How many of us are fixers? If someone is unhappy or something goes wrong, we’re the ones to step up and find a solution. Typically we’re organised, decisive and people who crack on and get on with it and it’s on to the next thing in this . In a relationship that sounds like it’s a pretty useful thing to have in the team, right? Well, not always. I’ve worked with lots of clients in otherwise solid relationships, who are having challenges in this area. A loved one is unhappy so

Music can have a powerful effect on our emotions. The right track at the right moment can affect our whole day. Certain music can shake us out of a bad mood, calm us down, and even remind us of specific moments from our past like it was yesterday. Whenever I hear certain Disney songs it takes me right back to listening to an LP my mum would put in in the living room when I was a wee boy. With ‘80s music more widely appreciated these days, memories of school discos, first kiss

What a week, right? A painful one for a lot of us. The legendary Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and as I write this even the original Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen all in the space of a few days. It feels like we only just lost Hayden Panettiere and Sam Neill too. When someone in the public eye passes, it can really throw us, and acknowledging that impact can feel daft, or inauthentic in some way. It’s not like we knew them personally. We aren’t family members and way may never h

Compromising keeps the peace. We learn that early in life, particularly if we have siblings. As adults, we make adjustments in quite a lot of different areas of our lives; in who we are at work, in who we are with our parents and family members, and who we are with different groups of groups. Sometimes it’s just easier to go with the flow and do what makes other people happy than stand up and say that something isn’t for us, perhaps making other people uncomfortable or adjust

What’s your morning routine? Whether we’re planning to set the world to rights and get a tonne of work done today, or take our time with things and look after ourselves, how we start off the day can have a big impact in our mood, energy levels and the kind of day we end up having. With modern life as busy as it is, we’re not often taking time for ourselves and easing ourselves into the day. Maybe we’re rushing around sorting everyone else out and in the car for the school run

Earlier this week, the EHRC guidance about single sex spaces came into effect across England, Wales and Scotland. I’ve spoken many times before about how it is completely unworkable and benefits no-one. But it’s here all the same. Everyone and their grandmother also seems obligated to express negative opinions about trans people in single sex spaces right now. It's everywhere from vox pops to op-ed pieces, like someone's right to exist like anyone else is something that can b

Does faith have a place in the counselling room or does it have to be a totally secular environment? Does the very rational and logical approach of something like CBT, allow for faith or are they naturally in opposition? It’s something I’ve been reflecting on recently. First of all, I want to be clear there is faith-centred ‘therapy’ out there that is more akin to talking to a minister; discussing challenges from a religious perspective and drawing support from specific parts

The expression "emotional affair" is a bit of a loaded one, isn’t it? There’s a lot of judgement bundled up with it. The sort of thing that someone might be accused of in an argument. It’s perhaps even a bit glib and reductive; potentially jealously policing friendships and isolating people from sources of support. That’s something we can see in abusive relationships and something we have to be looking out for. A physical affair is much clearer, and we’re either doing that o

As I write this, we’re a few days away from Glasgow’s Pride on 18th July, and 2025-26 has certainly brought challenges for the LGBTQ+ community. Now more than ever is when we need to stand up and be counted. A time to say “enough!” In the last year, the attacks on the trans community have deepened, bankrolled by billionaires and foreign right-wingers. The, at best flawed, EHRC guidance is part of a huge rollback in the rights of trans people in the UK. That’s due to start bei

What do you think of when you hear the expression “compassion fatigue”? You might perhaps think about someone getting jaded, or exhausted by trying to support so many different causes, the endless horrors of social media, or tired from looking after someone and neglecting themselves. People sometimes casually use the expression in that way. We might even rail against what it’s suggesting. Surely if we’re decent people, empathy and compassion have no limits? All of these are w

Whether we’re lucky enough to be able to afford a proper holiday, or we stay local on our days off, taking time away from work and day to day routine is important. Constant stress is not good for us and impacts both our physical and mental health, and taking time off helps us recharge, heal and reset. A review of data from 32 studies into the impact of holidays on wellbeing by the BPS found that, as we might reasonably imagine, wellbeing reduced when someone came back from ho

We carry around with us biases and assumptions; ways in which we see what is normal to us and how our world works. Part of how our mind works is to see patterns and apply rules. Our brain does this quickly because it’s a useful survival trick; we only need to make that association with danger once to avoid that danger in the future. False positives don’t matter so much when it’s a matter of life and death. Many years later, but nothing in terms of evolutionary scale, we’ve s

This week is Men’s Health week here in the UK. It’s an annual event organised by Men’s Health Forum that raises awareness of issues facing men’s health and encourages positive action. I’ve written in the past about the persistent challenges we have with mens mental health (Mens Mental Health in 2025 and What about Men?) but where are we at the moment? According to some recent research from BUPA 50% of men have struggled with mental health difficulties at some point, but less

Recently I took part in a new podcast focusing on health for older gay and bisexual men* and I’ve been reflecting on how we talk about mental health, or maybe more accurately how we can start conversations about mental health. In some areas it can feel like we’re making a lot of progress, but according to the Mental Health charity, Mind, there has been a gradual annual decline in mental health since 2016 - 17 and stigma and discrimination around mental health is increasing. S

Every time someone tells a counsellor they used ChatGTP for advice with their mental health, a little part of us dies. OK, I’m exaggerating but people using AI to try to figure something out or to help them cope in a mental health crisis seems to be increasing. At this point, 37% of adults in the UK have used AI in this way. More than a third! While the immediacy (and accessibility) of AI ‘mental health support’ can be appealing, it comes with it some pretty big negatives tha

I’ve talked before about mental health in the LGBTQ+ community and how as a result of society we are more at risk of poor mental health outcomes. While things have generally been going in a positive direction and we have made some tremendous strides over the last few decades, we have gone from being first place out of 49 European countries for LGBTQIA+ equality in 2015 to number 22. The UK Supreme Court ruling on trans equality in 2025 and recent publication of the EHRC Guida

We’re approaching the bank holiday and with the nice weather predicted many of us are planning to get outside for a bit. Whether it’s staying with friends in a mysterious (but cheap) cabin in the woods, taking a walk in a park, or just tackling some weeds in the garden, conventional wisdom tells us that getting out in the fresh air is good for us. What is it about it that benefits our mental health? Surrounding ourselves with nature and away from the pressures of day to day l

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. An annual event organised by the Mental Health Foundation to draw attention to mental health and good practice for looking after ourselves and others. It’s previously focused on topics like Community, Body Image, and Nature and this year the theme is “Action”, acknowledging that while awareness is important, taking action is when positive change happens. We’re invited to take action in some way to improve our own mental health, the m

If there’s one thing that unites us as a species, it's that, no matter who we are, we all get older. All the money in the world and all the surgical procedures it can use to try to hide it doesn’t change the fact that our body changes with the years. We can do what we can with a healthy diet and lots of exercise, but sometimes it can be a bit of a genetics lottery and some of us will remain healthier than others even if they don’t especially look after themselves. Getting ol

In one of my volunteer roles I provide counselling to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers so, as you might imagine, I was pretty appalled by some recent reporting from the BBC suggesting that there are huge numbers of ‘fake’ LGBT asylum seekers exploiting a ‘loophole’ in the system. While the investigation did discover unethical advisors exploiting people seeking asylum, framing this as demonstrative of a wider issue in our already challenging asylum system is, frankly, racist dogwhistle b