Laura Timms - therapist and coach

08/06/2019

08/06/2019

I have appointments available throughout the summer holiday period for individuals and couples.

Especially suitable for students back in Singapore for the summer from college or university studies overseas.

I regularly work with both expat and local students returning to Singapore on vacation from studying in North America, Australia, the UK and Europe.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to find out more: Email: contact@lauratimms.com

04/12/2018

I have appointments available for time-limited counselling over the Christmas and New Year period. Especially suitable for students returning to Singapore on vacation from college or university studies overseas.

09/09/2018

Bibliotherapy?

An inscription above the entrance door of a library in the tomb of Ramses II in the ancient city of Thebes read: ψυχῆς ἰατρείον (psychés iatreíon) – ‘place of care for the soul’. In modern Greek, ιατρείο (iatreío) would be translated as ‘doctor’s consulting room’ and ‘ψυχῆς ἰατρείον’ (psychés iatreíon) sounds very much like how many therapists might think of their own consulting rooms.

It’s perhaps not surprising, therefore, that ‘bibliotherapy’ is steadily becoming a small but flourishing therapeutic field.

‘Bibliotherapy’ is most commonly used to mean one of two things: in its most straightforward sense, it describes medical or psychological professionals ‘prescribing’ specific self-help books to patients who consult them with concerns such as anxiety and depression. This approach is slowly growing in popularity, particularly in countries which have identified excessive or too hasty prescription of psychotropic medication as a public health concern.

As British psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry has pointed out, a good self-help book is better than a bad therapist, and some excellent self-help books do exist, along with very many bad ones. (Perry also points out that a bad self-help book is worst of all and doesn’t come with a professional code of ethics, minimum quality standards, or a complaints procedure.)

The second, deeper, approach to bibliotherapy is using the reading of fiction, especially literary fiction, as a powerful psychological intervention in its own right. Research from the University of Sussex, UK, shows that reading is a more effective way of overcoming stress than listening to music or taking a walk. Within 6 minutes of reading silently, study participants’ heart rates slowed and tension in their muscles eased by up to 68% – findings similar to those one might find in participants practicing meditation.

In 2013, a separate study published in the prestigious journal ‘Science’ found that reading literary fiction (rather than popular fiction or literary nonfiction) improved participants’ results on tests that measured social perception and empathy. Both qualities are crucial to the ability to build strong and healthy relationships with others, and to navigating all interpersonal interactions, professional and personal.

On the literary side, the eminent Yale critic Harold Bloom is author of a New York Times bestselling book, ‘Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human’, which credits Shakespeare with the invention of the modern human personality. Shakespeare’s plays, written in the Sixteenth Century, continue to be cherished across diverse cultures, despite the difficult, archaic language, and melodramatic, contrived plots. This reflects Shakespeare’s genius in accurately – and beautifully – describing the interior emotional states of his characters. We recognize something of ourselves and our experience, something human, irrespective of the distance in time and culture from Elizabethan England.

For those interested to explore literary fiction from a therapeutic perspective, The Novel Cure: an A-Z of Literary Remedies, by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin (Canongate) is a good place to start. I also warmly recommend a wonderful (and free) online resource produced by ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, an organization dedicated to the complementary treatment of stress, anxiety and other conditions through mindful reading. The course explores how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with times of deep emotional strain. It focuses on six topics: stress; heartbreak; bereavement; trauma; depression and bipolar disorder; and ageing and dementia.http://www.relit.org.uk/what-we-do/online-course

Ramses II is better known – in the literary sphere, at least – as Ozymandias, subject of Shelley’s famous sonnet:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The poem is a parable about the transience of worldly prestige and power, the existential pointlessness of narcissism. Tending our souls is far better for us, for our relationships, and for the world. The inscription on the ancient library at Thebes suggests that Ramses/Ozymandias would recommend we start with a book.

(image from commons.wikimedia.org)

15/08/2016

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up?

Marie Kondo’s The New York Times bestseller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up details an exacting methodology for decisive decluttering, recognized by the London Times as “psychotherapy for the home.” Kondo argues that, if done correctly, “Tidying is a dialogue with oneself” through which we may learn not only our domestic likes and dislikes, but discover how we burden ourselves with obligations and expectations. These are the “shoulds” such as holding onto unwanted gifts from friends, manuals for appliances that we use confidently every day or notes from past studies, to refer to in future or study in more depth when time allows (which it rarely does).

From TV shows like Hoarding: Buried Alive, it’s easy to see not just how dangerous a home can become when someone is unable to discard objects appropriately, but to understand that, as the London Times observes, “Mess is often about unhappiness.” So what about tidying up? Therapists frequently work with clients with obsessive compulsive disorder who cannot tolerate mess and fear contamination if their home is not always scrupulously clean. Tidying up and decluttering carried out to excess is also “often about unhappiness,” a form of purging where a person only feels relief from intense anxiety by discarding items and “purifying” their home through cleaning.

What excessive hoarding and excessive decluttering have in common is the sense of being driven that sufferers experience. They are not fully, mindfully conscious of their actions, but are acting under the influence of a compulsion. As far as tidying up goes, it’s the difference between deciding you’d like to get the family room tidied up and so clearing it out at a reasonable pace over the weekend, versus staying up far later than you had planned to do, intent on clearing out just one last cupboard because you simply won’t be able to rest otherwise.

Kondo’s bestseller offers an important piece of advice that can help us, whether our tendency is to hoard or to discard excessively: she emphasises the importance of acting mindfully. Tuning in to an item and our response to it, respectfully and with our full attention, is the opposite of the driven, anxious and unsettled state experienced when we act through compulsion. If you recognize yourself feeling driven in this way in any area of your life, practicing mindfulness is likely to be helpful for you; expert help is available team at SACAC Counselling. www.sacac.sg

Article first published in the Singapore American Newspaper, March 2016
Photograph from mydecorative.com

29/07/2016

Living in Singapore getting you down?


Expat magazines and websites in Singapore frequently provide 'top ten' lists of things to do and places to visit here and in the region, to help new expats settle in and pass on fresh ideas to longstanding residents.


But whether you’re a newcomer or have lived for decades on The Little Red Dot, many people face times when it’s easier to list the things that they don’t like about life in Singapore.


If you’re currently struggling to appreciate living here, looking beyond the specifics of life in Singapore may help. Researchers from the field of self-determination theory identify three fundamental needs which must be met for human wellbeing and flourishing: competence, relatedness and autonomy.


It can be illuminating to consider whether one or more of these needs is being frustrated in some way, if you find yourself having a hard time. For example, for someone newly arrived in Singapore, their feeling of competence may be undermined through the practical challenges of navigating a new city; operating in an unfamiliar culture; perhaps communicating in a non-native language or grappling with Singlish.


For longer-established expats, their sense of relatedness to others may be damaged by the high turnover of people arriving and departing, which can make it challenging to establish close and lasting friendships - while at the same time feeling distant and disconnected from friends and family “back home”.


Trailing spouses who may have left behind careers and a greater degree of financial independence, or who find themselves facing obstacles to pursuing their career ambitions in Singapore because of visa issues, can find their sense of autonomy placed under severe pressure.


Understanding the essential role of these three needs in human wellbeing isn’t just a handy way to identify what might be going on if you’re having a hard time. It can help you to put in place an effective strategy for improving your quality of life when times get tough.


Think about each of the three needs in turn: where in your life do you currently feel competent? When do you feel a rewarding sense of connection to others (relatedness)? And in which domains of your life do you feel the greatest sense of personal control (autonomy)? What can you do to maximize these areas and add others to them?


If you find it tricky to identify any positives under these three headings, your challenge will be to identify the most achievable, high impact actions you can take to increase your sense of competence, connection and personal control.


Keep it simple: for example, to nourish your sense of competence, make time each week to work on a task or hobby which really plays to your strengths and savour the experience of using your skills.


Maximize your feeling of connection to others by making it a priority to have a coffee with a friend you haven’t seen for a while or a neighbour you’d like to know better, or send a short and sweet “How are you?” email to someone back home.


Increase your sense of personal control by planning your time to meet personal goals as well as family or professional commitments - and brush up on your assertiveness skills if making time for yourself is a challenge for you.


Experiment with different ideas to see which ones have the biggest positive impact and do more of whatever works best for you. If it feels too much to turn things around on your own, confidential, expert help is available from the team at SACAC Counselling www.sacac.sg.


(Article first published in the Singapore American Newspaper, January 2016)

"Come to the edge", he said. "We can't, we're afraid!" they responded. "Come to the edge", he said. "We can't, We will fall!" they responded. "Come to the edge", he said. And so they came. He pushed them. And they flew. -G. Apollinaire