What Imposter Syndrome Is Really About
“I feel like any minute now, someone’s going to realise I don’t actually know what I’m doing.” I hear some version of this from people who are, by any reasonable measure, doing well — competent, capable, often visibly successful. Imposter syndrome is strange that way: it doesn’t track with actual competence. That mismatch is the […]
How to Stop People-Pleasing (Without Becoming Someone You’re Not)
People-pleasing gets talked about like a bad habit — something to simply decide to stop doing, the same way you might stop biting your nails. In the therapy room, it looks different. It’s rarely a habit. It’s usually a well-practised survival strategy, built for good reasons, that’s now costing more than it protects. What people-pleasing […]
Why You Keep Repeating the Same Relationship Pattern
“Why do I keep ending up in the same relationship, just with a different person?” It’s one of the most common things people bring into the therapy room, usually said with a mix of frustration and quiet shame — as if they’ve failed some test everyone else passed. They haven’t. What they’ve usually found is […]
What to Say (and Not Say) to a Friend Who’s Struggling
Someone you care about is struggling, and you want to help — but you’re scared of saying the wrong thing, so sometimes you end up saying very little, or nothing at all. This is one of the most common worries people bring up with me, not about their own mental health but about supporting someone […]
Attachment Styles Explained: Why Some Relationships Feel Harder Than Others
Why does one relationship feel easy — safe, steady, uncomplicated — while another feels like a permanent low-grade exam? Attachment theory, one of the most useful frameworks I use in therapy, offers a genuinely helpful answer, and it usually traces back further than the relationship itself. Where it starts Attachment theory’s basic idea is this: […]
What Actually Happens in a First Counselling Session
Almost everyone is nervous before their first counselling session. I mean that literally — in years of practice, I can count on one hand the people who’ve walked in fully relaxed. If you’re reading this because you’re thinking about therapy but the unknown of it is putting you off, this is for you: a plain […]