A clear, honest guide to what psychodynamic counselling is, what it can help with, what it cannot do, and who it may or may not suit.

A helpful way to understand distress is to treat it not as a personal failing, but as a sequence: a chain reaction you can learn to recognise earlier, rather than only making sense of it all afterwards - once you can see the sequence, you can start noticing where you are in it and how to potentially intervene.

Burnout is often talked about as if it were a personal failure. In practice, it is usually a collision between chronic pressure and a person who has learned to keep going long after their limits have been crossed.

When support feels irritating, even aggravating or worse, it may be protecting something tender.