Doron Gold is a registered social worker who is also a former practising lawyer. He works with lawyers and law students in his role as a staff clinician and presenter with the Member Assistance Program as well as with members of the general public in his private psychotherapy practice. He’s available atdorongold.com.
What’s a well-being pledge for legal employers? Many of you know that, in 2016, the Law Society of Ontario’s Mental Health Working Group, after extensive and rigourous information gathering, came out with its important report, The Mental Health Strategy Task Force.
It’s no easy task writing a piece on how lawyers should avoid perfectionism. It’s like writing about how a basketball player shouldn’t make such a fuss about physical fitness.
“We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.” It’s a cliché that therapists often look to a person’s past for clues as so what makes them tick in the here and now.
I’m frequently asked how I think the legal profession in Canada is doing in being more thoughtful, compassionate and constructive around issues of mental health and addictions among its members.
In 1991, when I received a letter from Osgoode Hall Law School offering me a place in its first-year class, I literally jumped up and down on my bed and screamed at the top of my much younger lungs.
Many years ago, in my early days working in lawyer assistance, I received a call from a young lawyer, about two years out. She was in extreme distress, having been fired from her job at a well-respected firm.
You’re a total loser. What a complete failure. You should be ashamed of yourself. If I asked you whom you thought was uttering these words, you’d likely say a bully or a particularly abusive family member.
Attack. Destroy. Emotional baggage. War.
These are just a few of the descriptive words I heard uttered while attending sessions during the County of Carleton Law Association’s Annual Institute of Family Law in Montebello, Que. recently.
