A common worry about starting therapy is that you will be expected to sit down and say exactly what is wrong in articulate, emotional language. For some people, this is already manageable. They can describe feeling low, anxious, angry, or ashamed with reasonable...
Mental Health Tips
What If I Cannot Explain What I Feel?
What If Eye Contact Feels Too Intense?
Often eye contact is treated as a sign of attention, respect and honesty. Therapists are often trained to use it as a way of communicating presence. Yet for many people, direct eye contact does not feel neutral. It can feel intrusive, exposing, overstimulating, or...
Is My Problem Serious Enough for Therapy?
A common barrier to starting therapy is the thought: “Other people have it worse.” You may look at your life and decide that your distress is not dramatic enough, not traumatic enough, or not unusual enough to justify seeking help. This thought can be surprisingly...
When Anger Is Trying to Protect Something Tender
Anger is often spoken about as if it is mainly a difficulty to be managed. We hear about anger management, anger issues, angry outbursts, angry people. Of course anger can become harmful. It can be used to intimidate, control, punish or avoid responsibility. When...
Concerns About Gabor Maté’s Teachings Among People with ADHD
Gabor Maté continues to have a strong influence on trauma-informed psychotherapy. His work on addiction, attachment, trauma, stress, and emotional development has resonated deeply with many people seeking alternatives to purely biomedical explanations of psychological...
Why Questions Feel Like Criticism in the Schizoid Process
People whose internal world is organised around a schizoid process [this is jargon for people who need a lot of safety in their life] often experience ordinary questions as criticism. This reaction is not about being ‘overly sensitive’, nor is it a sign of...
What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Identifying as ADHD
Self-identifying as having Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) means recognising in yourself a pattern of symptoms that seems to fit ADHD and using that label personally—often before (or instead of) a formal clinical diagnosis. In the UK, formal diagnosis...
Another Thought about Why We Put Things Off
Often when I really need to get something done I find that I don’t. Having spoken with many people, I find that there is a familiar set of circumstances: the creeping delay, the mental circling, the sudden urge to tidy the kitchen instead of starting the task that...
Therapy for the Overwhelmed – How to Begin When Everything Feels Too Much
When life feels unmanageable, even the thought of starting therapy can seem overwhelming. It can feel like justonemorething on top of a heap of things that are not getting done. So is not unusual for people to delay seeking help because they feel stuck in a cycle of...
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