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I have a psychologist friend who says that thinking is the key work of a Psychologist and what makes us stand out from other professionals. Now, I think that Psychologists are often lumped in with all the therapy-type professions and have a reputation for being ‘fluffy’ and ‘navel-gazing’. My experience of Clinical Psychology is that […]

I don’t mean to sound like boring old woman, but I’m not a big fan of Halloween. In fact I would go as far as to say I actively dislike the celebration of Halloween. I have two reasons why, so bear with me as I try to explain my Clinical Psychologist’s perspective on the whole […]

Recently, I passed someone who was crying, sitting just outside the hospital where I work part of the week. I stopped and asked her if she was OK. We shared a story and talked about what had happened to her that morning. We ended up laughing about the healing power of chocolate and when I […]

The world can be a depressing place. Headlines about Brexit stalemates and the climate and about bad people doing things all over the world. But when it gets depressing, I take heart from the number of amazingly, lovely and just plain good people there are out there too. I don’t mean perfect people who get […]

Quite often people come to see me at Headspace Guildford and they aren’t feeling too good. Their feelings have got big and they are struggling to know how to manage them. And really, they just want to feel better. And also that’s what their parents want for them too. Now, I do know many strategies […]

So often these days we use terms like ‘beyond busy’ and ‘at capacity’. It’s not always clear whether we have got busier or whether our rhetoric has just become more catastrophic. What is true is that it seems to be harder and harder to demonstrate our self worth unless we are busy, rushing, juggling and […]

Last week I talked about this article about the skills needed to survive in the 4th industrial revolution and decried the potential loss of active listening as a skill for life. However, the article gave me a lot of food for thought generally because the other skills on the list are also really important and […]

Apparently in 5 years’ time, the skills we need to thrive will have significantly changed. You can read the article I’m talking about here What struck me most about the lists they present is that by 2020 apparently needing to employ the skills of ‘active listening’ will have dropped from the top priority list. I […]

Over the last couple of weeks, I have talked about how hard holidays can be. Perhaps that chimed with you – or perhaps not. Some people really do love holidays. Lots of the children and young people I see at Headspace Guildford really love the holidays. A time away can be important for rest and […]

We spend a lot of time wondering if what we are doing is good enough. If we are working hard enough, eating healthy enough, looking smart/trendy enough, raising our children well enough. Are we good enough friend/partner/parent/sibling etc? Are we doing things right? We look at other people and we think what they are doing […]