About me and this site

Hello! My name is Matthew Puplińskiy and I’m a certified Meridian Energy Therapy practitioner and a  psychology student from Poland.    Allow me to tell you something about myself.  I have a very strong genetic tendency towards anxiety, addictions, depression, and a host of other problems, including psychosis.

Additionally my dad was an alcoholic, and  because basically nature and nurture worked so well together here at predisposing me to mental illness,  even at that a very  early age I had major depression, OCD,  generalized anxiety disorder, multiple phobias (for example agoraphobia, which kept me from leaving my house for anything other than school).

At the age of eight I was lying in bed and watching TV, while eating all day like a depressed old man.

My parents were against putting me into psychotherapy, and I myself was scared of it at the time.  But one day I got the internet, and I said to myself ‘enough’ and searched for information about how to help myself. I bought some self-help books through mail order, followed a bunch of self-help sites, and tried to practice what they taught . And to be honest, it didn’t work out.

The problem was that those books and methods weren’t really designed to be practiced, as most self-help books basically assume that you’ll read them, get a quick buzz, and forget about them.  I treated what they said seriously, and so I did what they told me to do.  For example, one book told me to basically ‘get into my problems and experience them deeply’ and I actually retraumatized myself, making my issues worse, and another one told me that I could get rid of my problems by repeating “I love you” over and over again, which I admit I did try.

It got so bad that even though I did help myself with some of my problems through some of the methods that I found, I was so torn inside by the conflicting dogmas found in various books,   and so deluded by the distortions of esoteric principles commonly found in self-help literature, that I actually became psychotic This is actually a common experience among people who are into self-treatment and do it incorrectly,  as when you’re emotionally unstable you need  grounding, and many of the techniques out there make you very spaced out, and sometimes can cause you to lose touch with reality. This is not a bad thing on its own, but can be dangerous if you’re emotionally unstable and have suicidal tendencies and are under a lot of real life stress, which I was.  Ultimately this led me to attempt suicide and then it turned into a full-blown psychotic episode. I become catatonic (I walked like a broken doll for a period of 6 months) and was on antipsychotics for a very long time.I had to do a lot of psychotherapy (both on my own and with a therapist) to recover from that. The techniques that helped me in particular were EFT, bioenergetics analysis, mindfulness, and CBT, and a few other lesser-known techniques about which I’ll also talk on this blog. J

The silver lining of this adventure  was  that  at the same time I did help myself with many of my problems  and realized my two purposes in life: One is that I want to write unique fiction, which I indulge in on my other website, creepystories.org, where I write horror under the pen name Matt Neputin.

Haha, that surprised you, no? Well my other purpose is to find the safest and most effective ways of psychological self-treatment (autotherapy) from academia (psychology etc.) and from esoteric traditions, and show them to people so that other individuals acquire the needed psychological and esoteric theoretical knowledge to practice them safely and effectively at home, so that no one will make the same mistakes and hurt themselves as much as I did.

I want those techniques to work for people with actual problems, and not just people who are naturally positive and happy, which is something that I’ve noticed in many other self-help systems.  I want to also expose some of the myths that can be encountered on the journey of self-treatment.

My goal is for you to learn how to combine ancient alternative methods of improving your mental health with academic knowledge (and conversely academic psychological knowledge with ancient wisdom) , so that you’ll not only know what works but why it works.

I’m not a guru, as I still – and I’m the first one to admit it — have my issues. And very often I’m still a very negative person, or at least a sceptical and scientific person, and if you’re someone who has no tolerance for the dark side of your psyche you may not like this site, and so I suggest you search for other methods.  But I can honestly say that I actively work on improving myself and I have actually found quite a few methods that I have tested on myself, and am very confident they will help you improve your own life if you try them

Because I’m someone who had serious problems: anxiety, psychosis, OCD, major depression, Asperger’s syndrome (I still have that as it’s a developmental disorder), and because of that I sometimes will have a much more scientific, thorough, and theoretical approach to my work, because I want my methods to be also helpful (and by that I mean complementary to what my readers will do with their therapists) even to people with such serious issues.

I am a follower of the integrative and eclectic approach: I plan to analyze several therapies, and point out the strengths and weaknesses of each therapy and approach. I want to educate my readers in all therapeutic approaches (if I’ll have the time :D), and from them present practical techniques to improve their lives.

So what will this blog be about?

On this site I’ll talk about the most tested and practical techniques for improving your mental health, and combine it with academic psychotherapeutic and transpersonal theory.  It is my own experience that without such a basis in science you can easily become spaced out and lose touch with reality on your journey to self improvement. There’s nothing wrong with that mind you, but at the same time I still think that understanding academic topics will enrich the reality you’ve created for yourself.

Additionally by understanding the principles and theory behind the various therapeutic approaches you’ll know when to apply them to yourself, and why one approach works better for one issue than it does for another – this is something very important to know when you’re trying to help yourself. It is something I wished I knew before I hurt myself as much as I did in my past.

What I can promise you won’t find on this blog is rigid dogma, or a promise of a magic bullet, as even when a technique is close to a magic bullet I’ll break your bubble and explain how it is not :D.

I don’t want you to believe in magic bullets, because formulas lead to dogmatism, and dogmatism keeps you from scientific thinking, which is required for a complete understanding of psychotherapy, which you’ll need if you’re going to help yourself with your problems and create your own techniques from scientific principles, which is my goal.

I found out that you can effectively complement the work you’re doing with a therapist by learning some practical techniques (even some rather esoteric ones) and deepening your knowledge about psychology and psychotherapy.

I might focus on some problems and psychotherapeutic approaches more than others since I have personal experience with them (such as Asperger’s syndrome, psychosis, depression, anxiety problems, trauma, PTSD, personality disorders, sexual disorders, etc.) but I plan to talk about all of them eventually, and I’ll always try my best to answer any questions you guys might have.

And actually techniques like EFT, and many other techniques on this site, help not only with clinical problems but also day-to-day life problems as well.

In particular I will focus on:

1 Social psychology

2 Biological psychology

3 Mindfulness, and related psychotherapeutic approaches, for example ACT

4 Energy therapy, which is basically the use of the principles from energy-based disciplines towards the improvement of mental health.  The two therapies that I’ll mainly discuss are meridian-based therapies, which include acupuncture point stimulation and bioenergetics analysis, which is based on the work of Wilhelm Reich.

5 Additionally I’ll talk about various other psychotherapies and alternative systems of improving mental health through both the body and mind.

You might ask yourself now – if I have such a scientific, rational perspective, why do I plan to discuss spirituality on this psychotherapy blog?

Because to me spirituality, in its purest form, is just a more primal form of psychology that studies subjective experiences. When Wilhelm Wundt first created the science of psychology he also tried to study the internal workings of the human mind (and not just behaviour) although it was later deemed unscientific.  This study of the internal existence, — what we imagine, what we feel, what we sense, was continued by alternative psychology. Fields such as NLP and groups such as chaos magicians all study internal experience, another facet of our mind.

I think that those alternative perspectives can greatly supplement psychotherapy.

Why do you emphasize academic psychology and biology?

If you understand authentic academic psychology and biology you’ll be able to spot hype You’ll also be able to think critically, something most people in the field of self-improvement do not engage in.

Because it is my honest opinion that the exploration of spirituality and the exploration of psychology should be both equally scientific – open to new discoveries while simultaneously keeping a scientific mind.  Just like my favourite researchers did in their time, like Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, Jack Willis, and Roger Callahan.

In summary

All you need to do now is follow this blog where I’ll show you everything you need to know, and I’ll try to do it in the most entertaining way I can.J

So I invite you to follow me and await my responses, as I’ll soon post more updates about psychology, psychotherapy and alternative methods of improving your mental health, such as energy therapy, bioenergetics analysis, yoga and many more, so that you can learn how to help yourself and others with their mental problems, and so that you’ll be able to make a fully educated decision when choosing a therapist. I have already prepared a whole course in one of the methods I’ll be talking about on this blog, which you’ll get after subscribing to it via email,J so you’ll get your immediate gratification, which will hopefully reinforce your decision to follow this blog.

So I invite you to subscribe if you’re not already, and if you are I invite you to like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter & Google+ , and subscribe to my Youtube channel.

And if you’ve already done all those things I just invite you to look forward to the information I’ll put up for you!