“How could you be so selfish?!” "I’m finding you aggressive right now!” "You’re jealous!” How do we respond when we are on the receiving end of negative criticism from other people? Does the way we react in these situations – either internally, i.e. what we tell ourselves, or externally, i.e. what we communicate to the other person – make a difference to the way we feel about ourselves? Do we have a choice? Can we learn to respond in a different way? It is very easy when face

Are you still living your life according to a ‘script’ or set of rules about how to be in the world that you first put together when you were four-years-old? Theories of Transactional Analysis (developed by Eric Berne) suggest that many of us are.   I find this theory can be particularly useful in helping people break patterns of behaviour that might be puzzling, distressing or simply out of awareness. For example, if you worked out as a young child that showing your anger t