Under her complaints of depression and stress were deep feelings of inadequacy fostering a “perfectionist” persona. Her imagination went wild, thinking others were “backstabbing” her at work. She became so tired she developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her road back is fascinating. She Said It Was Depression M.’s original complaint was being generally depressed and stressed. In psychotherapy for some time, no change had occurred and she was feeling extremely frightened and filled with dread. Memory loss, fuzziness and disorientation, fear of [...]

Rewrite Your Emotional Past The “Phantom Foe” I agree we need some appropriate defense mechanisms that keep us safe from real danger. Unwanted defense mechanisms that I call a “phantom foe” are similar to a “phantom limb,” where someone has had an amputation and the limb is long gone, but they still feel pain and even feel like the limb is still there!  A phantom foe is caused by inappropriate fears from events that happened [...]