In the news

It's Mental Health Awareness Week this week, focusing on body image, and we're delighted to welcome Bramham Therapy counsellors Rachel Cooper and Deb Burch as our guest bloggers, tackling the subject of food and the body:  Hunger. Food. Longing. The need to feed…

Our work with children tells us that anxiety around exams is a huge cause of stress for young people and their parents. Helping kids through this tricky time requires a lot of courage on the part of their adult carers…

Most of us have a voice in our heads that says an emphatic ‘no’! ‘You need to do better, be stronger, try harder,’ this part of ourselves might say. ‘Nothing less than perfect will do.’  From an evolutionary perspective this…

Greta Thunberg, the 16 year-old Swedish schoolgirl who started the school strike movement as a protest against inaction on climate change, has Asperger's syndrome. I’m different, she told an interviewer this week, and that difference “allowed me to focus on…

I came across a novel treatment for anxiety on social media this week - custard creams under the duvet! I love this for its compassionate approach to the self, but there are other strategies out there for helping ourselves when…

Prescriptions of anti-depressant medication have doubled in a decade, it was reported last week. A total of 70.9 million items used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety were given out in England in 2018, according to NHS data.  But…

Did you know that simply slowing your breathing can have a settling effect on your nervous system, leading to a reduction of stress and anxiety symptoms?  This is because tight, quick breathing is what we do when our fight/flight response…

I’ve been struck this week by the stories of compassion coming out of Christchurch, New Zealand in the aftermath of last Friday’s terrorist attack on two mosques. “Peace be upon you, and peace be upon all of us,” said New…

Two weeks until we leave the European Union – or is it? Will we be delaying? Will we be crashing out? Will we perhaps not leave at all? It all feels hugely uncertain and this lack of clarity is challenging…

So here I am listening to my teenage sons arguing about capitalism versus socialism. I don’t know if teenage daughters would be the same but I do know that boys can get a hard time as they reach their way…

Relationship education will be on the syllabus for all primary and secondary school children from September 2020, it was announced this week. This is good news for our profession as difficulties in relationships form a huge part of the therapist’s…

The BBC broadcast a touching episode of long-running soap, The Archers, this week. Widowed Elizabeth Archer, in her early 50s, with a son in prison and a daughter away at university, is struggling with her mental health. Her family finally…