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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

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

  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

Problem [*1]:  I am a 40-year-old man who has always suffered with incredible shyness and insecurity around women. My shyness is better now; I can talk to women, and have female friends, but I have never really had a proper relationship. The few times I have had sex with women... Read More

emotional intelligence at work uses a model that postulates that relationships go through five stages * (see also About this model below). 1  Honeymoon stage The first of these is the honeymoon stage.  We are all familiar with that sudden overwhelming feeling of “true love”—more... Read More

This question was posted on the Guardian‘s Dear Jeremy (no relation) webpage [*1] I’m going for job after job but feel more and more that I am only being asked to attend interviews to make up the numbers as every time the job appears to go to internal staff. For example,... Read More

Four very common misconceptions: 1   The purpose of the application is to get the job. No, the purpose of the application is to get an interview. This is not the same thing and, unless the jobs you seek are offered without interview, you have to get through the interview before... Read More

BBC Radio 4 has a number of issues.  One of them is that it seems it cannot see that it has these issues.  And, while Feedback (Radio 4) is to be praised for getting BBC producers and managers to come onto the programme and defend their work (something which I suspect many of... Read More