"This website, A Guide to Psychology and its Practice, is written in a straight-forward, plain, conversational English that anyone should be able to understand. Moreover, for the sake of truth, there is no advertising on this website. You will find here three different “kinds” of information:
First, for many issues I give an overview written from the perspective of my own experience.
Second, I refer you to Additional Resources on the Internet that provide additional information about the topics I discuss. I have selected non-profit sites that, in general, do not try to sell you anything: professional organizations, foundations, national support organizations, etc. Through these sources you should be able to find the type of help you desire.
Finally, I have provided self-help information that you can use, free and without professional help, to learn relaxation techniques such as autogenics and progressive muscle relaxation, overcome simple phobias (such as fear of flying) with systematic desensitization, and stop smoking.
Altogether, these pages provide an effective guide to the practice of clinical psychology. If you are a student looking for information about sensation, perception, learning theory, and so on, you should read a basic textbook on the principles of general psychology.
Perhaps you are wondering, “Who made this website?” All the writing on this website, and the layout, graphics, and programming, are my own original work.
And please note that I do not allow advertising on this website, nor do I have a sponsor trying to sell you something.
Therefore, if you find that my work has been informative and helpful, perhaps you will realize that a small freewill donation is truly affordable to most persons in industrialized countries, and that it will help to offset my costs in making this website available without charge and without advertising to everyone—especially those in great financial need.
In all of this, my goal is simply to help you realize that although life can be painful, unfair, and brutal, it doesn’t have to be misery.
Don’t get me wrong—I fully appreciate the ecstasy of spiritual experience, and I am something of a mystic at heart. Yet I have learned from experience that the practice of good clinical psychology involves something—call it comfort—which does not mean sympathy or soothing, and it certainly doesn’t mean to have your pain “taken away.” It really means to be urged on to take up the cup of your destiny with courage and honesty.
I have a background in literature, theology, and art, and came to study psychology as a middle-adulthood career change. On this website, I speak about values such as compassion and forgiveness not for religious reasons but simply because they are good, common-sense ways to true and lasting mental health. It’s that simple.
But the task of teaching the general public the difference between happiness and mental health has all the satisfaction of trying to fill a sieve with water. And yet, to paraphrase Saint Francis of Assisi, if we accept the world’s injustice, cruelty, and contempt with patience, without being ruffled, and without murmuring, then we have found the path to perfect joy—and we do our work anyway.
So, as much as we all yearn for peace on earth, we won’t get it through laws, by protest or by war. We will have peace only by setting aside our psychological defenses and learning to treat others with honesty and forgiveness. May it all begin in your own heart"
Check out Guide to Psychology