Counselling is referred to by the medical profession as ‘talking therapy’, harking back to the Freudian ‘talking cure’ and, presumably, to distinguish it from drug-based therapies or more directive, technique-based approaches like CBT. Certainly, having the space to talk is part of the therapeutic benefit of counselling. Counsellors, however, while far from silent partners […]
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A recent episode of the BBC series ‘The Truth About…’ dealt with what it and the World Health Organisation called a 21st century health epidemic: stress (4th May, 2017). Stress, it told us, is a primal emergency reaction to a perceived threat. It is a physiological and neurological reaction in which a part of the […]
Are you menopausal? If so, how do you know and how do you feel about answering yes to that question? Or if you’re not yet, how do you feel about menopause as part of your future? As a fifty-ish year old woman, I assume I’m ‘in the change’ as my mother (and Marie Stopes, Germaine […]
How old does Jeremy Corbyn make you feel? It’s an odd question, but it’s the sort that might come up in counselling; you might make an emotional timeline to help you to understand why you feel as you do in a particular situation or relationship. I resigned from the Labour Party a couple of weeks […]
Suddenly the shops are full of hearts and flowers: Valentine’s Day will soon be here. For many people who are on their own or in an unhappy relationship, it’s not a day of celebration. It can be particularly hard for those whose partner has left them. When I work with people whose partner has left […]
Are you happy with your body? Happy with your body as it is now, with how it functions, how it looks, how it feels? If the answer is yes, that’s brilliant, read no further. If you answered with a resounding ‘no’ or had to have a think about it, you are far from unusual. […]