Could black and white thinking be hindering you from making friends, forging a career or finding a life partner? Many of us can get stuck in an old pattern of behaviour where a relationship or situation is seen as either all good or all bad and something that starts well…
How we deal with loss is fundamental to our mental and emotional well-being. Hopefully, we will have learnt that our connections to other people – family and friends – can help us make loss more bearable. But what happens if as children we are left to cope with a major…
Many of us struggle to find the right balance of assertiveness in relationship with a partner, family members, friends or at work. Something is getting in the way of being able to firmly state our own needs, negotiate with others and reach a compromise that is satisfactory for all. How…
A common problem brought to therapy is bewilderment as to why friends and potential romantic partners repeatedly leave us. Often, there is a clear pattern of new relationships going well for a time and then we suddenly get a sense of having been dropped. How can psychotherapy and counselling help?
Over the years, we will all develop strategies for being in the world. Most of the time these personal guides for decision-making are useful to us. Sometimes, however, we might have become over-reliant on one particular strategy and not noticed that it is no longer serving us well. How can…
What do you do if the very thought of talking about your anxiety with someone else makes you anxious? My guess is that you will hang on in there until it becomes impossible to ignore symptoms such as panic attacks, fear of enclosed spaces (e.g. travel on trains and planes),…
Many people coming to counselling or psychotherapy for the first time describe how they cannot stop themselves from dwelling on old hurts or mistakes from the past. The memories are, without exception, negative and often evoke feelings of frustration and shame. How can counselling or psychotherapy help?
The theme of mistakes often figures in the stories people bring to counselling. These might be choices we have made in the past which have left us feeling guilty or ashamed. Often, it is our response to previous mistakes that is causing us more harm than the actual mistake itself.…
We all have times in our lives when we are lonely. Feeling cut off from the support and companionship of others can be a huge source of stress. In my experience of helping people combat anxiety and depression, prolonged periods of loneliness not only contribute to poor mental health but…
As human beings we all have needs and wants (for love, attention and so on) and have likely worked out a strategy for the best way to have these needs met. Sometimes, a strategy that worked tolerably well in the past begins to work against us and we are left…
