1 Survivors of 9/11, who had fled the second tower after a plane hit the first one, reported that colleagues stayed at their desks, and even went into meetings, rather than accept that the current situation necessitated a change in behaviour. The psychotherapist Stephen Grosz has... Read More

This question was posed in a below the line thread in the Guardian.  My reply: Because: (1) MPs wrongly, and without permission from the electorate, abrogated their responsibility to be the representatives of their constituents by voting to have a referendum. (2) The wrong... Read More

Book review:  Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, HarperCollins (2017) Warning:  contains multiple plot spoilers from the start 1 This is a popular book.  It has won prizes.  The lustrous Jane Garvey, no less, praised it on Woman’s hour.  For the first two... Read More

A below the line contributor to the Guardian website asserted that, ‘Therapy should be as easily available and prescribable as medication is at the moment’.  I replied: Fine words, but your response ignores the reality: 1   There are simply not enough trained... Read More

This is the essay I was required to write at the end of the first term of a psychodynamic counselling skills course Describe your understanding of the counselling relationship. What helps it to develop and what might hinder its development? 1 Counselling.  Well, there’s a... Read More

Olga Tokarczuk, Flights (2007), translated Jennifer Croft, Fitzcarraldo editions (2017) 1 Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a ‘novel’, about ‘travel in the twenty-first century and human anatomy’. Not an easy one and I think Olga Tokarczuk copped out... Read More

Most businesses have concepts of ‘volume of sales’ (number of sales transactions in a given period) and of the (average) ‘value of a sale’. Looking across the broad sweep of businesses in any area (whether geographical area or business sector), clearly there will be businesses... Read More

  1 Tolstoy observes at the start of Anna Karenina, Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. *1 Equally, if happiness at work is a doddle;  unhappiness is much more complicated, runs much deeper and is more likely not actually to be... Read More

1  Prison population Combined, England and Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe, according to the Council of Europe’s annual penal statistics [*1]. The prison population in England and Wales has stabilised at nearly 86,000 in recent years but the... Read More

Homeopathy has raised its head in my local rag, Stroud news and journal. Let’s get the facts right. 1 Christian Hahnemann invented homeopathy in 1796.  He had been trained as a doctor, but not as a scientist [*1]. 2 In the 221 years since, not one single scientific study has been... Read More