<![CDATA[Psychotherapy & Coaching

<![CDATA[Psychotherapy & Coaching - Blog]]>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 10:06:14 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[13 Reasons Why (I Killed Myself)]]>Sun, 28 May 2017 12:00:50 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/13-reasons-why-i-killed-myselfI’ve been watching the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why” recently (and at this point I should say spoilers) and it conveyed a lot of powerful messages and created a huge number of feelings for me, but the largest and most relevant to every one of us for me was:

your words and actions CAN affect others.

If you've watched the series you'll know that all 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself were to do with friendships or lack of them.

The brutality and violence in the series has really shocked me and from reading reactions on social media this stuff really happens and it is portrayed well. The shock is more from a mainstream TV company really getting to the heart, the dark heart, of almost impossible feelings and emotions which are chilling and difficult to sit with.

These aren't kids who don't know better either, a lot of characters are 18 and still don't know how to treat people. Or maybe they know but they don't care enough or even realise the harm they are doing. A lot of us, and I’d include myself in this, have said things in the heat of the moment, which we’d be ashamed of, and that can trigger feelings in the other which are incredibly distressing. Sometimes we lash out to try and push others away, or because it’s how we’ve learnt to behave. It can be difficult to recognize these ways of being in the world, and even more difficult to alter them.

Some reactions online have said that the programme encourages and glorifies suicide but I really don't think this is true. Anyone who watched the final scenes where Hannah is so lost and desperate that she slits her wrists will see how painful this really is. This is part of the debate about suicide, as a reluctance, understandable reluctance at that, to portray suicide as glamorous needs to be present in any discussion, but it can also allow us, society at large, to just ignore the giant elephant that’s going on around us all the time.

Anything that gets people talking about suicide and depression is surely a good thing? My hope, and I think it’s a motivator for this programme, is that anyone who is feeling suicidal may just see the reactions to Hannah's suicide and get help…. If you’re in immediate danger then the Samaritans and Maytree offer immediate befriending. If you do want help, to talk in a professional way about feeling suicidal, or feelings following somebody’s suicide drop me an email at ben@benscanlan.com.

P.S Please realise just how important every little thing you say to someone really is. Try to be kind, it could save a life.

]]><![CDATA[It's ok to be scared]]>Tue, 23 May 2017 11:11:00 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/its-ok-to-be-scaredLast night something terrible happened in Manchester and twenty-three people lost their lives, twenty-two of which weren’t expecting to. It was at a concert of somebody famous, but not somebody provocative or edgy. Twenty-two people went to a pop concert to have a good time and enjoy themselves and didn’t come out again.

I’d imagine that a lot of people feel anger and disgust at the actions of the perpetrator. Feelings and emotions which are really easy to process (relatively) compared to the fear. Fear that it could have happened to a friend, family member or yourself. Fear that it could happen today in a different venue, in a different city when there’s no warning.

It’s acceptable and natural to be scared.

Life is scary at the best of times. From the moment we’re thrown out of the womb into the world and are confronted by strange creatures we don’t recognize after only knowing seminal fluid and redness inside our mothers. Attacks like last night give a sense of thrownness and discombobulation. Death and destruction happen “over there” whether it’s in the middle East or Africa. That’s a comfortable distance for a lot of us to not really own what’s going on. As attacks have become more common in Europe and the US, it’s come closer, and last night it happened on our doorstep. Manchester is a well known place, and a lot of us will have been there, may well have been to a gig at the MENA. It could have happened to us.

So today you could be feeling scared. Scared that the world in which you live in, the nice bubble, has dissipated and been replaced by something more uncomfortable, less appealing and far, far more scary.

How you process and deal with that fear will depend on how you view the world and others within it. I’d suggest talking, being honest about how you feel and looking to explore how it affects you. Channeling fear into aggression and divisive views, expounding rhetoric is one way, but I wonder if that way lies more pain, more heartache and an unwillingness to accept the world at large. As a baby we could have been disgusted and hate filled at the doctors and mother who induced our being thrown into the world, but we choose not to be, and accept at some level, that things happen we don’t like.

I saw a great post of a friend of mine this morning talking about the attack last night as being a product of the society in which we live. This is a controversial view in some levels, but is based on the idea that “we” (white western civilization) aren’t actually the “good” guys, and that situations induce reactions, and for some, the situation in the world is intolerable and they take their view out on others, in this case killing them. The reaction of encouraging war or a retaliation is born out of this; another way is to look deeply at your situation and understand what you’re feeling, and accepting that it’s ok to feel that.

It’s ok to feel a bit all over the place. It’s ok to be scared or anxious. That’s human. Be kind to yourself, and to others, and try and explore the fear and pain that’s around you.

]]><![CDATA[The time to change is now]]>Tue, 16 May 2017 16:13:52 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/the-time-to-change-is-nowI’ve seen this phrase being used a lot in advertising psychotherapy and the potential to change. To a degree it’s true, but I wonder if a better phrase would be the time to examine and consider change is now.

Not so catchy, but more relevant I feel.

The timing of looking, or changing, can be a difficult thing to get right. Yesterday is an impossibility, as it’s already gone, so that’s out as an option. Tomorrow is attractive as it can be less scary. And ultimately it's never tomorrow, so the goal of doing something tomorrow will never come around, and there's no associated guilty or compulsion to make that step.

Now, or today, that can be terrifying.

Life may not be great, but it can also feel manageable, and without a desperate need to examine and change, tomorrow can be seen as a better option. A lot of the time, things could be worse, so we're willing to wait for tomorrow as stagnation can be sold to ourselves as progression. For a lot of us, looking at our pasts, and our presents, with a view to really trying to get to an understanding, can be a discombobulating thought to say the least. So we try and postpone.

Except, that postponement can mean that suddenly the now that is manageable and at least partially stable is intolerable and filled with overwhelming emotions which require urgent, drastic change and help.

Now, now is the only time when we can really try and help. Whether that now finds you in either a dramatic and unstable period, or whether there’s just a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right, now is literally the only time you can reach out for help. Irrespective of the position you find yourself in, examining your life can give you a perspective to change. Maybe.

The maybe is important. We’re bombarded with images of famous celebrities who have the perceived perfect life, with the perfect family, the perfect body and the bank balance which is the northern side of healthy. These types of images are inescapable, and can infiltrate our emotional side without our realizing it, in a similar way to how we can diminish big events can be diminished as they’re not as bad as catastrophes we see on the evening news.

Viewing the concept of change is also fraught with perceived danger. If you come to therapy, then do you have to change? Does it make you accountable for actually doing something. Change can be seen as positive, or a negative, but in reality we're always changing are we not? We always have a choice over what we do, and because of that, if we aren't changing, then our relationship to what we're doing alters as we become more comfortable with the not changing; so we change inside.

So change happens all the time, and we don't realise it. That's helpful a lot of the time, so when there are building works at your change station on your morning commute, you're able to change and adapt without thinking. However if we don't examine our way of being in the world, how much can we change from the us we think we know, and before we realise it, we're actually far away from our mental image of ourself. Change is a constant, but our awareness isn't a given, which is quite a scary concept.

If you feel the time is right for a deeper examination of your life, how you’ve ended up where you are, the motivations and thoughts behind your actions and how you may change….

Reach out ben@benscanlan.com.

]]><![CDATA[Daydreaming; the unspoken ritual]]>Wed, 26 Apr 2017 07:00:00 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/daydreaming-the-unspoken-ritualThe other day I was working with a coaching client, and I was talking (I'd like to think some golden nugget of insightful wisdom) and when I paused to let him speak, he came out with the most unexpected line.

"Ben, I'm sorry, I drifted off then, into a daydream"

And he looked a little guilty and ashamed.

My very first reaction was 'was I that boring?', but that was quickly displaced by a wonder of what he'd been daydreaming about.

So I questioned him and together we explored what the daydream was about, and then talked more generally about daydreams and what can be gained.

It was a really fruitful discussion, not least as we realised that it's a very easy and continually flowing type of creativity. Let's take subjects for this blog.... if I sit down to write a post, invariably I end up procrastinating unable to think of a topic. However, if I'm listening to music or a podcast, suddenly I'm daydreaming and coming up with great ideas, or, if not great, at least a lot of them.

And then I realised that all too often I drift off, and in my shame of not being totally present, I throw the daydream out with the bathwater as quickly as possible like a dirty little secret. Why is that? I realise I'm not in your head to hear what goes on, but out of a straw poll of two last week, 100% of us daydreamed a lot. Which suggests, even if we're outliers, most people will daydream to some degree or another.

Yet how often do we talk about our daydream? How often do we even admit to ourselves, let alone anybody else, that we daydream? How many truly amazing ideas have been lost due to them occurring at an inappropriate moment at a dinner party, when you realise everybody else is amazed you aren't laughing, and your idea of how to fuel the UK for a million years has just disappeared behind the proverbial sofa.

So I think I want to leave you with two questions, or challenges:

1) Do you keep track of your daydreams, and use it as a way into another area of your creative side, or do you let it happen and then whisper into the ether as quietly as it came?

2) what would it be like to name out loud not only that you're daydreaming, but also what you're daydreaming about?

The latter one strikes me as particularly challenging, as it potentially opens us up to being judged - if we're thinking about cake or sex or something that certain aspects of society would deem 'bad'. After finishing with my client, I was reflecting on the train, and realised that rather than his being bored, his admission was a good sign of our growing relationship....

]]><![CDATA[Confidentiality]]>Wed, 12 Apr 2017 07:00:00 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/confidentialityWithout confidentiality, it would be very difficult to build enough trust in the relationship between you and your therapists (or coach), so that you felt safe enough to talk about your deepest feelings. It can be hard enough making the decision to talk in the first place without the fear that someone else might find out about it.

Confidentiality is deeply embedded in the BACP’s Ethical Framework to which I’m bound as a member of BACP. Here’s part of the detailed guidance:

“Respecting clients’ privacy and confidentiality are fundamental requirements for keeping trust and respecting client autonomy. The professional management of confidentiality concerns the protection of personally identifiable and sensitive information from unauthorised disclosure. Disclosure may be authorised by client consent or the law. Any disclosures of client confidences should be undertaken in ways that best protect the client’s trust and respect client autonomy”.

How is confidentiality protected?

I can only speak for myself and my policy on confidentiality; other therapists and coaches may, and do, differ in their approach. This is how I protect my clients’ confidentiality:

I keep the client information sheets (containing your contact details etc) separate from the client notes from each session
The client notes have only a first name attached and nothing that could connect the notes to that person’s information sheet. As a general principle I try not to take notes.
When I talk to my supervisor, I only use first names or a pseudonym for my clients, and I don’t reveal any identifying details.
If I happen to bump into a client – or former client – outside the counselling room (for example at the cinema or out shopping) then I wouldn’t say hello or acknowledge them in any way unless they did so first. This isn’t me being rude! This is me respecting your right to decide whether you wish to keep our professional relationship under wraps
I don’t talk about my clients – who they are, what they’ve come to talk about, etc – outside the counselling room except in very specific circumstances

When can confidentiality be broken?

This is probably considered the most complex ethical question that therapists and coaches have to deal with. After all, clients put their trust in us to help them recover from whatever has brought them to counselling in the first place, and a cornerstone of that trust is confidentiality. And whilst it might be reassuring to say to a client, “I’ll never pass on anything of what we talk about in our sessions”, that would be misleading and in fact untrue.

So when can I break client confidentiality? Let’s get the legal bits out of the way first.

The law and confidentiality

The law around confidentiality is complicated and not always clear-cut, but there are certain circumstances in which a therapist and coach is legally obliged to pass on information, even if that means breaking confidentiality. The information here is derived from an information leaflet published for members of the BACP:

If a client told me that they were involved in, or had information about, acts of terrorism either being planned or which had already taken place, then I would be legally obliged to contact the police about it, without informing the client that I had done so (Terrorism Act 2000, section 38B)
If a client told me that they had been the driver involved in a road traffic collision, and I was then approached by the police for further information about the incident, I would be legally obliged to pass on what I had been told (Road Traffic Act 1991, section 21)
If a client told me they had information about the whereabouts of a missing child who is in care, under police protection or subject to an emergency protection order, I could be obliged by order of the Family Court to pass on that information (Children Act 1989, section 50)

The courts can also order disclosure of information in other circumstances. It’s a very complex area and I would likely seek advice from my professional association before breaking confidentiality on a legal question. There is currently no legal imperative for a therapist, coach or counsellor to report information concerning child abuse.

Ethics and confidentiality

If the law around confidentiality is complex, then the ethical dilemmas are even more so – as they can go to the very heart of the therapist coaches’s own belief system and values.

My ethical code isn't written down here, as to me, ethics are dependant on the situation. It's tempting to say I have a different code of ethics for each client, but I think that is overly simplistic. It's a moving, intangible thing. Some clients I hug, others I've never touched.

So, what does this mean in practice?

Conflicting values

Suppose a client came to me and said they were contemplating suicide – what’s my moral and ethical duty as a therapist and coach in that situation?

I'd talk it over with you.

I've sat with many suicidal people at Maytree, and have been suicidal myself, so I know I can hold the conversation. What if you were still determined to kill yourself?

Personally I think you have a choice around your life and what you do with it. There is an ethical position that would hold this is a risk of immediate harm, and I should call the emergency services. I generally disagree with that, unless you tell me you want me to. I would try and get you to stay with your feelings and to talk about how you intend to kill it.

Can I imagine myself as a therapist/coach/counsellor deciding that I would breach my client’s confidentiality, despite knowing that he or she was intent on taking their own life? Maybe. Ultimately I would talk it through with you though. Not to do that, would be unprofessional and unethical from my perspective.

Risk of harm to others

Are there other situations – other than risk of harm to yourself as a client – where I would consider breaking confidentiality? According to the BACP’s detailed guidance, there’s something called the ‘public interest defence':

“The balance of public interest favours the prevention and detection of serious crime over the protection of confidences. … [For example] Murder, manslaughter, rape, treason, kidnapping, child abuse or other cases where individuals have suffered serious harm may all warrant breaching confidentiality.”

Suppose a client told me that they had information about a murder or other violent crime; what’s my ethical and moral duty there? How do I weigh up my duty of care to my client and his or her right to confidentiality against the public interest in seeing violent offenders caught and prevented from harming anyone else?

What if, by disclosing what my client has told me, I put him or her at risk? What if, by not disclosing, it means other people are at risk of being harmed because the information has not been passed on?

There are no easy answers to this dilemma, and I would always try to discuss with you, my client, and my supervisor, before making any decision.

I personally believe counselling and psychotherapy should be confidential, and that overrides a lot of my other concerns. To break confidentiality would mean imposing my own morals onto you, which also flies in the face of my desire to see the world through your eyes, not tell you how you should be.

]]><![CDATA[Acting authentically]]>Wed, 05 Aug 2015 17:22:40 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/acting-authenticallyThe big push around communications skills is to encourage people to act authentically.

Except that's a paradox isn't it?

Surely if you're being authentic, then you're not acting.

I think a little background is important here: a lot of my peers who coach and train people in how to communicate are actors. They are used to it. I was listening to Mark Rylance on Desert Island disks while I was away on holiday and he summed it when talking about his early career...

"I think I had some issues with honesty too. I don't think I was able to be honest. I needed to be liked too much. I think that's the kind of miners dust of an actors life, that you are a professional liar, and you can not only lie to others, you can lie to yourself."

Now, acting gets you so far.... But if you're lying to yourself then that's a difficult place to be. I'd place a sizeable wager, think a hundred guineas, that there's a reasonable chance you're heading towards a breakdown, as if you can't trust yourself, who can you trust. There is evidence, anecdotal admittedly.... Just look at the number of actors who have mental health issues such as depression. After all, if you're acting all the time, what room is there for a true sense of self?

For me, interpersonal communication should be all about authenticity and a little bit about acting.

Let me explain.

When a client came to me, and said “I have a gig next week, and I need to be better between songs" then acting and interpersonal communication really came to the fore. I needed to make a difference to them immediately.

However there needed to be a secondary process going on between us as the acting will only get them so far. In some ways the acting and basic skills are what a paramedic would do to you in order to get you through the journey to A&E.... They aren't and shouldn't be, the end in themselves.

We also explored how she spoke to herself, her intra-personal communication (very dismissively, similar to how she was with fans when she was tired) and how she'd been taught to communicate inter-personally. For example one of her problems is that she tends to speak very quickly, which she knew was as a result of her grandmother always shouting at her to "spit it out".

Ok, now you may be thinking, so what, you know where the root cause of the issues is, what now? Well, we explored a bit about why things needed to be spat out, and she was worried that she was talking nonsense... She had no confidence in what she was saying. This naturally meant we worked on her content, so that she knew what she wanted to say, and that it really meant something to her.

And how did we get to that point? By looking at how she saw herself, what image she wanted her fans to know. So her coming and asking me about her inter-personal communication skills ended up addressing her intra-personal communication.

All of this from the 'presenting problem' of her speaking quite quickly! That was masked initially with a little bit of acting, but then by looking at what her individual authenticity is, corrected more robustly. To a certain extent, this slow burning process flies in the face of modern society. Everything is about getting things done now. And that's an easier sell, if a slightly false one. I once went on a great training course that really did polish my communication skills. Except that as soon as the course was over, all I was left with was a ring binder full of notes so 'embedding the change' was a non-starter really. That's not my way of working.

I can help you communicate more effectively. With yourself, and with others. Consistently over time. So stop acting authentically, and really get in touch with who you are, and how you want to be seen.

N.B. The client is a fictitious amalgamation of a number of people and problems. If you can identify her bravo, as she couldn't identify herself!

This post was originally published on Linkedin: follow me there to get updates.

]]><![CDATA[Intra-personal communication]]>Sun, 02 Aug 2015 19:50:31 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/intra-personal-communicationIn the same way as I've defined what inter-personal communication is, what do I mean by intra-personal communication?

Simply put, it's how you talk to yourself.

My logic is this. If you are harsh and critical on yourself when your inner voice speaks, then I contend that it is difficult to reach high levels of compassion and empathy when you talk to others (i.e. when you use inter-personal communication). That's not to say it's impossible. It's not. I've done it many times BUT look where I ended up. The mask I used for inter-personal communication couldn't help my intra-personal communication.

Let me expand a little; all of us (I would think, although we are all different) have an inner monologue that goes on in our head. Sometimes it can be quite angelic encouraging us to not have that extra portion of gelato, while at others it can egg us on to hit snooze and skip the early morning gym part of our routine.

That's pretty healthy.

At times though, our inner voice can be a lot more critical. Especially around communications when we're under pressure; think presentations, interviews and networking events. The our voice can seize on innocuous things and morph reality. Here's an example...

"I was at this networking thing with the APM this evening and I'd had to get the tube at rush hour and I was so sweaty. I was gonna go to the toilet and try to cool down, but this APM guy recognised me and pulled me over to this group, and I swear the two guys on the far side of the circle started laughing when I got there as they found my sweaty forehead hilarious. That just made me more and more embarrassed as I couldn't stop thinking they were laughing at me and I missed their names and then that just made me more flustered and I just couldn't wait to get out of there....."

A more productive, and healthy response would be to have noted the laughing and thought it was some inane joke that they were laughing along with and absolutely nothing to do with me.

So that's what I mean by intra-personal communication; it's how you talk to yourself, especially when you're under pressure.

]]><![CDATA[Inter-personal communication]]>Sat, 01 Aug 2015 19:48:52 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/inter-personal-communicationI thought it useful, and prudent, to really define what I mean when I say inter-personal communication... as for me, while it's a simple phrase, and pretty much encapsulates half of what I do, there's a lot contained within it.

High level, it's about how one person puts across their message to another, and how that message is received.

So there are different elements:

1) how you communicate

By this, I'm talking about your bread and butter presentation skills, how loud you are, how your energy is, how you claim space and how you project. I could go on, but hopefully you get the message...

2) what you communicate

Here I'm talking about your content, and underpinning that is your key message (more of which later). This is how you break down what you're going to say

3) who you are communicating with

Who are you talking to? If it's a business presentation, can you find out who, or are you fortunate to already know some of them. If its over the course of a gig, can you at least come up with some personas of who is likely to be out there, and why they're stood listening to you?

4) how they will receive it

A little more complicated than the above, but understanding audience behaviours. If we take TED as an example they make speakers limit themselves to around 10minutes. As that means the audience won't get too bored and start thinking about food, sex and their lives.

5) how you both leave the situation, and what you take with you

This is the big one... what is the message you want to ensure is taken away, as well as how you want to feel having completed your communication. A lot of my clients express relief, but I'm not a fan of that... if you get 1-4 right, then something more pleasurable should be attainable. The idea of a key message may be really impactful (think 'I have a dream'), or it could be slightly more abstract - with artists I've found it could be coming across as funny.

Either way, this informs the other four and how you do all your communication with your audience.

You may be asking why it's last if it's the most important. As I want it to be your takeaway!

]]><![CDATA[To script, or not to script?]]>Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:11:31 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/to-script-or-not-to-scriptThis is a very topical subject given the reaction from me, and many, towards the scripted answers given by the seven leaders in the only debate of this General Election.

Too often it appeared that the hours of preparation had ended up with half a dozen soundbites that had to be shoehorned into an answer. Minimise the amount of news you make, and stick to the party line. Except Farage. He's worth a whole dissertations worth of analysis, so I'll ignore him. Like the majority of the electorate will in May.

This even continued onto Newsnight, with Andy Burnham stating how much he dislikes negative politics, then in the next breath, with no hint of irony, saying 'like Michael Gove' pushes. It was too clear that he wanted to say X and Y, no doubt given to him by somebody like me, without it really being him.

There are many dangers facing the scripted communicator, but I'm just going to consider two. The first, is that you fail to make any eye contact with your audience. At best, this will just mean you mumble slightly, but it could lead everybody to question how trustworthy you are. The second is far more criminal, as you can come across as being a fake version of you: in fact, not being you at all.

Your audience knows the issues around public speaking: its terrifying and can bring out the sweats in even the most accomplished and confident person. They also know that real people don't stick to a script, do make mistakes and do offer an insight into their own world.

And that's what you have to do as a speaker. Show your audience how your world can help theirs.

Unfortunately too many modern politicians go along trying to hold the centre line, to not make waves, to be the one left standing. Some people are actually like that I'm sure, by when I scan through my address book, I don't see any of them in there.

This isn't bashing politicians; too many people who adopt the title of being a communications expert, just peddle how to come across as the archetypal alfa male, or tell you that to sell, you have to do X and Y. And that attitude has infiltrated politics where almost everybody is on script to the nth degree.

So that's my USP. I say my, I'm sure some of my peers do it as well, but the majority don't. I help you be the best version of you that you want to be. I'll gladly work with you to write a script, or to be confident going up to speak with just an outline. The script or no script debate is secondary to you understanding how you want to come across. Real or unreal? Everything else just flows from there like a champagne tower.

]]><![CDATA[Are you creative?]]>Tue, 07 Apr 2015 15:34:14 GMThttp://benscanlan.com/blog/are-you-creativeI'm finding myself spending more time, and being drawn to, creatives. What defines being a creative? How can one become creative, and ultimately, what's the point?

I think being creative is doing something in a way nobody else is. That's not to say that it has to be original. It doesn't. It has to offer a layer of value or meaning not seen elsewhere. Let's take Banksy and his work as an example of something creative. The images he uses are often found elsewhere: he doesn't invent them. He uses graffiti as his chosen medium, just like so many teenagers around the world. He comments on the issues of the day, but that is nothing new either.

His creative element is merging social commentary and utilising images in startling contrast to the environment he puts them in. That's the creative element, taking three strands of his thought process, merging them and putting it out there for all and sundry to devour. I'm sure it is possible to be creative in secret, and Lord knows I've got a lot of creative things that I've not shared, but what's the point of being a secret creative? I'm not sure that there is any, and I think thats down to one of the by-products of being creative. High output.

I'm not talking car manufacturing line with a six sigma level of accuracy. High output in terms of just producing and revelling in that. I've recently toyed with a great book, the Artists Way which has really embedded the concept of morning pages into my life.

The concept is simple. Write three pages, by hand, every morning.

I was sceptical when I started, as what's that going to achieve?

Except that its had a huge impact on me. It's as though it does flush out all of the nonsense that accumulates in my internal world (I'm conscious of not saying our, as who am I to presume to know your inner workings?) and out pop ideas. Lots of them aren't going anywhere, but that's ok... as the sheer act of engaging my inner wizard is so energising. There isn't a point, but when I begin to doubt the worthwhileness of writing them, and I stop, Lord knows I feel awful. It's like I'm stuck in a straightjacket.

So I think my conclusions are that you've got to practice being creative. You have to have a regular time to be creative, to help get your thinking out of the daily grind and the human doing way of modern life. And the point is? Well, at the very least it releases your inner child, after all, if you give a child a box full of art materials, they may not produce a million dollar painting, but they certainly know how to have fun.

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