Blog

Hands up whose clients are struggling to sleep at the moment? For those with pre-existing or developing health anxiety, sleep disturbance may be greater during the current Covid-19 outbreak, and concerns over the effects of poor sleep on immunity can create a vicious circle. Insomnia Clinic founder Kathryn Pinkham is currently offering her online sleep programme free to NHS workers – and here shares 8 tips for improving the sleep of clients with health anxiety.

Families are now facing one of two highly pressurised new realities: not seeing each other at all, or seeing each other all of the time. How might our clients’ families be responding to the imposed changes, and how can we help them adjust? Psychotherapist and author Annette Byford begins a five-blog series on the family system during the coronavirus crisis with a consideration of coping mechanisms, and how separateness and togetherness have individual meanings for each of us.

Denial, anger, depression, bargaining… we are likely to be encountering all of these reactions to the current covid-19 pandemic in our clients, as well as in ourselves. Dr Esther Ramsay-Jones, a psychotherapist and lecturer in Death Dying and Bereavement, suggests how the concept of anticipatory grief might help us to understand our shifting emotional positions at this time – and begins to imagine what acceptance might look like.

Panicky exchanges about preferred online platforms have been common among therapists this week. Worrying over details may be a distraction from our primal anxiety in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, says Sarah Van Gogh – who offers some grounding for those experiencing hopelessness and overwhelm as we continue to care for clients through this crisis.

With whole cities and countries now in quarantine, many mothers and children will be spending Mother’s Day apart this Sunday. Meanwhile, parents the world over are beginning to worry about the long-term impact of the pandemic on our children. Psychoanalyst and mother Jane G Goldberg considers the relationship between trauma and transformation, from the meaning our ancestors gave to scars to Freud’s thoughts on birth, and the role of challenges and crises in the forging of identity.

On Friday, UK schools will join others around the world in closing due to the coronavirus crisis. How will family life need to change? Child therapist and Clinical Professor of Psychology Kenneth Barish draws on his conversations with families who are already living through this, to suggest four key ways in which parents can be supported to help children through this time.

The current health crisis means many counsellors are considering taking their practice online for the first time. Therapist Suzie Mosson, a director of Online Training for Counsellors, has some expert advice for practitioners looking to make this move, from reviewing insurance and fees to choosing a webcam programme and re-contracting with your client. Top of her list of guidance? Don’t panic – plan.

Love is fundamental to human lives, cropping up repeatedly in client narratives and consulting room dynamics. But how much do we understand about it? Dr Divine Charura, editor of Love and Therapy, concludes his five-part series on the role of love in life and psychotherapy with some reflections on the importance of facilitating a good ending in therapy.

How might we begin to work with clients with avoidant attachment patterns? In her third blog about working with highly defended clients, Attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist Linda Cundy shares how she has engaged clients who have learned to hide their needs and avoid commitment.

Love is fundamental to human lives, cropping up repeatedly in client narratives and consulting room dynamics. But how much do we understand about it? Dr Divine Charura, editor of Love and Therapy, continues his five-part series on the role of love in life and psychotherapy with a consideration of the power of community and the psychotherapist’s potential to be an agent of social change.