Don't Get A Therapist... Yet!

In this episode, Wendy is joined again by Dr Neil Stanley, independent sleep expert with 44 years of research behind him, past Chairman of the British Sleep Society and author of How to Sleep Well and co-author of A Sleep Divorce: How to Sleep Apart, Not Fall Apart. This is part two of their conversation, and it goes into the sleep problems that come up most often and are least well understood.The episode opens with nightmares, and Neil immediately reframes the conversation. Most nightmares are not signs of anything significant. They are simply the horror films in what he describes as your nightly multiplex, the 4 or 5 dreams you have every night, most of which you will never remember because you slept through them. The ones that stay with you are the ones vivid enough to wake you. There is an important exception though: nightmares that relive a traumatic event in real time are a different matter entirely, and Neil explains clearly why those point towards PTSD and need to be addressed at that level.He also explains the difference between a nightmare and a night terror, which is something many parents get badly wrong. A child having a night terror is displaying the behaviour of fear without experiencing fear, because it is happening in deep sleep with no conscious awareness. The child will have no memory of it. The distress belongs entirely to the parent watching, and well-meaning intervention can make things worse. Neil’s advice is practical and reassuring.From there, the conversation covers snoring in real depth: why it happens, why the causes vary so widely between people, what actually works and what does not, and why sleep apnea is a serious medical condition that is consistently underdiagnosed, particularly in men. Neil is straightforward about the case for sleeping in separate rooms, and points to his own book on the subject for anyone who wants to navigate that conversation with their partner without it becoming a referendum on the relationship.There is also a frank and useful section on napping, including the key distinction between a 20-minute power nap, which is generally fine and will not affect night-time sleep, and anything between 20 minutes and 2 hours, which risks waking someone in deep sleep and leaving them feeling worse than before. Neil’s rule of thumb: 20 minutes or 2 hours, nothing in between.The episode closes with advice for parents of newborns that is notably free of judgment: why babies are not being manipulative when they cry at 3am, why the old advice to let them scream themselves to sleep never made much biological sense, and why the most practical thing couples can do is stop sharing every wakening and start thinking about who is actually best placed to handle what and when.Dr Neil Stanley’s website is at:👉 http://www.thesleepconsultancy.comHis books are available via Amazon and all major booksellers.To learn more about Wendy’s work, explore resources, or stay up to date with future episodes, visit:👉 https://wendycastelino.com/If you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Wendy is joined by Dr Neil Stanley, one of the UK’s leading independent sleep experts, with 44 years of sleep research behind him. He is a past Chairman of the British Sleep Society, a member of the European Sleep Research Society, the American Academy of Sleep and the World Sleep Society, and the author of How to Sleep Well: The Science of Sleeping Smarter, Living Better and Being Productive and co-author of A Sleep Divorce: How to Sleep Apart, Not Fall Apart.This is part one of two, and it covers the foundations of sleep in a way that is clear, practical and frequently surprising.It opens with one of the most common sleep myths there is: that everyone needs 8 hours. Neil explains why this has never actually been the advice, why sleep need is as individual as height or shoe size, and why the best measure of whether you are getting enough is not a tracker but a simple question you ask yourself at 11 o’clock in the morning.From there, the conversation covers why being tired and being sleepy are not the same thing, what a bedroom conducive to sleep actually looks like, and why the quiet mind is the hardest piece of the puzzle in an age of screens and constant information. Neil is refreshingly direct on all of it, including his view on sleep trackers, which he argues create more anxiety than they resolve, and on the 8-hour obsession that has led many people to catastrophise perfectly normal sleep.There is also a detailed and genuinely useful section on waking at 3am, covering why it happens, what keeps people awake once they are up, and what thought-blocking techniques can help, as well as the case for fixing your wake-up time as one of the single most powerful changes you can make.The episode closes with a frank assessment of melatonin and sleeping tablets, including why melatonin is not a sleeping tablet, what it actually does, and why the dosing and timing make it essentially impossible to use correctly without specialist guidance.Part two is coming soon.Dr Neil Stanley’s website is at:👉 http://www.thesleepconsultancy.comHis books are available via Amazon and all major booksellers.To learn more about Wendy’s work, explore resources, or stay up to date with future episodes, visit:👉 https://wendycastelino.com/If you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is part two of Wendy’s conversation with Lou Lasprugato, licensed psychotherapist, internationally recognised ACT trainer and ACBS Fellow. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, it covers the foundations of ACT and the hexaflex model, and is well worth starting there.Part two gets practical. Lou opens with one of the most common experiences that brings people to therapy: feeling stuck. Not stuck in one dramatic way, but in the quieter, more persistent sense of repeating the same patterns, being unable to move forward, or living in a way that feels smaller than it should. From an ACT perspective, two processes sit at the root of most stuck loops: cognitive fusion, where we are so entangled with our thoughts that we cannot see them as thoughts, and experiential avoidance, where we repeatedly reach for relief from discomfort in ways that end up restricting our lives rather than expanding them.Lou explains how negative reinforcement works and why avoidance strategies tend to grow rather than shrink over time, using opiate addiction as a clear and sobering example of where that trajectory can lead. He then walks through how ACT helps people build willingness gradually, always in the service of something that matters to them.The couples work section introduces a concept not covered in part one: yearnings. Distinct from values, yearnings are the deep enduring longings we carry into our closest relationships, for connection, partnership, validation, shared meaning and security. Helping partners recognise and meet each other’s yearnings, Lou explains, is some of the most meaningful work he does.The episode closes with two perspective-taking exercises that are simple, memorable and immediately usable. One asks what you would want someone to say about you at your 100th birthday. The other asks what one small but meaningful thing you would want to have done by the time your head hits the pillow tonight. Both are grounded in the same ACT insight: values are not just a direction to aim for, they are a daily source of motivation, and regret, rather than being something to avoid, can point us clearly towards what still matters.Free guided ACT meditations, including Lou’s hexaflex exercises of one to two minutes each, are available on YouTube and Insight Timer without a premium subscription:👉 https://www.youtube.com/c/LouLasprugato👉 https://insighttimer.com/loulasprugatoFurther resources, blogs and training information at:👉 http://loulasprugato.com/Training and consultation information via the ACBS website:👉 https://contextualscience.org/lou_lasprugatos_training_pageTo learn more about Wendy’s work, explore resources, or stay up to date with future episodes, visit:👉 https://wendycastelino.com/If you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Wendy is joined by Lou Lasprugato, licensed psychotherapist, internationally recognised ACT trainer and ACBS Fellow, who has facilitated over a hundred training events on acceptance and commitment therapy and spent more than 23 years working as a therapist across private practice, crisis intervention, intensive outpatient and integrative medicine settings. Lou also served as Chair of the ACBS Training Committee from 2022 to 2025, and specialises in therapy for intimate partners and anxiety disorders.This is part one of two, and it focuses on the foundations of ACT: what the model is, where it came from, and how its core concepts work in practice.ACT takes a different starting point from many other therapeutic approaches. Rather than trying to reduce or eliminate difficult thoughts and feelings, it asks a different question: can you make room for what is happening inside you while still moving towards what matters most in your life? That shift, from symptom reduction to values-based living, is what Lou describes as the thing that made ACT a game changer for him both professionally and personally.The conversation covers the hexaflex, the six-process model at the heart of ACT, explained clearly and without jargon. Lou walks through the open pillar of acceptance and cognitive defusion, the aware pillar of present moment contact and the observing self, and the engaged pillar of values and committed action. Along the way, he demonstrates several practical defusion techniques, including how singing a self-critical thought to the tune of Happy Birthday can genuinely loosen its grip, and perspective-taking exercises that invite compassion for a younger version of yourself.There is also a really useful clarification of what acceptance actually means in ACT, which is not resignation or giving up, but a willingness to be with our inner experience as it is, particularly when the alternative is avoidance strategies that tend to cost us far more in the long run.Part two continues next week, going deeper into values, committed action and how ACT applies to specific challenges.Lou has over 16 free guided ACT meditations available on the Insight Timer app, accessible without a premium subscription:👉 https://insighttimer.com/loulasprugatoFurther resources, blogs and training information at:👉 http://loulasprugato.com/Lou's YouTube channel:👉 https://www.youtube.com/c/LouLasprugatoTraining and consultation information via the ACBS website:👉 https://contextualscience.org/lou_lasprugatos_training_pageTo learn more about Wendy's work, explore resources, or stay up to date with future episodes, visit:👉 https://wendycastelino.com/If you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every relationship goes through stress, disappointment and conflict. You argue. You get irritated with each other. Someone forgets something important. None of that on its own means a relationship is toxic or abusive. What matters most is the pattern.In this episode, Wendy explores one of the questions that comes up in her therapy room more than almost anything else: how do you tell the difference between a relationship going through a hard patch, one that has become unhealthy, and one that is genuinely harmful?Part one begins with what healthy actually looks like, because it helps to know the baseline before looking at where things go wrong. Wendy walks through six building blocks of a healthy relationship, covering emotional safety, mutual respect, trust, responsiveness, closeness and independence, and constructive conflict and repair, bringing each one to life with short examples that make the patterns easy to recognise.From there, the episode moves into unhealthy and toxic dynamics, including the important difference between a tearful apology and actual sustained change, and why some relationships that feel good in the moment can gradually shrink your confidence, your independence, and your sense of who you are. Wendy also covers coercive control, which has been a criminal offence in England and Wales since 2015, and makes clear that abusive patterns affect people of all genders.There are four detailed relationship scenarios, two healthy and two toxic, and a set of honest questions to sit with as you listen.Part two is coming next week and will go deeper into abusive relationships, the cycle of harm and repair, and how to leave safely.A note before you listen: this episode is designed for reflection, not to diagnose your relationship. If anything here stirs something up, please be gentle with yourself and reach out to a therapist or your GP if you need support.To learn more about Wendy's work, explore resources, or stay up to date with future episodes, visit:👉 https://wendycastelino.com/If you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.