A Curious Route

Tag: Systems

  • Some People Are the Glue that Hold a Group Together

    I wrote this matter-of-fact title as a reflection. A latterly response to a past significant bereavement. It has until now, remained penned, but undeveloped. Stated, but unexplored. Before revisiting it now, it felt less a contemplation, more an obvious fact of life. What more was there to say about it? That was that. At the…

  • Thirteen Realities We Discount Because We Can’t Always See Them

    Some human experiences we can dismiss as unimportant or non-existent, especially in comparison to visible or quantifiable evidence. Here are thirteen common ones I’ve noticed. Take these as a reminder not to ignore or discount their impact on your own or others’ wellbeing. Executive function and processing capacity. These abilities and our style naturally vary greatly…

  • A Conversation at the Nail Shop: Seeking Certainty

    One afternoon a couple of years ago, I overheard a conversation in a nail bar between a technician and a customer. At the table next to me they were discussing the latest Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid, in which Ariel is played by the mixed-race actor Halle Bailey. They talked about the controversy surrounding her…

  • Plausible Deniability and Truisms: The Art of Swaying you with the Benefit of the Doubt

    In many situations, if you are on the receiving-end of disagreement or conflict, giving others the benefit of the doubt helps to preserve the relationship and let go of hurt feelings. Moving to a place where we can discount the possibility of the other persons bad intentions towards us, helps to preserve an agreement and…

  • Managing uncertainty: when not knowing is sometimes the sensible decision

    In my undergraduate degree research, the ‘p-value’ was a number that came from statistical analysis. It was a long time ago now, but from my basic understanding and memory, the p-value gave an indication of how probable it was that the results were related to chance, rather than to the relationship between the conditions being…

  • New publication: ‘When Healthcare Communication Makes Patients Feel Like They Do Not Matter’

    Just a quick post to highlight a new publication of mine, available on Psychreg. I wrote this piece drawing from personal, professional and third-party experiences of care within healthcare services. I thought it could be helpful and interesting to speak from both perspectives: as a professional who has worked within healthcare systems for many years,…

  • Triangulation: When Three Really is a Crowd

    In this piece, I’m using the well-known family systems concept of ‘triangulation’ to describe a particular process I’ve noticed in and outside therapy, to myself included: A relationship moment where the idea that “two’s company, but three’s a crowd” can actually ring true, especially in the context of navigating complicated group and relationship dynamics. When…

  • A Note on “The World” and How Language Shapes Perspective

    Like many people, I often use the phrase ‘the world’ generally and in my writing as a shorthand to describe the wider contextual environment within which human experiences occur. Lately, I have been wondering whether this phrase is actually appropriate or meaningful. When I use it I notice I push away a background feeling of slight embarrassment.…

  • Are We Living in a More Hostile World, Or Are We Seeing More of It?

    I have been considering this daily while deliberately dipping a toe in and out of catastrophe-focused news headlines, and a semi-awareness of how my true-crime-skewed Netflix algorithm is both fed by, yet subtly nudging me towards a social weariness and vigilance. A common situational thread I have noticed recently in my therapy work is a collective sense of disillusionment…