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Anne Skyvington

The Art of Creative Writing

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Emotions and Health

freud's couch
Emotions and HealthPsychology

Psychology as a Field of Study

Psychology is a relatively recent area of research and treatment for “inner” emotional problems, with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) creating his famous brand of psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  William James (1842-1910) is an American philosopher who favoured pragmatic psychology as a way of explaining the mind. Other well-known leaders in the field are Carl Jung, Otto Rank,  R.D. Laing, Fritz Perls, Wilhelm Reich,  Erich Fromm, Pierre Janet, and Alfred Adler.

Depth forms of therapy, sometimes known as psychodynamic therapy, consider past events in a person’s life from a causal perspective. They rely on in-clinic experience, and the close relationship between the analyst and the analysand. Cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT) rely more on evidence-based research, and involve retraining of clients’ thought processes, emotions and behaviour, without the necessity to recover repressed memories from the past

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Psychology as a Field of Study was last modified: February 14th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
June 20, 2018 0 comment
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acropolis-athens
Emotions and HealthExistencePsychology

Western Influencers Down Through The Ages

GREEKS of ANTIQUITY

I had my first taste of philosophy at Armidale Teachers College in 1961. This was one of the options that I chose to study, apart from the more mundane teaching subjects that were mandatory. Miss Margaret Mackie enchanted us with stories of the Delphic oracle, as well as introducing me to a long-term love affair with Plato, and Platonic ideals.  I did not realise it at the time, but this gifted teacher was opening up the foundations of Western philosophy and science to me and to others in the class.

Plato

Plato (428-348BC) has been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality.

Plato’s teacher was Socrates, and much of Plato’s works are based on Socrates’ ideas. We studied Plato’s Republic, an amazing work about the just society. Our teacher focused on the allegory of the Cave, which has fascinated students of philosophy and mysticism ever since.

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Western Influencers Down Through The Ages was last modified: February 18th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
June 5, 2018 0 comment
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Emotions and HealthMythos

Tell me who your mentors are and I’ll tell you who you are

Most people can only claim to have known one truly great love in their life. In the same way, it is likely that you will remember having had no more than one inspirational teacher while at school, and one helpful mentor in your later professional life.  And most readers can remember one novel or non-fictional book that changed their life. The same holds true if you have been lucky enough to have found a spiritual mentor (a guru) in the short span of your life. One literary work that inspired me was the novel by Chilean writer, Isabel Allende The House of the Spirits.

I have always been drawn, from as far back as I can remember, to the numinous, especially in relation to psychology and philosophy. For want of a better term, the Jungian concept of the psyche and related matters have forever interested me. One of the first non-fiction books—yes, there were two of them!—that changed my life was The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, containing events that were never discussed in the country milieu from which I sprang.  Here they were written about as if normal occurrences in this other culture; there was the monk deciding it was his time to die, then returning to life for a short while to communicate something to his young disciple.

jung-autobiography

The other book was Carl Gustav Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, first published in English in 1963, which I am re-reading at the moment. It wasn’t until my late thirties that I read this book; today its pages are yellowing to show its age.  But I found it, or it found me, at a significant time spiritually. In this work, Jung writes of the influences on his life as a child, growing up in the country in Switzerland, and then later on during studies at university and work in Zurich as a psychiatrist. On reading this book,  I had the sense of meeting someone with the same interests and life questions as myself, almost like finding a “soul mate”. But he was also a mentor, because he had delved deeply into these areas of shared interest, and produced a large body of work within his chosen field, which became known as the field of Analytical Psychology.

As a young boy Jung could find no one he was able to confide in about his ideas and experiences in nature and within the psyche, both of which enthralled him. His father was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church, and the chances of his being a sympathetic confidant for his son were nil. The abyss between their philosophical thinking was huge and irreconcilable. So the younger Jung remained a carrier of huge secrets, and saw in himself two personalities that he named Number 1 and Number 2. Number 1 was his scientific and social side, that enabled him to become an admired professional of high standing; Number 2 was the humanist, who was interested in diverse subjects, including comparative religions, psychic phenomena, literature, the paranormal and alchemy.

Though Jung initially followed Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, as the psychic base formed by repressed desires, linked especially to sexuality, he later developed his own theory on the Unconscious to include the new concept of the archetypes.

Although Jung admired Freud and stated that he was “standing on the shoulders of giants”, (another being Adler), he had to break away from his metaphorical father, in order to define his own psychological path.

 

Tell me who your mentors are and I’ll tell you who you are was last modified: July 14th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
August 8, 2017 2 comments
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john-cade-biography
Emotions and HealthExistence

John Cade and Australia’s Greatest Mental Health Story

John Cade wrote in 1979: “Depressive illness is the most painful illness known to man, equalling or exceeding even the most exquisite physical agony. The patient is inconsolably despairing, often guilt-ridden, having committed, they imagine, unforgiveable sins — completely immersed in the internal world of misery and utter loneliness. There is no pleasure in living, no interest or energy in doing anything except agitatedly bewail or silently brood upon an unhappy fate; no hope for the future abandonned by God and man. Suicide seems the only escape fro mthe misery.” From Mending the MindIt can be said that  John Cade “discovered” lithium, in the sense that he actually identified this substance that would become the chemical that would help many in the manic-depressive (bipolar) community.

One of the best biographies I read last year was Finding Sanity by Greg de Moore and Ann Westmore, published by Allen & Unwin in 2016. This is a biography, not a memoir, as it explores the life of Australian Doctor John Cade in detail, starting with that of his parents, and delving into his own family life spent (he, as caretaker and psychiatrist) in asylums in country Victoria during the 1940s. It can be said that  John Cade “discovered” lithium, in the sense that he actually identified this substance that would become the chemical to help many in the manic-depressive (bipolar) community.

In the fourth decade of the twentieth century, Cade hit upon a simple treatment for severe manic illness: LITHIUM. This treatment was already used as a cure by ancient Greek doctors before the element had been identified scientifically. Soranus of Ephesus and others ordered salt baths containing high levels of lithium for excitable patients. Today lithium has become the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder and saving and supporting lives.  Cade changed the course of  medicine and saved millions of unwell mental illness patients from suffering, not to mention saving governments billions of dollars in health costs. Strangely enough, not many doctors or politicians appear to know about him and his story today.

To quote from the first pages of the biography, “Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health … and Australia’s greatest mental health story.”

In 1920, after his father David Cade returned from fighting in Gallipoli and France, he and his young family settled into a doctor’s cottage in the grounds of a Victorian country asylum there. The younger Cade followed his father into a medical career, also choosing to specialise in psychiatry.  After he returned from Changi, where he was imprisoned in a hellish camp by the Japanese, he was anxious to catch up on lost time, and threw himself into work.  His work was helping the mentally ill and experimenting with new treatments.  This was a time when manic depression either went untreated, or cures were attempted through crude, early forms of lobotomies and electric shock treatment. His was the first effective medication to treat a mental illness, and in the form of a cheap and natural mineral salt.

john-cade-and-dog-at-bundoora

John Cade at Bundoora

Cade tested his theories by injecting uric acid from his manic patients into guinea pigs. Unfortunately, all of the animals died. To prevent this, he used lithium urate, which was highly soluble, to see if urea was, indeed, the culprit in causing mania. To Cade’s surprise, he found this produced a calming effect in the guinea pigs, instead of increased excitation.

Through a series of very careful experiments on both guinea pigs and, later on, people, it was proven that lithium had a pronounced effect on mania. This wonderful discovery was quickly followed by the finding that lithium also helped with the depressive symptoms of bipolar.

Cade’s remarkably successful results were detailed in his paper, Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement, published in the Medical Journal of Australia (1949).

The significance of what John Cade achieved is hard to overestimate.

John Cade and Australia’s Greatest Mental Health Story was last modified: November 20th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 8, 2017 0 comment
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beautifulcold moonscape
Emotions and HealthExistence

Walking the Tightrope – Caring for Someone with Depression or Bipolar Disorder

Did you know that one in five Australians will personally experience clinical depression or a bipolar disorder over their lifetime, there are the families, partners, friends and work colleagues who are also drawn into the crisis. Often, it is these people on the perimeter that selflessly reach out to assist those who are living with a mood disorder, offering their time, their acceptance, support and hope.

In searching for strategies to deal with mood disorders, the latest Black Dog Institute Writing Competition throws the spotlight on the powerful stories that come from carers, with a particular focus on the questions of what worked best, what didn’t work and what you learnt.

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Walking the Tightrope – Caring for Someone with Depression or Bipolar Disorder was last modified: July 7th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
April 22, 2017 0 comment
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birds-london-parliament
Emotions and HealthExistencePolitics

New horizons in personal and national goals

New Horizons

wise-owl

Those past two weeks had seen me have 2 new artificial lenses put in my eyes:  that is, cataract surgery on both eyes; seek digital assistance with making my website better; and assist Labor in Australia’s recent elections, even though I felt they would lose. I was right, but the election was a disaster for the Government, too.  At least we didn’t get a clown like the one in the White House now.

 

Cataract Surgery

Intaocular lenses (IOLs) are small plastic devices with plastic side struts, called haptics, to hold the lens in place within the capsular bag inside the eye. (Wikipedia). IOLs were conventionally made of an inflexible acrylic glass material (PMMA), utilised during the Second World War, in submarines and fighter planes, with positive results in terms of human survival and injury. Naturally, this has largely been superseded by the use of more flexible materials.

intraocular-lens

 

More recently, these lenses have been further improved, especially the multifocal lenses, which were originally associated with “haloing”  issues, and problems with night driving. So far, my experience with these new lenses has been excellent. I can read, shop and see far into the distance without wearing glasses. Hurrah for technology!

 

 

Blogging and Plugins

woman-frustrated-computer

Starting a new website with a new theme had been a real challenge, coinciding with my new eyesight! I’ve never been technologically savvy, and understanding and configuring things, both with my host and my WordPress site was hard. I’d never tried to use plugins before, so it was quite a challenge.  With WordPress.com, plugins are done for you. With WordPress.org, I had to read up about this and try to get my head around terms; and at times it was too difficult without help from my host and/or WordPress.  It was also very time-consuming, but I was determined to see it through.

Reality set in at last, and I realised that I needed a hands-on “helper”, a mentor, here in my own country. Enter a Digital expert, and the result is my new blog: anneskyvington.com.au

The Australian Election 2016

canberra-parliament-house

Parliament House, Canberra

It was only three days after my second cataract surgery, that the double dissolution election occurred. Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had called the election to try and gain more power in the Senate. He’d been touted to win in a landslide by all polls and pundits in the country. Even people, like me, who’d voted Labor all their lives, were influenced by the media reports, and were expecting another Liberal/National (Coalition) Party victory in both Houses. A double dissolution also involves half the Senate.  The prime Minister himself believed in the hype, too. But it was a long pre-election campaign, and the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten, campaigned hard by touring in his “Bill Bus”, and by making himself available to the public in his egalitarian way.

I’ve always seen myself on the side of the underdog, and it was “Health and Education” issues that turned the tide against the government’s “Jobs and Growth” mantra. At times it looked like the opposition might even win, or gain power with a slight margin. However, it looks more likely that it will be a hung parliament, and especially bad for the Government in the Upper House.

Surely this outcome could not have been foreseen? It goes against the truism that in politics nothing happens by accident, but is always planned by far-seeing agents.  I didn’t see this coming: a 3.5 percent swing towards Labor; and the Prime Minister couldn’t have seen it coming, either, I’m sure.

marble-foyer-inside-parliament-house

The Marble Foyer inside Parliament House

So, I no longer have to wear glasses for reading, shopping or distance sight. And I’m still looking for a party that will take us back to those far-off days, when this country and its people cared more about equality; and when  governments supported a truly Multicultural Approach to immigration, like that which existed under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating.

Note the growing problems with inequality and racism, since conservative governments took over in this country.

Canberra was chosen as the setting for the Australian Government, because both Sydney and Melbourne were contenders for hosting the Parliament, and this city is situated between both.

 

birds-london-parliament-256

The Westminster System


New horizons in personal and national goals was last modified: July 7th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
November 7, 2016 0 comment
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meditation-temple-girl
Emotions and HealthExistence

Finding peace … going deeper … meditating

What is Meditation?

“It’s what happy and successful people do,” I was told, when I first started learning about meditation and how to do it. The Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhists  believe that happiness is the actual goal of most people on earth.  But we in the West are brought up with the idea that finding a job, buying a house, getting married and having children are what we should aim for. Yet, while aiming for these goals, and even on reaching them, quite often we feel depressed, dissatisfied, and, yes, unhappy.

Meditation has been around from time immemorial; it was first recorded in written texts from seven thousand years ago in China. While meditation has become linked mainly to Eastern cultures, it is integral to most spiritual paths, and basic to all major religions in some form or another.

Dr Ian Gawler of the Ian Gawler Foundation claimed to have been cured of cancer through meditation and dietary changes.  He states that “No matter where in your life you want to see improvement, meditation can help. It does not matter what age you are, your culture or beliefs; meditation is for everyone and can provide you with great benefits, many of which have been scientifically confirmed. This simple, yet powerful mind training tool, can bring long-term improvement to your health, well-being, relationships and career.”

Modern doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists recommend “mindfulness meditation” practices as part of stress management skills.  These practices are based on the same millenia old Buddhist meditation skills, often stripped of their religious connotations. Research shows that changes take place in the brains of practitioners, even after a short time utilising these methods. Nevertheless, ritual in some form or another, gives structure to these practices and encourages the formation of habits.

How to Meditate

There are many different groups offering many different meditation practices. Here is an article outlining the main different types of meditation.

Simply put, you sit with your back erect, close your eyes, focus on your breath, and practise mindfulness. It takes time and continued practice to learn how to do this easily and comfortably, without being pulled around by speedy, agitated monkey mind which refers to a person’s inability to quieten their thoughts and pacify their minds.  Buddhists compare thoughts to clouds moving across the clear background of the sky.

a-group-of-monkeys

 A Simple Meditation

  1. Sit or lie comfortably. You may even want to invest in a meditation chair.

  2. Close your eyes.

  3. Make no effort to control the breath; simply breathe naturally.
  4. Focus your attention on the breath and on how the body moves with each inhalation and exhalation.

  5. Focusing on a special sound (om) or on a source of light, such as a candle, are other useful tools.

candle-flame-bright copy

Finding peace … going deeper … meditating was last modified: July 4th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
September 29, 2016 7 comments
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the-brain-colourful
Emotions and HealthExistencePsychology

Networking and Emotional Intelligence

Swedish love coach, Carolin Dahlman,  gave a presentation to our writers’ group on the idea of networking in order to be published. Most of the large group of writers who attended were hoping to be published one day.  emotional-intelligence-therapistHer message was that, in this fast-moving world, we need to self-promote through the internet and other technology at our disposal, and to go out and meet people and talk about our projects. Admittedly, she has found a rewarding niche for herself, in that many lonely people need her psychological know-how, and her skills for relating to others. At the same time, she has to self promote and she has boundless energy for doing so.
A question from a group member who saw himself as being highly intelligent was about IQ versus EQ. He believed in the supremacy of IQ, intelligence quotient,  for a happy life. Carolin claimed that, in fact, IQ can be an obstacle in a person’s search for “truth”. Her response was that emotional intelligence (EQ or EI) is far more important for finding love and happiness than IQ. She often meets intelligent men and women who are afraid of seeking out love and who live a lonely life as a result.
 Several people in the group pointed out examples of “idiot savants” (Remember “Rain Man” played by Dustin Hoffman?) who can calculate extraordinary sums in their head, but who can barely look after themselves. However, these are extreme examples of specifically gifted individuals within the “autism spectrum”, who do not score well on intelligence tests at all.
 Another definition of EQ is from Salovey and Mayer: “A form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
Daniel Goleman, in his 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, identified 4 aspects of the concept as follows: Knowing your emotions; managing your own emotions; motivating yourself; managing relationships i.e. managing the emotions of others. The fifth one is the hardest to achieve;  many parents will agree with this, as small children are naturally egotistical.
Another point to consider: High intelligence and moral or ethical behaviour are not necessarily in synchrony. Biographies of highly intelligent men, such as Albert Einstein, show him to be a seriously flawed individual.

einstein-science-art

 Did Albert Einstein attempt to synthesise, at least through his writings, the two aspects of intelligence, as this painting suggests?
Networking and Emotional Intelligence was last modified: February 18th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
September 22, 2016 4 comments
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Emotions and HealthExistence

Statins, Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease

I was recently advised by doctors that I should take statins to lower my blood cholesterol reading. The statins lowered my reading quickly to half what it was before. Originally it was 8, then 7 after trialling diet and exercise for a short time, but it went down to 4 when on the drugs. The problem was that I developed jaw and neck problems that sent me off to an endodontist to see if I required gum or root canal surgery. There was nothing wrong with my teeth at the time.

Several general practitioners and a cardiologist, who was carrying out tests on me, recommended a minimal amount of a statin, combined with a low-fat diet and heart vitamins. Even with the low-level statin, the side-effects occurred once again. And I have been following a low-fat diet for most of my adult life.

The problem with a high cholesterol reading seemed to me to be genetic. My paternal grandmother had “hardened arteries” as did, possibly, my father. But both of them died from a stroke, linked to stress and diet, not from a heart attack.

Next I looked at the research that had been carried out, and I saw that the main conclusions were relevant to people who had experienced a first heart attack. This happened to one of my friends after she went off the statins, and it scared me. It seemed that statins did nothing that could be proven to assist healthy people like me at my stage of life. My blood pressure has always responded to a minimal amount of medication, and I have had a low pulse reading, suggesting an active lifestyle. Blood pressure measures have usually been excellent, but I’m responsive to the “white coat syndrome”, that is, some doctors tend to get a high bottom figure—diastolic—reading when taking it. Because of this, I have recently purchased my own blood pressure measuring device.

The peer review findings on cholesterol and saturated fats as being the enemy to normal cholesterol readings, had been carried out in a couple of villages in Scotland and Wales. A British doctor, Malcolm Kendrick, has published a book entitled Doctoring Data, criticising the objectivity and validity of the findings. He claims that the peer review process in the Welsh research was fallible, and that there were too many variables that should have been considered. Furthermore, he points out that the bar for a healthy cholesterol measure has been lowered in recent times, so that what was once slightly elevated is now seen as life-threatening. However the evidence in favour of the use of statins is impressive for high risk individuals.

An interesting observation that Kendrick dragged up caught my attention:  the French diet contains a high level of saturated fats, and yet the cholesterol levels of the French population are just above average. See The French Paradox. As a young woman, I spent four years in France, and I was impressed by the food in France and the way it was produced and served. I saw that the French diet was very different from the Australian one and vastly different from American fast foods and eating habits. The French savoured their food, which was fresh and pure; families sat down together and conversed at meal times, and dishes were served and consumed slowly over a long period of time. See this article on the comparative coronary heart disease (CHD) situation in different countries.

But it got me thinking in the direction of natural, pure foods versus carbohydrate-rich, sugar-loaded choices that we are offered in our large supermarkets here. Could the culprits be sugar, and other refined products, rather than fat, that are doing the damage? I glanced at some of the low-fat options that I had been buying, and was astonished at the hidden sugar found in many of them! I had to use a magnifying glass to read the levels on the packaging.

So then, I was back to the drawing board.  I’d been led to believe that all I needed to do was to follow a low-fat diet in order to stay healthy. Even cardiologists were saying this this. But low-fat milk has quite high levels of sugar. When people eat a food containing carbohydrates, the digestive system breaks down the digestible ones into sugar, which enters the blood. Lowering the amount of carbohydrates in the diet could have a huge effect on the body and on physical health.

I went off the statins and managed to lower my cholesterol readings by going on a high fat/ low carboydrate diet instead. I found a wonderful GP who directed me to research and to follow what is known as a Ketogenic regime, which recommends fats, fish, meat, vegetables, dairy and nuts, and to cut out, or lower, carbohydrates and low-fat products.

I lost several kilos of weight on this regime, and my cholesterol reading went way down. The only negative that I can see so far, is that my hair has thinned out, which could be a result of losing weight. Could it be that the cholesterol was good for hair growth?

 

more healthy foods
Statins, Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease was last modified: July 3rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
September 15, 2016 0 comment
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the whale feature
AustraliaEmotions and HealthWriting

Winter in Australia

I manage to write more in winter, because there’s not the pull of the outside and nature:  swimming, walks in the sun by the sea and all that to tempt me. It’s always been a problem for me, the attraction of outside activities versus the obsession to work on my writing. And it’s not always easy to find a balance. Now, I love the feeling of being inside, safe and sound, and warm, while watching the rain sleeting down outside the window. That’s why I choose a table by the window, if possible, when I work in the Pavilion next door to where I live. It’s a question of the early bird gets the worm, of course, as the best locations are popular with other laptop workers, too.inside-pavilion-rain-coogee

Upstairs is a wine bar, which opens at 12 pm, and is a lovely place to welcome friends for a bite to eat and a drink. The decor is fancy, old-fashioned and includes a “Mad Professor” theme in glass boxes, with natural specimens such as birds’ eggs and ancient bones inside to look at. It reminds me of my husband, Mark Onslow, a professor in Speech Pathology, who fits in well there, with his scholarly ways of deeply examining everything in his field of study.

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Winter in Australia was last modified: June 22nd, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
August 4, 2016 2 comments
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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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