It’s All About Trust

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Discussions about “safe spaces” have become wider over the past two years or so.  The pros and cons of what they are and whether or not they should be available have been taken up enthusiastically in the media. Young adults, from students upwards, talk about “not feeling safe” and the conversation continues. At the extreme…

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Concerning Climate Change And Other Global Issues

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First, this is not a blog about the arguments for and against the scientific evidence of climate change. This is a blog about the effects of the arguments for and against the scientific evidence of climate change and what it is doing to us on an individual level. Or to be even more personal, how…

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The Supporting Role Of Strictly

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September, the beginning of autumn and Keat’s season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It’s an emotional time whichever way you look at it and often a time for reflection. For some, it’s the end of summer and that brings on a feeling of melancholy. For others, it’s a cooling down of the weather, leaves changing…

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How Shame Can Make A Mockery Of Us All

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A tutor at my counselling course told me early on in the course that many of the problems clients present with “stem from shame”. That surprised me. Surely, shame is transitory, I thought. We all suffer from occasional embarrassment but we all get over it quite quickly, don’t we? It’s not like it has to…

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Time For Some Positive Thinking

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Someone asked me recently: “When did everyone in this country become so angry?” It’s an interesting question and one that’s given me quite a lot to think about. Obviously, the run-up to Brexit in 2016 comes to mind and then there’d be a good reason for 48% of the voting population to feel aggrieved. Or,…

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The Obesity Epidemic

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Every week, we are told we are getting progressively fatter as a nation and that the illnesses and physical disabilities that can be directly attributed to excess weight are placing a catastrophic drain on the resources of the NHS. Two-thirds of adults in the UK are now overweight and 27% are classified as obese. Resultant…

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An A-List To Fight Off Disease

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As a psychotherapist, working with cancer sufferers and their families, I have seen how a cancer diagnosis turns lives upside down. Both my parents were also the victims of cancer and this has led me to try to understand the disease from my own personal point of view. In other words: Is cancer my destiny…

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Hyper-Vigilance – Time To Burst The ‘Safety’ Bubble

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A recent study suggests pregnant women become “hyper-vigilant” towards the end of their pregnancy in order to keep their unborn baby as safe as can be. The research from Anglia Ruskin University looked at peripersonal space – the individual sense space around a person – and tested how a woman reacts during her pregnancy. Scientists…

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In Defence of the Millennials

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I’ve been reading a number of articles over the past few months about the “snowflake” generation, the original term for the millennials. The name was cleverly created by advertising folk to target people in the age range of 22 and 37 and, from that comparatively loose term, comes Generation Snowflake and the later-born Generation Z.…

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Busting The Drug Myth

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With the appalling increase in incidents of knife crime in the UK in recent years, attention has again been turned on to the efficacy of drug laws, and the need to enforce a more punitive system for the possession and use of illegal drugs. There has also been more focus on the incidences of cannabis-induced…

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