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…
If you haven’t heard of the phenomenon that is ‘Squid Game’ then you either have not got Netflix, or are asleep. However, for those of you who haven’t, here is an extremely brief synopsis: Squid Game is set in modern day South Korea and is a dystopian nightmare of a game whereby the wealthy and…
The historian Susan Mattern argues there is no doubt there is some value to naming menopause as a concept. It has provided women with reasons and different perspectives and interventions on what can be sometimes very distressing symptoms. However she points out that modern medicine can have a tendency to locate cause and explanation inside…
I found myself being asked ‘what is the menopause?’ by a friend’s 13 year old son a few weeks ago. All the women in the room chimed in to answer. It was not surprising to me that he asked, nor was it surprising all the women answered. Interestingly I had no idea about the menopause…
As a boy I was fascinated by space travel. I remember being glued to the television set with awe as the Space Shuttle blasted off into space back in the early 80s – I was born after the epic Apollo programme came to an end and was just the right age to appreciate the engineering…
As psychotherapists, we have often been asked to provide anger management. Whilst we know some people need to control their anger to prevent destructive effects on themselves and their relationships, what was then called anger management mainly consisted of breathing and cognitive techniques to control their anger. Although this worked for a lot of people,…
Being human means living with the knowledge that we will one day die and that those we love will die too. As mortal beings we are the children of time and none of us are spared its reckoning. Time makes playthings of us all and we are powerless in its passage. A healer it may…