Hope Therapy and Counselling Services
Online and in-person counselling across the UK for individuals and couples, including workplace counselling
Ian Stockbridge
There is a particular cruelty to social anxiety. The help exists, and reaching it means doing the exact thing you find hardest. Phoning a stranger. Sitting in a waiting room where someone might speak to you. Saying your name at … Read more
Some people respond to a short reply, a slight change in tone, or a message left unanswered with a wave of feeling so disproportionate that they can see it is disproportionate while it is happening and still cannot stop it. … Read more
Most descriptions of autism are written from the outside, lists of behaviours as they appear to an observer, and usually an observer watching a child. That turns out to be of very limited use to an adult sitting at home … Read more
There is a particular kind of relationship doubt that does not behave like ordinary uncertainty. It does not resolve when things are going well. It does not respond to evidence, however carefully assembled. It arrives uninvited in the middle of … Read more
The first Monday back has a particular quality to it. The alarm sounds at a time it has not sounded for weeks. The inbox has opinions. Somebody needs a PE kit. By half past nine you are already behind, and … Read more
People usually start looking into private depression treatment for one of two common reasons. Either they are already waiting for something and the waiting has become hard to bear, or they have tried something once already and found it did … Read more
There is a particular loneliness in struggling after having a baby, and a good deal of it comes from the gap between how it feels and how everyone assumes it feels. Visitors arrive delighted. Nobody asks the question you would … Read more
Men are considerably less likely to seek help for emotional difficulty than women, and considerably more likely to reach some kind of crisis before they eventually do. Anger sits close to the centre of that, for reasons that have very … Read more
Trust is not repaired by an apology, however sincere it is. It is not restored by a promise, and it does not simply return because enough time has passed. If you are trying to work out how to rebuild trust … Read more
There is a particular pattern that a great many people recognise long before they have any name for it. Things go well. The other person moves closer. And something, not a decision exactly, more a reflex, begins quietly pulling in … Read more