This Won't Fix You

Therapist, Emma McDermott, and I talk about how we can only really be curious about ourselves, especially the darker parts of ourselves, when we have the luxury of being stable.When we have the luxury to be able to reflect, we are empowered to make real changes in our lives, changes that make us stronger, rather than changes which simply remove the obstacles which cause us pain.Emma's Linkshttps://www.bacp.co.uk/therapists/382326/emma-mcdermott/ManchesterNadine's Linkswww.nadinepittam.comSend...

Delving in more detail into the difference between red flags and anxiety, as discussed by Meg and I on the A-Side.I talk a lot about a model, a graph, in this episode. You can have a look at the graph by visiting the podcast page of my website. Seeing the graph will almost certainly aid your understanding of what I am talking about!Send me a text message (Note: I can't reply, but I will read your comment and might respond to your message in a future episode)Rest assured, if the idea comes fro...

Meg and I talk about fear, and how much of our fear (maybe all of it) is generated by the mind itself as we try to predict the future, project the best version of ourselves out into the world and avoid pain. We all strive to find happiness, but most of us are seeking it somewhere outside of ourselves. But we are rewarded for our striving, so we just pile on more anger at ourselves when we can't control our fear.Meg and I also try to establish the difference between fear which is helpful ...

This episode explores how therapy might help you to process your grief... It is the B-Side to the One Task Of Mourning A-Side which was released two weeks previously.Send me a text message (Note: I can't reply, but I will read your comment and might respond to your message in a future episode)Rest assured, if the idea comes from someone else I will always credit that person, and there is definitely water-tight confidentiality for my clients.Find me at www.nadinepittam.com

How our loss of a person, either through death or separation, is also a loss of the way we related to that person – which is ultimately a loss of a part of us. Or let me put it this way, when we lose someone we must grieve the unique soul of the person we have lost. We grieve the soul connection.And though grief can’t be neatened up, we can observe it, look at it as a series of tasks: the 4 tasks of mourning written by J William Worden:To accept the reality of the lossTo process the pain of g...

Following the last episode where Anoushka and I discussed the film Frozen, this episode looks at narratives: how the stories that are told about us become something that we can't help but react to.I talk a little about IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy - in particular the term Exile, which is a way of naming the parts of ourselves that are not welcome in our families.There's a brief series of questions at the end which, if you like, can take you a little deeper into your own narratives. I...

This episode, we talk about the film Frozen and the dangers of suppression and the power of expression! We talk about how narratives that are spun about us, and the way experiences are framed in our lives – especially our childhoods – are key points influencing who we become. It’s about the impact of being told we have too much power. It’s about how we heal when we have received messages that tell us to conceal, calm down, or be less of ourselves. It’s not always the incident itself that...

Why do we get stuck? What makes it difficult to move on or through something? What narratives are at play in our psyche which we have utterly subscribed to which colour all our experiences?This episode I look at how we get stuck because we don't trust ourselves.Send me a text message (Note: I can't reply, but I will read your comment and might respond to your message in a future episode)Rest assured, if the idea comes from someone else I will always credit that person, and there is definitely...

What happens when we get bored? I mean bored with work or bored with people? And what can we do about it? Maybe you feel frustrated with your current relationship or work situation, and you want to rekindle the interest you had in the early fiery days of your new love. Our society, fuelled by our media, feeds our desire for a quick fix, it feeds our obsessions with romance. We think passion is outside us, something that happens to us and lands in us, but this episod...

Essentially this goes into more detail about shame - what happens when we do begin to share some of our truths, in particular, what happens if we share something and the other person can't hold it with compassion, can't hold it with care, and you are plunged into shame?Send me a text message (Note: I can't reply, but I will read your comment and might respond to your message in a future episode)Rest assured, if the idea comes from someone else I will always credit that person, and there is de...

BRIEF SUMMARY If you struggle to own all parts of you, if there are some parts of yourself or your past that you think are just not suitable for public consumption then this episode is for you. Personal Development Coach, Katie Bunting, and I talk about the metaphor “Stick A Flag In It”. We are basically talking about how owning all aspects of ourselves is not only essential for growth, happiness, connection and even a healthy sex life. Sometimes we have all felt th...

Hello. I am so excited to be finally bringing this podcast to the world. What follows here in this short episode is an outline of what you can expect from the podcast going forward. As I say in the intro to each episode, the show is “a curation of interesting metaphors, models and images discovered or manifested in my work as a psychotherapist”. So if I’ve read or heard a funky idea, I’ll lift it from the book or the talk or the session, and offer it to you. It’s like I’ve run...