Earlier this week, when talking about resilience and looking after ourselves, a client asked me what keeps me going as a counsellor and what philosophies I find I really connect with, and I have to admit in the moment it threw me a little and I’ve had to reflect on it. Not that there’s nothing at all, or that it’d be entirely outside of professional boundaries. More, it’s not often that we put that question to ourselves, so if you’ll indulge me this week… I’m not religious as

I was lucky enough to be one of the thousands of people who got to see President Obama speak in Glasgow last night. He was charismatic, statesmanlike and a lot of what he said has really stuck with me. He was reflecting on what he’s learned from a lifelong career in making positive change, and advice he would give to the rest of us. I thought it would be good to share some of that here, particularly where it intersects with mental health. Connect with other humans Connecting

Like it or not, we spend more of our waking hours working. Ultimately we need money to stay alive, and we have to work for it. What we do, where we work, and what we come away with every month can have a big impact on our mental health. Some people throw everything they have into a job and the role is how they see themselves and how they present themselves to the world, and other people focus more on their loved ones and their own life. The classic sit-com Red Dwarf is a grea

So we’re in October already. How did that happen? It feels like we were planting the spring bulbs not that long ago, taking the covers off the garden furniture and wasn’t there a heatwave the other day? It’s getting darker, it’s getting colder, and we’ve already been told to anticipate a pretty rotten next few months when it comes to the weather. It won’t be long before we’re starting off our working day in the dark and it’ll already be dark by finishing time. All of this can

Sometimes when CBT comes up in discussions alongside other types of counselling, there can be an assumption that CBT is a bit cold. That it’s about challenging someone rather than listening to them. That it’s about dismissing what someone is thinking and feeling and invalidating them. Now I won’t get into criticising other counselling modalities, (they all have their strengths), but when it comes to this argument against CBT, it’s not really accurate. A fundamental part of co

Client safety is an important part of the counselling experience. Mental health professionals work hard to ensure that the the counselling environment feels comfortable and somewhere you can open up and talk about what’s troubling you. Within the industry there are also standards responsible counsellors agree to uphold to support client safety and wellbeing. Hold on, what do I mean by “responsible counsellors”? Well the word “counsellor” is not yet a protected title, so at pr

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