Everything I have written here, grouped by what it is about rather than when it was published. Newest first within each section.
If you would rather be guided through a practice than read about one, there are video practices at PsycheVita, and free worksheets here.
Trauma, the body and the nervous system
- “I can’t switch off: how to recover, decompress and rest”
- Why the body has to learn what the mind already knows.
- Menopause: when body change feels overwhelming, the problem is often not “just hormones”.
- When parents are traumatised by war, their children and grandchildren do not only inherit trauma.
- Which came first — my ADHD or my trauma?
- When we lose touch with our body, we lose access to one of our most important sources of guidance.
- How do I recover from Agoraphobia? Overcoming Interpersonal Trauma
- How do I recover from trauma? Here’s something that works.
- Criticism: Why name-calling is more painful than a broken bone.
Anxiety, fear and avoidance
- Procrastination: when starting feels dangerous, the problem is often not laziness.
- OCD can make people feel like monsters. That doesn’t mean they are.
- When a CEO avoids discomfort, the organisation pays.
- Attachment Avoidance
- Why I stopped starting with diagnosis
Self-worth, identity and the inner critic
- Diagnosis categorises the pattern: Capacity explains the next step.
- People-pleasing: when disappointing someone feels dangerous, the problem is often not kindness.
- Some people do not notice themselves enough.
- Perfectionism: when doing it imperfectly feels dangerous, the problem is often not high standards.
- What therapy really builds: healthy self-worth.
- Why you can’t dispute shame.
- Public speaking: when being seen feels dangerous, the problem is often not confidence.
- A lot of people look confident from the outside and still collapse inside at the first sign of criticism, rejection, comparison, or failure.
- Why knowing what to do is so often not enough
- Benchmarking versus narcissism: the surprising difference
- When we stop feeling sexy, it is not always an attractiveness problem.
- Think Narcissism is What You Imagine? Think Again! It’s Shame Prevention
- Why ego isn’t a dirty word.
- My Inner Scorecard
Relationships, conflict and repair
- Our relationship with our leaders.
- A lot of people think boundaries are mainly about saying no.
- What is really going on with human attachment styles?
- A lot of people think rejection sensitivity is mainly overreaction.
- The ability to create an emotional connection with another human being is one of the most important leadership skill sets there is.
- A new form of coercive control: using AI to gaslight a partner
- A small parenting moment that teaches dominance as self-regulation.
- Therapy for children and adolescents: Does it do any good?
- The three conflicts.
Mood, motivation and depression
- What is really going on in burnout?
- What is really going on in burnout?
- When depression is “treatment resistant,” perhaps it is resisting the wrong treatment.
- The myth of cognitive restructuring
Emotions, thoughts and self-awareness
- Why You Know What To Do But Still Can’t Do It
- What do you think therapy is?
- Sometimes what feels true is not the same as what is true.
- Thoughts are not the same as feelings.
- What do you think therapy is?
- Sometimes the problem is not that we do not know better.
- What therapy really builds: emotional processing.
- Stress does not only test what we know.
- Whether you know it or not, you are a victim of war.
- Whether you know it, or not, you are the victim of a previous war.
- Strangely my thinking about AI is being shaped by a romance scam.
- We can’t know.
- When a feeling rises in us, many of us do one of four things.
- Why changing how we think so often fails to change how we live
- One of the most common mistakes in psychology is to confuse a thought with a feeling.
- When uncertainty goes on too long, people do not just get tired. They can start to lose their sense of agency.
- When Being Wrong Feels Dangerous
- If You Feel Numb, It May Be Protection
- Elevate Your Spirit: Transform Workouts into Your Ultimate Mind Reviver!
- When public speaking feels dangerous, it’s rarely a “presentation skills” problem.
Patterns that keep repeating
- Why do the same problems keep showing up in different parts of your life?
- A stuck client is not always resisting.
- How to keep anger from getting the best of you
How therapy and change actually work
- What if the client is not resisting?
- You do not need a diagnosis for life to be asking more of you.
- Why therapy can fail some people.
- Many therapies, executive coaching approaches and AI tools are shaped by cognitive psychology.
- Why can one person collect several diagnoses over time?
- What skills does a therapist actually need?
- Most people who come to therapy or coaching are not struggling with one neat problem.
- Why do some therapists get better outcomes than others?
- Why AI therapy tools may misunderstand therapy.
- What does therapist “personal development” mean?
- Is your therapist actually helping you grow?
- Why insight alone often fails.
- Imagine if therapy didn’t have to choose between being manualised and being individualised.
- There is more to human development than cognitive psychology.
- What question should I ask in Supervision?
- Therapy works when it helps a person build the capacities life is asking of them.
- AI is forcing the helping professions to face an uncomfortable question – what can only a human being do?
- From Symptoms to Skills to Sequence: Introducing VitaPath
- How do your clients experience you?
- PsycheVita Is Not a Meditation App. It Helps You Train Psychological Skills
- Where Insight Becomes Training
- The 12 Capacities and 48 Skills
- Are Therapy & Coaching Worth It?
- Daffodils and psychological wellbeing
Leadership, work and performance
- Why difficulty has to travel up an organisation, not down
- Who is the greatest leader you have ever worked with?
- Coaching is not only about achieving goals.
- The effects of the leadership we tolerate.
- As a leader, how do you build this in other people?
- When the working day ends, many of us do not actually decompress.
- Gym success!
For therapists, coaches and supervisors
- There is very little evidence that supervision improves client outcomes
Two things done inside supervision do show up in client outcomes. What the research actually supports, and what follows for how we use our supervision hour.
There is also a self-supervision worksheet for practitioners on the worksheets page.
Essays and reflections
- It’s been a while since I posted
- The animal we are.
- Not everything in life can be fixed quickly.
- The People We Would Need to Become
- I am the Sun and the Sun is me.
- What had to happen for this simple moment to exist?
- Tell me something about everything.
- Meeting the Invisible Woman
- The opposite of war is not peace.
- When is a baby born?
- One of the more unsettling things a recent romance scam has taught me
- Why tips so often fail us under pressure
- Sometimes the way out of our head is to put ourselves back in the room.
- Behave more like your cat.
- Much wisdom literature tells us how to live.
- Where the mental health crisis may begin
- One of the great developmental tasks in life.
- What if you’re not broken — just underdeveloped?
- Embodied Presence: Letting Who I Am Shape What I Do
- Symptoms are signals
- The question that started it all
- Over-responsibility
- I’m right, you’re wrong!
- I’ve Been Triggered: A Guide to Understanding and Managing Triggered States
- VO2 Max and Longevity: The Key to a Longer, Healthier Life
- Introducing Dr Tony Weston
- I’ve been Educated
If you would like to work with me directly, you can book a session.