Iain Alexander's Blog

Athletes call it "The Zone" where they perform at their best, without thinking; one move flows into another. When it happens, they find they perform at their best and for many, it's an almost magically experience. All their years of training comes together for a "perfect" moment.

Writers and artists call it "flow", when they experience an outpouring of effortless, creativity. I'm sure you've heard of musicians talking about a song that "wrote itself" or a composer who had a complete song or symphony in their mind.

Even if we're not all artists, athletes or creative types, most of us have at times experienced something similar, albeit perhaps only very occasionally. Moments when we're "lost" in the moment, when time seems to just fly past and we can effortlessly concentrate on something. You may have only had a few of these times, maybe even only one or two in your whole life. But, even if you're never had a full on time when you're in "the zone" there can be many times when you get lost in what you're doing. Decorating a room, washing the car, or even driving in your car.

Personally, I'm very poor at concentrating and I have a very short attention span, just writing this will involve me writing a little bit, then get distracted by something I want to look up on the internet, or changing the font, or changing the margins of the documents. However, there are exceptions and today was one of them.

I'd love to think of myself as a photographer, but in reality I am aware that I'm merely someone who enjoys taking photographs. I don't have a very good "eye" as they say in photographer's terms. That's not say that I haven't taken some good photographs, I have, but this was more through luck and providence than actual skill and talent. For ever good photograph I take there are literally hundreds that are terrible. Moreover, even when I take my time and plan a shot, knowing in my mind's eye what I want to achieve, I often fail and find myself unable to create the picture I see in my mind. Yet despite this, there are times when photography totally absorbs me and I find myself completely "lost" in the process, the art if you will, of photography.

There is a small waterfall, about ten miles from my house, I've known about it for some time and although I've seen some wonderful pictures of it on Flickr, I'd not actually been there until today. It was a bit of a trek down into a valley, and not at all easy to find. Yet when I did stumble across it I was rewarded with a beautiful, small, natural waterfall surrounded by trees and birds. Despite being reasonably close to a village, the valley seems to be more or less empty of people and there was no one else at the waterfall the whole time I was there.

Whenever I go out with the intention of photographing it takes me a while to get my photographic head on. Over time I've learned that my photographic "eye" doesn't just turn itself on, if it's going to happen it takes time. This afternoon though with mile walk to find the falls I had enough time and few distractions, so by the time I got there I was focused and mentally in the right place.

I set up my tripods and got snapping away, sometimes planning a shot in detail, sometimes just moving to a different location and experimenting, however as the afternoon wore on I started to realise that I not only knew what shots I was aiming for, but seemed to know how to get them this time. I knew where to place the camera, at what angle, I could envisage in my mind's eye the composition I wanted and how it would look, not just on the camera's monitor, but also how I could post process – I could even see how I would frame each picture in Photoshop. I was snapping away, focussed and completely absorbed in the task at hand. It was only as I realised that each shot was taking longer and longer to get the correct exposure did I realise that the light was fading. I had been there for several hours, totally oblivious to the time, in fact, completely unaware of anything else other than the waterfall, my camera, the shots I was aiming to get, and the dog, (I couldn't go to such a location without taking Quaver!)

Walking back up the valley side, with my head torch on to illuminate the way, I was elated. I "knew" I had gotten some good shots and beyond that I'd thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. .I didn't mind my soaking wet feet (in my mind Waterproof boots should not allow water through the fabric!), nor did I mind that I was a bit cold. It is one of those rare occasions when I really had hit my stride, I'd found "the zone" and it was brilliant

Of course the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Upon returning, I fired up Adobe Lightroom and low and behold, there are actually some usable images there. Moreover, there are even some good ones in there.

I'm quite pleased and proud of this one.

You can find other pictures on my Flickr Photostream

There is a superb article over at The New Scientist exploring how scientists are using hypnosis to create virtual patients, patients with real symptoms but created and removed through the power of hypnosis.

It's well worth reading, and there's a video too. 

Full article at : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.200-look-into-my-eyes-the-power-of-hypnosis.html?full=true

I completed my first ever Psychometric test. It was called a Rapid Personality Report and was allegedly based on the work of famous Psychologist Meredith Belbin [main site here]. I was very interested by the results, partly to see what it would say about me, but also… well I'll explain that we go on.

The test took about 10 minutes and involved rating 40 adjectives that may or may describe me: I was asked to rate them on a scale of 1 to 5.

1. "Not at all like me",
2. "Just a little like me",  
3. "Rather like me", 
4. "Much like me", 
5. "Very like me"

to give you and idea of some of the adjectives:  Ruthless, Outspoken, Formal, Orderly, Warm, Unusual, Fluent etc

The resulting report I received was a might interesting. My first reaction was:

"That's about 50% accurate, I'd agree with about half of it, the other half is just not me at all". Yet, as is often the way, we're not the always the best person to judge. I read the report to a couple of other people who seemed to feel it was "mostly" me and mostly accurate.

Looking a little closer, the report is littered with vague generalisations that I'm fairly sure are general enough to apply to just about anyone. Furthermore there's a lot of sentences that, at first, glance, seem to make sense and mean something, until you actually spend a moment and think about what it really means. Let me explain with some examples:

Under the heading Structural

"You do not see yourself as being naturally suited to dealing with details and may, in fact, believe that too much self-imposed order and structure reduce your effectiveness."

Look at that phrase "too much". By its very nature, too much means that it's not good, think about it: "if you eat too much food, or drink too much alcohol, it's bad for you": spending too much money,
Too much means more than a safe or acceptable level. So of course, "too much self imposed order" would be a bad thing.

"Inevitably, however, experience and the nature of your role are likely to influence the extent to which you actually put this approach into practice."

What exactly does this mean? Surely this so obvious as so not bother writing, anything we do or try and do is limited in such a way.

Under Confidence

"Your answers indicate that you are generally confident in your ability to be effective at work and can cope with a reasonable amount of pressure and stress"

Here again, wording that is meaningless. "you are generally confident in you ability to effective at work". I am confident that I'd be "just good enough"? Well duh, pretty much anyone is confident that they could just about get by at work. "Cope with a reasonable amount of pressure and stress". Again that covers just about everyone. We can all cope (and sometimes do our best work) on a reasonable amount of pressure and stress. If the pressure or stress became unreasonable – pretty much everyone would suffer as a result. That is the nature of stress and takes me back to the "too much" arguement above.

"Your answers suggest that you are unlikely to actively seek confrontation although are normally inclined to stand your ground when faced with some opposition."

I'm sure we can all point towards someone who is argumentative and a bully, but really, how many of us would actively seen out seek out confrontation?

"You are moderately persuasive and are unlikely to seek high-profile roles unless you feel fairly secure with your surrounding and the people you will be working. "

This one makes me smile, having worked with many many people there are few (if any) who would ever seek a high-profile role if they didn't feel secure in their ability to do it – Think about it, who, would actively go after jobs they didn't feel confident they could do, or wasn't sure they could fit in with the company/organisation?

"You are most content when there is a balance between working others and working alone: this is because you value both periods of time with little social contact and also having people available when you wish to share your ideas and opinions."

This also makes me smile a good deal, read it again. It's so wonderfully vague and general that I'm sure if would fit with just about everyone. Essentially it's saying you like times with other people and times alone. That is essentially all of us, whether we are extraverts or introverts. Very few people are solely one or the other, most of us lean in a particular direction, wanting to spend more time along or more time with other people, but almost all of us want some times alone and some times with others or in a group.    

"You may also feel somewhat uncomfortable if pressure is constant and a hectic and rushed atmosphere is the norm."

Again, just notice how obvious this is. What this is saying is that "too much pressure if a bad thing" duh. Most people like times of pressure, it's been shown again and again that most of us work better under a little pressure and with a little stress. But constant pressure isn't good for anyone – even if you enjoy high pressure situations, constant pressure isn't good for your health or wellbeing.

"Your answers indicate that you tend to strike a balance between conventionality and individualism."

Whilst I feel this is true in myself, I do wonder how many other people this vague statement would apply to. Isn't there times we want to conform and times we don't?

"Your respect for traditional methods means that you would probably not be comfortable in a completely unconventional work place."

I've included this one because it couldn't be more wrong. I'd love to work in unconventional workplaces.

"Generally, you are probably comfortable in most jobs settings except those involving extremes"

Stating the damned obvious for most of us, by their very nature, only a very small minority of people would enjoy working in extreme environments. But I do wonder what this report would describe as "extreme", extreme in what sense. Working in the Antarctic ice station might be seen as extreme, but to me, it would be working for Bank of America or a call centre, or even worse, a call centre in Bank of America!!!!

I've copied the whole of the report, so feel free to have a look, how much it would you attribute to you, or someone else you know?

Link to PDF of the full report

After a few rather depressing blog entries of late, that accompanied my most recent and most severe bout of depression for years. I can happily report that I’m on the upward spiral.

Last weekend was very much a rollercoaster of emotions: good and bad. It started badly, as I had a client on Saturday, the first and perhaps the only time I’ll see them I fear, and as they left I was sure that I’d done some of the worst therapy I can remember. I felt all over the place, incoherent, mixed up and unable to convey my point of view very well, if at all. [note: I have no idea if I really was as bad I think or just that I felt it went badly] I moped around the house for the rest of the morning and early afternoon almost convincing myself that I was the worst therapist on the planet and should just pack it in right now. If you look hard enough you’ll find evidence to support any belief or point of view and I trawled up numerous example to prove my theory about how dreadful I was.

The little voice of sanity and rationality in my head, was trying his best to remind me that how I felt might not be real. Despite being convinced that he was wrong, I let him persuade me to sit on it for a day or two, (“just in case.”) Afterall, if I still felt the same, I could pack it in just as easily then as now –but i might, just might feel different by then.

Anyway, I decided to get out and take the dog for a walk; getting out and about always makes me feel better and it did. But with the all turmoil of relationship problems, possible work problems, general depression I was emotionally all over the place, sometimes feeling like I wanted to cry, other times deciding that I’d had enough of life in general. Yet on the other hand I’d feel excited about the future; what might happen, what could happen. Home life, was surprisingly good as well, I think because we’d talked and both been honest with each other.

Hindsight is a great thing, because I now realise that the rollercoaster, the up and down was the start of me feeling better, the beginnings of me moving out my depression and back into “normality” (whatever that is)

Looking back on yesterday (Monday), it was entirely uneventful, I was my “normal” cheery self, positive, relaxed and just OK. It was so uneventful, that I didn’t even notice if I was depressed or not. That’s sometimes the irony of getting better, we get better, get back to normal and just don’t really notice when everything goes back to being how it should be. Client wise: Yesterday was normal too, as it was today. In fact it was only as I was getting ready for my evening client today that I even noticed that I was feeling pretty good.

I’d completely forgotten about the notion of giving up therapy. It might seem like a stark contrast to how I was feeling a few days ago (and believe me it is), but, for me at least, this seems to be the nature of my depression – big pits of despair, self reproach and self-pity that last a few days or weeks and then suddenly just disappear, almost – and in some cases literally – overnight. It’s suprising and fascinating how my mind can shift so radically over just a few days!

Of course, the challenges that I’ll be facing over the coming weeks and months are still there, but I now feel that they’re not insurmountable. Today: they’re fixable, they’re all obstacles that somehow I know I’ll overcome.

Depression is a funny old business, it comes in waves and when you least expect it. Yet it's only when it hits you in extreme way does it start effecting your work.

At the moment I'm going through a bit of a rough patch; when I'm not working, not seeing clients I'm pretty damned low. In my downtime from clients there have been times when I've felt like bursting into tears, not for any particular reason you understand, just that for whatever reason I get these waves of emotions. Not that my clients would suspect a thing I'm sure and it's not that I'm pretending or hiding it from them it's just that when I'm working I'm in work mode and then everything is different. I'm focused on my clients, focused on their problems the solutions and just generally I take myself out of myself when I'm with them and put on my therapy hat [it's not a real hat you understand, just a metaphor!]. When I'm with my clients I am my normal self, relaxed, chatty, friendly and happy (hopefully most of my clients would agree that we spend quite of time laughing?) In fact, in some ways it seeks to enhance my therapy work as I feel even more empathetic towards my clients. Yet when they go and when I'm without appointments it all changes. The black pit opens and I feel headlong into it.

Part of the problem is that I have to time to think, time to wallow in my own self-pity, it's made worse because I'm not as active as I once was (or would like to be again) and also partly due being on my own. As someone who is a natural extravert [link required] I take my energy from other people, and feed back my energy to other people or group.

Being depressed takes a suprising amount of energy, I don't think non-depressed people really appreciate just how damned exhausting it is; sure, when we're depressed we don't want to do as much, but some of that is because we're so damned knackered all the time. There are a lot of really depressed people out there who seem to be fine, their friends, family and work colleagues probably have no idea they're suffering. In my opinion it's mainly when the sufferer runs out of depression that they can't keep up the jolly exterior any longer and becomes visibly depressed.

Here is my list of things that make my depression worse:

1. Being on my own
   Strangely, when I'm not depressed I don't mind being on my own at all, in fact, sometimes the busier I am the more I crave some me time, some alone time. Yet when I'm depressed, the opposite is true.
2. Being stuck indoors
   (or at least feeling that I'm stuck in doors) – Today, being a great example. I Spent the morning moaping around the house, feeling trapped, listless and frustrated. A Huge list of house jobs that need doing, but no desire or impetus to do them. But I have a laptop with a good battery (4 hours when fully
   charged) so here I am, outside, by the river in the sunshine actually ACHIEVING SOMETHING USEFUL.
3. Lack of exercise and activity
   This is a bit of a viscous circle, when I'm down, I need to exercise more (it makes me feel so much better) yet it's almost the last thing I seem able to do. I want to go running right now, but for some reason haven't been running for such a long time now.
4. Feeling trapped or helpless
   Again, another viscous circle that I need to work at to break out from. One of the things depression does for me, is make me feel trapped and helpless, about pretty much anything that's not therapy/client related. I know, in my head that this just distorted thinking, but it's a real struggle to break through it and actually do something to prove to myself that I'm neither trapped nor helpless
5. Lack of purpose
   I'm sitting here, writing, and this helps enormously, it gives me purpose and a goal – for the time I'm writing this I'm working towards something, thinking about what I'm going to write and NOT thinking about depressed I am!
6. Nothing to do
   I have the attention span of a goldfish and I get bored so incredibly easily. I have school reports that say "Iain is easily distracted" and 30 years on, this is still the case. Easily distracted, easily bored. If boredom was an Olympic event, I'd be a multiple goal medal winner! Perhaps I just lack imagination, but I seem to be spending a lot of time at the moment feeling I could do something with my time, but not really knowing what the hell I could do. It's no good anyone suggesting anything either, then I just feel like a bored school kid in the school holidays, with my Dad suggestion lots of really [lame] things for me and my friends to do.

Now, oddly, I've known about all these things for a long long time, but just writing them down here and now, seems to make both seem a bit silly and easily changeable. I've never written them down like this before. But looking at them all now, there is that little voice in my head saying "what the fuck are you getting down about, all these can be addressed pretty easily"

Now, this blog entry was going to be all about how I keep reminding myself that the way I feel right now isn't real. It's temporary, it's the depression talking and making me feel so bloody low and emotional. Up until right now, this has been my mantra for the past few days and weeks. "it's temporary, it's not real" But now I can see things that will help.

Notice that I'm haven't mentioned what causes my depression, just talked about things that makes me feel worse. I know that if I can tackle those, which clearly I can, they're all things I can change things will change and get better. Ok it's not a panacea, I'm not going magically cure myself but I know it WILL make me feel better. It will make a difference.