Author: Gordon Young
Gordon Young
Gordon Young is the founder and Director of Training at the Institute of Applied Psychology, Sydney. A clinician with 25+ years of practice, he is the creator of Gordian Therapy and author of a number of books on the human condition aimed at clinicians, coaches and consumers.
Somewhere, right now, a wellness influencer in a white linen shirt is telling several million people that if they simply act as if they are already wealthy, confident, healthy and loved, the universe will catch up.
Welcome to dichotomous thinking — the cheerful little tyrant living rent-free in your head, sorting the world into Good and Bad, Success and Failure, Friend and Foe, with the brisk certainty of a customs officer at three in the morning.
My daughter had been planning this day for the better part of a year. The pony bug had arrived in our household the way pony bugs tend to — quietly, then all at once — but this one came with a uniquely, gloriously specific fixation: she wanted to ride an Icelandic horse. Not just any horse. An “Icelandic” horse.
The sign at the entrance to the Roman Baths in Bath asks visitors to refrain from touching the water. This is a reasonable request, given that it is technically a UNESCO World Heritage site and a sacred spring that has been flowing continuously for approximately ten thousand years.
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