The Therapy Journal
This is where psychotherapy steps out of the session and into conversation. From our defences that shape our daily lives to the emotions that drive our choices, these pieces explore the human mind through a psychodynamic lens.
Whether clinical or cultural, every post asks the same question: what happens when we stop avoiding our feelings?
Where therapy meets everyday life…
Knowing Isn’t the Same as Changing
You can explain your attachment style, trauma responses, and relationship patterns in detail, and still repeat them. Insight alone does not interrupt behaviour. When emotional activation rises beyond your tolerance, the nervous system defaults to familiar strategies for relief. Real change depends on increasing your capacity to stay with difficult feelings without acting on them.
Feeling Better vs Getting Better at Feeling
Many people start therapy hoping to feel better quickly. Lasting change, however, often comes from building the capacity to experience anxiety, sadness, and uncertainty without retreating from them. When emotional tolerance grows, patterns shift in a more stable way.
Mentalisation and Fragility: Reflections from a Workshop
When working with emotional fragility, strengthening the capacity to think under pressure often comes before deep emotional work. Mentalisation, understanding behaviour in terms of thoughts and feelings, provides a stabilising foundation for therapy. When affect rises too quickly, reflection can narrow or collapse. Slowing the process and restoring shared thinking allows emotional work to unfold more safely.
What It’s Actually Like to Stand Between Two Ways of Working
What happens when the model that once organised your work no longer feels sufficient? Insight may be present, yet under pressure little changes structurally. This reflection explores the shift from meaning-making to structural thinking, tracking anxiety, understanding defences, and building capacity before integration. For therapists between modalities, this uncertainty can signal development.
When Someone Lets Themselves Be Affected and Then Chooses Not to Live There
In therapy and professional life, being affected doesn’t always lead to integration. Sometimes it leads to consolidation, retreat, or narrowing. This reflection explores what happens when two people reach that divergence point.
Women’s Mental Health Right Now: Why So Many Are Exhausted, Anxious and Still Telling Themselves They’re Fine
Many women appear to be coping while carrying ongoing emotional strain. This article explores how anxiety and exhaustion can grow from constant emotional labour, and why therapy can offer a space to slow down, reconnect, and rebuild capacity.
When Care Feels Impossible: Exhaustion, Responsibility, and What Therapy Can and Cannot Hold
Caring for someone in distress can quietly become exhausting. This reflection looks at the tension between compassion and responsibility, and how therapy helps people move beyond burnout, resentment, or withdrawal without reducing complexity or blame.
What BACP Accreditation Means and Why It Matters Right Now
Therapy in the UK is not statutorily regulated, which can feel confusing when choosing support. This article explains what BACP accreditation actually means, what it does not guarantee, and how it can help people make informed therapy decisions.
Therapy and the Experience of Being Seen
Many people come to therapy looking for strategies but discover something deeper. This reflection explores how being emotionally seen and understood can reduce anxiety, soften self-criticism, and help previously confusing patterns begin to make sense.
Four Thousand Hours: A Reflection on Depth, Distance, and the Digital Room
After thousands of hours of online therapy, this reflection explores what makes emotional depth possible through a screen. It looks at how anxiety, defences, and emotional capacity show up in online sessions, and why presence and consistency matter more than physical location.
What Therapists Feel But Rarely Say
Therapists do experience emotional responses during sessions, but those reactions are used carefully as part of the work. This article explains countertransference, why therapists rarely talk openly about their own feelings in sessions, and how emotional awareness helps guide the therapeutic process.
The Therapist’s Silence: What It Really Means
Silence in therapy can feel uncomfortable, but it is often intentional. This article explores how therapeutic silence supports emotional awareness, slows automatic responses, and creates space for feelings to become clearer. It explains what therapists are usually doing internally during quiet moments in session.
What Your Therapist Really Thinks About You
Many people worry about being judged in therapy. This article explains what therapists are actually paying attention to during sessions, how self-criticism often shows up in the room, and why the therapeutic focus is usually on emotional patterns rather than personal evaluation.