When we hear the word “narcissism,” many of us picture someone who is self-absorbed, arrogant, or manipulative. Narcissistic behaviour can indeed look like that on the surface, but when we dig deeper—especially from the perspective of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy—we begin to see a more complex story. IFS provides a compassionate framework to understand narcissism, and it also offers tools that friends and family can use to support healthier relationships with those who show narcissistic behaviours.

Do you ever find yourself setting goals and then not achieving them? Maybe you start projects, but never finish them? Or perhaps you struggle to get started in the first place? Developing self-leadership is a journey that empowers you to take control of your thoughts, emotions, and actions, leading to greater personal and professional success. In this blog post, we look at what self-leadership is and how you can improve on this important skill.

For those of you who are like me and don’t like conflict (I mean—really don’t like conflict), I want to share something with you that helped me become able to handle conflict situations better. It’s not “five easy steps” or some secret knowledge that came to me in a dream. It’s something that I gained from counselling, and something that I like to help my clients with too.

“You mean, a ‘counsellor’? Heck no. I’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. They just gave me some dumb coping skills and sent me on my way.”

I operate with a simple principle for my health, and it translates into my work as a counsellor: don’t work at coping with the issue harder than you are willing to work to resolve it. In other words, don’t waste your time and energy getting a temporary fix, if you could instead experience true and lasting relief…

I’ve recommended tons of people to different counsellors around Saskatoon over the years. But the common objection I hear in response is, “Why? How could that help?”

I must admit—I’m only ‘slightly’ biased... but please hear me out.

Before I was a counsellor, I was a client…