Category: Students

On Environmental Depression

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Recently a colleague reached out with a question if I could lead a session on climate/ environmental depression during class time as students have specifically requested a psychologist to talk to them about it.

Some of the questions asked were:

  • How to manage climate anxiety?
  • How to avoid depression, when working in climate science and ecology?
  • How to cope with feelings, while maintaining objectivity in work? How to avoid nihilism and despair? 
  • How can one working in the environmental science field manage a good work life balance, such as being able to enjoy life and stay happy knowing all the scary things we learn and see on a daily basis. 

We talked about the foundation on which ‘non-anxiety’ can be built, such as having the feeling of support, space and protection, trust and endurance. In terms of working professionally with the highly touching topics – to be able to protect oneself, to know own borders, capacities, abilities and inabilities, personal scope – what is possible for me personally in this particular context and circumstances? I shared my own experiences in becoming a clinical psychologist – while visiting various clinics during my studies I have realized that I am not able to work in child psychiatry – I couldn’t see myself as able to provide good help there. I have huge respect for those colleagues who can.

We talked about the importance of:

  • preventive measures of emotional burnout – possibility of having something similar to supervision process, peer groups or intervisions.
  • knowing own values – knowing what is important for oneself and why it is important? Doing check-ins with oneself by the end of the day: Have I lived my values today?
  • being selective with consuming the information that comes in from various directions. Not reading the news everyday and really paying attention to the news with positive initiatives, because they are there, but might not have all the spotlight attention on them.
  • finding the healthy outlet for difficult emotions that might be directed to specific people, entities, previous generations. Emotions need to be recognized and then it becomes possible to see the situation in more productive and solution oriented way.

And most importantly to give oneself permission to live. To be true to own values and not to get overwhelmed by new contexts, making our best in not falling into conformism. To remember that even the small actions are important, as they continue to live in one form or the other.

If your organization has a similar need – to have a questions and answers session on the topic of climate / environmental depression or dark future anxiety – please reach out!

Field Study: Applied Effects of Psychology of Time for Environmental Philosophy | DIS – Study Abroad | 26.10.2022

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Thank you for last week’s event with a change of scenery! 

On Wednesday morning, with DIS: Copenhagen, we found ourselves in a bus driving outside Copenhagen for an adventure!

The event took place at Karlstrup Kalkgrav lake, where students were able to learn about geology, the history of the lake, and the psychology of time while walking in nature and going with the flow. 

We looked into:

  • Balanced Time Perspective in Therapy;
  • Time perspective theory;
  • Balanced time perspective profile;
  • Personal and global future;
  • Living in the present.

The main activity was a mindful walk in silence while experiencing living in the present, contemplating, and observing the surroundings. After this, students shared their feelings, impressions, and diverse points of view.

This activity allowed students to reflect and become more conscious of their views on the human-made lake and its nature.

As a result, students discovered that while having different thoughts about it and listening to totally different experiences of others, all of them were right, depending on their past experiences. 

It was wonderful to be a part of this adventure, and we look forward to hearing more about students observing their lives and reflecting on their Time Perspective Profile to become more balanced. 

If you are a practitioner (psychologist, therapist or coach) and interested to learn more about the Balance Time Perspective Coaching please join our educational seminar on it. 

If you are interested in self-development and learning more about your personal time perspective profile and how to reach more balance, you can join the course “Where is my time?” or reach out for an individual consultation. 

Many of the Creative Time Studio’s workshops are tailor-made, so don’t hesitate to reach out by requesting a workshop that fits your organization, class or group’s needs.

Workshop: Futurization: Creating the Space for the Future | Sustainable Development in Northern Europe course, DIS | 28.09.2022

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Recently the DIS students from the course Sustainable Development in Northern Europe participated in our workshop on Futurization: Creating the Space for the Future.

We looked into the images of our own personal future and those of the global future. There was a stark difference between the two – personal future being much more positive and global future images were mostly negative. Similarly to my earlier research results presented at the TEDx Vilvoorde.

We looked into the common challenges associated with futurization:

  • lack of future discourse – no future language, absence of a tool to talk about it, except for concepts like ‘pension’ or ‘mortgage’ (are those effective?);
  • lack of our cognitive capacity to imagine long-term future;
  • images of the global future can be very scary, anxiety-provoking, or leave us feeling hopeless;
  • our defense mechanisms protect us from such emotions, but also make us shortsighted.

We looked at our difficult emotions, but have also looked at what can actually be done by us in the context of the current situation. We talked about the importance of knowing our own values and how to develop personal strengths supporting them. 

Creating a safe space for expressing the emotions, imaginaries, hopes, and, most importantly, fears associated with the future and ‘futurization’, allowed for more productive ideas and solutions to emerge among the participants.

Finally, we looked into the ideal future, a combination of personal and global images, by visualizing it. Creating and discussing collages were valuable tools that helped the students to realize their thoughts about the future and to find what can support them in developing strategies for a better future. 

As a result, students shared how they can keep the positive side of looking at their personal and global future and the importance of making change individually on a small scale.

We look forward to seeing how our workshop will inspire our young participants to create more sustainable personal and global futures.

If you are interested in self-development, learning more about personal and global future, and sustainable development – join our future workshops or reach out for a tailor-made workshop that fits your organization, class, or group’s needs.

Balanced Time Perspective in Therapy and Coaching workshop | DIS – Study Abroad | 05.10.2022

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Thank you, #HappinessLab from DIS – Study Abroad Copenhagen, for joining us this week at the Balanced Time Perspective in Therapy and Coaching workshop.

It was a pleasure to educate the new generation about time perspective theory, balanced time perspective profile and introduce various practical interventions.      

Students got to see different cases, for example, a typical profile of someone struggling with anxiety, depressive episode or work-related stress and burnout, etc. 

We looked into the process of working with a prospective client step-by-step: 

– Performing initial assessment of the time perspective profile.

– Working with the profile: taking into account the individual, culture and context of the current situation.

– Learned about ‘reading between the lines’ of the profile numbers.

– Discussed and exercised various tools and interventions aimed at creating a higher level of balance in one’s time perspective.

Students were introduced to different exercises aimed at activating a positive past, or mindful present or possible future. For example, we went on a silent mindful walk, shared our observations and experiences after it, and discussed the importance of noticing how we notice.

As a result of the workshop, participants shared that they felt more relaxed, that they became more aware about their own past, present and future, that working with clients is not a “one recipe that fits all” but that it is a journey and discovery of a personal approach and that they have the tools that they can apply themselves to improve the level of balance of their time perspectives. 

It has been a great pleasure to lead this workshop and we are looking forward to seeing how the approaches discussed today will be applied in daily lives. 

If you are a practitioner (psychologist, therapist or coach) and interested to learn more about the Balance Time Perspective Coaching please join our educational seminar on it. 

If you are interested in self-development and learning more about your personal time perspective profile and how to reach more balance, you can join the course “Where is my time?” or reach out for an individual consultation. 

Many of the Creative Time Studio’s workshops are tailor-made, so don’t hesitate to reach out by requesting a workshop that fits your organization, class or group’s needs.

Waiting time: “gaps between the actual events”

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In my Psychology of Time course I have offered students an assignment where they were exploring the experience of waiting time. They observed themselves in a situation of waiting and others while waiting for something in a public space.

Some very interesting observations and insights have emerged:

“Are the portions of time spent waiting truly just empty gaps between the actual events of one’s life, or are they also events in their own right? As I discovered while waiting at the bus stop, the time spent waiting for an event to begin can sometimes be even more valuable than the event itself.”

A very rare approach these days:

If the subway has not left the station yet while I am on it, I will tell myself that it is ok because now someone was able to make it on who needs to get to an important meeting.

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DIS students: final projects FA15

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Being an immigrant myself, Hamide‘s (Şeyda Özçetin and Seda Özçetin) story is very close to mine as well.. some very similar trials and tribulations… been a ‘proud’ alien in my own home-country for many years, then being pushed out due to economic conditions and been living here and there.. underemployment.. sure! been there, done that.. not only me, my mom as well – educated as a space engineer she currently works as a nanny in London. I’m not being deported though, but I’ve been in a situation when Italian mafia was hunting us… not a boring life for sure )) whatever doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger, or at least I hope so!

I’m happy that this project done by Julian Andrews , Megan Kessler, Kate Puglia, Laura McLaughlin, and Daisy Bowes Williamson as part of our cross-cultural psychology course at DIS is really out there now and hopefully it will bring some changes! Well done, “Jeg Danske!”, well done!

Immigrant, Fabulous and Proud of it

Academic writing: Introduction and Discussion

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In most cases when I evaluate student’s papers or when I supervised my MA and PhD students, the two most common challenges are with the Introduction section or Discussion.

Academic writing: Introduction and Discussion

There are tons of useful information available on the internet about how to write the different parts of an academic paper. Recently I stumbled upon one, which I really liked, especially the short version of it:

The Sections of the Paper

 Experimental process  Section of Paper
What did I do in a nutshell?  Abstract
 What is the problem? Introduction
 How did I solve the problem?  Materials and Methods
 What did I find out?  Results
 What does it mean?  Discussion
 Who helped me out?  Acknowledgments (optional)
 Whose work did I refer to?  Literature Cited
 Extra Information Appendices (optional)

See the full guide here. Unfortunately I didn’t find who the authors were. And on another note, although this guide is from the biology department and they claim that in humanities papers are very different and it might be so. However, in social sciences we follow the same structure when writing papers (we really really try to be scientific, but I have my doubts).

Riin’s defence

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Today my PhD student, Riin Seema, successfully defended her thesis: Mindfulness, time perspectives and correlates of well-being of students at different educational levels in Estonia. Dissertation is available here.

It has been a long journey and now it’s completed. Wish all the best to Riin!

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