Blog

What difficulties are schoolchildren currently bringing to therapy, and how might we help? Dr Sharie Coombes, a headteacher turned leading child and family psychotherapist and author, has been observing the mixed impact of the resumption of school routines. Combining psychodynamic exploration with neuroscientific psychoeducation, she shares her work with one anxious and panic-stricken child.

Establishing goals can be a key part of therapy with young people. But how can we help our adolescent clients to set themselves goals when life feels so uncertain? To mark Youth Mental Health Day, with its theme this year of #StrideForward, consultant clinical psychologist and mental health charity CEO Dr Nihara Krause suggests how we might adapt our approach.

Rates of self-harm among children and young people are on the rise. Yet, as Brad E. Sachs has experienced, clients can be less likely to share this aspect of their experience than any other. As we mark Self-Injury Awareness Day, the psychologist, author and family therapist suggests why self-harm is so often the ‘missing piece’ in the therapeutic conversation – and shares a three-stage framework for raising the subject.

Today is Care Day, when the world marks the rights of children and young people with care experience. Sheetal Amin, a psychotherapist with a special interest in working with developmental trauma and ‘looked after’ children, explains why responding to their complex needs has to mean adapting the boundaries of the therapeutic frame.

How can we help children find safety, feel grounded, and express themselves during the Covid outbreak? As we mark Children’s Mental Health Week, arts counsellor Anna Atkinson shares useful creative approaches from her work in a primary school inclusion team – and reflects on when a simple online game might actually be the best intervention.

According to a new survey commissioned by Self-Harm UK, The Mix and YoungMinds, a third of 16-25 year-olds in Britain have at some point self-harmed. Despite these rising numbers, confusions and contradictions persist in the way we define and conceptualise self-harm. To mark Self-Harm Awareness Day on March 1, Professor Stephen Briggs addresses the link between suicide and self-harm, and explains why they need to be understood in the context of core developmental struggles.