Rose Rouse

Ten years ago, serial entrepreneur Suzanne Noble and I were new friends. She was 55 and I was 63. We gathered with other older women in Suzanne’s hot tub for laughter but also passionate discussion about our dating lives, our friendships, our work, our travel.

At one point, we started talking about how older women were depicted in the media. We were angry about older women being portrayed as saggy, tired, unsexy grannies (one of our objections that is still ongoing is that older women are so often headlined as “grannies”

when we are not all grandmothers). We are still angry about this misrepresentation. We are women who are involved with all sorts of exciting projects, who love our lives 

why weren’t we being more accurately represented out there?

, to challenge the media narrative around ageing. Ten years later, there are more organisations and individuals doing great pro-ageing work 

we have put on two Advantages of Age Awards Ceremonies to celebrate charities and small local groups (from the wonderful All Ages Project in Hackney to the divinely rebellious Crone Club in Sheffield as well as individuals like the DJ from Bradford Crazy Auntie Ann) 

however there is still a lot more work to be done.

Over 65s are already a huge demographic in the UK 

and our numbers are swelling. And yet still Advantages of Age struggle to get coverage in the mainstream press presumably because we are still perceived as “unsexy” in a brand way. Youth is still the gold at the end of the selling rainbow in this way. PensionBee are leading the way is reversing this trend. They supported our Awards and now our first conference, in other words, Rebel Later Life: the ideas party.

In the afterglow of our second Awards Ceremony last November, we were touched by how many new connections were being made by our nominees and by our wider community. We saw how needed this creative tribe was. For each other to feel valued and seen. That so often it is a tough pursuit 

creating these groups and projects. And we also saw that so many of our community don’t know what each other are doing.

Hence, Suzanne and I came up with the idea of our very first conference. In keeping with our overall ethos 

the Sunday Times called us ‘the punks of getting older’ – we called it Rebel Later Life: the ideas party. We wanted to add a bit of spice to the discussion too. We are not the lie down and grit our teeth sort of women. Yes, there is a panel discussion on 'Ageism and Words' chaired by the inimitable Insta older woman style sensation Cathi Rae (Welldoing’s very own Louise Chunn is also on that panel) but there is also 'Re-design Your Relationship After 50' chaired by journalist, author and counsellor, Lucy Cavendish as well as 'How To Have A Funky Funeral' by dynamic Kate Dyer and Kate Tim who founded Coffin Club 

The intention is to share ideas around living and dying as we grow older. How to live richly 

even if we’re not wealthy and one of the key discussions is 'What If We Don’t Have Enough Pension' 

and also die with attitude. Societal attitudes are changing 

talk about her own death let alone plan her own funeral 

Noble, who co-founded Start Up School for Seniors and Sex Advice for Seniors has done lots of research over the last 10 years. “

’ve been working with people over 50 since 2016. That’

10 years of listening to what my generation has to say, and I’ve come to realise when It comes to growing older, internalised ageism is rife. In other words, criticising ourselves and others because we are influenced by the pro-young marketing everywhere. Or using outdated terminology. Not being able to state our ages. When it comes to living life on our own terms as we get older, there are not enough role models.

“Which is why our conference Rebel Later Life: the ideas party is so important. It will give attendees ideas 

about stepping into creativity, about creating relationships that you want rather than ones you think you should have, about doing the sort of work that you’

 like to do despite ageism in the workplace and about what kind of funeral planning you could be doing and much more.”

And if you’re feeling as if you need a bit more pizzazz in your style, then we will be here with a Flamboyance Forever Photo Booth with photographer, Peter Wallis. The feather boa, the head dress, the colours 

’ve always said that we can be flamboyant as well as serious. And that one does not detract from the other. We intend to do both at.

Saturday October 10 at Cecil Sharp House, it is an all day event and you can now buy tickets without lunch 

Rebel Later Life: What’s Happening at Advantages of Age’s First Conference

Tuppence Middleton

Louise Chunn is a prize-winning journalist and former editor of a number of magazines, including Psychologies, Good Housekeeping and InStyle. She is the founder of Welldoing Ltd.

Louise Chunn

Tuppence Middleton is a beautiful, talented British actor, seen on stage, screen and TV. Now 39, she lives in a smart London suburb with her Swedish film director partner and their four-year old daughter. And she has 

, is a powerful, candid, and even funny, memoir of her life and how it has been overwhelmed by compulsive rituals and obsessive thought cycles. Published in 2025 to excellent reviews, it is now out in paperback.

At first, growing up in a happy family in Somerset, Middleton thought everyone followed regimes like hers, but then, when she was 11, her mother found her at the door of her bedroom going through her bedroom ritual, a 14-point schedule of systematic counting and focus.

For example, here’s just a portion of it:

*Satisfaction occurs only when the anxiety stops and the tightness in the chest diminishes.

If you don’t finish the count, your parents will die.

If you don’t finish the count, the house will burn down.

If you don’t finish the count, you will be sick.

She could tell by her mother’s face as she explained what she did, that this was not usual behaviour, and so began various efforts to get to the bottom of what was soon diagnosed as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). 

As she explains, the disorder affects people differently. Following an earlier illness, she had emetophobia, a fear of vomiting. Connected to this was fear about the safety of food and drink, the danger of germs and infection, the chance of being killed by an air bubble in a syringe when having a blood test or being given a vaccine.

Although at first she refused, eventually in her 20s Middleton started on anti-depressants, recognised as good medication for OCD. She has had various types of therapy, including 

, but also finds talking therapy beneficial. 

In less than 200 pages Middleton deftly explains all the different ways OCD affects her life, from the mass of research she does into things that trigger her OCD fears, to how it fits in with her acting world, and life as the mother of a young child.

Middleton doesn’t over-promise, but she does present herself as someone who has OCD, but is not overwhelmed by it. She might not want to state it was less dominant, lest that immediately be proved wrong, but she does imply that her relationship with the scorpions, her name for “the writhing black mass inside my head” is more bearable, less extreme.

She does know how susceptible OCD sufferers can be, so the book is prefaced with a caution. Her descriptions are intended to provide an immersive experience of OCD, but “those with the condition could [them] distressing or disruptive to their own recovery, should they be vulnerable to adopting the compulsions of others. Please take care when reading.”

Scorpions, Tuppence Middleton’s Book About Her OCD, is Honest, Helpful and Even Funny

Lorin Lakasing

For those wanting to start a family, a positive pregnancy test should be welcome news, but for many of today’s mothers-to-be the numerous controversies that surround pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood can cause confusion, apprehension, 

Numerous national inquiries have described a maternity service where users are not listened to, heard or believed and in which there is institutionalised racism, prejudice, discrimination and inequality. Frontline staff are frequently described as unskilled, uncaring, unmotivated, overwhelmed and unable to raise safety concerns. And insufficient equipment, crumbling infrastructure and poor leadership add to these problems.

It is not surprising therefore that many parents have reservations about the quality of the service they are to engage with right from the outset. Unlike previous generations—who relied on midwives or charitable organisations for advice and support—many now turn to the online world of blogs, chat rooms, websites, and personal anecdotes available 24 hours a day. Parents can easily be led down unhelpful rabbit holes.

Even for the most discerning search engine or AI user, distilling useful information from misinformation and disinformation becomes almost impossible.  Of course, there are plenty of NHS-ratified information sources, but these are dull and non-interactive, quoting facts and figures and using phrases like “evidence-based practice” or “standardised care” which, for many, can sound over-medicalised and too one-size-fits-all for their liking.

Many mothers will align themselves with so-called “natural” birthing philosophies that promise them the perfect birthing experience, while others—troubled by anecdotal accounts of labours that have “gone wrong”—request delivery by elective Caesarean section. The “natural birth” group frequently overlook data suggesting that transfer rates for mothers labouring at home or in a birth centre are over 40% in most units. Those opting for an elective Caesarean section often underestimate the post-operative recovery time needed.

Many dilemmas faced by mothers and families today relate to use of technology and the interventions that inevitably come with a high-tech model of care. Take, for example, ultrasound examination of the foetus. Everyone is delighted to “see” the foetus, “hear” the heartbeat or have the gender of the baby revealed, but few are prepared for the conversations that might follow if all is not well: perhaps the possibility of a genetic syndrome or brain abnormality; or the postnatal care pathway for a baby with a heart defect; or the recommendation for preterm delivery of a foetus that has not grown as expected. Such findings are often met with disbelief, dismay or disappointment and increasingly parents request second opinions.

Even if the antenatal course proceeds uneventfully, labour can present another set of tech-related problems. It is widely recognised that continuous electronic foetal heart rate monitoring in labour increases the chance of interventions such as instrumental vaginal delivery or Caesarean section, so some mothers will opt for intermittent monitoring instead, but then appear surprised when their babies are born with low oxygen levels and need admission to the Special Care Baby Unit despite signing up to a model of care where the foetus is effectively unmonitored for much of the time.

Most clinical guidelines and protocols are written in a way that allows significant latitude in interpretation aimed at avoiding so-called “unnecessary” intervention. But is this approach really feasible? To answer that we must try to tackle another controversy, one related to risk perception and risk tolerance.

Historical maternal mortality and stillbirth data make for sombre reading and reflect the stark realities of what “natural” or un-intervened pregnancy and birth was like in the pre-tech era. These outcomes occur even today in countries and communities with very underdeveloped healthcare systems, something easily forgotten in high-income countries. Society accepted that many mothers and infants died and that good outcomes were little more than good fortune. But as laboratory facilities, screening programs and better imaging techniques were developed, expectations rose. Today poor outcomes are perceived as something that can be mitigated and society has become increasingly intolerant of failure.

Indeed, the modern-day maternity service is expected to investigate, explain and compensate for any imperfect outcome. The historical quest—merely to survive pregnancy—is now taken for granted and modern narratives focus primarily on the pregnancy and birthing experience. This presents mothers and families with the greatest controversy of all – how to square this zero-tolerance approach with the belief that pregnancy and childbirth are essentially physiological processes where most interventions are at best unnecessary and at worst can cause harm.

We know from inquiries focusing on the accounts of harmed and 

 parents that many parents will claim their baby could have been saved by earlier admission, more monitoring, more tests, more scans or earlier delivery. The low-tech, hands-off approach that mothers were encouraged to believe in prior to the tragic outcome is rarely put under the spotlight. 

The focus now becomes the quality of care provided by frontline staff who are often vilified for their failings even though many feel unable to challenge inappropriate choices for fear of accusations of not listening, overruling or coercion.

In the current climate there is a huge disconnect between what mothers and families expect of the service and what it is set up to provide. Recent data suggests that 4–5% of mothers are left traumatised by their birthing experience and typically the blame is laid at the feet of frontline staff although clearly other factors play their part. It is interesting to consider why previous generations, whose clinical outcomes were objectively worse, did not report such high levels of subjective dissatisfaction. And whilst the service could unquestionably do better, perhaps another dimension to this debate is whether mothers and families have realistic and achievable expectations.

Bad News Around Childbirth Is Making Pregnant Women More Anxious

Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell

There is a great deal of concern among some people working in the mental health area that we are seeing over-diagnosis of mental illness, particularly among young people influenced by social media.

Psychologist and author Professor Tanya Byron has herself just written 

You Are Not Your Diagnosis: The Therapy-Speak Trap and the Lost Art of Listening to Ourselves

—is frequently mislabelled as a clinical disorder.

American psychiatrist Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell’s 

Girlhood, Translated: Understanding Girls in the Age of Therapy Speak and Self-Diagnosis

 brings the focus sharply onto teenage girls, using her patients in New York as living, breathing examples of the fear and unhappiness that has brought them to seek a therapist’s help.

In a nuanced, empathetic argument Dr Garfinkle-Crowell unpicks the recent deluge of diagnoses. She sees these labels not so much as literal illness, but more a bid for serious attention and help by young women, so that their erratic behaviour or unhappiness is acknowledged and seen, rather than ignored or wished away by worried parents.

, in a column that seemed to be aimed at such girls’ Mums and Dads: “Small acts of translation can help. Someone who says she has 

 may or may not fit the clinical definition, but she’s probably telling you she feels scattered, overwhelmed or afraid she’s a mess. If someone says she has anxiety, you can be pretty sure she’s nervous, uneasy or unsure of herself. If the word “depressed” freaks you out, consider instead why the person using it feels hopeless, lonely or in despair.”

The book is divided into chapters devoted to anonymised young female clients, such as Chloe who believes her restaurateur father’s problems with staff who have claimed sexual harassment have left her traumatised. Now she wants ADHD medication and also to be treated for anxiety and 

. In one session she also talks about her 

. Her parents think this is extreme, the author’s supervision group is sceptical, but in the end Garfinkle-Crowell sees the high school girl’s demands for diagnoses as a way of being heard in a home where she isn’t taken seriously.

“Chloe, I learned was using these words for control. She was a person who felt helpless and afraid, and found power through diagnostic language. She was ultimately able to shift from this place, but I had to meet her where she was, first.”

The book’s American style may rankle with some, but as social media and pop culture is global in this age group, it’s easy to find equivalents in the UK. The fear of saying the wrong thing, looking different, being open to shameful photo-sharing can make girlhood much more perilous than many adult women remember of their teens.

Dr Garfinkle-Crowell’s aim in the end is clear and admirable. She wants to free girls from constant comparison and doubt, to shift them from self-objectification to them being the object itself. For this “you need to figure out who you are, and how to become the main character in your story.”

Welldoing Book of the Month August 2026: Girlhood, Translated by Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell

Book of the Month: Girlhood, Translated by Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell

Anne Dickson

While it’s generally accepted that the individual route to good or bad health is based on a combination of genetic predispositions subject to a variety of environmental factors which will influence the overall outcome, one factor is consistently overlooked: the effect of the arousal and persistent suppression of the expression and release of emotion on physical and mental health.

Despite widespread information, advice and encouragement to look after one’s personal health, the importance/relevance of diet, exercise and keeping our brains active in older age, little is mentioned about emotional wellbeing.

Unfortunately, this neglect of the emotional aspect of life leads to adverse repercussions on the health of both our minds and bodies. How can we address this?

There is no need to be a dietician or lung specialist in order to exercise some choices about what we eat and how we breathe. Similarly, we don’t have to reach for expert help in understanding the what, where and how of emotion. Nor do we have to become self-obsessed.

The first step is to acquire clear information to replace the general mistrust of anything emotional and to dispel some of the myths and confusion. For example, most of us assume that emotions are either ‘negative’ and undesirable (e.g. sadness/anger/envy) whereas others (e.g. happiness/confidence/ love) are ‘positive’ and more socially acceptable.

Once we understand that feelings are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, we become more able to identify and correctly name our feelings. This comes through learning to ‘read’ our bodies more correctly: attending to the little tell-tale signs – flutters/tension/increased heart rate/ tightness, nausea/ heat, sinking sensation – which our bodies send us all the time but which we usually choose to ignore or try to rationalise away:

“I’ve nothing to be depressed about…”

“It will cause problems if I express my anger…”

“I can’t show them I’m anxious…”

“I’m being silly to be suspicious…”

Then, once we acknowledge what we’re feeling, we are faced with a choice. Maybe it is enough to register what is going on and keep that knowledge private. On the other hand, it may be appropriate to communicate your feelings in words.

As adults, we all need to suppress our feelings in order to continue with parental, social or professional responsibilities or simply to attend to the daily demands of life.

However, learning how to spot when emotional tension is getting in the way of normal functioning is a huge advantage in terms of health. We recognise when our bodies tell us we’re hungry or want sex: a similar non-verbal interaction occurs with emotional arousal.

The problem is that we tend to ignore these signs: changes of mood, withdrawal, snappiness, using food or alcohol or overwork to suppress the rising tensions, or insomnia.

Becoming familiar with the process of safely releasing emotional tension in private is a life-changing skill: to go with our bodies instead of fighting against them. We overlook the fact that there isn’t a single system in our bodies that remains unaffected by the arousal and persistent suppression of release of emotion.

Unreleased emotion affects physical health through body memories – a process called somatisation – when our bodies become the physical arena in which mental conflicts are played out.

This is a complex process, but the build-up of tensions associated with different emotions affect us in different ways. Short term suppression of sadness, for example (choking back or swallowing down tears), can lead to swollen glands, sore throats and headaches. Longer term suppression of grief results in tension usually in the upper body, accumulating around our lungs, the chest, the sternum and diaphragm.

 include the powerful musculature of the buttocks, thighs, shoulder and upper arms, with tension in the pelvis mirroring tension in the jaw. Over time, this can lead to lower back pain, inflammation of the sciatic nerve and also contribute to wear and tear of the heart musculature.

The repercussions of long-term suppression of anxiety and fear include rigidity and restricted blood supply to the digestive, respiratory and immune systems.

There is no universal blueprint for these processes because we each have our individual vulnerabilities, but it’s important to remember that emotion is a psychosomatic experience (i.e. involving the mind 

 body together) so a blend of physical and mental repercussions is inevitable.

The good news is that we can begin by familiarising ourselves with our own individual bodies. We can replace faulty learning about emotions with new information. We can stop blaming ourselves for having ‘negative’ feelings because we believe they show us in a bad light and instead of pretending to be happy and confident when we’re not, we can be more truthful with ourselves and others. We realise that feelings are just feelings: that we are not to blame for 

 we feel – only how we choose to express and act on those feelings.

With practice, we can trust our bodies instead of struggling against them and value emotional knowledge as much as rational knowledge. If we take responsibility for what we feel, we can communicate those feelings to others clearly and 

 blame. Strengthening the psychosomatic connection helps you make a choice: when to communicate what you’re feeling or when to let off some steam; when you need intimacy or solitude; when to trust your instinct and intuition even when there is no ‘logical’ explanation. This is how we build emotional literacy.

Reconnection with your own body has all sorts of spin-offs. It helps you to recognise energy levels: when to eat, to rest, when to push yourself, when you need distraction and fun; when you need a good scream or to arrange an important conversation; when you need peace and solitude.

Emotional familiarity and trust contribute significantly to a genuine sense of confidence. This is the basis of an alternative form of empowerment. When we a) recognise what we are feeling, b) are able to put this into words, c) be alert to signs of emotional overload and d) can locate within our 

 bodies the connections between emotion and illness, we become much more proactive about our wellbeing.

It's Not All in the Mind: How the Body Often Carries What the Mind Cannot Express

Peter Meades 

We rarely talk about how men feel about their bodies. This is unfortunate, because body image anxiety affects millions of men, often in ways they don’t fully recognise or admit. From superhero physiques to reality shows like Love Island, the message is clear: to be desirable or successful you should look a certain way – sculpted, strong, symmetrical. And if you don’t, you’re led to believe you’re inadequate in some way. 

I worked with a 24-year-old man, Phillipe, who was going to the gym six days a week and tracking every calorie. ‘It started as something positive,’ he said, ‘but now if I miss a single session, I get really worked up and hate myself. I feel weak, mentally, like I’ve failed.’ Despite being objectively fit, Phillipe couldn’t see his body clearly. He’d internalised a message that he had to look a certain way to feel okay. 

This is more common than you might think. Muscle 

 is a form of body image distortion where a man sees himself as too small or not muscular enough, no matter how developed his body is. It’s increasingly affecting teenagers and young men.

Body shame often appears in the comparisons we make with others, control around food or exercise, or feeling not good enough in subtler ways. You might avoid taking your shirt off at the beach or changing in the gym. You might avoid social events because you don’t want to eat in front of other people. 

This can affect relationships significantly. Luis, forty-one, found himself increasingly pulling away from his partner. ‘She says she still fancies me, but I don’t believe her,’ he said. ‘I keep my T-shirt on around the house, and I don’t initiate sex any more.’ His sense of desirability was so closely linked to his appearance that he couldn’t let himself receive affection or believe he was desirable. When he began to talk openly about this and explore it in therapy, he was able to see how his shame stemmed from a time when he was teased relentlessly in childhood. Eventually he was able to let go of the belief that only a perfect body could make him desirable and lovable. 

If you’re struggling with body image, rest assured that it isn’t a sign of vanity or due to shallowness. It more often comes from early painful emotional experiences, rooted in shame, comparison and feeling judged. Bringing awareness to them is the first step towards a more compassionate relationship with your body. 

Notice when your body feels most at ease (this might be when you’re stretching in the morning, standing under a hot shower or taking a slow, deep breath) and try to move in ways that feel good rather than punishing. Choose clothes that fit the body you have now. When harsh thoughts come up, such as ‘I’m so unattractive’ or ‘I’m not good enough’ ask yourself whether they’re true or whether they’re outdated thoughts from the past. These small acts of body care can help to rewire your relationship with your body, not through criticism but through kindness.

Why Men’s Body Image Can be so Damaging to their Self-Esteem

Sean Kelly

 is rarely only about death; more often, it is about the unbearable difficulty of continuing to live in a world that no longer feels possible, and the human need to be met there without fear or judgement. 

That distinction matters. In therapeutic work there is often a moment when someone quietly says, "I don't think I want to be here anymore". Such words can evoke fear, responsibility and a wish to move quickly into reassurance, safety planning or assessment. These things may be necessary, but they are not the whole of the work. Something more personal is also asked of us: the capacity to remain present at the edge of what feels survivable.

Before my role as part-time Interim Director of Maytree, a UK charity offering adults in suicidal crisis a brief, non-medical residential stay, I had encountered suicide through clinical practice and earlier work with people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

There I witnessed how illness, stigma, fear and anticipated loss could gather until ending life seemed less a wish to die than a desperate attempt to escape psychic pain.

In private practice too, suicide often emerges when grief and loss lie at the heart of someone's experience. It may follow 

, professional collapse or a profound crisis of identity. At such times, people are often grieving not only what has happened, but who they once

were and whether any future self remains imaginable. 

This is where my work at Maytree deepens my understanding. Maytree occupies a distinctive place in suicide prevention. It offers a once-only, four-night, five-day stay in a house for adults in suicidal crisis. Its model is non-medical, analytically informed and 

 at its core: a place where people are heard in confidence, without judgement, and without immediately being reduced to diagnosis or risk.

What feels most powerful is not an intervention in the conventional sense. It is the experience of being seen. In existential crisis, to be met by another human being who does not flinch, pathologise or hurry someone away from despair can be profoundly containing. It does not romanticise suicide; it recognises suffering without

making the sufferer into the problem, returning them, however briefly, to relationship.

James Hillman wrote about the soul's need to be listened to, even when it speaks in disturbing ways. His insistence that symptoms have meaning feels especially relevant here. Suicidal thoughts are not only clinical data. They may also be

communications from a life that has become intolerable, from a self that feels exiled, defeated or unseen. To listen at this level is not to agree with suicide, but to ask what is urgently seeking to be understood.

Francis Weller reminds us that grief extends far beyond bereavement. We grieve lost belonging, lost identity, unlived life, the absence of recognition, and the many sorrows our culture asks us to carry privately. In suicidal crisis, these griefs may have remained unspoken and unshared for far too long.

We are rightly trained to assess risk: intent, planning, access to means, protective factors and the need for additional support. But one lesson I continue to learn at Maytree is that assessment must never become the relationship. People rarely feel safer because a checklist has been completed. They begin to feel safer when another person remains psychologically present with what they are carrying. The professional task and the human task have to meet.

One misconception remains stubborn: that talking directly about suicide increases  risk. In practice, asking calmly and compassionately often brings relief. Many people have spent months or years believing their thoughts make them frightening, selfish or beyond help. To be asked, and then genuinely heard, can soften shame. 

What moves me repeatedly at Maytree is how often people apologise for their distress: "I'm sorry to be a burden". "I shouldn't feel like this". "I'm wasting everyone's time". These are people who have become convinced that their existence has become a problem for others.

Rather than hearing suicide only as a clinical emergency, I increasingly hear it as the language of unbearable aloneness. The question shifts from "How do I stop this  person wanting to die?" to "What has happened that has left this person believing death feels like the kindest option available?"

These are very different conversations. They require us to tolerate uncertainty, resist premature rescue and trust that listening deeply is not doing nothing. Presence is not passive. Remaining calm while someone describes wanting to die communicates I am not frightened by your experience, and you do not have to carry it alone.

Of course, this does not mean ignoring risk or failing to act. Ethical practice may involve crisis teams, GPs, emergency services, supervision or specialist organisations. No therapist should feel they have to hold suicidal crisis alone. 

Alongside these structures, however, the relational field matters: our tone of voice, willingness to ask, capacity to stay and refusal to reduce a person to pathology. At Maytree, recovery is often glimpsed in ordinary moments: shared meals, conversations in the garden, silence without awkwardness, being remembered, being asked how someone has slept.

None of these moments appears dramatic, yet together they can restore a felt sense of belonging. None of us stands entirely outside this subject. We may encounter suicidal thoughts in our own lives or through clients, friends, family, colleagues and communities. Life and death are not specialist subjects belonging only to crisis services or consulting rooms. They are the two great facts of every human journey, and suicide sits painfully at their intersection.

This is why we need to speak about suicide with care, honesty and humility. Suicidal thoughts do not make someone beyond help or less human. They may be telling us something vital about pain that has had too little room, witness or care. Therapy, friendship, community and crisis support cannot promise to remove suffering quickly, but they can offer places where it no longer has to remain hidden.

The work, then, is not simply to rescue someone from darkness, but to sit beside them long enough  or another possibility to become imaginable. When life feels impossible, the first movement towards life may not be hope in any grand sense, but contact: a voice that stays, a room that does not turn away, a relationship strong enough to hold what feels unholdable. In that space, however fragile, a person may discover that their suffering can be shared, their life still belongs among other lives, and that even at the edge of death, something deeply human can reach towards them and call them back.

Below are some UK support numbers and specialist services:

What Working Alongside Suicidal Crisis Has Taught Me

Welldoing Ltd

Deciding to try therapy is an important first step that often takes a lot of courage. It can be overwhelming to have to find the right therapist or counsellor, and can be difficult to know where to start. Here are six questions you can ask yourself to help direct you through the process.

The first step, if you’re considering starting therapy, is to reflect on what it is that’s led you to that decision in the first place. For some people, this may be a straightforward answer, such as a specific 

 that you are looking for support with. For others, it will be harder to answer. Try to note any thoughts, feelings, or behaviours that you can bring to your first therapy session (or mention in an initial consultation) in order to kickstart the process. You don’t have to have it all worked out, or know exactly 

 you are experiencing these things yet – that’s precisely what a therapist can help you with. Topics you might bring to therapy could be 

, to name just a few. In addition to this, it’s worth reflecting on any current or past life events that may have impacted you – such as a relationship, new job, loss of a family member, new birth, abuse, bullying, and so on. When choosing a therapist or counsellor, you might want to look for someone with a particular specialism or area of expertise in whatever is worrying you.

Before your first session, it’s worth taking some time to consider what your expectations are. Ask yourself what kind of conversations you want to have and the work you might want to do. This can be useful to discuss with your therapist to layout a plan for your sessions, particularly in more short-term therapy options such as a course of 

. Similarly, if you have any goals in mind, let your therapist know. It’s okay if you don’t, but having something tangible to work towards can aid the process. Maybe this is a specific decision in your life or a benchmark for progress in a particular area – often these kinds of achievable goals are more helpful than ‘I want to stop being anxious’ or ‘I want to be happy’.

Where would you like to have your sessions?

These days, therapy can be delivered both in person and online, through video conferencing software like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Some therapists may also offer additional options like walk and talk or phone therapy. There’s no ‘better’ way of accessing therapy support – both main types come with pros and cons, and it’s about finding support in a way that works for you. In person therapy can offer a neutral environment outside of the home and some may find a face-to-face conversation to open up to their therapist. However, travel times and costs mean it’s sometimes harder to access sessions, particularly if you’re looking for a more niche specialist who may not practice near you. Online therapy is often cheaper and works well if you live in a more remote location, but you might have concerns about privacy if you live with other people.

There are many different types of therapy out there, and you may want to consider the kind of support that would best suit your needs. If you’re looking for help addressing immediate concerns and thought patterns, you might investigate cognitive behavioural therapies, whereas if you want to analyse the root causes in your past, then a 

 approach might be more suitable. Some therapists will be trained in specific techniques, such as 

, or REBT, and others may specialise in creative therapy like 

 therapy. You can find out more about different types of therapy and what they each offer 

. Of course, you may not know exactly what you are looking for or have no specific preference – and that’s okay. Many therapists will use a range of techniques, and some will be 

, meaning they incorporate multiple modalities into their practice.

Is your preference for a planned out, structured session that is led by the therapist? Or would you rather a more open-ended dialogue where you can set the agenda? Considering ‘directive’ versus ‘non-directive’ therapy can be useful when choosing a counsellor if you know that you’d prefer one over the other. Let the therapist know what you are looking for and they can explain how they practise. It may be that after your first few sessions you realise that the therapist’s approach isn’t quite right for you – it’s always okay to let them know this, and a good therapist will understand the importance of the right match. They may even be able to refer you onto a colleague or service who they think will suit you better.

An important part of therapy is that you are offered a judgment-free space by the therapist, who is trained to understand and support you, no matter whether they can themselves relate. However, it’s entirely valid to have a preference for a particular demographic of therapist if you think this would make it easier to get the most out of therapy. It may be that you know you’d trust a particular gender of therapist and therefore open up more, or maybe you’d like someone who has lived experience of your religion or ethnicity. Likewise, you may seek a therapist who is LGBTQ+ affirmative and/or has lived experience. Trust your instincts, as the therapeutic relationship is important, but be open to trying it out with someone even if the prospect is daunting.

You might not necessarily find a match that works for you first time, and it’s completely normal to have a few sessions with a therapist and then let them know that it isn’t right for you. When you are choosing a counsellor, it’s worth getting in touch with several people simultaneously to see what their therapeutic offers and availabilities are.

 where you can input all of the criteria in this article to narrow down your search. There is also the personalised 

 service where the Welldoing team take on the task of finding a therapist for you.

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