Why do some people have no capacity to be alone?

Some of my clients were unable to be alone and constantly needed the companion of others.  If they lived alone, they needed to be in contact with their family members or friends all the time in the evening after work.  In weekends, they cannot engage in solitary activities and needed to have the companionships of …

A note of infinite games and meaning of life

One of my clients came back to me due to her recent relapse in depression.  She felt her life as meaningless and started to have low motivation for study and enjoy leisure activities.  She used to have a very clear goal of becoming an architect in high school.  She studied very hard in order to …

The movie, Top Gun: Maverick, inspires us on bravery, a character strength that we need to embrace

Many people had watched the movie, Top Gun: Maverick, and were impressed by the cinematography and the strengths of bravery and persistence embraced in it.  Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell, a US Navy pilot took up a nearly impossible and risky mission to teach a group of elite aviators to bomb a foreign country’s unsanctioned uranium …

The bright and dark side of narcissism

One of my clients brought her husband to see me due to their difficult marital relationship.  With thorough interviews with the couple and each of them, I found that the husband is a disconnected, self-absorbed, unempathetic and emotionally detached person, who may have a number of narcissistic traits.  The wife felt extremely lonely in the …

Our seeing and not seeing

In a gathering with some friends, a couple talked about their experience in choosing a new car.  The couple had difficulty in making the final decision of choosing which model to buy and asked us for some opinions.  I asked the couple about their thoughts on the two models they are choosing.  The husband preferred …

The lack of boundaries with an immature parent may cause difficulty to cultivate healthy adult relationships

In my clinical practice, a lot of my clients reported their parents as being immature and they are deprived of emotional support and guidance from them.  Most of my clients did not realise their parents as immature as they thought they had provided them with shelter, food and education in their childhood.  However, as they …