Is what I'm feeling sadness or depression? People often worry that their feelings of sadness are going to turn into depression, or indeed ARE a sign that they are depressed. But sadness and depression are very different and this blog looks at the key differences between the two. Feeling low…
This blog looks at new ways of looking at grief. My favourite writers who each have their unique take on this are David Kessler, Francis Weller and Stephen Levine - see links below under More Information. Form a new relationship with your loved one Grief researchers Denis Klass, Phyllis Silverman…
Over the next couple of months in my blogs, I’m going to focus on sadness, loss and grief. We are thankfully much more able, these days, to talk about mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and addiction. But perhaps less likely to talk about our sadness, our losses and…
This blog looks more closely at how to find calm when we have been pulled into fight, flight or freeze states. My last few blogs looked at Stephen Porge’s Polyvagal Theory which I would very often explain to my clients. The polyvagal theory is useful firstly because it allows people…
The polyvagal ladder exercise Continuing on from my previous blog, Deb Dana, clinician and Coordinator of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium in the Kinsey Institute in the US, has taken Stephen Porges theory and found ways to explain it simply and powerfully. The polyvagal ladder exercise involves us imagining our…
This blog looks at the vagus nerve and trauma. My last blog looked at the key role of the vagus nerve on how we think, feel and behave and in particular at Stephen Porge’s Polyvagal Theory. I described how moment by moment, our neural circuits distinguish whether situations or people…
One of the most useful pieces of information that I am able to share with clients is Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory. Explained simply, it is a really powerful way for us to understand and regulate how we feel, moment by moment. This is the fourth in a series of blogs…
Dissociation from events happening in the here and now is an adaptive response to threat and is a form of “freezing”. It can also be described as “zoning out”, or “numbing out”. It is a strategy that is often used when the option of fighting or running (fleeing) is not…
My previous blog looked at how the nervous system states of fight, flight and freeze are involved in how we feel from moment to moment - including strong emotions like anxiety, fear, panic and anger, OCD and phobias, even trauma and PTSD. This blog will focus especially on the freeze…
Most of us have heard of the terms fight, flight and freeze, but exactly how do these states relate to how humans feel? This is the first of a series of blogs about how understanding how our nervous system works can be a powerful step towards managing our feelings and…
We usually imagine an angry person as one who shouts and yells in an aggressive way to get their point across. But there are at least five anger styles or ways of expressing our anger, some of which we may not recognise immediately as anger. A highly recommended read is…
My previous few blogs have looked at the work of Harriet Lerner on anger. Harriet looks particularly at womens' anger. Another highly recommended read is Beating Anger by Mike Fisher, an anger therapist who runs anger management workshops in the UK and who focusses especially on male anger. Mike Fisher…