Blog

What role can we play in supporting clients who are experiencing the perimenopause or menopause? To mark World Menopause Day, Emma Palmer reflects on the rich range of responses to this life stage she has encountered – and the diverse work this calls for in therapy, from giving space to what is culturally silenced to celebrating new potency.

Family stories can be both formative and reductive. They can also be transformative – and transformed. In the third part of her blog series, Nicola Mackay, a clinical physicist turned constellation therapist and researcher, introduces the two forms of language she uses within constellation therapy – and shares the powerful phrases that helped one client disentangle from his grandmother’s WW1 grief.

From safely letting off steam to feeling liked, therapy can offer children with an ADHD diagnosis a transformative relational experience. To mark ADHD Awareness Month, Tamsin Cottis, a leading child psychotherapist specialising in learning disabilities, concludes her two-part blog with a look at the impact therapy can have on a child’s relationships with teachers and peers.

Lost, displaced and unseen aspects of our ancestral pasts can have a powerful influence on our present. Nicola Mackay is a clinical physicist turned constellation therapist and researcher, with an interest in bridging the gap between science and energy healing. In the second part of her new blog series, she shares a quantum perspective as to why representing these aspects in a constellation can help clients move forward.

How can therapy help children with a diagnosis of ADHD? To mark ADHD Awareness Month, Tamsin Cottis, a leading child psychotherapist specialising in learning disabilities, begins a two-part blog. Today, she describes play activities that can strengthen a child’s sense of self. Next week, she will discuss the impact of therapy on relationships with teachers and peers.

What are the basic principles and processes of family and ancestral constellation work? How does this flourishing modality help clients disentangle from the pain of generations past? Nicola Mackay is a clinical physicist turned constellation therapist and researcher, with an interest in bridging the gap between science and energy healing. In the first part of her new blog series, she discusses the centrality of belonging and the transgenerational cost of being unseen.

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.

When she first heard the phrase ‘legacy burden’, Kay Gardner felt she was encountering a concept that could illuminate her own fears as well as the pain and shame of her clients. Ahead of PESI UK’s Transgenerational Trauma Conference in October, and a dedicated training in November, the IFS lead trainer shares her journey toward understanding and clinically applying the notion of intergenerational burdens – from studying energy work to learning what helps clients ‘let go’.

In the world of relationship violence, one size does not fit all. Dr David Wexler, clinical psychologist and author specialising in men’s issues, shares the complex realities he has encountered in his work with men – and women – who commit acts of domestic violence, and urges us to listen to the vast range of stories that can get lost between the labels ‘victim’ and ‘aggressor’.

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.