A period of adjustment
How has this pandemic changed your perspective on socialising? Has it affecting what you want to do? With whom? How you feel after?
#selfcare
Transition planning
You might have seen several of my past posts about breakup planning, but I’ve not gone back to talk in more details about transition planning. The reality is that many of our relationships undergo transitions from time to time. These are rarely traumatic when they are moving towards deeper intimacy, in fact, they frequently involve …
Three tips for managing the anxiety of an empty diary
Over the last two weeks, lots of my clients have been telling me that they are having trouble with the change of pace that has been forced on every one that isn’t an ‘essential’ worker. For many people, this means moving from a 9-5 routine to having enormous amounts of free time, but no activities …
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5 reasons I love Dialectic Behaviour Therapy skills training for marginalised clients
Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT for short) is an approach that works with people on developing psychological skills that they can use in their day to day lives. Most people have three elements to their DBT work. These are skills training, 121 psychotherapy and between-session coaching. In this article, I am just focusing on the skills …
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Five ways to work with a social comedown
If you haven’t read the last post, you might want to start there, since it has a much longer definition of what a social comedown is. In brief, social comedowns consist of difficult thoughts, sensations, feelings and urges arising after socialising that often include ruminating over past distress and judging yourself for having a hard …
Social comedowns: the morning after the night before
Do you have comedowns after socialsing? If so, you’re not alone. This piece explores what social comedowns feel like and how we can destigmatise them.
5 reasons to get a breakup buddy (or two)
Even amicable breakups are difficult for most people. When a relationship ends there is an emotional and practical disentanglement from someone that has been important to you, perhaps even your most important person. Lots of people experience distress, loneliness, relief, longing, sadness, guilt and even shame. There is a person-sized hole in your life. There …
What are boundaries anyway?
Boundaries are a really important part of all relationships, be they friendships, kinship, romantic or sexual. They help you to ensure that you are treating yourself and others with respect and dignity. Fundamentally, boundaries are about honestly and directly expressing the treatment you will and will not accept from others. This means being clear about …
What fears must I face to take value-based actions rather than coping behaviours?
There are often legitimate fears that make it hard to act in line with our values. Afterall, we develop coping behaviours for a reason. It is usually because they were helpful to us at some time in the past. Perhaps we didn’t have control of a situation and withdrawal was a sensible solution in order …
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Sexual permission slip
Both Ecstasy is Necessary by Barbara Carrellas and Healing Sex by Staci Haines talk about the concept of a sexual permission slip. Given our culture around sex and consent, you might think that this would be a document written to outline what acts you give others permission to engage in with you, but you’d be …