My blogs

1. What Psychodynamic Therapy Offers When Life Feels Stuck

Most people seek therapy at a moment of pressure: something no longer feels tolerable, relationships become strained, or a sense of heaviness settles in without a clear cause. What surprises many is not that therapy helps — but how it helps.

Psychodynamic therapy goes beyond coping skills or symptom reduction. It offers a space where deeper emotional patterns, often formed long ago, can be understood and changed.

Understanding the Past in the Present

We don't arrive at adulthood as blank slates. Our earliest relationships shape how we think, feel and react. A parent's unpredictability might become an adult's self-doubt. A childhood spent being "the strong one" may leave someone unable to ask for help.

Psychodynamic work allows us to trace these emotional threads:

  • What am I repeating?

  • What am I defending against?

  • What am I longing for but unable to name?

Once these underlying patterns become visible, something shifts. Life begins to feel less like a set of reactions and more like a set of choices.

The Therapeutic Relationship as a Mirror

A significant part of this work happens in the relationship with the therapist. Old beliefs — "I'm too much," "I'm not worth listening to," "If I show emotion, I'll lose control" — appear naturally in the space between two people.

This isn't a problem. It's the work.

Noticing these patterns gently and without judgement creates the possibility of change.

Depth, Honesty and Relief

Psychodynamic therapy isn't dramatic. It's steady, reflective and quietly transformative. Over time, people describe:

  • A lifting of long-held shame

  • Feeling more grounded

  • Being more able to stay with difficult emotions

  • A clearer sense of identity and direction

When life feels stuck, the most powerful change often begins with understanding.

If you'd like a reflective space to explore your emotional world, you're welcome to get in touch.

2. Why Doctors Need Reflective Spaces Now More Than Ever

The emotional demands of clinical work have never been higher. Yet the opportunities for clinicians to think psychologically about their work have never been fewer.

Reflective spaces are not a luxury for doctors; they are a form of professional care.

The Hidden Emotional Labour of Medicine

Clinicians absorb anxiety, pain, uncertainty and grief on a daily basis. Some encounters linger:

  • The patient who reminds you of someone you love

  • The impossible decision

  • The moment of helplessness you had to hide

Without space to process this emotional residue, clinicians begin to detach, defend, or burn out.

Why Reflective Practice Matters

Reflective spaces allow clinicians to:

  • Slow down the emotional pace

  • Make sense of troubling encounters

  • Understand reactions that feel out of character

  • Reconnect with purpose and meaning

These conversations reduce isolation and strengthen professional identity.

Psychological Safety in Clinical Teams

Teams that think together function better. They communicate more openly, tolerate uncertainty more effectively, and recover faster from difficult cases.

Reflection improves patient care — and clinician wellbeing.

I facilitate reflective groups and supervision for clinicians internationally. If you'd like to join a group, feel free to contact me.

3. Mentoring vs Supervision: Which One Helps You Grow?

Supervision and mentoring are often used interchangeably, yet they serve very different psychological functions.

Both are essential. Both deepen professional identity. But each supports a different part of the clinician's development.

Supervision: Understanding the Work

Supervision is primarily concerned with clinical material:

  • What is happening in the therapy or clinical relationship?

  • What do the emotional dynamics mean?

  • How do we understand transference and countertransference?

  • Where might we be pulled into reenactments?

Supervision strengthens clinical thinking, ethical practice and emotional resilience.

Mentoring: Understanding the Self

Mentoring works on a different plane:

  • Who am I becoming in my profession?

  • What do I want my career to stand for?

  • What am I avoiding?

  • Where am I holding myself back?

Mentoring supports confidence, leadership identity and professional authenticity.

Why Many Professionals Need Both

Together, mentoring and supervision create a deep and sustaining growth curve, allowing clinicians to understand their work and themselves more fully.

If you'd like to explore either mentoring or supervision, I'm happy to discuss what might suit your needs.

4. The Emotional Burden of Healthcare Work

Healthcare professionals carry emotionally charged stories, often quietly and alone.

What Clinicians Carry

You may recognise some of the burdens:

  • A case that won't leave your mind

  • Guilt about not doing enough

  • Frustration with organisational pressures

  • A sense of emotional exhaustion

  • The pain of patient suffering

  • The weight of always needing to be competent

This is not failure.
This is the emotional cost of care.

How Emotional Weight Accumulates

When unprocessed, this burden can lead to:

  • Disconnection

  • Irritability

  • Reduced empathy

  • Fatigue

  • Burnout

  • A sense of losing oneself

What clinicians need is not resilience training alone — but reflective processing.

Making Space to Think

Reflective practice allows clinicians to set the emotional weight down, think about it with another mind, and begin to feel lighter.

I offer individual and group reflective work internationally. Get in touch if this resonates.

5. Understanding Transference: A Gentle Guide for Clients

Transference is a central part of psychodynamic therapy, yet it can feel mysterious or even unsettling when first encountered.

What Is Transference?

Transference is when feelings from earlier relationships are unconsciously transferred onto the therapist.

Common examples:

  • Feeling judged when the therapist hasn't judged you

  • Worrying the therapist will leave

  • Feeling angry, disappointed, or overly attached

These emotions are not mistakes. They are expressions of your emotional history.

Why It Matters

Transference reveals:

  • Unconscious fears

  • Old relational patterns

  • Ways you protect yourself

  • Longings that were never met

When explored gently, these reactions become a powerful tool for change.

Transference Is Not Your Fault

It isn't something you "do wrong."
It's a natural part of being human — and a vital part of therapeutic growth.

If you're curious about psychodynamic therapy, I'm happy to answer questions.

6. Intellectual Candour in Medicine

Intellectual candour — the willingness to think honestly, tolerate uncertainty and face difficult truths — is essential in clinical work.

Why It's Psychologically Demanding

Candour requires:

  • Curiosity over defensiveness

  • Reflection over reaction

  • A willingness to notice when we are avoiding something

  • Awareness of our emotional limitations

This is not simple. It is psychological labour.

Candour in Groups and Supervision

In the right environment, candour becomes:

  • Liberating

  • Connecting

  • Transformational

People speak more honestly, think more clearly, and relate with more authenticity.

Protecting Candour

Candour is only possible in spaces where people feel respected and safe.

This is central to my work in supervision and group reflective practice.

7. Group Therapy for Professionals: Why It Works

Professionals often struggle alone with pressures they believe they "should" manage internally. Group therapy offers a different path.

Why Groups Are Powerful

In groups, people discover:

  • "I'm not the only one who feels this."

  • "My reactions make sense."

  • "I can learn from others' emotional worlds."

  • "I don't have to hold everything privately."

This reduces shame and isolation.

Group Analytic Principles

Group therapy works because groups:

  • Mirror families and early relationships

  • Reveal patterns quickly

  • Invite authentic conversation

  • Offer multiple perspectives

  • Create lasting emotional learning

Professionals often find groups unexpectedly relieving.

I run group spaces for clinicians worldwide if you'd like to explore joining.

8. Identity and Professional Life: Why We Lose Ourselves

Many people build careers around expectations — family, culture, training, institutions. Somewhere along the way, identity becomes blurred.

Signs You're Losing Yourself

  • Feeling disconnected from the person you used to be

  • Acting competently but feeling hollow

  • Struggling to say what you want

  • Becoming defined by the demands of others

  • Feeling guilty for wanting something different

These are not flaws. They are signals.

How Therapy Helps Rebuild Identity

Through reflection, people can:

  • Understand which parts of themselves were suppressed

  • Challenge internalised expectations

  • Reconnect with their own voice

  • Develop a more authentic professional identity

Identity is not fixed.
It can be reclaimed.

If you're at a crossroads, therapy or mentoring can offer clarity.