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How a century of therapy learned to see the whole person If you've never been to counselling, the idea of it can seem strange. How does talking to someone actually help? What is it that changes? And how could one conversation, or a series of them, touch a problem that medication, willpower, advice from friends, or the passage of time has not? These are fair questions, and they deserve real answers. The good news is that we've been learning the answers for well over a hundred

Over the past six weeks, we've travelled a long way together. We began with the blame game, the old idea that addiction was simply a moral failing, a matter of weak will. We saw how that view caused immense harm and how psychology slowly dismantled it. Then we followed the story forward, through the disease model, the neuroscience of dopamine and reward, the wound beneath the drinking, the spiritual hole that Jung described, and the counterfeit quest for wholeness at the hear

Here's an idea that changed the way I understand addiction completely. What if the addict isn't running away from life, but reaching, however clumsily and destructively, toward something real? Last week we touched on Jung's insight that the craving for alcohol is, at a deeper level, a craving for wholeness. This week I want to take that further, into the world of transpersonal psychology, which explores the furthest reaches of human experience, including our need for meaning,

In 1961, a letter arrived on Carl Jung's desk. It was from Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, the organisation that had by then already helped hundreds of thousands of people get sober. Wilson wanted Jung to know something. The founding of AA, he wrote, could be traced in a direct line back to Jung himself. Jung was one of the most influential psychologists who ever lived, and he had, years earlier, treated a man named Rowland Hazard for severe alcoholism. H

We've looked at the moral model, the disease model, and the neuroscience. But there's a question none of those fully answer. Why did it start? What made alcohol feel necessary in the first place? For many people with addiction, the drinking isn't really about alcohol at all. Psychiatrist Ed Khantzian spent decades working with people who were addicted and came to a striking conclusion. He called it the Self-Medication Hypothesis. The idea is simple but profound: people don't

Some people take their first drink and feel nothing much or maybe a warm, slightly dizzy social experience. Others take their first drink and, for the first time, feel completely normal. Like they’ve just found what has been missing all their lives. That difference matters more than most people realise. And it goes a long way toward explaining why addiction takes hold of some people and not others. Researchers call it Reward Deficiency Syndrome. Most of us get a steady supply

In the 1930s, a physiologist named E. M. Jellinek was given an unusual task: study alcoholism properly. No moral judgement or assumptions. Just rigorous, honest science. What he found changed everything. Jellinek discovered alcoholism is a disease with identifiable stages, predictable progression, and the possibility of recovery. He identified four main stages of alcoholism: pre-alcoholic, prodromal, crucial (or critical), and chronic, each marked by increasing loss of contro

We used to lock alcoholics in asylums. We used to tell them they were weak. Sinful. That if they really wanted to stop, they would. That their drinking was a choice — and a selfish one at that. For most of human history, that was the full extent of our understanding. No research. No treatment. No compassion. Just judgement. And the consequences were devastating — not just for the alcoholic, but for everyone who loved them. Because when you believe someone is choosing destruct

A deeper dive behind the ‘Exploring Addiction’ series What rationalism did for witches, psychology has done for alcoholics — saved many souls from the baying crowd. We’ve been drinking for as long as we’ve been human. Alcohol predates recorded history, woven into ritual, celebration, and everyday life across every culture. But for most of that history, the person who couldn’t stop drinking was met not with compassion, but with contempt. They were weak. Sinful. A drain on soci

Why do people become addicted? Why can’t they just stop? And why does it matter how we answer those questions? Seven weeks. Seven posts. One of the most important conversations we can have. Follow along and please share with anyone you think might benefit.

As many of you know, 10 years ago I left my business career and following extensive training, study, and personal healing/development, 3 years ago I began working as a counsellor, supporting people through some of life’s most difficult experiences — addiction, anxiety, depression, spiritual emergency, bereavement, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and much more. Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing my perspective on some of these issues — starting with addiction. In the meanwhil

Meet Fudge, our unofficial co-therapist. For clients who love dogs, Fudge is sometimes available to lie quietly at your feet during sessions. There’s something wonderfully healing about the presence of a calm, gentle animal- no judgment, no agenda, just warmth. Fudge has been doing this for years and takes her job very seriously (as you can tell from her uniform ). If you’re curious about whether a dog-friendly session might be right for you, feel free to ask when you book.