Emotional-based school avoidance is on the increase. The latest Government statistics show that the percentage of ‘persistent absentees’ (missing 50% of schooling) has increased every year from 2015/2016 to 2020/2021. In primary schools, there was a 0.4% increase to...
We all have mental health: feeling a range of emotions from joy, relief, pride to fear, disappointment to anger. Sometimes, our mental health consumes us: paralysing anxiety or even clinical depression. It is very easy to feel alone; nobody has ever felt the way we...
Beating the Stigma World Mental Health Day has been running for thirty years, beginning in 1992 by The World Federation for Mental Health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been an active supporter and campaigner. This year’s focus on 10th October was: ‘make...
Definitions of trauma Within the therapeutic professional community, our understanding of trauma has progressed dramatically in the last 20 years. The likes of Gabor Mate, Dan Siegal and Bessel van der Kolk have deeply enriched our understanding of how trauma...
Book recommendation: “Humankind: A Hopeful History” by Rutger Bregman Elective pessimism It is easy to be pessimistic about humanity in a world of fake news, social media trolling, climate change, the war in Ukraine and floods in Pakistan. We seem to gravitate to bad...
Book recommendation: “Can I tell you about Sensory Processing Difficulties?” by Sue Allen This illustrated book is part of the educational,”can i tell you about,” series, aimed at children, parents and teachers. The author, Sue Allen is an experienced clinician,...