Humans are social, relational animals. We need each other. But do we perform tasks better when we are alone? Does thinking about how other people perform them raise our anxiety levels and take our energy away? And is it possible to act just as effectively as if we were alone, even with others around?

Challenging friend, supportive peer, midwife, parent, role model — a therapist can be many things to many people in a day’s work! What does your therapist offer you?

There is some evidence to suggest that ‘stress debriefing’ after disasters may actually increase the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Are counsellors flying in from different cultures to those who have survived the disaster able to understand other kinds of coping strategies, or are they imposing their own models of psychological distress?

Do you have a sense of persistent unease, causing you to compulsively check Facebook and gaze blankly into the fridge instead of doing what you really want to do? You aren’t alone, and Buddha diagnosed the problem 5,000 years ago…

Do some people need to feel anxious? Is it an addiction, a comfort, or just a crippling affliction? Is there a way of finding out what we really need and like, when free of the constant worry and fear?

Losing my bag with all my documents in it was a shameful, disempowering experience. When I was writing about loss of identity in a spiritual sense, this was not what I meant!

Young children need someone to look at the same things they are looking at to enjoy or understand their own experiences fully. This is a deep need that stays with us for life and perhaps explains something about how therapy works.