Blog

By EK Wills I am sitting in a vineyard bach (villa) in New Zealand after having gone out for dinner and can look forward to a swim in the pool after breakfast. But it is tainted. The day before, the family sat on the beach talking about meal plans: not because we were budgeting (although we do that too) but because my teen was stressed about her weight. Her distress centres around confidence or lack thereof. She tells me that if her weight were better then she would feel more

By EK Wills There was a death in the family this week: my 10 year old son’s hermit crab. It lasted only a few months so, to us, this is not a big deal. But, to him, it was his first ‘very own’ pet to look after. It was not our first pet death (remember our chickens from last summer?) but it was his big event. He wondered whether he had done something wrong. Had he not fed it enough? Or kept the tank wet or warm enough? There were two of them and only one died. Why was it the

by EK Wills This week was one to test anyone’s patience. And so I was glad to learn about a specific type of therapy that includes skills training on aspects such as distress tolerance and emotion regulation. These are part of a type of therapy called dialectical behavioural therapy or DBT. It was initially developed by Marsha Linehan for people suffering what is labeled borderline personality disorder and, interestingly, she was a sufferer herself. But DBT has now been advoc