The school was delighted to welcome Dr. Colman Noctor, a Leinster based Child, Adolescent / Young Adult Psychoanalytical Psychotherapist. He has worked in many of the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services both in Ireland and abroad and has a wealth of national and international clinical experience. Colman’s approach to therapy combines individual work and parenting sessions. He is heard regularly on RTE and Newstalk radio on the subject of common sense parenting.
He has extensive clinical experience of working with young people with eating disorders and also specialises in children, adolescents/ young adults presenting with anxiety problems, obsessional symptoms and/ or attachment/ separation issues. He is also the best selling author of ‘Cop On’, a parenting book for the technological age.
Dr. Noctor delivered a presentation to all of our junior students and also spoke to parents about how to promote resilience in an era of anxiety. He covered topics such as:
What is happiness and how social media can invite unhappiness into our lives
Tyranny of Choice - how too much choice can create anxiety
Illusion of Control - where we may feel using texts and emails gives us more control than having a conversation but actually we fret more over what we have sent/received than if we had spoken to the person
The difference between gratification and fulfilment
How social media can play on our desires
The necessity for adults to help adolescents regulate their use of social media
Importance of getting to know ourselves and how social media can rob us of time to do this
The difference between what is necessary or important in our lives and what is superfluous and unimportant
The talk for parents was really well attended and we are very thankful to all the teachers and members of the Parents Association who helped out on the night.