I’ve experienced depression, and took a deep dive into the root cause to work out what to do about it in my own life. I’ve also talked to a lot of other people who experience it, so here’s my take: I disagree that depression isn’t real, but I do think the way modern society and our health care system approaches it is often unhelpful.

Yes, Depression Is Real

I agree with affective neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp that the core problem underlying most mental illness including depression is emotional dysregulation, and with psychologist John Bowlby that the root cause of this is often unmet early life attachment needs with our mother, and to a lesser extent our father. Unfortunately attachment theory has fallen out of vogue, the dominant paradigm in psychology is cognitive behaviourism which isn’t consistent with how our nervous systems process emotions/trauma, and the dominant paradigm in psychiatry is medication that suppresses the very emotions we need to access in order to heal.

However, recent developments in affective neuroscience, emotionally focussed therapies and the trauma informed care movement give me hope that this can change.… Continue reading…

Depression Is Real is a post from The Confident Man Project

Talking about mental health in a public forum can go a long way to reducing stigma and shame, and can even be healing in its own right. This is a great documentary and I highly recommend it for anyone suffering from or with a lived experience of anxiety or any related mental health condition, and their friends and family. I also recommend it to anyone working in this field and encourage you to check out my detailed review notes below.

Nadiya’s experience seeking help highlights a lot of what is wrong with mainstream mental health treatment due to its emphasis on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and psychoactive medication, which are currently the dominant paradigms in psychology and psychiatry respectively.

Here’s the documentary, so you can watch it as you read along to the observations I made as I watched for the first time. I’ve included timestamps in parentheses (minutes:seconds) below so you can tell where I’m up to in my commentary below:

If you prefer a video commentary, you can watch it here:

Adult mental health issues are often caused by unresolved childhood trauma which often stems from emotional attachment wounds with our mother as described by John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory.… Continue reading…

Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy Really The Best Treatment For Panic Attacks? is a post from The Confident Man Project

… Continue reading…

Confidence Coach reacts to Nadiya: Anxiety and Me is a post from The Confident Man Project

The Healing Power of Emotion outlines the neurobiology behind attachment trauma, emotional dysregulation and mental illness, and explains how and why empathic connection and emotionally focussed somatic therapies are the most powerful for healing it.

It is the most solid scientific validation I’ve come across yet for the powerful emotionally-centred, trauma-informed, attachment-based approach I use to help my coaching clients overcome anxiety and build self-confidence.

Some of the highlights for me are:

Chapter 1: Jaak Panksepp on Brain Emotional Systems and Qualities of Mental Life
From Animal Models of Affect to Implications for Psychotheraputics

Emotional dysregulation is the key to understanding and treating mental illness.

The seven basic emotional systems of affective neuroscience: SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY.

Childhood emotional abuse and neglect lead to sympathetic and parasympathetic dominance respectively in the autonomic nervous system, which remains in adulthood until the trauma is fully processed.… Continue reading…

The Healing Power Of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development, and Clinical Practice by Daniel J. Seigel, Marion Solomon, Diana Fosha et al is a post from The Confident Man Project

I don’t write about this much because it’s easy to get into a pointless argument which doesn’t help anyone, and I’m too busy addressing the underlying cause of the problem at the individual level, which is usually a traumatic attachment wound with our mother and/or father. One aspect of this is that if our mother was fundamentally uncomfortable with masculine energy like the modern day radical toxic feminists, she is likely to have responded by shutting us (and often our father) down whenever we acted self-determined, stood up for ourselves, made choices different to hers, or generally displayed any of the characteristics of traditional masculine stereotypes that have been selected by evolution to make us feel confident, happy, and attractive to alpha women.… Continue reading…

A Powerful Antidote To Toxic Feminism’s Attack On Masculinity is a post from The Confident Man Project

AEDP is an emotionally-focussed form of Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy based on human neurobiology, John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, and the power of Karl Rogers-style empathy to heal traumatic attachment wounds. In short, it’s a pretty similar to what I do with my clients.

The key element of AEDP is that for therapy to be really effective, it has help you feel, express and process your emotions. I believe that the core issue behind mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression are an inability to regulate emotions, reinforced by a society that teaches us to internalise and suppress emotions,rather than to express how we feel in a healthy manner.

AEDP’s approach to therapy involves creating a safe environment in which the relationship with the therapist becomes a healing proxy for the idealised mother-infant bond through which we would normally learn to regulate our emotions. While being able to feel and express our emotions offers tremendous healing in itself, doing this while in the empathic connected presence of another human being helps heal the attachment wound that caused us to become emotionally disregulated in the first place.… Continue reading…

The Transforming Power of Affect by Diana Fosha is a post from The Confident Man Project

Public Speaking is a classic way to build self-confidence and Toastmasters can show you how to do it powerfully

I spent several years improving my communication and leadership skills as a member of Chatswood Communicators Toastmasters club.  I have to admit that I wasn’t really thinking of becoming a world-class communicator when I first came across Toastmasters. In fact, I was dragged along to my first club meeting by a very passionate Toastmaster friend of mine I met at a Ceroc dance class, who wanted me to partner her for a dance demonstration. At the time, I thought “Hmm… this looks like fun.… Continue reading…

How To Learn Powerful Communication and Leadership Skills is a post from The Confident Man Project

For the most part, this system works fairly well. When it doesn’t work, the person who suffers most is usually the one who is unwilling or unable to exercise their freedoms constructively within the confines of the legal and economic system. While there is certainly structural inequity in all cultures, this can often be overcome by playing the societal game effectively and reaping sufficient rewards. The key is to exercise personal responsibility at all times and avoid playing victim to our circumstances. Those who choose to do so, despite whatever hand they may have been dealt in life originally, get rewarded. Those who rebel mindlessly get punished either directly by the legal system, or indirectly by their failure to contribute to the economic system.… Continue reading…

How To Overcome Distrust Of Authority is a post from The Confident Man Project

In the article “The Effect of Integrating Music Listening With an Attachment- And Affective-Focused Short-Term Psychotherapy in an Individual With Relational Trauma: The Case of ‘James.’”[1], G. Paul Blimling describes a hybridized case study using music chosen by a client nicknamed “James” within psychotherapy to help them heal their early life attachment trauma. By facilitating trust in the relationship with the therapist, collaborative music listening helped the client access and express strong emotions which would otherwise overwhelm and incapacitate them, and as a result healed their core attachment wound[2].

Karen Riggs Skean responds in her article “Integrating Client-Chosen Music in Relational Trauma Treatment: Pathways to the Heart”[3], noting that Blimling is a talented cellist, and adding that integrating his musicianship into his role as a therapist “helped him be more fully present with the client, which in turn helped the client be more present as well”[4]. Bringing his musical background to the therapy setting helped to bridge the gap with a client who was initially extremely reticent, untrusting and hostile.[5]

Ben G. Adams continues the conversation in his article “Self-Selected Music for Relational Trauma: Commentary on the Psychotherapy Case of ‘James’”[6] by pointing out that while integrating music listening into mainstream therapy sessions may at first seem novel, it actually represents a return to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, when music was integral to the shamanic healing process.… Continue reading…

Using Music In Therapy To Help Heal Attachment Trauma is a post from The Confident Man Project

Kenny et al (2014) present a case study of a typical professional musician suffering from music performance anxiety: a 55-year-old senior strings player in a leading Australian orchestra, named Kurt[1]. During musical performances he typically reported overwhelming anxiety, distracting physical sensations and thoughts, inability to control his arms, and striated muscle tension. This significantly detracted from both his performance and his personal enjoyment of his career[2].

Music performance anxiety is a serious problem for many professional musicians[3]. Typical symptoms while performing include overwhelming anxiety, profuse sweating, dry mouth, muscle tension, inability to focus, loss of self, loss of flow, paralysis and catastrophic performance failure. General traits common to sufferers include perfectionism, dependence on drugs and alcohol, fear of exposure, fear of failure, catastrophizing and extreme emotional distress. Such traits have consequences beyond the performance realm including poor mental and physical health. Many sufferers abandon their career in music altogether while others soldier on despite having a miserable experience[4].

The Problem

Kurt had tried several strategies for dealing with his music performance anxiety including meditation, visualization, self-affirmations, over preparing, and beta-blockers. While these had all been of some benefit, none of them had eliminated his anxiety to his satisfaction.… Continue reading…

Treating Music Performance Anxiety by Healing Attachment Trauma is a post from The Confident Man Project