Insights

A recent Guardian article about football and suicide prevention raised a simple but important message about how men express their inner emotional life. The article reflected on the Premier League’s Together Against Suicide campaign, which has used football’s reach to encourage conversations around mental health, suicide prevention and support. Football clubs are, of course, connected to ritual, loyalty, identity, belonging and community. For many men, those are exactly the pl

Emotional Inheritance: What Did You Learn to Carry? We often think of inheritance in visible terms: biology, appearance, family stories, values and traditions. But some of the most powerful things we inherit are less visible. Buried within family life are the patterns of how we relate to each other emotionally. These patterns can shape how we respond to anger, conflict, love, shame, success and disappointment. They can influence whether we trust calm relationships, whethe

Many people grow up learning how to move between different identities, whether they be born from cultural, societal or familal expectations. There may be the version of you that exists at home, shaped by family values, language, tradition or loyalty. Then there may be the version of you that appears at school, university, work, in friendships or in relationships. Each version may be real in its own way, but over time the constant shifting can become tiring. For some people, t

Understanding Anxiety in the therapy room

The use of CBT in the UK is extensive, delivered through the National Health Service, recently rebranded as 'NHS Talking Therapies', as a first line treatment for common mental health conditions. According to the NHS website, it is used to treat common forms of anxiety and depression alongside bipolar disorder, personality disorders, eating disorders, sleep problems, and coping with long-term physical health conditions (like chronic pain and IBS). Why is CBT used to treat suc

Integrative therapy is just another way of saying I use a combination of approaches and techniques with my clients, as opposed to focusing on one type of therapy only. This approach recognises that no single therapy fits all, and it adaptive to the unique needs of each person. What Is Integrative Therapy? By the last count, there are around 400 varieties of psychotherapy approaches available, which makes choosing the most effective treatment for any issue particularly challen