Category: counselling support for mental health
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Why Do I Struggle to Understand My Emotions? Learning Emotional Regulation as an Adult
Many adults believe they’re failing because they struggle to understand or regulate their emotions. This article explores how emotional skills are learned through our early relationships, why many people reach adulthood without them, and how therapy can help you develop emotional awareness, resilience and healthier ways of coping without shame or self-blame.
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What is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)? Understanding Emotional Regulation, Mindfulness and Wellbeing
Learn how Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) can improve emotional regulation, mindfulness, relationships, distress tolerance and mental wellbeing.
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Healthy Boundaries in Relationships: A Therapist’s Guide to Saying No Without Guilt
Do you struggle to say no, put others’ needs before your own, or feel overwhelmed by family and relationship demands? Healthy boundaries can help protect your time, energy, and emotional wellbeing. Discover why boundaries matter, common challenges people face when setting them, and simple ways to start communicating your needs more effectively.
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Dialectal Behaviour Therapy
DBT-informed therapy offering practical tools for emotional regulation, stress, overwhelm, and relationship difficulties. Sessions are tailored and integrative, supporting individuals to build coping strategies and improve emotional resilience in daily life.
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When views oppose – is there actually a middle ground?
Exploring the middle path concept of DBT regards conflicting views and interpersonal effectiveness
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How do I know if my child needs therapy?
Brief look at some issues child therapy may help with and how sessions might be
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Resources and support
This is a list of resource and organisations that may be useful support for individuals with experiences that may be diverse, neurodiverse and include some community mental health support signposting
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What’s stopping you?
Post explores the role of self limiting narratives, highlights that there are often more options available than initially assumed, and emphasises that small, incremental steps still constitute meaningful progress. It also outlines how therapy can provide a structured space to clarify goals, understand barriers, and move forward without the need to be in crisis.
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When Therapy Earlier in Life Didn’t Feel Safe
A brief reflection for adults who had difficult or boundary-crossing experiences of therapy in childhood or adolescence. This post outlines a gentle, collaborative approach that prioritises autonomy, does not assume trust, and supports moving at your own pace if you are cautiously considering therapy again.
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When Trust in Yourself Begins to Erode
This post speaks to coercive control, emotional abuse in relationships and how it can impact mental health. Vulnerability to coercive dynamics is not about weakness, but about context including past relational experiences, attachment patterns, and the subtle use of power within the relationship.
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Different Ways We Learn to Get Our Needs Met
How we learn to ask for — or avoid asking for — what we need is often shaped in childhood and plays out strongly in family relationships. This article explores different styles of getting needs met, why misunderstandings arise between parents and teenage or adult children, and how separating permission to ask from obligation to…
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A perspective on AI and Online Life
Therapy online? Using AI as a therapist? My perspective is that online therapy comes with upsides – accessibility and reach for people outside of the local area or preference to stay home and fit sessions into the day conveniently without travel time. But naturally, there is cost as well as benefit. Whilst it can…
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First Impressions, Perception, and the Space for What We Don’t Yet Know
Our first impressions are shaped by perception and experience. Therapy can help us pause, reflect, and develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.
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Blues in January? Exploring low mood and seasonal depression
January can highlight low mood difficulties that have been present for some time, and therapy can offer a place to explore them with more depth and steadiness. There is no actual evidence about Blue Monday and no need to react simply because a calendar or headline suggests you should. Therapy does not need a crisis…
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What Else Might Be True? Gently Challenging Thinking Traps
This post explores how the mind creates compelling stories to reduce uncertainty, particularly under anxiety, and how these stories can feel true without being complete. The focus is on learning to question certainty, open space for alternative explanations, and respond with greater thoughtfulness and self-compassion.
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Finding your way
A post about mental health support for change, past, present and counselling for life transitions
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Claire Messenger Talk Therapy with Claire
Find my profile and verified professional qualifications on Counselling Directory
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8 Therapist Recommended Coping Skills for Anxiety
Therapeutic physical and mindful responses for when anxiety feels urgent When anxiety overwhelms, it is useful to have skills to practise. Learning these skills at a calmer time may help to have them ready for when needed. Below are just a few suggestions for when panic or anxiety feels high. Being kind to yourself, remembering…
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