About

Hello :)

First thing I should explain is I’m not writing this blog in association with any other ‘Science of The Mind’ websites, I’ve got nothing to do with any similarly named things, and I’m not in affiliation with any other person or group, religious, business or otherwise at all either. I’m just a person who cares :) And who wants to share some of what I’ve learned, what’s helped me, and what helps the people who come to see me, with you :) I’m not doing this for money, and I’m not interested in money for my personal benefit at all :) I’m doing these good things because it’s the right thing to do and it’s what I want to do in my heart :)

I dedicate this blog to Lucas Taylor-McMahon. A really good man, a great friend, a loving son, a generous human being. You had a huge heart - you really cared. I do believe you were on a mission to make this a better, fairer world. You taught me a lot of things, most of all that people need more help, and that I needed to and wanted to give every little bit of help I possibly could. I honour you, in all the goodnesses I do now. You lit a spark, of more energy and light and power, in my heart. You increased my resolve, manifold. I’ll do whatever I can to make things better for each and every person, and make a mark in the world, of goodness and understanding and support, in your memory. In this way, you succeeded in your mission :) You made a better world in my heart :) And you made me, understand the need, and want, to let our hearts shine out and make a better world :)

My name is David Salgado, and I’m a simple, ordinary person, and a clinical psychologist. I’ve been looking after people, helping them with their troubles, any mental health concerns, and their lives in general, for years through volunteering and just being a good friend initially, and then eventually during my training as a clinical psychologist, and in my professional life since then. :) In my time in the field of clinical psychology I’ve helped hundreds of people :)

For if you’re a bit interested about me and my life, and why I would do a thing such as this blog, I’ll tell you a bit of my story now. :)

I was born into a family with a lot of mental health issues, in the form of unhealthy thinking, speaking, and behaving patterns. This was transferred down the generations in my family for I don’t know how many generations, until it got to me. On my mum’s side, it might have begun when my grandmother’s mother died in my grandmother’s childhood. This sort of thing disturbs what is called in psychology, the ‘attachment’ relationships in the family from then on. If you’re interested in how attachment problems cause mental health issues and transfer down generations in a family, please refer to my summary of John Bowlby’s final book in the link inside the blog (John Bowlby is considered one of the greats, a legend in modern psychology) :) You might have to read a bunch of the posts to find it :)

On my father’s side, I’m not sure how the attachment patterns got disturbed initially, but I suspect it goes back generations to maybe some sort of trauma that happened between the Sri Lankan (my father’s Sri Lankan and I was born in Sri Lanka though I’ve lived most of my life in Australia because my mum’s Australian – and I love both countries – they’re both beautiful) :) peoples and invading or colonising forces from other countries like Portugal or England (to be fair - I love Portugal and England too. I’ve known beautiful people from both of these countries too). :) In any case, the family relationships when I was growing up were not healthy, even though the family was filled with people who were good and had really lovely hearts (and still do) :)

The fact is, an unhealthy parent can’t provide for the healthy needs of their child. For a really simple example, think about a parent with the flu and how they cannot look after their kids if they’re themselves bedridden with body-aches and fever at the time. The kids may be crying, they may be in need, but if we can’t get out of bed, we can’t do much to help. Similar limitations apply for parents who are suffering with attachment problems, or mental health issues. We can see from these examples that even though all parents, all kids, and all people are really good in their hearts :) sometimes they suffer with illnesses and sicknesses :( and they can’t actually think, speak or do good things, and therefore get the good cause and result processes that I recommend in The Science of The Mind happening :)

I suffered with anxiety and depression throughout a lot of my life. It was the worst in my first decade of life. I was very, very low then but I covered it under the usual façade of a happy child. My second decade of life I was very low, but I let it show (as many teenagers do) :) My third decade, in my twenties, I was low. You can see how it was improving over time, getting less intense, though it wasn’t always a smooth journey, there were definitely bumps along the way. By the time I was reaching this, my fourth decade, I was starting to recover from the depression and anxiety to some degree, over time. And by the time I was about 35, I was generally content in my life, quite well-satisfied really, but still not as happy as I could be, and definitely not as functional as I could be.

At the time of writing this post, I’m 36 years old and I’d say I’ve passed beyond just being generally content in my life now - I’m usually happy in life now and quite functional also :) What I’ve been doing has worked :) I’ve healed the relationships with myself and my family members :) I’ve helped heal my family members’ mental health :) The house is clean :) I’ve trained myself to cook and even learned to enjoy it using the strategies I share in this blog :) The garden is tidy enough (this could get better) :) I’m helping a lot of people each week in my private practice providing psychotherapy to people :) And now my energies are overflowing enough to be able to share what abundance I’ve got with more people through this blog :)

Over all these years I’ve received a heap of training in psychology, learned a heap from the people who come to see me at the office, also learning from my own psychotherapy experiences, I’ve observed and investigated a whole heap of different things about my mind and other people’s minds, and I’m calling the approach I’m using now The Science of The Mind :) The Science of The Mind has worked for me, it’s worked or working for many people who come to see me at my office, and so why not for you also? :)

For complete openness and transparency with you, and for humility’s sake also, I’d like to share a little bit more about myself. I mentioned already that I’ve participated in my own psychotherapy, to try to heal my own symptoms of depression and anxiety through my life. The first time I saw a psychiatrist was when I was twelve, related to a family member’s mental health. I went again to the same psychiatrist when I was seventeen due to an incident where I had a reaction to some recreational drug use. I didn’t have the guidance or the strength to say no to drugs at that point in my life. When I was eighteen, after school I was somewhat of a hermit for a period of time and I remember my hands shaking involuntarily when I went out and tried to do a bar course (attempting to pour beers while people were watching). That was a particularly hard time in my life because I was so self-conscious and felt so embarrassed as a teen (although I must say my first decade of life was definitely harder than my teens but at least I could try and hide my troubles more effectively as a younger kid which was at least a bit of a relief to me) :( I got diagnosed with social anxiety by the same psychiatrist and sent to see a clinical psychologist.

I did about six or ten sessions with that clinical psychologist. Then I was on medications for depression and anxiety for a few years until I was about 21 years old I think. I remember telling one of my best friends I didn’t want to live, when I was twenty years old, so that was obviously a pretty low time :( I saw a different psychiatrist for about six or ten sessions and this new psychiatrist did psychotherapy, not just medication management, with me. The next time I got support was when I was 25 years old with a new clinical psychologist, and I did thirteen sessions with her. After that course of therapy I stopped drinking alcohol completely and permanently (gladly, I’d been turned off recreational drugs after the very unpleasant reaction I’d experienced when I was seventeen, though from memory I think there might have been one or two more incidents where I got pressured into it and still hadn’t had enough guidance or strength to say no). Then I took another long break from treatment, and it was only when I was around 30 years old that I started my attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a senior clinical psychologist. For the last seven years or so, I explored myself and my life deeply in this psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and it’s unlocked a lot more of my potential.

In the last few years I also had a couple of sessions at least of acupuncture, received Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Matrix Reimprinting therapy for a number of sessions over time, and did maybe twenty sessions of Network Spinal Analysis (NSA). As you can hear, I’m very interested in healing, for myself and others :) I’m currently not doing psychotherapy or any form of healing for myself (other than my own personal development process with The Science of The Mind) anymore as I feel like I’ve finally graduated after a lot of years of hard work :) Each one of these mental health professionals and healers was good and helped me, and each bit of this good work that they did with me, and that I did, built me and my health up that little bit further :)

In my professional clinical work, I’ve had a couple of minor burnouts. One was about four years ago, the other one was last year, in 2018. Both times I didn’t have to actually stop working, I just had to reduce my hours and focus a bit more on self-care for a period of time (i.e. reducing from taking up to nine bookings – nine hours’ worth of work – in a single day, down to taking consistently four hours’ bookings each day, five days a week) :) Interestingly, during the mild burnout that happened last year, I noticed I didn’t get depressed at all during it - I was still content, I just felt too tired to keep going at the same pace :) Over the years, as my symptoms have been reducing and my happiness has been growing, I’ve been able to do more clinical work as well as other things in my life in general :) I’m extending myself with this blog, seeing if I can sustain doing one blog each day, to inspire you and me, but if it’s a bit too much for me, I’ll cut back and do it less frequently :) My self-care has improved :) Self-care is an important part of The Science of The Mind :)

I spent a lot of years crying a lot of tears. I cried for myself, I cried for you and everyone else, and every living being’s pain in the world, I cried for the world, for life. I cried floods of tears in private, occasionally with other people, and sometimes even in public. To begin with, when I started my healing journey, the tears inside me were like an ocean, just inconceivably vast inside of me, because of the pains of what I’d lived through and what I’d had to bury inside of me to just go on coping and surviving and almost pretending I could participate in normal life. But it was amazing, that even something that was so huge and felt so immeasurable, my mental and emotional pain, could release, dissipate, flow and eventually permanently evaporate away when I cried out those salt-water droplets, one by one, bit by bit, over a long time, years and years, decades even :) And when the tears were gone, and my eyes were dried up, I only felt one thing left :) That I wanted to help other people dissolve and evaporate away the salt-water bricks in their hearts and dry up their eyes too :) And my eyes have got bright and sparkly because of this (and I hope yours are, or will be, also) :)

So, see how you go with this blog :) See if you can get into a rhythm in your life of coming and reading a post and trying the suggestions once a day, each day with consistency :) Consistency and continuity will get you the best results :) And always remember, please be gentle with yourself :) Gentleness is an overarching principle in the training The Science of The Mind provides for us :) I’ve been training with The Science of The Mind for a long time now, but as you’ll be able to tell, I’m still learning and training in The Science of The Mind myself, experimenting around with things and studying the results of the trial-and-error processes I put into place :) Don’t compare yourself to what I tell you is going on for me in my life, or what’s going on with other people, just do whatever good stuff you possibly can while honouring and respecting the unique limitations of your mind, body and life; and don’t feel a pressure to do anything unless you actually want to :) I’m just inviting you to reflect and consider things if you possibly can, and come and study, learn and grow with me :)

Keep yourself safe too :) Don’t do anything that could be unsafe or dangerous for the sake of your training in The Science of The Mind. If you do, you’re not following the training. Never drive or operate machinery when you’re tired, for example :) And never listen to guided meditations either while you’re driving or doing anything that needs your speed of reaction time :) Remember to try to tailor the suggestions to your situation, e.g. don’t follow my suggestion to try taking less sleep if you’re already having sleep problems or have a sleep debt etc., only try it if you’re getting more than eight hours’ sleep and you think or feel you might be oversleeping. :) If you’re tired, you’ve got my permission to go take a nap if you need :) You’ll probably be happier after a nap, if you’re tired, so taking naps is a part of The Science of The Mind (when you’re tired, if you need it) :) I’m giving you this whole training and all of The Science of The Mind for the sake of your protection, health, and wellbeing, and so you can live a happy, long life :)

And that’s about it :) I hope you can enjoy this as a gradual journey in which you grow, strengthen, and fulfil your potential for love, health and happiness over time :)