Psychology

Sexual abuse follows a predictable pattern, but unfortunately this pattern is not widely known. It is essential to recognise its early signs and profound effects for both protection and healing.

“To them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” (Isaiah 56:5).

One of the most striking changes in contemporary parenting is the way it is starting to resemble a well-designed video game, which can make players become addicted. But what happens to parents who feel they are losing the game?

Cynicism might feel smarter and more realistic—but the evidence simply doesn’t back it.

When we are stressed, our sympathetic nervous system prepares our body for one of two possible responses: fight or flight. It does this by channelling most of its resources to our vital organs and muscles. The unknown, along with the absence of the familiar, is a major source of stress.

Just two and a half decades ago, depression and other mental health disorders were virtually unknown among children and were often ignored.

Of all the evidence that younger generations are living in the shadow of insecurity, depression is the most compelling. Anxiety, which accompanies the daily lives of a record number of young people, paints a picture of a generation that experiences an almost constant lack of control.

We live in an era defined by speed, where everything, from information to personal gratification, seems to be just the push of a button away.

The final struggle of life before it slips away, through an intermezzo of agony, from the one whose body it energised, seems to carry no hint of a miracle. It's an image you'd want to turn away from until the grotesque faces of the crushing moment fade. It's a passing—rarely gentle—into the rest that follows life's final flutter of wings.

Losing one’s health and being unable to regain it are profoundly transformative experiences. The body suddenly becomes more than an appendage of the mind, as it is treated when everything is going well, while the mind becomes its prisoner.