How can an old parlour game help us reflect on the way we communicate? Quite a lot it would seem. Many of us will have played the game where we tap out the rhythm of a tune or song and ask our partner to guess the name of the piece. The challenge for the person…
I recently read that an English professional football team has a resident psychotherapist. Whilst the connection between clinical psychology and sporting outcomes is well established, having a team psychotherapist is something new. The therapist explained that they’re there to support the players, coaches and a team of staff through the emotional highs and lows of…
In this blog I will briefly discuss avoidant attachment strategies and how what can look like independence is actually a sort of suit of armour designed to protect and hide a locked box of vulnerability and need, preventing mutual dependency and intimacy. The person who has developed the avoidant strategy has done so in order…
“Why do we like the frantic, the unmastered?” Asks Virginia Woolf, in her diaries. This is a question I also return to time and time again as I look out to sea. Feeling the disquiet holds an edge of excitement for me, there is a thrill to its wild and unknown nature. For me there…
For the past year we have largely been confined to our homes, a lot of us working from home and only going out for regular exercise. Our social lives have been depleted, we’ve not been able to see friends and family and generally life may have become quite repetitive. As we come out of lockdown…
For those of you that don’t know, Love Island is a British ‘reality television’ concept that has become a global phenomenon. Arguably deriving from the first global reality programme, Big Brother, which launched in 1997 it is the latest incarnation of this genre. The premise is one whereby a group of (young, physically attractive) singletons…
The onset of national lockdowns in early 2020 (and subsequent restrictions) have made working from home the ‘new normal’. What was once seen as an ideal for many, free from commuting and office politics, suddenly became an enforced reality for all of us. Our homes, which were previously separate, became our place of work, schoolroom…
Transactional Analysis (TA) is a widely recognised form of modern counselling and psychotherapy, originally conceived by Eric Berne in the 1950’s and which is now used not only in therapy but also in education and organisational training and consultancy. It is a theory of personality, behaviour and communication, and draws on tools and methodology from…
I am writing a follow on from the wonderful blog written by Gerry Gilmartin back in August. 6 months on and here we are again, facing new Covid-related challenges with more restrictive measures in place, more infections and more deaths. The theme of Gerry’s blog revolves around fear and hope, and how to work with…
In my last blog I wrote about goals for change and linking these to our values. When someone decides to come into therapy it is often because they would like to make changes and it can help to set goals as a means of knowing when these changes have been achieved. Given this is a…
What is Cancel Culture? This seemingly new trend is one of promoting the ‘cancellation’ of people, brands or television shows as a result of what some (the cancellers) perceive to be some form of offensive comment, remark, view or behaviour. It has surged on social media with various derogatory hashtags, notably #RIP. A recent high…
“Social connection can lower anxiety and depression, help us regulate our emotions, lead to higher self-esteem and empathy, and actually improve our immune systems. By neglecting our need to connect, we put our health at risk.” JS House, KR Landis, D Umberson (2019) Social connection can be difficult to do right now as we find…