Why Exercise is a Vital Ingredient of Good Mental Health

Image by Anupam Mahapatra

What are you doing, right now? I am fairly confident that you are sitting – and that you spend most of your day in that position, either at your desk, on the sofa, in a car or public transport, while eating your meals... I’m confident about that because in largely urban, hi-tech, 21st-century societies, it’s what most of us do, most of the time.

It’s what I am doing, as I write this. I will be sitting for the next four hours, as I work with people on Zoom or in my office. It’s also what I will do when I get home – in fact, I spend far too much time in a position that is completely unnatural for my body, which is a big reason for my ongoing musculoskeletal issues.

My body is not designed for this sedentary lifestyle. It’s designed for action, then complete rest, then more action, then more rest. Yours too. This was brought home to me as I watched the excellent new Netflix series, Chimp Empire. One thing that struck me as I watched the fascinating stories of everyday chimp life in the jungles of Uganda, was that they never really sat down, in the way we do – these chimps squatted or lolled about on their backs. And that’s what they do, most of the time.

When they are not resting they move, sometimes slowly but often explosively: running, fighting, climbing, competing for status. Chimps are either on – when they are completely on, powerful bodies springing into action – or off, when they are 100% off. Relaxed, sleepy, still, at peace.

Why sitting is bad for body and brain

Of course, chimps are our closest animal relative. We share a common ancestor, which lived about five to eight million years ago. From that ancestor one branch evolved into gorillas and chimps, the other into early hominids, from whom our species, homo sapiens, developed.

But our human ancestors lived much as chimps do – in small, tight-knit groups in jungles or on the savannah. And, like chimps, they were remarkably strong and athletic. In his seminal book, Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari points out that hunter-gatherers were as fit, strong and powerful as Olympic athletes.

They had to be, because they would spend days at a time tracking animals, running ultra-marathons each day as they followed their prey over vast distances. And when they got back to the cave, or stockade, with an antelope slung over their shoulder, they would rest – completely rest. Again, modern humans (including this one) do far too little of this – we are always on, over-caffeinated brains focusing obsessively on one screen after the next, hunting not for antelopes but information.

We know all this unnatural behaviour is not good for our bodies – it’s one reason for the recent explosion of diabetes and obesity in industrialised nations. But it’s also bad for your brain. That’s because every part of your body, from your brain, nervous and hormonal systems, to your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, your blood, organs and skin, is designed for one thing: to move.

Take stress as one example. If your stress response fires up – just as it did for our hunter-gatherer ancestors on a regular basis – everything in you gets ready for action. Your pupils dilate to focus on the threat, breathing gets fast and shallow to take in more oxygen, heart rate speeds up so blood can be pumped to the large muscles in your arms and legs, hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood your body to give you strength, speed and stamina.

But we get stressed and we… sit. Everything in you says run, or fight, but you sit, which is not good for your body or brain. And that stress – designed to be a short-term, emergency response to life-or-death threats – becomes a chronic, low-level malaise that lasts for hours, or days, or even years. Not good.

The solution?

Happily, the solution for this complex set of problems is simple – just move. Walk, run, swim, cycle, ride a scooter, dance, garden, play sports, lift weights, do yoga, play with your kids, build things… Just move, however you are able and whatever you enjoy.

If you follow me on Instagram, you will often see photos of me in the gym, which is my favourite kind of moving. I love walking, too, which is slower and more mindful, but equally enjoyable. Many friends and colleagues have caught the cold-water swimming bug, which I completely respect but have so far resisted. Maybe one day…

Just find something you like and do that, preferably every day. You will feel fitter, stronger and more energised. Every aspect of your exquisitely complex mind-body system will work better. After you exercise you always feel good – about yourself too, with a sense of pride and accomplishment that’s hard to find from staring at a screen.

I have given you enough science for one post, but trust me that there is a vast research literature on the beneficial impact of exercise on chronic stress, anxiety, depression and any other psychological problem you may be struggling with.

I hope that helps – sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Are Magic Mushrooms a Magic Cure for Depression?

Image by Tania Malréchauffé

Depression is incredibly common – the World Health Organization estimates that around 280 million people suffer from it globally. In the UK, Mind says three in 100 people have depression in any given week, with eight in 100 suffering from mixed anxiety and depression (the most common form of mental-health problem in my country).

But, although we now have a range of effective treatments, many people experience repeated episodes throughout their lifetime. Why? I would argue that the reason depression often comes back is because of its most common cause. One study found that 75 per cent of the chronically depressed patients involved reported histories of childhood trauma.

As I often explain in these posts and my teaching, childhood trauma is incredibly widespread and, very sadly, makes us vulnerable to a wide range of physical and mental-health problems as adults, including repeated episodes of depression.

As someone who has a lived experience of depression and is passionate about helping people recover from it, I am always seeking the newest and most effective treatments available. That’s why I have trained in CBT, schema therapy, internal family systems and other evidence-based, trauma-informed models. I want as many tools at my disposal as possible, so I can best help the people who come to see me, often in great distress.

The psychedelic revolution

All of this explains my fascination with the recent research into psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. In fact, calling it recent is not entirely accurate. In the 1950s and 60s there was a vast amount of research done on the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs like LSD and mescaline for problems including alcoholism, before the US Government made this and other drugs illegal (it was President Nixon who, among his more famous errors of judgement, first launched the ill-informed and disastrous ‘war on drugs’).

Happily, this research began again in the 1990s and is now carried out at prestigious universities around the world. Australia recently became the first country to decriminalise MDMA and magic mushrooms for medicinal use – and an increasing number of US states, such as Oregon, have followed a similar path.

Why the renewed interest? Let’s take just one study as an example. In 2016, researchers from Imperial College London gave 12 people psilocybin, the active component in magic mushrooms. The people who took part had been depressed, on average, for 17.8 years. None of them had responded to standard antidepressant medication.

One week after taking the mushrooms, all patients experienced a marked improvement in their symptoms. Three months on, five patients were in complete remission. This is a truly remarkable result. These people, who had been suffering for well over a decade and had tried various medications, took a single dose of magic mushrooms and all of them felt better a week later – with almost half having no symptoms of depression three months after that.

Watch for yourself on Netflix

If you would like to know more, do watch Michael Pollan’s brilliant documentary series, How to Change Your Mind, on Netflix. Each episode explores a different drug – LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline – that is currently providing highly promising results for depression, as well as chronic anxiety, OCD, PTSD, addiction and more.

It’s important to be clear that I am not suggesting you just go and have a trip on LSD or magic mushrooms! That is definitely not a good idea – and could, potentially, make you feel a great deal worse.

We are talking about highly controlled medicinal use, where the drug is taken as part of a course of therapy, led by skilled mental-health professionals (when you take the drug skilled therapists stay with you throughout, guiding you through the experience and making sure you are OK). In this setting, though, the healing potential of these drugs is huge.

It’s not inconceivable that, in future, this may form part of every psychotherapy treatment. Some of my clients have already tried psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and all had powerful and positive experiences. I intend to both try and train in it myself, at some point.

I hope you found that interesting, helpful and especially hopeful – because hope is a crucial element of recovering from depression.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Listen to My Latest Guided Meditation: Working with Your Inner Critic

Image by Math

If you struggle with low self-esteem, anxiety or depression I’m guessing you are highly self-critical. That’s because I see this in my consulting room on a daily basis – and decades of research have proven harsh, negative self-criticism to cause a wide range of psychological problems.

Luckily, trauma-informed therapy models like schema therapy and internal family systems therapy give you a powerful, highly effective way of managing the Inner Critic. This is the part of you that sends you those harsh, hurtful messages – and learning to quieten and transform this part is a key part of any therapy process.

My latest guided meditation for Insight Timer – Working with Your Inner Critic – will help you first get to know this part, then begin a dialogue with it. Learning to identify and speak to your Inner Critic is a crucial step in your healing journey, whatever you may be struggling with.

Like all of my Insight Timer recordings, Working with Your Inner Critic is free, with an optional donation. You can listen to this practice now using the button below:

I hope you find it helpful – you may also want to watch my recent webinar, How to Manage Your Inner Critic. Get exclusive lifetime access for just £10. If you would like to watch this powerful, 90-minute webinar, just click on the button below:

I hope you find this meditation and webinar useful as part of your healing journey.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

What is Self-Energy in Internal Family Systems Therapy?

Image by Sandalp Suradkar

One of the core ideas in internal family systems therapy is that we all have a Self – an inner resource of warmth, love and compassion that offers a powerful, healing energy if we can learn to access it. Dick Schwartz, the Founder of IFS, says the Self offers eight nourishing qualities (that all happen to begin with C):

• Compassion

• Courage

• Connectedness

• Curiosity

• Clarity

• Confidence

• Creativity

• Calm

We can all learn to access these qualities and tap into ‘Self-energy’ – which can be compared to the warm, life-giving energy of the sun. Doing so is a key component of IFS therapy and will help you heal from trauma, anxiety, stress, depression, addiction and any other problems you may be struggling with right now.

My latest guided meditation for Insight Timer, Accessing Healing Self-Energy, will give you a taste of this wonderful inner resource – you can listen right now, for free, by clicking on the button below.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Giving Thanks for Our Wonderful National Health Service

Image by Ani Kolleshi

I had to go to hospital today. Nothing serious – just a routine scan for an ongoing health problem. It was not very pleasant, but mercifully short and the results were good.

But this is not a story about my health. It’s a story about my health service – and yours, if you live in the UK. I’m talking about the National Health Service (NHS), founded in 1948 by Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan and his Labour Government, providing healthcare that was ‘free for all at the point of delivery’.

What a remarkable statement that is – free, high-quality healthcare, available to anyone who needs it. For my many readers in the US, you know only too well how crippling health problems can be if your healthcare is largely delivered by private, profit-making companies. Serious illness in the US and elsewhere can be financially catastrophic for those affected and their families.

Not here. Despite successive governments trying to destroy the NHS and sell it off to private healthcare companies (many of our Government Ministers are on the boards of these companies, while they are also major donors to the Conservative Party), it still provides a wonderful service. Years of underfunding, doctors, nurses and other frontline staff being woefully underpaid, chronic staff shortages, crumbling hospitals… Despite all of this, every single person who looked after me today was patient, kind and compassionate.

The procedure I endured this morning is called a gastroscopy – if you have been lucky enough not to need one, it’s hard to overestimate how unpleasant it is. They essentially stick a thick tube down your throat, inflate your stomach with air and do other less-than-fun things, to check that all is well in your digestive system.

As I lay there, in considerable discomfort, the all-female team constantly checked on me, reassured me, stroked my back through the worst moments. They were just so kind. And I am so grateful – thank you, thank you to those four lovely women, for taking such good care of me.

Not taking goodness for granted

As I left Whittington Hospital, mighty relieved that it was all over, at the entrance was a group of junior doctors, who are currently on strike. Why? Because their pay is insultingly low; they are burnt out and exhausted after two brutal years of Covid; morale in the health service is at an all-time low; and, adding insult to injury, the right-wing press and politicians demonise GPs and other doctors, blaming them for entirely political failings.

And they have had enough, as have I. Our doctors, nurses, paramedics, porters, physiotherapists, psychologists, cleaners, receptionists and all the other remarkable men and women who make up the NHS are heroes. They kept us all safe and well through the worst public-health crisis in living memory. Many of them gave their lives to protect ours.

They deserve our love and gratitude, not terrible pay and working conditions, or to be vilified in the media.

So thank you to everyone at the Whittington Hospital, who treated me with such kindness – and have done throughout my life. Thank you for keeping me and my family safe. Thank you for your dedication, your hard work, your selflessness.

Know that you are loved and appreciated – and that we never take your goodness for granted.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why Self-Compassion is Your Mental-Health Superpower

Image by Autumn Goodman

If you are struggling with your mental health, come along to this 90-minute Zoom webinar with Dan Roberts, Psychotherapist and Founder of Heal Your Trauma. The Healing Power of Self-Compassion takes place from 3-4.30pm on Saturday 27th May 2023 and is the latest in a series of Heal Your Trauma webinars and workshops throughout 2023.

This event offers half-price Reduced-Fee Tickets (£10), for those who need them, or please choose the Supporter Ticket option (£20) when booking if you are able to support the Heal Your Trauma project. Your support enables us to help as many people as possible with their mental health.

All of our webinars are recorded, so if you sign up you will also get exclusive free access to a recording of the event.

The Healing Power of Self-Compassion features 90 minutes of teaching, powerful exercises that will help you feel calmer and more relaxed, and a 15-minute Q&A with Dan Roberts, an expert on self-compassion, mental health and wellbeing.

In this powerful, highly experiential webinar you will learn:

• The difference between empathy and compassion – and why one leads to burnout, while the other protects us from it

• The key role that self-compassion plays in healing from any psychological problem, but especially trauma

• Why, sadly, having a trauma history makes self-compassion difficult – but also why these obstacles can be overcome

• Key experiential exercises – such as breathing, guided meditations, journaling and imagery – you will learn to help you develop your self-compassion skills

• How self-compassion is crucial to help you deal with stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, being overly self-critical, eating disorders, substance abuse and most other psychological problems

• And, during a 15-minute Q&A, attendees put their questions to Dan Roberts, Founder of Heal Your Trauma and an expert on trauma healing and developing self-compassion

Don’t miss this chance to learn from a leading trauma therapist and expert on mental health. Book your place now using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Missed One of My Webinars? Don’t Worry, You Can Watch the Recording Now

If you missed one of my recent webinars, don’t worry – you can now purchase access to all of my Heal Your Trauma webinars for just £10, to download or stream whenever you like.

These 90-minute webinars include teaching, powerful exercises like guided imagery and breathing techniques, as well as a Q&A with me, where attendees ask me questions about mental health and wellbeing.

We receive incredibly positive feedback for all our Heal Your Trauma events – you can read what participants have to say about my teaching here.

Take your pick of our highly popular recent webinars, including:

• How to Manage Your Inner Critic

• Trauma Healing with Internal Family Systems

• Overcoming Depression: How to Lift Your Mood and Feel Calmer, Happier & More Hopeful

• Not Just Mindfulness, But Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness

• The Healing Power of Self-Compassion

Don’t miss out – gain exclusive access to this powerful teaching by clicking the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Book Your Place on Our Overcoming Addiction Workshop in London this April

If you struggle with addiction or compulsive behaviours, book your place on a one-day, in-person workshop co-presented by Dan Roberts, Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor and Founder of Heal Your Trauma and Claire van den Bosch, Psychotherapist, addiction expert and Clinical Director of Heal Your Trauma. Overcoming Addiction: Heal Your Pain and Escape the Addictive Cycle is the latest in a series of monthly Heal Your Trauma webinars and workshops. 

This event, which will be both highly informative and experiential, will take place from 10.30am-4.30pm on Saturday 29th April 2023. It will be held at The Gestalt Centre, near King’s Cross in Central London. The Gestalt Centre is easily reached by bus, Tube or mainline rail, being a 10-minute walk from King’s Cross Station.

This event has a limited number of free places available if you need them – or please choose the Reduced-Fee Ticket or Supporter Ticket options when booking if you are able to support the Heal Your Trauma project. Every penny we receive, after covering expenses, is invested in the project so we can help as many people as possible with their mental health.

Overcoming Addiction: Heal Your Pain and Escape the Addictive Cycle features teaching from us, combined with powerful individual and group exercises, to help you feel more centred and able to support the parts of you that have learned to find solutions with addictive or compulsive behaviours. You will also have the chance, throughout the day, to put your questions to Dan Roberts and Claire van den Bosch, leading experts on trauma, mental health and addiction.

In this powerful, highly experiential workshop you will learn:

• Why trauma is often a crucial factor in addiction, as people with a trauma history often have a ‘dysregulated’ nervous system, which makes you more reactive/impulsive and so more likely to use substances/behaviours to numb painful emotions, as well as to experience the stimulation of feeling alive 

• The key role of core developmental needs in addiction and how – when these needs are not met, for any reason - you are more vulnerable to addiction in later life

• How these unmet developmental needs create painful ‘schemas’, which play a key role in the addictive cycle

• How, through the eyes of Internal Family Systems, trauma and unmet developmental needs prompt lonely, young un-resourced parts of us to learn how to soothe distress in the only ways available at the time

• How in turn other lonely, young un-resourced parts of us try to mitigate the negative consequences of addictive behaviours and how this internal battle ends up feeling stuck and looping

• The powerful insights about addictive cycles offered by the Internal Family Systems model, which teaches us that when wounded young parts are triggered, protective parts rush in to try to numb the pain as quickly as possible, using various substances or behaviours

• The wide range of substances and behaviours we can class as addictive/compulsive, including alcohol, prescription/recreational drugs, junk foods, sex and pornography, excessive phone/social media use, gambling, shopping, working, thinking, smoking and many more – and how common and human it is to have these patterns

• How some, if not all addictions need to also be understood from the perspective of hijacked brain chemistry and behavioural conditioning in ways that leave even the most determined of us experiencing powerlessness

• The central and painful role of shame in the addictive cycle and how compassion is both possible and essential for recovery

• How to use a selection of experiential exercises – such as Compassionate Breathing, and 4-7-8 Breathing, inner dialogue, guided meditations and imagery, trigger diaries and more – to help you feel calmer/regulate your nervous system, making you more able to respond wisely to cravings and find new, more effective and healthier ways to calm yourself when stressed, anxious, upset or generally triggered

Don’t miss this chance to learn from two leading trauma therapists and experts on mental health, wellbeing and addiction – book your place now using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Don't Miss My Overcoming Depression Workshop: 1st April in North London

What Are Core Needs in Schema Therapy – and Why Are They So Important?

Image by Tani Eisenstein

What do you think you needed as a child? Things like food, water, air, of course. A warm, dry house to live in. Clean clothes, the chance to go to school. Good friends to play with, caring teachers to learn from, perhaps a pet. But what else? What were the key developmental ingredients that meant you would thrive as an infant, child, adolescent and then adult?

Well, schema therapy sees these core developmental needs as fundamentally important. Schema therapists like me spend a great deal of time educating our clients about them and finding out which needs were met and which unmet when they were young. The primary focus of schema therapy – and one of the key healing ingredients in this or any other type of therapy – is helping people get those needs met as adults.

We believe there are five core needs, that every child has in any culture and any period of history – we all need the same basic things to flourish as humans:

1. Love and a secure attachment

2. Safety and protection

3. To be valued as a unique human being

4. The ability to play, be spontaneous and express our emotions freely

5. Boundaries and learning right from wrong

In my opinion, the most important of these needs (after safety and protection, of course, without which we would not survive long as vulnerable little people) is the first – love and a secure attachment. But what does that mean, in concrete terms? Let me explain…

Secure vs insecure attachment

What do we mean by secure attachment? Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a photo of exactly what secure attachment looks and feels like. Both grandma and granddaughter have an attachment system in their brain (one of the most powerful systems we have, up there with the threat system in terms of neural dominance), which kicked in the moment that lucky little girl was born.

As a tiny infant she attached, probably first to mum, then dad, then siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, school friends, and so on, encompassing every key relationship throughout her life. And grandma attached to her, from the moment she first held that wonderful little bundle in her arms, sang her songs, whispered loving words, promised to cherish her forever.

I say ‘lucky’ because all of this love, warmth, safety and cherishing would help this girl feel securely attached and so develop a secure attachment style, which would stay fairly constant throughout her life – and help her have a series of close, nourishing relationships as an adult.

When attachment goes wrong

Sadly, most of my clients did not have this experience with their key attachment figures (mum, dad, other close family members). Perhaps mum was cold and unloving, not able to form a close bond with her child. Maybe dad was drinking heavily, so his moods and behaviour were too erratic to feel consistent and safe. Sometimes we are not the favoured or best-loved child, so we feel that keenly throughout our early life, on the outside looking in to the warm, loving relationships we crave.

If any of these experiences sound familiar, you may have an insecure attachment style, which is usually either anxious (being worried about people leaving or rejecting you, so clinging on too tightly in relationships) or avoidant (dreading intimacy, so avoiding commitment or long-term relationships and keeping people at arm’s length). Our attachment styles generally stay consistent throughout life, unless we do something to change them.

How to get your needs met now

As I am always saying in these posts and my webinars and workshops, it is never too much and never too late to heal. And that includes your attachment style, as well as any other needs that were unmet for you as a child. For example, research shows that people with an insecure attachment style become more secure, if they have a long-term, loving relationship with a partner who is securely attached. That’s why finding a caring, supportive partner is one of the most healing things we can do.

I would also suggest finding a skilled, trauma-informed therapist to help identify which needs were not met for you as a child, then help you get them met now. Some of this needs-meeting will be done by the therapist (especially if it’s an attachment-based model, like schema therapy) and some will involve learning new ways of thinking and behaving with other key people in your life – partners, family members, friends, colleagues…

Other models, such as CBT, compassion-focused therapy or internal family systems, place greater emphasis on transforming painful thoughts and feelings, as well as calming your nervous system; or on ‘internal attachment’ – helping you attach to and care for the wounded inner child whose needs did not get met when you were growing up.

The most important takeaway from this post is that you are not ‘needy’ (a word I particularly dislike), however much you might struggle in relationships and your day-to-day life. Having needs is a normal, healthy thing – it’s just problematic if those needs were not met when you were young. But getting them met now is both crucial and entirely doable, with the right help and support.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Booking My Heal Your Trauma Workshops and Webinars

Image by Christin Hume

If you would like to attend one of my Heal Your Trauma workshops or webinars, I have responded to your feedback by streamlining the booking system. Instead of booking through EventBrite, you can now just book through my website.

You can book your place with a credit or debit card, or using PayPal, and the booking process is both simple and 100% secure.

If you would like to book for any Heal Your Trauma event in 2023, just click on the button below.

Prices remain the same – £10/£20 for webinars and £49/£99 for workshops (Reduced-Fee Ticket/Supporter Fee ticket). All of our webinars are recorded, so if you sign up you will also get exclusive free access to a recording of the event.

If you have any questions about booking, please email the Heal Your Trauma team at info@danroberts.com

Thank you so much for supporting the Heal Your Trauma project and I hope to see you at one of my events very soon!

Warm wishes,

Dan

Seek Out Moments of Beauty in Your Day

Image by Arno Smit

It may be freezing cold in London today, but spring is finally here. I know this, despite still wearing my winter-coat-hat-scarf-gloves combo, because of the blossom. Every afternoon, when I have a break between sessions, I take a long walk around my neighbourhood – and today everywhere I looked, glorious, vibrant, soul-nourishing blossom was popping and fizzing into life.

This is my favourite time of year because after a long, cold, gloomy winter, spring brings a surge of life, hope and positivity. ‘We made it,’ I always think to myself. Another tough winter navigated, as well as possible, and now the reward is all this colour and life. Plants, birds, insects, squirrels – everything roaring back into life after winter’s semi-hibernation.

When it’s hard to see in colour

And the best time to find ways of draining every drop of joy from all this life is actually when it’s hardest – when you are struggling with low mood or even a full-blown depression. Because when you’re low, it can be hard even to see the colours around you, let alone enjoy them. So you have to train yourself, bit by bit, to seek out and savour moments of beauty in your day.

Of course, another word to describe this would be mindfulness – and ‘experiencing your experience’, as Buddhist teachers say, rather than living entirely in your head, is a key element of mindfulness practice and courses like MBSR or MBCT.

Here are some of these moments, from an average Wednesday in my little north London suburb:

• I just watched a video, on social media, about a boy who has suffered far too much for such a small person. When he was rushed into hospital with sepsis and pneumonia, they discovered a brain tumour, which they removed through surgery and radiotherapy. As he was getting treatment, his father died suddenly (I am not ashamed to say that my eyes were welling up at this point)

  But this kid – a passionate, lifelong Everton fan – was on a tour of the ground when he ‘accidentally’ bumped into the whole team, including his hero, the Everton/England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. He was overwhelmed with emotion – as was I! But he soon recovered and was kicking a ball about with his heroes. Oh lord, just a beautiful thing – he will remember that day for the rest of his life

• Outside a shop near my office, I saw two small girls hugging tightly on their way home from school, not wanting to say goodbye – despite their parents’ sleeve-tugging encouragement. They just loved each other so much! The next school day was an eternity away, so they kept hugging, pressing their little cheeks together. I shared a smile with one of the parents. And it was quietly lovely

• I moved on to another shop, a little further along the road, where we buy our fruit and veg. It’s called Tony’s Continental and is a family-run place that’s at the heart of our little community – if you are ever in East Finchley I strongly recommend it! I haven’t been there for a while, for various reasons, but when I said hello to one of the owners, he greeted me with such warmth and friendliness

  We talked about football, as men do, but football was just a conduit for conversation and connection. We were saying, ‘It’s great to see you and hang out,’ in that safe, male kind of way that sports-talk provides. So simple. So nice

• And, of course, blossom! So many trees just starting to flower, smatterings of pink and white lining the street. Cherry, plum, blackthorn, forsythia, daffodils bobbing their little yellow heads… These pops of colour and reminders that Nature finds a way, even in the urban environment where I live and work, really make my heart sing

Not easy, but important

I know that if you are feeling down, moments like this may seem elusive – or even impossible to find right now. It’s not easy, I’m painfully aware of that from personal experience. But I also know that making an effort to seek out these moments of colour, of humanity, of beauty in your day is a powerful antidote to depression. 

It reminds us that we are alive. That there is always hope, if we allow it into our minds and hearts. That even if today is rough, tomorrow might be better.

I hope that helps, a little – and if you are struggling, sending you love and warm thoughts, wherever you are in the world,

Dan

When (and Why) Do We Learn to be Self-Critical?

Image by Jerry Wang

How self-critical are you? You might be one of those people who mildly admonish themselves when they make a mistake: ‘Oh Jenny, that was a bit foolish, don’t do that again.’ Or – if you are anything like most of the people I see for therapy – your Inner Critic may be super-harsh: ‘James, you’re an idiot! Why do you make the same stupid, pathetic mistakes over and over? You should be ashamed of yourself, you ******* waste of space.’

As you are reading this, and have signed up to a mental-health newsletter, I’m guessing your Critic is up the harsher end of the scale. If so, I’m sorry – that probably makes your life exceedingly difficult, affecting your confidence and self-esteem on a daily basis. Your Critic might jump on every little thing you say and do, looking for tiny errors to beat you up about. Not much fun, right?

But have you ever thought about why your Critic does this? Or when it learned to be that critical voice in your head? Let’s try and answer those questions – and both the why and when might surprise you.

When does the inner critic come online?

As a schema therapist, I have worked with hundreds of Critics. I have tried using techniques drawn from cognitive-behaviour therapy, compassion-focused therapy, schema therapy and internal family systems therapy – all of my therapeutic big guns. That’s because I see the Critic, internally, as the main driver of most psychological problems, from anxiety-related issues like social anxiety and public-speaking anxiety, to depression, eating disorders, problems with anger, in relationships, with substance abuse and addiction.

You name the problem with your thoughts, emotions, moods, body and behaviour and the Critic is probably involved in some way. As we will see below, I don’t think the Critic means to cause any of these problems – in fact, it’s probably trying to help – but nevertheless, it unwittingly does.

The exact age at which your Critic came online is, of course, hard to pin down. But my hunch is that it was around four or five years old, because that’s the age at which we start to get cognitive. For the first time, we can start to think things like (if you’re the girl in the photo), ‘Why does mummy always like my sister’s paintings more than mine?’ or, ‘Why doesn’t Sally want to be friends any more? Did I do something wrong and now she hates me?’

And we can think these more ‘metacognitive’ thoughts because our prefrontal cortex is really starting to develop at this age. This crucial part of your brain, which is just behind your forehead, takes a long time to develop – it doesn’t fully mature until you are in your early twenties. And when we start thinking about what other people think of us, whether they like us or like someone else more, that maybe they find us annoying or dislikable, our Critic emerges.

This part of you starts monitoring everything you think, say and do, checking for anything that might lead to a bad outcome – someone being angry with or rejecting you, say. And if it notices that, it starts giving you a hard time – to modify your behaviour. Which leads us to the why…

Why does the critic criticise?

It’s hard to believe, I know, but the Critic really does mean well. Even the meanest, harshest, most aggressive Critic is trying to help. How? In my opinion, Critics are always trying to motivate or protect you, or both. The motivation is easier to spot, like when it tells you to get up off your behind and go for a walk, you lazy so and so. Or telling you not to eat that yummy piece of cake, because you’re big enough already. A bit harsh, but clearly pushing you into doing something helpful.

And the protection – which started when you were a small, vulnerable child – is all about stopping you saying or doing something that will lead to you getting hurt. If this is hard to accept about that relentless voice in your head, just notice two things:

1. First, your Critic gets loud when you are vulnerable or threatened in some way. That’s because it’s freaking out – it sees the danger and is trying to warn you, in its somewhat clumsy and ineffective way

2. And second, what are the themes of your critical self-talk? Just notice them and I bet they focus on, for example, the thing you said to that colleague that led to them being cold with you; or the drunken story you told at that party that hurt your partner, so they snapped at you and you felt regretful and ashamed the next morning

Hard as it is to see at first, the intention of your Critic is good – it’s just the method, or behaviour, that needs to change. Understanding this is a crucial first step on turning down the volume on that relentless self-criticism, treating yourself more kindly and with greater respect.

I hope that helps – and if you would like to know more, do come along to my next webinar, How to Manage Your Inner Critic, on Saturday 25th March 2023. Email Anna, our lovely Heal Your Trauma administrator at info@danroberts.com if you want to find out more, or book your place now using the button below. I hope to see you there!

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Come to My Webinar – How to Manage Your Inner Critic – on 25th March

If you want to know how to be less self-critical and treat yourself with more kindness, compassion and respect, then do watch the recording of my How to Manage Your Inner Critic webinar.

This webinar includes a combination of teaching, powerful experiential exercises such as breathing techniques and practices based on Internal Family Systems, which are highly effective at both understanding and managing your inner Critic 🌟

Purchase the recording now for just £10, to download or stream whenever you want:

What is Fierce Self-Compassion?

Image by Zdenek Machacek

If there is one skill I would like you to develop, it’s self-compassion. Learning to treat yourself with greater kindness, respect, care and compassion is crucial, especially if you struggle with mental-health problems. And in some ways, this is just common sense – we all know we should treat ourselves in the way we try to treat others, right?

But the tricky thing for many of us is, how? How do we break the lifelong pattern of being harshly self-critical? How do we realise that we are worthy of kindness, worthy of compassion, worthy of respect? For many of my clients, that is a big step – understanding that they are a likeable, lovable person who deserves good things as much as any other human on this planet.

So a lot of work goes into this, especially in the early stages of therapy – bit by bit, step by incremental step, changing the narrative from ‘I’m a bad person’ to ‘I’m a good person that bad things happened to’ is key, especially in trauma therapy, as so many people believe they are somehow bad, defective or unworthy when they emerge from a tough childhood.

The yin and yang of self-compassion

So, self-compassion is key. And if you start exploring this field, you will quickly come across Kristin Neff, who is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Kristin is the world’s leading academic expert on self-compassion – and has been an evangelist for its power to heal past hurts for many years now.

If you don’t know Kristin, do read her first book: Self-Compassion; Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind. Also check out her Insight Timer collection, which I frequently use myself, as she has a lovely voice and her guided meditations are always excellent.

She has recently been expanding her thinking around self-compassion to include not just treating ourselves with tenderness and kindness, but also to help us be strong and determined, set boundaries, be assertive with challenging people/situations and say No! And for many of us, this stuff can be really hard – so many of my clients have issues with setting boundaries, because they didn’t learn how to do that as children.

If this is a tricky area for you too, do read Kristin’s latest book: Fierce Self-Compassion; How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. She speaks about the ‘yin and yang’ of self-compassion – yin being tender self-compassion, while yang is fierce self-compassion.

What does this mean in practice? Say you have an annoying co-worker, who is always putting you down. Let’s call her Kate. For whatever reason, Kate always seems to belittle or dismiss you in front of your colleagues. She can be quite subtle, but the messages are things like, ‘Well done for writing that report. Although, to be honest, I did most of the work and you got all the credit.’ Or, ‘That’s a nice dress. I couldn’t wear it myself, because I’m too slim, but you’re much bigger so it looks OK on you.’

You get the picture. Passive-aggressiveness, sniping, jokes-that-aren’t-really-jokes. And the effect on you is corrosive – day after day, a drip, drip of unpleasantness that just wears you down.

Momma-grizzly energy

A metaphor I love in this book, and often use with my clients, is that of momma-grizzly energy. You wouldn’t want to mess with a momma grizzly’s cubs, right? That wouldn’t go well. And we all have this energy inside, ready to protect us or our loved ones – it’s just hard to access, especially if you experienced trauma, were hurt or squashed as a kid.

But imagine harnessing that momma-grizzly energy with Kate. You could take her aside one break time and say something like, ‘Kate, I know you think all these jokes and comments you make about me are harmless, or funny, but I find them pretty hurtful and offensive. So from now on, I would like you to speak to me with respect. And if you can’t do that, I will be raising this with our line manager and HR. Thank you.’

Now, I know full well that speaking with this kind of clarity and assertiveness is not easy. But you can definitely become more assertive, more boundaried, more able to stand up for yourself against the Kates of this world. I have learned how to do that myself – and taught hundreds of clients to do it too.

So do read the book and check out those guided meditations. And if you want to learn more about how to treat yourself with greater compassion, come to my webinar on Saturday 27th May, The Healing Power of Self-Compassion.

You can book your place now using the button below – I hope to see you there.

Sending love and warm thoughts,

Dan

What is the Secret to a Happy Life?

Image by Vonecia Carswell

Everybody wants to be happy, right? Me, you, that barista who served you coffee this morning and the homeless guy who looked so sad and lost on your way to work. It’s hard-wired into every human to avoid pain and seek pleasure – especially a consistent, lifelong feeling of happiness.

But the tricky thing is how? How do we learn to be, if not happy, then happier than we are right now? What if we struggle with mental-health problems and happiness seems like a distant mirage that fades every time we think it’s close? And what if we experienced significant trauma in our childhoods and so just leading a ‘normal’, functional life is a day-to-day struggle, let alone some fanciful notion of actually being happy?

I spend virtually every waking moment of my life pondering these questions. All I do is think, read, research, learn and practice with my clients (and myself, my friends and family) how to be happier. How to heal and recover from past traumas and childhood hurts. How to lift the mood of depression or calm the agitation of anxiety.

the search for happiness

One book, in particular, has stood out to me recently as I conduct this search. It’s The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz. Unlike many psychology books I read, it’s extremely well-written and highly readable. And it contains some genuinely transformative pearls of wisdom on what it takes to live a rich, meaningful and happy life.

The authors are the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – a truly remarkable piece of research that has followed 724 men since they were teenagers in 1938. Approximately 60 of these men, now in their 90s, are still left. The Study chose two groups of men, one comprising Harvard students and the other from Boston’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

What’s so remarkable about this study is that it follows these men through their entire lives – from teenage years until, for many of them, those lives come to an end. And the researchers are able to glean a vast treasure trove of information about them, asking at regular intervals about every aspect of their health, day-to-day lives, their marriages, work, kids, views on life, coping strategies when times are hard…

This book is profoundly moving, because we hear the stories of these men, their triumphs and failures, greatest joys and toughest moments in their lives. We also hear from some of the 1,300 children of the original participants, who were later added to the project. It’s a brilliant book – I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And remember this is a study on what makes us happy. What constitutes a good life. Not just the things that make us sad, stressed or afraid.

So what does make us happy?

Having tracked all of these people, for so many years, the researchers found a few key ingredients that seemed to add up to a well-lived life, whatever their class, income level or occupation. Trying not to have any regrets was one ingredient, as was developing successful coping skills for the bumpy bits of life.

But the most important ingredient seems to be about other people – developing and maintaining warm relationships was the most important factor determining which of these Bostonians were happy and which less so. In some ways, this is common sense. We know that, for example, being in a warm, loving, mutually supportive romantic relationship makes us happy. And we know that having close friends makes us feel good in all sorts of ways.

But studies like these, as well as decades of research into attachment, give us cast-iron, empirical proof that loneliness is a real problem for our mental and physical health; that the kind of relationship we have with our parents hugely influences the relationships we forge as an adult; and that having close, positive relationships with friends, family, colleagues and others is the key to a happy life.

What if your relationships are not good?

We have to be careful with studies like these, because it’s easy to think, ‘Well, my relationships are awful. I maintain distance with my family, am single and struggle to make friendships, so am I doomed to unhappiness?’ And my answer would be no, not at all.

Many of us – myself included – have difficult relationships with family members. You may also find friendships difficult, perhaps only having one or two good friends, or finding social situations hard to navigate. You may not have a partner, which is a source of ongoing sadness for you.

If so, please don’t despair. We live in the 21st century and there are many ways of living a good life that don’t involve marriage or children, let alone a wide network of friends.

But it’s helpful to remember that humans are social, tribal animals. Our brains are wired (indeed, primarily developed) for attachment, connection, relationship.

So if your relationships currently make you unhappy, please do get some good-quality therapy to help you cut loose those people who make you feel bad and find new people who light you up, or make you feel safe, or who just get you and accept you for who you are.

We can all do that, at any age and life stage. As I’m always saying in these posts, It’s never too much and never too late to heal. That applies to relationships too.

So please read the book, I’m confident you will enjoy it. And I wish you strength, courage and determination on your road to happiness, however long it may be.

Sending love and warm thoughts,

Dan

This Valentine's Day, Why Not Learn to Love Yourself

Image by Amy Shamblen

Full disclosure: I’m not the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day. It seems like one of those made-up holidays with the sole intention of extracting every pound from people’s pockets. Flowers are suddenly eye-wateringly expensive, as are restaurants. The pressure is on to buy cards, chocolates and other assorted stuff to show – for one day only! – that you really, really love that special person in your life.

But what if you don’t have a special person? I have been there – and know that this can feel like an especially lonely day if you’re single and don’t want to be. Being bombarded with reminders of what you so badly want but don’t have can be incredibly painful.

So this year, why don’t we create an alternative Valentine’s Day – let’s call it Love Day – and celebrate every form of love, not just the romantic kind. If you are a parent, how about the love you feel for your children, which is unconditional, wonderful, exhausting, miraculous and utterly frazzling, all wrapped up into one small-human-sized package.

If you are a son or daughter, let’s celebrate the love of our parents – however tricky or complicated that may be, these people still gave you life, which is no small thing.

If relations with your family are not good, how about the love of your friends, colleagues, or pet, which can be profound and deeply important for so many cat and dog-lovers (as well as those lucky cats and dogs!).

Learn to love yourself

But most important of all on this Love Day is learning to love the one person who needs it most, but who you may struggle to like, let alone love. And that’s you. Yes, you – the one reading this post. The person you see in the mirror every time you look. The body you inhabit from the second you are born until your last day on Earth, however much you may like or loathe it. The name you own, history that is uniquely yours, future that only you can create.

One thing I notice at the beginning of therapy is that so many of my clients really don’t like themselves much. Their inner Critic is so loud, relentlessly telling them all the ways they have screwed up and are a screw-up. This hypervigilant part of them is laser-focused on every tiny flaw, the smallest mistake, each word/thought/action, constantly scanning for something to jump on and rip the person to shreds.

As we will see in my next webinar – How to Manage Your Inner Critic – this part of you is not actually mean, nasty or destructive, however harsh it may be. It’s trying to help, honest. But its behaviour, the method it uses is anything but helpful, so this part needs managing and help in trying a different, more kind and constructive way to influence your behaviour.

So we need to work with that Critic. And help you learn to be kinder, more compassionate, more accepting of yourself with all your strengths and weaknesses, aspects of yourself you are proud of and those you hate, or are so ashamed of you wish you could chuck them out, like the mouldy food in your fridge.

Not easy, but doable

Now this process is not easy. Not at all. If you have a strong Critic and, I’m guessing, a Defectiveness schema, you may feel unlikable or even unlovable. And like all schemas, this one probably formed when you were very young, because of something in your family environment that wasn’t right – maybe your parents criticised you harshly all the time, or just never told you they were proud of you, never showed their love for you. You might have had a sibling who was smarter, more athletic, prettier or more successful than you, which made you feel less-than and like a failure.

You may have experienced trauma, or some kind of neglect. Any or all of these can lead to the formation of this all-too-common schema, which is at the root of problems like low self-esteem, a lack of confidence, body-image issues, depression, chronic stress/anxiety, Imposter Syndrome and many other common psychological issues.

Healing this schema and these hurt parts of yourself is not simple. There is no quick fix. I see healing, especially from trauma or neglect in childhood, as a lifelong process. It’s a path I have been walking for 30 years now and expect to keep walking for the next 30. But I know, both from personal experience and helping hundreds of people in my clinical work, that it is possible.

Loving your mind and body

So don’t give up hope. Keep reading my blog posts and those of other teachers you resonate with. Listen to inspiring podcasts. Surround yourself with kind and supportive people, who make you feel good about yourself. Let go of friendships that no longer serve you – life is too short to waste it with people who bully you or make you feel small.

Get some good, trauma-informed therapy. Build a daily meditation practice into your life (mindfulness will help, as will self-compassion practices like the ones on my Insight Timer collection). Look after your body, by putting healthier things in it and loving your muscles by starting a yoga practice, joining a gym or a cold-water swimming group near you.

So, happy Love Day! I hope you enjoy it. And, on this day more than most, if you are single and feeling lonely, sending you warm thoughts and a big virtual hug,

Dan

Do You Struggle With Low Mood? Come to My Overcoming Depression Workshop

If you struggle with depression, or care about someone who does, book your place on this one-day workshop with Dan Roberts, Psychotherapist and Founder of Heal Your Trauma. Overcoming Depression – How to Lift Your Mood & Feel Calmer, Happier & More Hopeful takes place on Saturday 1st April 2023, from 10.30am-4.30pm and is part of a series of regular webinars and workshops presented by Dan throughout 2023.

This event will be held at Terapia, a specialist therapy centre in the grounds of Stephens House, a listed house and gardens offering an oasis of peace and calm in the busy heart of North London. Terapia is a 10-minute walk from Finchley Central Northern Line station, with free parking outside. Stephens House offers an excellent cafe as well as beautiful landscaped grounds, which you can enjoy on your breaks.

This workshop has a limited number of free places available if you need them – or please choose the Reduced-Fee Ticket or Supporter Ticket options when booking if you are able to support the Heal Your Trauma project. All the income we receive from these events, after covering expenses, is invested back into the project so we can help as many people as possible with their mental health.

Overcoming Depression – How to Lift Your Mood & Feel Calmer, Happier & More Hopeful features a full day of teaching, powerful exercises that will help you feel calmer and more relaxed, and regular opportunities throughout the day to put your questions to Dan Roberts, a leading expert on trauma, mental health and depression.

In this powerful, highly experiential workshop you will learn:

• What causes depression – and why it’s more helpful to think about ‘depressions’, because there are many possible reasons to get depressed

• The key role of core developmental needs – and why, if these were not met for you as a child, you will be vulnerable to depression as an adult

• How painful neural networks in the brain, ‘schemas’, play a fundamental role in both causing and maintaining depression

• The fact that, however bad it is and however long you have struggled, depression is not a life sentence – we now have a number of highly effective, trauma-informed therapy models that can help you

• Why research shows that self-compassion is a key part of the healing process for depression – Dan will teach you some key self-compassion skills in this workshop

• Don’t miss this chance to learn from a leading trauma therapist and expert on mental health and wellbeing. Book your place now using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

If You're Feeling Down, Gratitude Might Help

Image by Marcos Paulo Prado

If you’re feeling depressed right now, let me start by sending you warm thoughts, because depression can be truly awful – as I know only too well, having struggled with deep, dark periods for many years. Thankfully, after a lot of therapy, a long-term meditation practice and many other forms of healing, I don’t really get depressed these days – or if I do get down, it’s only for a day or two, not the awful week after week of darkness that used to dominate my life.

So, again, if you are struggling with depression right now, please do seek help – especially if you’re feeling suicidal. See your doctor. Get help from a mental-health professional like me. You may also need antidepressants, which can be a lifesaver for many people dealing with depression. And tell your loved ones that you’re struggling, because trying to hide depression is never a good idea – and will 100% make it worse as it becomes a shameful secret squirming away inside you. Humans are verbal, storytelling creatures, which is why it feels good to talk about what’s troubling us.

As well as – crucially, not instead of – seeking help, there are a number of things you can to help yourself if you’re feeling down or depressed right now. That’s a key theme of my blog posts and teaching and why I founded my Heal Your Trauma project, because there is so much we can all do to improve our mental and physical health – much of which is free and available to you right now, if you feel able to take a small step towards lifting your mood.

What are you grateful for?

When my mood is a bit low (it does still get low sometimes, because I’m both highly sensitive and human), one of my go-to practices is changing my negative thought patterns by focusing on all the things I am grateful for in that moment. This helps change the messages playing on a loop in my head (‘God, I’m so tired/stressed/pissed off! Why is it still winter? So grey! And so damn cold! Life sucks’), which as I’m sure you know, can be overly negative, hopeless and disheartening when our mood is low.

I actually used this practice this morning, so here’s a sample of the things I found to be grateful for on a cold, grey, somewhat gloomy February morning:

• Unlike millions of people in this country struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, I had a nutritious breakfast this morning. I am so fortunate to be able to eat what I want and not worry about how to feed myself or my family

• I’m walking to work from my warm, dry home and will soon arrive in my warm, dry office. I didn’t have to sleep out in the freezing cold last night – I am so lucky not to be homeless, to have a job and an income

• I heard on the news this morning that yet another Russian missile has killed innocent people in Ukraine. It made me well up and my heart goes out to them and their families, but it also makes me realise how lucky I am to live in a peaceful, fairly stable country

• Everybody I love is healthy and safe right now

• I actually have people to love and who love me

• My health isn’t perfect, but my body is strong and I have no pain at this moment. Having lived with chronic back pain for years, that is such a blessing

• I have a wonderful wife, who is my life partner and rock

• My son is a remarkable, kind, huge-hearted young man – and I am so proud to see the person he is growing up to be

• Although I lost my father at a young age (which triggered all those years of depression), I have a loving, supportive mum who has been there for me through so many tough times in my life

You get the idea. This list is not meant to be boastful, or say how wonderful my life is, just to recognise that there is always something we can find to be thankful for, even when our mood has dipped and it’s a cold, grey winter’s day.

Building your gratitude muscles

Being mindful, grateful and appreciative of what we have is a foundational practice in many traditions, from the 2,500-year-old wisdom of Buddhist psychology, to newer psychological approaches like CBT and Positive Psychology. If you would like to bring a little more gratitude into your daily life, here is an excellent step-by-step guide to writing a Gratitude Journal from the wonderful Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

It’s important to note that being grateful for what you have is not about forcing a fake-positive, everything’s great! mindset. There are many reasons for us to struggle with depression, including a history of trauma, medical/hormonal/biological issues such as the menopause, being a refugee, living in a war zone, in poverty or suffering domestic abuse. We can’t just think our way out of these problems.

But whatever the cause of your low mood, it’s still important to do everything you can to help yourself. And increasing your gratitude is an evidence-based approach that might help, even a little. It’s free and you could start today, so why not?

I hope that helps.

If you are feeling depressed right now, I am with you. I have been there and know how awful it can be – but also know from personal experience that we can recover and emerge from the darkness of depression into a lighter, happier, more fulfilling life.

I will teach much more about depression and how to recover from it in my next workshop: Overcoming Depression – How to Lift Your Mood & Feel Calmer, Happier & More Hopeful, which takes place on Saturday 1st April 2023, from 10.30am-4.30pm. This event will be held at Terapia, a specialist therapy centre in the grounds of Stephens House, a listed house and gardens offering an oasis of peace and calm in the busy heart of North London. Terapia is a 10-minute walk from Finchley Central Northern Line station, with free parking outside – book your place now using the button below.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

Do You Struggle With Self-Criticism?

Do you struggle with self-criticism? If so, your Inner Critic may call you names like ‘stupid’ or ‘pathetic’, which drains your confidence and impacts your self-worth on a day-to-day basis.

Because this is so painful for us, it can be easy to think we need to get rid of our Critic, or make them shut up. Unfortunately, not only is this very difficult to do, it is also counter-productive, as it tends to make the Critic stronger and louder. Instead, we need to befriend and work with the Critic to help you understand the function of this much-misunderstood part, which is always either motivational or protective in some way (I know that’s hard to believe right now, but having worked with hundreds of Critics in my consulting room I have consistently found it to be true).

As an Internal Family Systems-Trained Therapist I use this warm, compassionate, highly effective approach with all my clients. And that’s because it is so effective for a wide range of problems, from complex trauma to anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, eating disorders and addiction. It’s also, in my many years of clinical experience, the most effective approach we have for helping your Critic calm down and stop giving you such a hard time, which in turn will help you feel calmer, happier and more at peace.

If you would like to learn how to work with your Critic, watch the recording of my 90-minute Zoom webinar – How to Manage Your Inner Critic, which took place on Saturday 25th March 2023, from 3pm-4.30pm.

How to Manage Your Inner Critic features 90 minutes of teaching, powerful exercises that will help you feel calmer and more relaxed, and a 15-minute Q&A with me.

In this powerful, highly experiential webinar you will learn:

• What we mean by trauma and how common it is – and why experiencing trauma means we tend to develop a louder, more powerful inner Critic

• Why Internal Family Systems is such a revolutionary model, offering brand-new ways of understanding psychological problems and how to heal them, including a road map to transforming your Critic

• Why we all have an internal system of ‘parts’ – both young, wounded parts and protective parts which work hard to make sure those young parts never get hurt again. And why, counterintuitively, your chief protector is often the Critic

• How to understanding the function of your Critic – almost always either to motivate or protect you – which in turn helps you approach the Critic in a more nuanced, validating and ultimately transformative way

• You will also learn some simple, powerful techniques to help you work with your Critic – as well as the young parts that get triggered when the Critic is loud, harsh or overly negative
  

Don’t miss out – purchase access to the recording for just £10, to download or stream whenever you like, using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan