Tomichan Matheikal's blog

When my problems bogged me down, I approached Guru. “No one, not even God, can solve your problems unless you want to solve them yourself,” said Guru. “But…” I was shocked.  I went to him for help because I wanted to solve my problems, didn’t I?  Why is he speaking as if I didn’t want to solve my problems? “ Most people are in love with their problems ,” Guru said as if he had read my mind.  “The drug addict, for example, loves drugs and don’t want to leave them though he may say he wants to kick the habit.  What withholds him from kicking the addiction is precisely what led him to the addiction.” “A sense of emptiness?”  I asked because I had faced that sense time and again.  “Is there anything better than emptiness in life?” asked Guru.  “Weren’t all the Mahatmas searching for emptiness?” “People can’t bear emptiness,” I blurted out. “Precisely.  That’s why they fill their life with things.  And when things fail to satisfy the real inner need, they

“People are disturbed not by events, but by the views which they take of them,” said the Greek philosopher Epictetus 2000 years ago.  20 th century psychologist Albert Ellis [1913-2007] said the same thing in slightly different words, “ People disturb themselves by the things that happen to them, and by their views, feelings, and actions.” It is facile to argue that Salman Rushdie or Wendy Doniger disturbs us with their books.  The fact is they don’t.  There are more people in the world who are not disturbed by their books than those who are.  What makes the difference? There is a model in psychology known as the A-B-C framework .  A stands for activating agent , B for belief , and C for Consequence (emotional and behavioural).  A book may be the activating agent.  It creates a belief in us: that our religion or god is in danger or something of the sort.  And the consequence is anger, frustration, or some such reaction.  The basic premise of this approach to psycho

After food and shelter, man’s basic need is story.  I read this a few days back in The Hindu , but have forgotten who said it.   Stories fascinate us.  Most of the great lessons of life were taught to us in the form of stories when we were children.  The life of each one of us is a bundle of stories, stories we tell us about ourselves as well as those told by others about us.  These stories create our reality to the extent they determine our perceptions and feelings, and hence our actions.  In our stories, we may see ourselves as the hero, the victim, the villain, or anything.  Our life is completely influenced by these roles we assume.  Consequently, if we wish to make changes in our life, it is necessary to make changes in the story we script for ourselves. In psychology, there is a whole therapeutic process known as Narrative Therapy .  According to Michael White, a theorist and practitioner of Narrative Therapy, we construct the meaning of life in interpretive stori

The tagline of Quickfix adhesive in the 1970s was “Joins everything except broken hearts”.   At about the same time, a therapeutic process known as Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) was gaining ground in psychology. It sought to help people arrive at quick solutions to psychological problems since everyone was too busy to go digging into the past and thus arrive at radical solutions.   The advocates of SFBT argue that it is not necessary to know the cause of a problem to solve it and that there is no necessary relationship between the causes of problems and their solutions.   The problem is not what matters, but the solution.   Searching for the “right” solution is as futile as seeking to know and understand the problem.   What is important is to know your goals, what you want to accomplish, rather than diagnosis of the problem and its history. The fundamental assumption of SFBT is that people are healthy and competent and have the ability to construct solutions