Welcome to my blog. Here I share honest, no-nonsense writing about relationships, intimacy, and mental health. My goal is simple: to give you tools, insights, and encouragement you can use in real life.

emotional-regulation-counselling

The Art of Self-Regulation

A Love Story. Learning the Art of Self-Regulation. “We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship.” – Harville Hendrix Dysfunctional childhoods often lead to emotional dysregulation in children and adults.  Conversely,…

building-inner-strength

Developing Inner Strength

Forward Motion It occurred to me recently, when walking up a steep track on the hill by my home, a hill I power up regularly, that it is important to develop a strong upward, and forward motion in life, no…

counselling-work

Doing ‘The Work’

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle Self Knowledge What is your relationship with yourself like? I ask many clients this question as it often occurs to me early on in our working relationship that people don’t…

positive-regard-in-relationships

Start Complimenting Your Partner

“If you see something beautiful in someone, speak it.” ― Ruthie Lindsey Love is Action It seems to me; most people nowadays think that happy couples are somehow lucky. That they perhaps managed to find ‘the one’ and that the seemingly…

relationship counsellor in somerset

Stop Blaming Your Partner

“The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower My parents told us, my sister, brother and I, that they were getting a divorce when I was eleven years old. My world immediately fell…

gottman-marriage-savers

Gottman’s Marriage Savers

In his research into what made marriages stable and what led to relationship collapse, Gottman thought he had worked it out when he concluded that teaching couples how to argue without being overridden by the four horsemen was the answer.…

gottman-marriage-killers

Gottman’s Marriage Killers

“A romantic and sexual long-term committed relationship with another human remains the greatest gift life can offer” – John M Gottman PH.D. ‘The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.’ The greatest gift life can offer. It’s worth giving that some…

self-esteem

Improve Your Self-Esteem

I imagine we are all grappling with self-esteem to a greater or lesser degree depending on how we live and how honest we are about our successes and failures. Life is extremely challenging and complex and getting good at it…

childhood-trauma

Your Childhood Matters.

It is relatively well understood nowadays that our early relationships establish templates or patterns that we tend to apply to all subsequent relationships. This is the nurture in nature/nurture and wonderful news if your early relationships were warm, attentive, and…

life-is-difficult

Life is Difficult

One of the first books I read on the psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth was The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck. A great book to read if you think you’d like to improve the way…