Today is #HumanRightsDay, and in honour of this day, I'd like to talk about five rights that I find are important in our daily lives. These will help us live happy and fulfilling lives, and as we practice and uphold them, it will improve our lives and relationships in every area. 1. The right to set clear boundaries and stick to them Looking after our best interests is sometimes tricky in our current society, as we are enlisted and encourage to look after everyone else's interests before...
The holidays can provoke much anxiety. The long period of anticipation before they actually arrive can be deeply stressful to those of us who are responsible for providing the framework of hospitality for our families and friends, or for contributing to it. A part of our mind tells us that the holidays should be a time of care-free relaxation and happy connection with our loved ones, yet another ‘responsible’ or rearward-looking part burdens us with worries which destroy our peace....
Christmas can be a very happy time, but it can also be a very time, energy, and money consuming time! In this article, I want to give you five ways in which you can look after yourself, your mental health, your relationships, and your budget this Christmas. Doing so will help you stay happy, keep resentment (of yourself and others) at bay, and allow you to enjoy the Christmas break with a more positive and wholesome outlook. 5 ways you can look after your mental health 1. Prioritise Ask...
Suicide is more commonplace at Christmas - that seems like a true statement. In fact, it isn't. Christmas does magnify loneliness, but thankfully there are many services offering crisis-care at Christmas that aren't there at other times of the year. So while people may feel lower at Christmas, they have somewhere to turn. This begs the question - why aren't those services there throughout the year? Well, some are - the Samaritans for example - but we tend not to see the problems around us when...
Some relationships are more difficult than others. We can all think of someone we know who requires a gargantuan effort to get along with and who leaves us feeling exhausted. Sometimes we can simply give these relationships up, because perhaps the person isn’t that significant to us and we decide that they’re really not worth it, but sometimes it’s not as easy as all that. What if that person is your boss? Your family member? Your co-worker that you must collaborate with...
Miscarriage brings with it a wealth of emotions - notably grief and loss. Whether you lose your baby/babies early in the pregnancy or in the later stages of pregnancy, it can be an extremely painful time. Often there are difficult decisions to make and medical procedures to go through, all of which can be emotionally and physically painful. These decisions are made when you are feeling particularly vulnerable and emotional. At times you may feel that you have been let down by your body,...
When I was younger I was shocked when my GP friend told me that on Christmas Day his wife announced she’d been having an affair and was leaving him. Her timing struck me as heartless. Now that I’m a relationship therapist, I have a more balanced view. Come early January, the phones of couple counsellors are red-hot. Post-festive-holiday is a notoriously busy time as individuals seek to address, repair or end a troubled relationship. If I were being flippant, I’d say...
Freud said that the goal of psychoanalysis was the transformation of neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness. Roughly one hundred years later, we might be talking "counselling" or "therapy" rather than "psychoanalysis"; "anxiety" or "depression" rather than "neurotic misery". But what do we mean by "ordinary unhappiness"; can it really be a therapeutic goal? To explain, I will look at the so-called "therapeutic relationship". That is, the relationship between you, the client, and me, the...
Do you often feel that, as a parent, you’re struggling to find a satisfactory balance between providing for the needs of your children and caring for yourself? Does this cause feelings of guilt for you? You’re most definitely not alone! A survey of 2000 mothers by NUK found that 87% felt guilty at some point in relation to their parenting, with 21% reporting that they felt guilty most, or all, of the time. Triggers for guilt included feeling too tired or too busy or too lacking in...
If you're considering counselling or psychotherapy, you might be asking yourself whether it's worth it? You might be questioning ‘do I really need to do this?’ or ‘how could things be better?’. If so, it might be worth doing an emotional health check to orientate yourself. A bit like an MOT on a car, it can tell you what parts might need some attention. Below are some useful questions to ask yourself. Your answers to the questions might also provide useful...
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