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…
What Cures in Therapy Is Truth…
Insight can explain patterns, but change often happens when emotions are experienced rather than analysed. This article explores why understanding alone is rarely enough, how emotional truth shows up in therapy, and why small moments of honest experience can gradually shift long-standing patterns.
The Man in Black: What Johnny Cash (and My Therapy Uniform) Teach Us About Containment
Consistency and steadiness are central to therapeutic work. Reflecting on Johnny Cash’s image and the idea of a therapist’s “uniform,” this article explores containment, how a calm, reliable therapeutic frame helps people approach difficult emotions safely and gradually reduce emotional avoidance.
When Johnny Cash Stopped Performing: Authenticity and Emotional Truth in Therapy
A scene from Walk the Line offers a useful metaphor for therapy: the shift from performance toward authenticity. This article explores why people often “play it safe” emotionally and how therapy helps create the conditions for more honest, manageable emotional expression over time.
The Therapy FAD? Rethinking our Feelings, Anxiety and Defences Across Modalities
Most struggles follow a simple human sequence: feelings stir anxiety, and anxiety brings defences online. This post reframes that pattern as survival instead of pathology, and explores how therapy becomes transformative when anxiety is regulated and defences are read as signals, instead of obstacles.
From Pain to Possibility: What The Downward Spiral Shows About Being Human
Music can sometimes express emotional experience more clearly than explanation. Using The Downward Spiral as a lens, this article explores themes of shame, emotional avoidance, and disconnection, and how therapy helps people recognise similar patterns in themselves and develop a steadier relationship with difficult feelings.
Why Therapy? The Question People Rarely Ask
Many people start therapy focused on symptoms, but lasting change often involves something deeper: the ability to stay present when emotions feel difficult. This article explores how therapy builds emotional capacity, helping patterns soften over time and allowing people to respond with more flexibility rather than automatic reactions.
The Power of Coming Back: Lewis Capaldi, Vulnerability, and the Quiet Strength of Resilience
Using Lewis Capaldi’s return to the stage as a reflection point, this post explores why the same qualities that heal us in therapy, connection, patience, and self-belief also sustain us in life. Resilience grows quietly, through honesty, support, and the courage to keep showing up.