is not neatly categorized and explained, and that can be a bit scary.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) gives descriptions of the many mental disorders affecting about 20 percent of the population. 

The three mental disorders we most often hear about are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder (clinical depression.)

I have been up close and personal with all three: family members, close friends, colleagues, pupils and clients.  I even did internships in big mental hospitals, back in the days before they closed their doors.

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Have you ever wondered where the guilt you sometimes feel is coming from? Do you think to yourself that you have nothing to be guilty about, yet you feel a twinge of guilt from time to time? Do you wonder if the guilt could be keeping you stuck in less than full mental health? Then read on.

I’m going to suggest one place guilt feelings come from and a simple way to reduce them.

When you were a child you were probably told a number of times that you should look both ways before you cross the street. Then when you mother would check up on you just before crossing a street, you would tell her with glee, "I should look both ways."

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by Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologogist

Grieving from loss touches all of us. It seems to intensify for many during the holidays, because there are so many memories of the past that was. 

Human beings who experience loss must grieve.  We must do that cleansing. The cycle of grieving and recovery from loss is a normal psychological/spiritual human process. We try to interfere with it at our peril.

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I was recently participating in a workshop where everyone in the room was learning something new, tackling tough questions and new approaches, and facing mountains of additional work.

I looked around the room and saw men and women who were exuding happiness. It was hard to find anyone who was unhappy.

I reflected on why everyone, including me, was so happy, and just what happiness is anyway. This is practical psychology at its best.

My ex use to plead, “All I want is for you to be happy!”

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