In the last few years there has been increased awareness of mental health issues in the media, way before the pandemic hit. Mental health professionals are seeing a growing mental health epidemic which has become significantly worse due to the human and financial cost of Covid-19, prolonged lockdowns, and a general shift in how people…
Having just come off a phone call with the Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Policy Lead, my thoughts have been drawn to the enormity of the problem we face with pornography and the ‘pornification’ of society, particular the world of young people. Pornography use has become ubiquitous and normalised to the extent that increasingly the…
A question I have often either been asked or has come up up is whether the gender of the clinician matters (or should matter) to the client? The answer, as with most questions relating to the intricacies of psychotherapy is not categorically ‘yes’ or ‘no’. However, the question opens up other questions which may themselves…
Freud said that there was only one rule in psychoanalysis: say whatever comes to your mind, even most importantly when you don’t want to. It is through this honesty that we listen to different parts of ourselves and start to discover our internal dynamic. Why You Should Say What You’re Thinking in Therapy Although opening…
“The word itself – dyslexia – is ironically very hard for dyslexic people to spell correctly” Eddie Izzard Up to one in five people are influenced by dyslexia, including me and Eddie Izzard. Our differing genetic differences inform our ability to process and learn information – however, we can also simplify difficult problems, explain them…
What a strange and disquieting time 2021 has been. We might all be advised to pause and reflect upon its impact, personally and socially, individually and collectively, locally and globally. A significant theme running throughout, it strikes me, from the family to the global stage is the ever present one of freedom and security, the…
Don’t mention politics. Or vaccinations. Or masks. It feels like we live in a time when opinions are becoming increasingly polarised. The divide between the opinion of one group, compared to that of another, can feel like an impossible divide to bridge. What is going on that makes this happen and how can we begin…
Why is it that we find it so difficult to identify the positives in ourselves and so easy to see the negatives? As human beings we seem to be programmed to be able to identify our failings, e.g. what we’re no good at, what we haven’t done or what didn’t go well. Or it might…
In 2002 an Australian journalist coined the term ‘selfie’. June 2007 saw the launch of iPhone and by 2013 the word ‘selfie’ was chosen by the Oxford English Dictionary as the ‘Word Of The Year’. Never as individuals have we been more likely to have a picture taken as we are now. An awareness of…
What is othering? Othering describes a phenomenon whereby groups of people with a certain identity are marginalised and seen as outside the mainstream or norm. Those likely to be othered are often done so on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, caste, culture, disability, religion and age. Othering as a concept, alludes to…
In living with Coronavirus we have shared (to greater and lesser degrees) in a collective experience of trauma. We have had to learn to be separate from friends and family. We have had to live, die and give birth in isolation. We have had to grieve in isolation too. The Covid virus has brought many…
Women have a lot to be angry about. Aside from how our current political and social landscape still disadvantages women, all women inherit a long lasting legacy of the oppression and suffrage of their close female ancestors. This legacy is still intensely felt in society today, and the emotional and psychological impact still visible in…