There is a particular kind of loneliness that can settle into a relationship when one partner wants more sex, or different sex, than the other. It rarely gets talked about directly, even in therapy, even between people who love each other and communicate well about almost everything else. This is desire discrepancy, and it is one of the most common issues couples bring to therapy. You are not unusual, and you are not failing. What desire discrepancy actually means Desire disc

You know that sting when someone is short with you, or doesn't reply, or you sense a shift in the room? For most people it is uncomfortable but manageable. For many people with ADHD, it can feel catastrophic: a wave of pain or shame that is completely disproportionate to what most would consider a minor social event. This is rejection sensitive dysphoria, or RSD, and it is one of the most significant and least understood aspects of the ADHD experience. What is RSD? Rejection

If you are neurodivergent, you may have spent years becoming very good at something that has no name in most people's lives: performing normality. Watching how other people behave, then calibrating your responses so that you appear to fit in. This is called masking, and while it can be a genuinely useful survival skill, it comes with a cost that is rarely talked about honestly. What masking actually is Masking refers to the way many autistic and ADHD people, and those with ot

Have you ever found yourself completely consumed by thoughts of another person? Not just enjoying someone's company or hoping a relationship might go somewhere, but thinking about them almost constantly, replaying conversations, and feeling your whole mood shift depending on whether they noticed you that day. If that sounds familiar, there is a word for what you experienced. It is called limerence. What is limerence? The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in her 1

Have you ever wondered why the same social situation that feels energising to one person leaves another completely depleted? Or why certain environments, like a busy open-plan office or a difficult conversation, seem to cost some people so much more than others? Part of the answer may lie less in personality or willpower and more in something more fundamental: the state of the nervous system. What is polyvagal theory? Developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges, polyvagal theo

There is a particular kind of grief that doesn't get much space in the conversations around trans experience. Not the grief of loss that others can see and name, but something quieter and harder to hold: the grief of wanting something for yourself that you cannot have, or cannot have yet. This is not a grief that comes with condolence cards. There is no ritual for it. And because it sits alongside an identity that is already so often contested and debated, many trans people f

We live in a culture that talks endlessly about happiness. Get the right job and the right relationship into place, and the feeling will follow. And yet, for many people, the feeling doesn't follow. Or it arrives briefly and then slips away, leaving something harder to name underneath. Writer and researcher Emily Esfahani Smith spent years exploring why. Drawing on psychology and philosophy alongside interviews with hundreds of people, what she found is that happiness and mea

A parent's hand gently holding a baby's hand, representing what is passed down between generations, both the love and the unspoken weight. Have you ever noticed yourself reacting to something in a way that feels bigger than the moment? Or perhaps you carry an anxiety you can't quite name, one that doesn't seem to belong to any single event in your own life? You might be carrying something that was never originally yours to carry. Generational trauma, sometimes called intergen

red abstract shapes layered over one another, representing the idea of red flags as subjective and open to interpretation rather than fixed. We've all heard about red flags. Dating culture is full of them. A quick scroll through social media will offer you a near-endless checklist: the way someone texts, how quickly they introduce you to their friends, whether they still follow their ex online. Flag this. Avoid that. But here's a question worth sitting with: whose red flags a

A wooden star-shaped puzzle with interlocking pieces, representing the idea of a brain or mind that fits together differently. There's a particular kind of relief that comes from being in a room, or on a call, with someone who doesn't need you to mask. Who isn't quietly waiting for you to communicate in a way that feels easier for them. Who understands, without a lengthy explanation, why certain things feel impossibly hard while others that seem simple to everyone else come n

diverse group of people holding hands If you've ever sat in a therapist's room and felt like you had to explain yourself before you could even begin — justify who you are, translate your experience, soften the edges of your identity to make it easier for someone else to hold — you'll know how exhausting that is. And how much it gets in the way of the actual work. Inclusive counselling starts from a different place. It begins with the assumption that you are the expert on your

Loneliness Isn’t About Being Alone — It’s About Feeling Unseen Many people I work with describe feeling disconnected even when their lives are full of people. You can attend social events, work in a busy environment, live with family or a partner — and still feel utterly alone. This isn’t a personal failing. Loneliness is a growing public health concern across the UK, affecting people of all ages, identities and backgrounds. Why Is Loneliness Increasing? There are many reason