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Therapeutic relationships

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Love

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What I’ve learned about relationships as an agony uncle

I am an agony uncle. This is what I’ve learned about men, women and how relationships work in my 10 years of giving advice

by James McConnachie

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Therapeutic relationships

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Psychodynamic therapy helped me overcome trauma when CBT couldn’t

The toxic memories of trauma governed my life for years. But psychodynamic therapy made me feel seen and set me free

by Lucia Osborne-Crowley

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Therapeutic relationships

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Life coaching is unregulated and growing rapidly. Should it be reined in?

Anybody can call themselves a life coach, and then offer what amounts to serious therapy. Should life coaching be regulated?

by Elias Aboujaoude

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Psychoanalysis and the unconscious

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The power of slow therapy, revealed in two pioneering memoirs

Two therapy memoirs by Lucy Freeman, an overlooked mental health pioneer, remind us of the value of slow, convoluted therapy

by Elliot Jurist

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Psychotherapy

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Getting what we think we want can reveal just how complex desire is

Helping my clients probe their unspoken wants creates a space of freedom to express the possibilities that lie dormant

by Charlotte Fox Weber

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Therapeutic relationships

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My failed analysis gave me confidence and taught me when to quit

What does successful psychoanalysis look like? I’d read all around Freud and I didn’t know, but then neither did my analyst

by Lisa Levy

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Psychotherapy

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Psychotherapy under the microscope: how exactly does it work?

To improve psychotherapy, researchers are looking beyond what happens in a session to learn exactly how change is achieved

by Ciarán O’Driscoll

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Therapeutic relationships

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Slow medicine, like slow food, puts people ahead of profit

The physical and mental health of patients are deeply intertwined. GPs are best-placed to help, but they need more time

by Mariam Tokhi

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Bioethics

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Some medical devices don’t mean to be racist, but they are

Oppression can get built into anything, including medical devices. How do they influence us, and what can we do about them?

by Vanessa Carbonell & Shen-yi Liao

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Difficult emotions

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Feeling nothing can be as devastating as feeling too much

Emotional ‘emptiness’ is a damaging, underexplored phenomenon. Better understanding it could help steer people to fulfilment

by Christopher J Hopwood

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Therapeutic relationships

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Either/or questions are part of psychotherapy’s language games

When a patient poses a binary question, it’s tempting to give a straight answer, but they are often seeking so much more

by Darren Haber

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Self-harm and suicide

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The violence of suicide reverberates in, and through, us all

A psychodynamic perspective on suicide can help us all reckon more honestly with the interconnectedness of psychic pain

by Kyle Boyd