I am often the first person with whom my patients share significant and intimate thoughts and memories; I never take that privileged position for granted nor the opportunity to help someone to feel better about themselves and discover a more fulfilling life. One of my colleagues once described me as a natural psychologist; I guess she was alluding to the fact that I feel at ease being a therapist, I can empathise with people’s distress and discomfort but don’t feel overwhelmed by it, I can understand their problem and know how to help, it has always just felt like what I should be doing.
Challenges to our mental health seem to be a part of life, a part of life with an important function. These challenges create the opportunity to learn, to develop, to evolve. The suffering that they involve providing the impetus for that development. However, there is a line past which these challenges create more suffering than is, useful. So, I’m going to tweak the question slightly and ask instead, how do we stay the right side of this line, the side where we are able to live in a world that […]...
For most of us she has been the Queen for our whole life and as a result and without us knowing it, she will have been one of the most consistent parts of that life. Liz Truss said that she was the ‘rock upon which modern Britain was built’ but maybe this under states who the Queen was for us and what it means now that she has left us. Personal views on the monarchy are a separate issue. Have you ever used money that didn’t have the Queen on […]...
https://youtu.be/J0VgBN9SQoc In this blog I am going to explain 5 steps to help you to deal with your anger. Anger is an unpleasant emotion to experience and to be on the receiving end of. It can damage relationships and reputations and leave all involved feeling anxious and depressed and angry. However, anger serves an important function, it alerts us to mistreatment and injustice so in this sense it is vital to our survival. This means our aim cannot be to get rid of anger, instead we must try to […]...
It seems that heatwaves are becoming more and more common, and with them, the warnings about their potential danger to health. You might think this just refers to physiological issues such as heatstroke and dehydration, but for some people, especially those with pre-existing psychiatric conditions, the mental impact can also be profound. How hot weather impacts mental health The increasing prominence of heatwaves has led to scientists researching a possible heatwave and mental health link. Every time there is a heatwave, it seems that hospitals experience an uptick in patients […]...
