Blog

With men over 65 at the greatest risk of suicide, what more can therapists do to support older male clients? As Movember focuses attention on men’s mental health, Brad E. Sachs, founder and director of The Father Center, proposes that focusing on a man’s rich potential role as a father or grandfather can help struggling clients find new purpose and belonging – long after the nest empties.

Couples counselling can involve different considerations when working between Western individualist and Eastern collectivist cultures. Dr Kathrine Bejanyan is a relationship therapist with a PhD in Social Psychology. In the third part of her blog series, she looks at variations in attitude to marriage and the importance of family loyalty.

Bullying is not confined to schooldays, or the domestic sphere. As the UK marks Anti Bullying Week, international specialist Pat Ferris shares her insights in to the particular psychological impact of workplace bullying, from rumination through to psychosis, and proposes we use a complex PTSD framework to help clients whose trust has been trampled.

As the coronavirus crisis disrupts clients’ usual routines and attachments, how do we assess for problematic drinking, and support clients to find alternative sources of safety and security? To mark Alcohol Awareness Week, addiction specialist Stefan Walters shares some helpful questions for exploring clients’ relationships with alcohol during the pandemic.

Couples counselling can involve different considerations when working between Western individualist and Eastern collectivist cultures. Dr Kathrine Bejanyan is a relationship therapist with a PhD in Social Psychology. In the second part of her blog series, she looks at how attitudes to dating may vary, and the therapeutic work of helping with conflictual feelings.

How do we ground and resource a trauma survivor when the risk remains real? For refugees who have been ‘resettled’ in areas of the UK with high crime rates, the triggers are everywhere. Jude Boyles reflects on supporting the search for internal and external safety among Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Couples counselling can involve different considerations when working between Western individualist and Eastern collectivist cultures. Dr Kathrine Bejanyan is a relationship therapist with a PhD in Social Psychology. In this new blog series, she will provide an overview of how norms and dynamics may diverge when counselling couples from these different cultures, from the role of the extended family to attitudes towards the therapist.

Being a teenager involves unavoidable developmental losses – for both the adolescent and their parents. It is often unconscious grief around individuation and separation, argues Brad E. Sachs, that is the source of suicidality in young people. Here, the psychologist, author and family therapist explains how exploring the loss of childhood can bring revelation, relief and resolution for both generations.

The coronavirus pandemic has both exacerbated, and drawn attention to, a problem of social isolation. Roz Shafran, Professor of Translational Psychology at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, has been conducting research into psychological approaches to tackling loneliness. Here, she suggests six ways we can help clients who are lonely – and argues for more communication between therapists and community groups that foster social connection.

How can we help avoidant clients to drop their defences and allow deep emotions to emerge? In her sixth blog about working with highly defended clients, Attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist Linda Cundy discusses the centrality of affect regulation and mourning in this work, taking in the role of countertransference, self-compassion and humour, Fairbairn’s ‘moral defence’ and Stern’s ‘moments of meeting’.