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:
Love and a secure attachment
Safety and protection
To be valued as a unique human being
The ability to play, be spontaneous and express our emotions freely
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:
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
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
You Are a Living, Breathing Miracle
Image by Gerd Altmann
If you are struggling with mental or physical health problems, it’s easy to think you are somehow ‘broken’, or that healing is not possible for you. My clients tell me things like that all the time, for very understandable reasons. Let’s say you have been struggling with depression, on and off, for 30 years now. It’s entirely reasonable – logical, even – to think that you will have depression for the rest of your life.
You might also feel this way if you struggle with chronic pain, musculoskeletal issues, addiction, low self-esteem or any of the myriad mind-body problems that humans are vulnerable to developing. Again, I see this as eminently reasonable, because to believe otherwise requires a great deal of optimism and hope – both of which are in short supply if we have been in mental or physical pain for a long time.
But, as I often say to my clients struggling with depression, let me hold the hope. Because I am full of hope, confidence and optimism that you can heal, whatever you are dealing with right now. Why? Because I have spent many years working with people who are suffering and have seen them change, grow and heal in ways which surprised us both.
I have also studied many different therapy models and – in my previous life as a health journalist – interviewed some of the world’s leading scientists, researchers and medical professionals about all aspects of health, including illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, as well as cutting-edge treatments and strategies to optimise human health. All of this has left me brimming with hope, for the following reasons.
The miracle of being you
It is truly a miracle that you are even alive as you read this. For you to be you required four billion years of evolutionary twists and turns, any one of which could have gone slightly differently to mean there would be no you existing on this planet. (We could take that back even further, for the 13.8 billion years of deep time since the Big Bang, but I don’t want to make your head hurt too much!).
And for you to be exactly you meant that just one out of millions of your father’s sperm had to meet exactly the right egg in your mother’s womb. And you had to grow, from that miraculous moment on, cells multiplying as you went from the simplest possible organism to the person who can read blog posts, and drive cars, and walk in the park, and see the achingly beautiful world in which we all live.
And how can you read this post or drive that car? Because, in your skull, is the most complex object in the known universe. A brain. And your brain is made up of around 86 billion neurons (nerve cells), with each neuron connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, meaning there are 1,000 trillion synapses (connections between cells) in your brain.
And for you to think, or see, or just be alive, day to day, information must flow between those billions of neurons in the form of electrical impulses, which get fired from one neuron to another via neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine. All of this happens, completely outside your control or conscious awareness, every second of every minute of every day of your life.
Tell me that isn’t a miracle.
How the brain and body heal
Enough science, already, I hear you clamour (I love this stuff but it drives my wife nuts when I go on about it over breakfast, so I know I’m a bit of a health/science nerd! Apologies). OK, what does all of this mean for you. Well, all that remarkable neural architecture is not only what makes you, you – it’s also why we can heal from trauma, or neglect, or 30 years of depression.
Because the way those cells are wired up is in no way fixed or set. Your brain is not like a lump of marble, sculpted and fixed forever in the same shape and configuration. It’s more like wet clay, which can be moulded and shaped by experience – which it is, every second of your life. This rewireable ability is called ‘neuroplasticity’, which I have often written and taught about, because it’s such a wonderful thing.
It means your brain can change and heal, whatever painful experiences you have had and painful memories it therefore holds. You can think, feel and behave differently – this is not just hopeful or wishful thinking, it is a science fact backed up by decades of neuroscientific research.
So whenever you are feeling down, or stuck, or hopeless, try to hold these ideas in your mind. Because there is always hope. And I will do everything in my power – with posts like these, my webinars, workshops and guided meditations – to help you on your healing journey.
Sending you love and warm thoughts,
Dan
Why Do We Find Romantic Relationships so Triggering?
Image by Steve Watts
It is my tenth wedding anniversary this year. And I am lucky enough to have found someone who is warm, kind, caring and supportive. I genuinely don’t know how I would manage without her, because she has been there for me through so many hard times over that decade – illness, struggles with my mental health, tough times in my career. She is a gem.
But, trust me, my relationship history before this remarkable woman did not run nearly so smoothly. I have had my heart broken, more times than I care to remember. And, as a younger, more selfish man, I did not treat other people’s hearts with the care they deserved. I very much regret that now, but at least learned from those mistakes and now am (I hope) a kind, loyal, trustworthy and loving partner. I’m her rock and she is mine, which is truly a blessing.
I am sharing this with you to illustrate two key points:
A good romantic relationship is one of the most healing things that could ever happen to us (equating to many, many years of the best therapy you could find, I reckon).
A bad romantic relationship is one of the most triggering, hurtful and destructive experiences you could ever have (requiring many, many years of therapy to get over).
Relationships Fire up Your attachment system
Why are relationships so powerful, so emotionally activating for us? Well, partly because of the impact they have on your attachment system – one of the most powerful systems in your brain. A brief guide: your attachment system comes online the moment you are born, as does (hopefully) that of your mother, father, siblings, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and so on. But for most of us, our mother is our primary attachment figure, as we are literally part of her body for nine months (how much more attached could you be than that?), usually breastfeeds us and does most of the early caregiving.
So, you are born, your attachment system comes online and so does your mum’s. This is what helps you bond, as you both experience ‘attachment bliss’, that feeling of being completely loved, safe, cosy, warm and connected as she holds you in her arms and you gaze into each others’ eyes. And if this all goes as Nature intended, you feel securely attached to her and so develop a secure attachment style, which stays with you for the rest of your life.
Sadly, many of us did not experience this secure early attachment, for all sorts of reasons. Maybe mum was depressed, so was sometimes withdrawn and emotionally unavailable when you were a baby. Maybe she was drinking or taking drugs. Perhaps the family environment was highly stressful, involving poverty, domestic violence or some other kind of volatility and conflict. If she was stressed, so were you, so poor little you could not feel safe and secure, no matter how hard she tried.
None of this is about ‘mother-bashing’ – most mums are kind, loving and determined to be the best parent they can be. It’s just that sometimes, despite their best intentions, things don’t go as they should – and so exquisitely sensitive, utterly helpless, entirely dependent little you could not bond with her as you needed to.
If this was the case, you would have been insecurely attached and developed either an anxious or avoidant attachment style (or a mixture of the two). Again, this will have stayed consistent throughout your life, making relationships tricky – especially romantic ones.
How does this work in practice? Let’s say you meet a guy on a dating app. And he seems nice, at first. But soon he starts ignoring your messages, or giving vague, noncommittal answers – he might have an avoidant attachment style, so shuts down and withdraws if he feels like you’re getting too close. If you are anxiously attached, you might start panicking, wondering what is wrong and when he will leave you. Perhaps you start bombarding him with messages. You might even show up at his house, asking what you did wrong and how you can fix it. He gets more and more distant, you get more and more anxious, and so the whole painful cycle goes until, inevitably, it ends.
Good news: Your attachment style can be healed
So far, so depressing. But there is good news – we know from all the research (and there is a vast amount of research on attachment, dating back to the 1950s and the ‘father’ of attachment theory, Dr John Bowlby) that although attachment styles do stay constant throughout our lives, they are not fixed or set in any way. Your attachment style can change, so if you are anxiously attached but instead of meeting Mr Wrong on the dating app, you lucked out and found a kind, decent and securely attached guy, being with him would help you become more securely attached.
I would say that’s what has happened to me – after 10 years of love and stability, I feel much more securely attached to my wife than I did during all the crazy, rollercoaster years that came before her. So if romantic relationships are a struggle for you, please don’t give up.
As I am always saying in these posts and my teaching, it is never too much and never too late to heal. If you have a history of unhappy relationships, before embarking on a new one get some good therapy first, so you can heal yourself and stop playing out the same, painful patterns with every new person you meet. And then focus on the kind of person you choose – prioritise kindness above all else. Imagine this person as your best friend, not just an exciting lover. Would you be compatible? Would you be happy living with them, picking up each other’s dirty socks and all the other decidedly unromantic stuff that long-term cohabitation involves? Could you imagine them taking you to hospital if you were sick?
That’s what real, long-term, lasting love is all about, not the fireworks and can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other stage, which never lasts. See this person, primarily, as your friend and you will be much more likely to choose a keeper.
I hope that helps – and if relationships are a struggle for you, don’t despair. There is always hope – take it from someone who found lasting love, finally, in his middle age. And if I can do it, so can you.
Sending you love and warm thoughts,
Dan
Winter Getting You Down? Here's How to Lift Your Mood
Image by Andy Holmes
I am writing this on a mid-January morning at my office in north London. Today, like yesterday and tomorrow, the sun rose at around 8am and will set at about 4pm. That’s eight hours of daylight and 16 hours of darkness. And this absence of daylight is one of the many reasons we find winter tough – especially the dregs-of-winter months of January and February, when it can be hard to believe it will ever be light and warm again.
No wonder many of us (estimated to be 10% of the US population, for example) experience Seasonal Affective Disorder, which has the appropriate acronym of SAD. Unusually for depression, which has so many possible causes, SAD has a clear triggering factor: not getting enough daylight, which begins in late autumn and remains an issue until those glorious first days of spring.
Even if you don’t experience depression in winter, it is natural for your mood to dip a little at this time of year. It’s easy to forget – as I type away at my computer, in a warm, dry office, on a suburban street in a city of nine million people – that we are seasonal animals, as much as hibernating bears or migratory swifts and swallows. We feel the changing seasons in our bones, powering down into a mental hibernation in winter and waking up when spring offers up its delicious colour and vibrancy in April.
Fighting against evolution
Although most of us live in urban environments, surrounded by buildings, roads, cars and the hubbub of tightly-packed humanity, we did not evolve to live this way. For millions of years of human evolution our ancestors lived in the wilderness, with daily lives and body clocks governed by the day and night, dawn and dusk, as well as seasonal changes throughout the year.
No amount of artificial light and heat can change this deeply entrenched knowing of light, dark, day, night that is in our DNA. So winter comes and our bodies know it’s time to change our behaviour, slowing down, conserving energy, sleeping more, spending time inside where it’s warm, light and safe (from all those hungry animals that would have been marauding outside the stockade at night).
As well as all the many other complex and subtle reasons to experience low mood in winter, this is a major and often unrecognised one – it’s just natural for your mood to dip with the darkening days, so try not to worry if you are feeling a bit lower than usual right now.
If that low mood tips into depression, especially if it lasts for more than a few days, please do seek help from your doctor or a mental-health professional. Medication and talking therapy can both be helpful, but there are a number of things you can also do to help yourself. Here are a few that I find helpful for my own mental health and my clients tell me have lifted their mood on a gloomy day…
Move your body. This is a no-brainer for most of us, as we are constantly told that exercise is good for our health, both mental and physical. The tough bit, of course, is actually doing it, especially if you’re feeling low in mood and energy, demotivated and glued to the sofa.
It might help to know that, in a number of high-quality studies, regular cardiovascular exercise (jogging, swimming, dancing, cycling, brisk walking) was found to be just as effective as antidepressants for mild-to-moderate depression. Let that sink in. Something that is free, easily accessible, with no nasty side effects and good for you in so many ways, is just as effective at boosting your mood as the most powerful psychiatric drugs Western medicine has developed.
If it still seems daunting, start small. Get up and go for a walk (there’s robust evidence that walking helps with many aspects of mind-body health too). Kick a ball about in the park with your kids. Get off the bus a stop early on your morning commute and walk a bit further before work. Just try it – I promise you will thank me later.
Go easy on the booze. You might be mid-way through Dry January, in which case I salute you. Not long to go now… But if you’re still drinking, cut back as much as you can, reducing both the amount you drink each day and building at least a couple of sober days (more if possible) into your week. Why? Well, alcohol is a depressant, so although that glass or two of wine takes the edge off after a rough day, it will lower your mood the next morning.
Also, you need to know about dopamine and the ‘reward system’ in your brain. I have been reading an excellent book about this recently – Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, by Dr Anna Lembke – which explains how the neurotransmitter dopamine both affects mood and drives the astronomical rates of addiction we now see in wealthy, industrialised nations like the US and UK.
Dr Lembke teaches us that a wide range of substances (alcohol, cocaine, MDMA, nicotine, sugar, cannabis) and activities (social-media consumption, TV-watching, gambling, sex, pornography, shopping) induce the release of dopamine in your brain, which makes you feel good. But what goes up must come down, so if we drink too much and get lots of lovely dopamine as a reward, the brain automatically resets your ‘dopamine base level’, which lowers your mood, energy and motivation levels.
Take compassionate action. More research, sorry – a large and ever-growing number of studies show that compassion is good for your mental and physical health. As I often say when I’m teaching, it doesn’t matter how that compassion is generated, it’s all good. So you could generate it yourself (self-compassion), receive it from someone else (taking in compassion) or give it to other people (taking compassionate action). Any of these activities will light up the same brain regions and will be an excellent antidote to low mood and depression.
We also know from positive psychology that being altruistic, by helping others, is extremely good for your mental health. So this winter, as so many people in my country and around the world struggle with the cost of living, why not take compassionate action to help someone in your community?
You could volunteer at a food bank, or a charity that’s close to your heart. If you are an animal-lover, why not foster some kittens or a guide dog? You could mentor a troubled teenager, even litter-pick at your beloved local park or woods. The options are endless, but know that this is a win-win – it will benefit others and also boost your mood.
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.
And if you are struggling right now, I would like to send you love, hope and strength – remember that spring will be here soon, so hope, light and rebirth are just around the corner…
Warm wishes,
Dan
What Are Trailheads in Internal Family Systems Therapy?
Image by Ethan Unzicker
Jargon can be a real turn-off, don’t you think? And the world of psychotherapy is full of it. You can’t move for initials like CBT, DBT, ACT or MBCT and daunting-sounding words like countertransference, metacognitive or subcortical. It’s a pain, I know.
So I start this post with an apology – I have one more piece of jargon for you, but it’s a useful one, so bear with me... In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, there is a useful concept known as a trailhead. What the heck is that? Well, a trailhead is a thought, feeling, body sensation, memory, image or any other experience that we think is a communication from one of your parts. I won’t explain parts here because I have written about them extensively in recent posts, but here’s a useful guide to them and the IFS model in general.
So the trailhead is a starting point, a clue, an indication that something’s up and we need to investigate further. Let me give you an example. If you struggle with worry and anxiety, you will experience a number of somatic (more jargon, sorry! Just means you experience it in your body) sensations like tense muscles, racing heart rate, feeling hot or sweaty, butterflies or a knot in your stomach, tension in your neck and shoulders… Any or all of these could be a trailhead, because in IFS we think the anxiety comes from a scared, young part.
Following the trail
Understanding your mind, brain, nervous system and body in this way is, I think, incredibly helpful. Because if you just think ‘I’m so anxious’, or ‘I’m really panicky right now,’ it’s as if all of you is anxious, vulnerable and feeling powerless to calm yourself down. As soon as we say, ‘A part of me is so anxious,’ or ‘A part of me is really panicky right now,’ everything changes. Because you now have a scared young part who needs calming and comforting – and a you who isn’t that part, who has the resources to be calming and comforting.
This is a crucial step. I see this in my consulting room (and in myself) every single day – this simple shift can be so freeing and powerful, because many of my clients have felt paralysed and gripped by their anxiety, depression, substance abuse or whatever they were struggling with for years, as if they had no power, agency or control over these painful symptoms or behaviours.
But you are not powerless, not a victim, not helpless. There is a resource in you we call your Self, which is calm, compassionate, loving, wise and healing. And this resource can help you overcome any obstacle, however daunting. How do I know this? Because you are a walking miracle, with a billion miscroscopic processes happening inside you every single day.
Healing inner resources
You have flu, you recover. You break your leg, the bone knits together and heals. You drink the socially acceptable poison known as alcohol and your poor liver processes the toxins and helps flush them out of your body. Cells die, cells are born. Food and drink are digested and excreted. All of this happening, all the time, without any conscious input from you.
And so it is with your wounded little parts, who desperately need help – and the other parts who protect those little ones, with whatever means they have available. All of these parts need healing. And your Self can do just that, if we help you access these wonderful, rich, healing resources inside.
Not easy, but doable – for me and you, however impossible that might seem right now. Whatever you have experienced in your life. However long you have been trying, struggling, falling down. It could happen today, with the right help and support.
If you would like to experience IFS, try my Insight Timer practice, How to Comfort Your Inner Child: IFS Meditation. You can listen now by clicking on the button below.
Love,
Dan ❤️
Don’t Miss My Next Webinar: Trauma Healing With Internal Family Systems
If you missed this webinar, you can purchase the recording for just £10 – you can then download or stream the recording whenever you like.
Just click the button below to enjoy this powerful, highly experiential webinar now:
Trauma Healing With Internal Family Systems Therapy
Image by Igor Kasalovic
First, let me wish you all a very Happy New Year! May 2023 be a year full of health, happiness and healing. Heal Your Trauma has an exciting year ahead, with webinars and workshops throughout the year – a combination of your favourite events so far with some brand-new content we are confident you will love just as much.
We kick the year off with our first webinar, Trauma Healing with Internal Family Systems, in February. Internal Family Systems is one of the most exciting therapy models currently available. IFS has become hugely popular in recent years – and for good reason. 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 problems with anxiety, depression, relationships, chronic stress, eating disorders and addiction.
If this sounds helpful for you, watch the recording of this 90-minute Zoom webinar presented by Dan Roberts. Trauma Healing With Internal Family Systems took place on Saturday 11th February 2023, from 3pm-4.30pm and was the latest in a series of regular Heal Your Trauma workshops and webinars presented by Dan Roberts throughout 2023.
Trauma Healing With Internal Family Systems 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 Internal Family Systems-Trained Therapist and an expert on trauma, mental health and wellbeing.
In this powerful, highly experiential webinar you will learn:
What we mean by trauma and how common it is, especially if we had a difficult childhood
Why IFS is such a revolutionary model, offering brand-new ways of understanding psychological problems and how to heal them
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
How to calm, soothe and heal your young parts, so you also feel calmer, soothed and can heal from painful past experiences, especially in childhood
Why we all have a ‘Self’ – an internal resource that is calm, compassionate, courageous and healing
You will also learn some simple, powerful techniques to help yourself feel calmer when you are triggered – especially important if you have a trauma history
And, during a 15-minute Q&A, attendees can put their questions to Dan Roberts, Founder of Heal Your Trauma and an expert on trauma, mental health and depression
Don’t miss this chance to learn from a leading trauma therapist and an expert on Internal Family Systems and mental health – purchase access to this recording for just £10, to download or stream whenever you like, using the button below.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Christmas Survival Guide – How to De-Stress the Holidays
Take a close look at this picture. The perfect family Christmas – even the dog looks full of festive cheer. And how closely does this resemble your family Christmas? I thought so. This holiday season does bring lovely moments, if we’re lucky – but can also be stressful, lonely, upsetting, conflict-filled and generally tough for many of us.
So, in the spirit of seasonal giving, here are my three top tips to survive the holidays, relatively intact:
Stop believing that silly pictures like this one represent actual Christmas. Sorry, I know I put it there. But still, at this time of year we are bombarded with ads, photos in the media – both mainstream and social – of perfect Christmas scenes, with happy families unwrapping presents under the tree, cavorting in the snow outside their huge house, and toasting each other over groaning tables of immaculately presented food.
For most of us, even if we’re lucky enough to have a family – and luckier still to have a family we actually get on with – this is just a fantasy. If we’re doing the prep we shop and wrap and chop and cook and clean and tidy and frantically try to make sure everyone has a nice time.
It’s so damn stressful… and for what? One or two days of our lives. So start by accepting that this is not how Christmas is, or even should be. It’s about love, and rest, and gratitude that we even have enough food to eat, or a warm house to celebrate in, which many people in the UK and around the world will not this year.
Take the pressure off, wherever possible. Does everyone really need all those presents? How many of them are destined for landfill, or at best charity shops, by the end of January? And what’s it doing to the planet, all that tinsel and plastic and electronic stuff that none of us really need. Sorry if this sounds Scrooge-ish (my family do tell me I’m a bit of a Grinch at this time of year!) but it’s also about looking after yourself, your mental health – and your bank balance. Many of us are struggling financially right now, so the last thing we can afford is buying vast numbers of presents for everyone we know.
Why not get everyone just one present. Something thoughtful (and ideally plastic-free) that they will actually love and use and keep for years to come. A life-changing book you read this year. A beautiful, well-made piece of clothing you know they will love. How about making something, if you are artistically inclined? Or writing them a letter, telling them how much they mean to you and all the reasons you love and appreciate them. Better than socks, no?
Make this a compassionate Christmas. One of our friends, who is of Indian heritage and whose family doesn’t do Christmas, spends a week volunteering at Crisis every year. She helps homeless people have a break from the cold streets – they get somewhere warm to sleep, clean clothes, hot showers, healthcare, a haircut, gifts and lots of lovely food. It can be life-changing, if you live on the streets and are treated as an irritation to be avoided and ignored most of the year.
And of course it’s a great gift for her, because giving of herself in this kind, altruistic way helps her mental health. We know from extensive research that compassionate acts like this are just as good for us as they are for the beneficiaries of our compassion. You don’t have to volunteer for a week, but perhaps a day at your local homeless shelter or food bank? How about inviting that lonely elderly person on your street for Christmas lunch?
Or buying all your gifts from the Choose Love shop, say, which helps refugees around the world get through the winter. They need all the love and help they can get right now, in my country and yours, wherever you are in the world. And giving like this – freely, without expecting anything in return – just feels good, doesn’t it? Humans are wired to be altruistic and pro-social in this way, so you get a lovely little dopamine hit in your brain whenever you perform a benevolent act. The very definition of a win-win.
This will be my last blog post/newsletter of the year, so I would like to say thank you to you all, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting my Heal Your Trauma project throughout 2022. This non-profit project is also a compassionate act, from the whole HYT team, trying to help everyone, everywhere with their mental health. And we couldn’t do this without your support, so a profound thank you for that.
I hope you have a restful, mindful and restorative holiday season. And look forward to reconnecting with you in the new year.
Sending you love and warm wishes,
Dan
Why Do We Worry? And is it Always a Problem?
Would you call yourself a worrier? And if so, what kinds of things do you habitually worry about? Let me take a guess… My hunch is that your worries take the form of ‘what if…’ thoughts, like ‘What if I lost my job? How would I cope? Would we lose our home? Would my wife leave me?’
Or, ‘What if I make a fool of myself giving that speech at my daughter’s wedding? What if my mind just goes blank and I can’t remember what to say? Everyone would think I’m a pathetic loser. That would be horrendous – I would never live it down.’
Our worries commonly show up as these ‘what if…’ thoughts for a few reasons:
Worries are always future-focused. We never worry about things that have already happened. And that’s why worry (a cognitive process) is linked with anxiety (a feeling), which is also future/threat-focused. So we worry about bad stuff that could happen, imminently or further down the line.
Worries are often catastrophic. Not always, of course – worries range from mild to severe. But they often involve ‘catastrophising’, because that’s what worry is for – imagining worst-case scenarios and how we could cope with them. So in the above example, losing his job led to losing the house and potentially divorce, rather than simply having to downsize or rent for a while.
Worry involves ‘bridge-crossing’. This links to the future-focused idea, because when we worry we are crossing every potential bridge on the road ahead, seeing where they all lead and how best to cross them. Some of those bridges we may well have to cross, but probably 99% of them we won’t, which is one reason that worry can be stressful, exhausting and potentially very unhelpful. We live through a vast number of horrible imagined situations, most of which never actually happen.
Worry is not a bad thing, per se
I have had many clients who worry in an obsessional, relentless and exhausting way – so for them, worry is definitely unhelpful. But I tell even these people that worry is not a bad thing, per se – it’s the way we worry that’s tricky.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that a team of scientists could miraculously stop your brain from worrying, ever again. Pow! No more worry. Would that be helpful? Not so much.
Imagine you now have to plan your daughter’s wedding (and write that damned speech). But you can’t do any future-focused problem solving because you have lost the ability to worry. And remember that this is what worry is for – imagining challenges in your future so your brain can think and think (and think!) about them until it has come up with a solution.
Which part of you does the worrying?
Looking at this through an internal family systems lens, as I increasingly do, it’s helpful to understand that there’s a part of you who feels anxious (a young part, probably) and another, protector part, who starts worrying to try and help the little one feel calmer, safer and less stressed. This is what protectors do, inside your head – try to make sure that hurt parts of you never get hurt again.
We usually call this part, unsurprisingly, the Worrier. And Worrier parts are busy little bees. They are super-hard working, hypervigilant, relentless (when you ask them they will tell you they never switch off, 24/7, every day of your life). They work so hard to protect you – and especially those young, anxious parts of you – from being criticised, attacked, shamed, rejected, or hurt in any other way. They’re kind of heroic, in my opinion.
But of course all this worry is exhausting. It often leads to insomnia, as you lie there at 3am going over and over that tricky morning meeting. Excessive worry can lead to chronic stress, burnout, being constantly on edge and never able to switch off. It’s not much fun.
So if you worry in this unhelpful way, we clearly need to help you worry less, altogether, and worry in a less catastrophic, more helpful/problem-solving way. Luckily, internal family systems gives us a clear, concrete road map of how to make these internal changes – one of the many things I love about this incredibly creative, highly compassionate model.
If you would like to find out more, do come along to my next workshop – Overcoming Anxiety: How to Worry Less, Feel Calmer and More at Peace, on Saturday 10th December 2022. This is an online workshop, so you can join from anywhere in the world. As with all our Heal Your Trauma events, it offers a limited number of free places, as well as a Low-Income Ticket and Supporter Ticket, if you are able to support the project.
So money should be no barrier, if you need help, even if you are struggling financially right now.
I hope to see you there!
Warm wishes,
Dan