by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Industrial Organisational Psychology
The strategic planning meeting concludes with unanimous approval. Heads nod around the table. The CEO beams. The initiative proceeds. Six months later, the project is a catastrophe. During the post-mortem, a strange truth emerges: nobody actually believed the plan...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Industrial Organisational Psychology
The meeting devolves within minutes. Sarah argues that the product launch timeline is unrealistic. James counters that her concerns reflect negativity rather than legitimate analysis. The technical lead withdraws into her laptop, typing furiously while contributing...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Industrial Organisational Psychology
The executive team announces a mandatory return-to-office policy, citing “collaboration” and “culture.” Your best performer, a single mother who has demonstrated three years of exceptional remote productivity, tells you she will have to resign....
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Industrial Organisational Psychology
The calendar notification appears: “Annual Performance Review, 2:00 PM, Conference Room B.” Your stomach tightens. Your mind begins rehearsing defenses for projects that went sideways. You find yourself drafting mental responses to criticisms not yet...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Industrial Organisational Psychology
You walk into a meeting room and something feels wrong. Nobody has said anything inappropriate. The agenda appears reasonable. Your colleagues seem professionally composed. Yet somewhere beneath conscious awareness, your body has already made a decision. Your...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 24, 2026 | Discover + Heal + Grow: Taproot Therapy Collective Podcast Episodes, Psychology of Fiction / Flash Fiction / Screenwriting, Trauma, Depth Psychology, and Social Work
A Look Back: Three Chapters from The Running Wild Anthology Number One About ten years ago, when I was just starting out as a social worker, I wrote a series of interconnected stories. At the time, it was simply a way for me to process the heavy, often unseen...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 23, 2026 | Psychology
There is a small but revealing detail that most of us have already forgotten. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, using the internet required you to think like a machine. If you wanted to understand why Christianity became the dominant force in medieval Europe, you did...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 16, 2026 | Alternative Medicine and Holistic Health, Micro-nutrition and Vitamins for Mental Health
A few months ago, I started drinking kombucha regularly. Within a couple of weeks, I felt different. More energy. Better sleep and general mood. I’d always heard that the health benefits of kombucha were pseudoscience so I started to look into it. At first I...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 16, 2026 | Discover + Heal + Grow: Taproot Therapy Collective Podcast Episodes, Jungian Therapy and Depth Psychology
How do you know that the color blue you see is the same as the color blue I see? We both call it blue. We point at the sky and use the same word. But do we actually share the same subjective experience of that wavelength of light? Some people do not. They might be...
by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Mar 7, 2026 | Depth Psychology Approaches and Techniques, Jungian Therapy and Depth Psychology, Mythology and Therapy
The search for psychological integration is not a modern invention.Long before Freud, before the DSM, before trauma-informed care became a clinical category, ancient civilizations developed sophisticated technologies of the sacred designed to induce profound...
