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PSYCHOLOGIES.CO.UK

Special report: If diets don’t work – what does?

FEBRUARY 2014 £3.90
NO. 101

FEBRUARY 2014

GET
COSY

EARLY NIGHTS
● BOX-SET BLISS
● BOOKS TO
CURL UP WITH


“I’m fine,
really”

Heal your
inner martyr

UK EDITION

KATE
WINSLET
“I don’t
believe in
perfection”

BRIGHT &
BEAUTIFUL
Skin tips
that work
LOVE & SEX

CREATE
YOUR OWN
GUIDE

Flourish
in 2014
20-PAGE SPECIAL

PSYC H O LO G I ES.CO.U K

GET READY: WRITE YOUR MONTHLY ACTION PLAN
TAKE COURAGE: HOW TO BE TRULY AUTHENTIC
+ TEST: NOT ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS? FIND OUT WHY

DAVID ASHTON
HANDMADE IN LONDON

CONTENTS
FEBRUARY 201 4

REGULARS
7

EDITOR’S LET TER

8

LET TERS

9 I’D LIKE TO THANK …
11
1 32

THE FIX
STOCKISTS

1 3 8 SALLY BR AMP TON

is tired of hearing ‘must’,
and ‘should’ and ‘ought’

Cover: Kate Winslet by Carolyn
Cole / Los Angeles Times /
Contour

18 THE BIG
CONVERSATION

Kate Winslet

“It’s funny, this
notion that when you
become a famous
person you stop
doing normal things”

24 DOSSIER

Flourish!

FEATURES
46

SUBSCRIBE
AND RECEIVE
THIS FREE GIFT

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER?

Clem Felix says it’s high time
to take your friendships out of
the playground
50

ILLUSTRATION: LULU

58

See page 44
for this month’s
subscriptions offer

ARE YOU AN AT TENTION
DEFLECTOR?

Mustn’t grumble, says a weary
Rin Hamburgh… but why not?

“I HAVE A DRE AM”

Can you really make your childhood
dreams happen as an adult? Lawyer
Rosalynn Try-Hane is willing to give it
a go as a writer this year
38

THE COUR AGE CATALYST

When you stop worrying about what
other people think, it’s a lot easier to
be brave. But sometimes it takes a
major event to make us realise this,
writes Keris Stainton

CELEBRATE EVERY MOMENT

When Lucy Murphy’s third
baby was born at just 26 weeks
it took a team of 70 and a lot of
love for him to survive
62

34

BOXING CLE VER

Why watching a box set is ideal
for bonding, life lessons and
winter feelgood factor

YOUR 1 2- POINT ACTION PL AN

Author Cheryl Rickman offers an easy
month-by-month guide to creating
real change in your life, while boosting
your sense of wellbeing

WRITING THE NEXT CHAPTER

Bibi Lynch on how wise words
from other women helped her
change her perspective
54

26

40

TEST: ARE YOU STANDING IN
YOUR OWN WAY?

We all feel excited about our dreams
and plans setting out – but how do
you keep the momentum going?

FEB RUARY 2014 PSYCHOLO GIES MAGA ZINE 3

CONTENTS
FEBRUARY 201 4

67 THE LIFE LAB
69 special report:
what’s e ating you?

None of us are immune to comfort eating,

yet there are myriad reasons why we do
it. Amerley Ollennu gets to grips with
an emotional issue

will make you more grateful for what you have
78 MARY FENWICK

Being able to honestly tell someone how
you are feeling is the best medicine
8 1 love EXPERIMENT

This month Sarah Abell invites you to create
your own sex guide
8 2 Esther perel

What to do when power struggles in the
bedroom lead to a sexual stalemate
8 5 work EXPERIMENT

Oliver Burkeman offers some tips on
battling a never-ending tide of email
86 ilona boniwell

Our family expert on the realities of having
a baby late or after a gap of several years
8 8 EVENTS






Join author Claudia Hammond for a live
workshop on managing time, plus three
School of Life experts have advice on how
to negotiate some modern-day challenges

91 THE BOOST
93 Be aut y notes

Amerley Ollennu is dealing with a beauty SOS
94 See the light

Who doesn’t want a naturally radiant, glowing
complexion? Catherine Turner is on the case
1 0 0 be yond the be aut y counter

Why your favourite beauty brands are going
boutique
1 03 Positive be aut y

Jo Fairley tackles a sensitive subject and aims
to create calm
1 04

wellbeing notes

Catherine Turner explains how to get your new
year off to a more energetic start


1 06 the big SLEEP

We know the benefits of good sleep, but, Sally
Brown asks, how do we ensure it happens?
1 10 my home

Artist Dora Dewsbery tells us why she likes to
be beside the seaside
1 1 4

living

Take shelter and hibernate with cosy furnishings
1 20 main food

Add some depth and flavour to winter meals
1 2 5

Food news

Time for a bit of reinvention, says Rosie Ifould
1 26 main tr avel

Lorna V dives into a brave new adventure
78 Mary Fenwick 8 2 Esther Perel

86 Ilona Boniwell

4 Psycholo gies maga zine FEB RUARY 2014

1 31

tr avel

Savouring the tastes of San Sebastián

photograph: manuel pandalis/blaublut edition

76 Mind e xperiment

Why imagining your life without its blessings

Contributors
Meet three of the people who have taken part in this issue of Psychologies

Rin Hamburgh
Journalist

Author

‘When I look back at my life, now that I am
95, I can truly say that I see it as a happy
one.’ So begins acclaimed author and
editor Diana Athill’s very personal letter
in our ‘Next Chapter’ feature on page 50.
We asked her to look back and see if her
experiences as a working woman who
didn’t take the then traditional route of
marriage and babies could help journalist
Bibi Lynch in her quest to figure out what
to do with the next stage of her life. Diana
was born in 1917 and worked for the BBC
during the war, then for almost five
decades as an editor at publishing house
Andre Deutsch. She later won the Costa
Biography Award for her memoir Somewhere
Towards The End, a reflection on old age.
Her writing is a breath of fresh air, an
ongoing source of good sense and a
testament to her spirit, summed up in this
line from another memoir, Stet, ‘In spite of
losing a considerable part of my youth to
heartbreak, I wake up every morning liking
being here’. Long may you be here, Diana.

6 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Lulu
Illustrator

‘I’ve learned a lot about life, and work,
from looking at flowers,’ comments
Lulu, a freelance illustrator based
in Germany who combines her
hand-drawn floral motifs with some
very modern computer technology
to create stunning visuals. She was
lucky enough to grow up surrounded
by blooms – her mother was a florist
and the family lived above the shop
– and after working in both San
Francisco and Switzerland Lulu now
lives and works in Berlin. You can see
from much of her work where she got
some of her earliest inspiration, and
the flow in her illustrations for us
depicts to perfection the exciting,
imaginative plans for self-growth
envisioned in this month’s ‘Flourish’
dossier. Turn to page 24 and get ready
to wake up, smell the compost and
plant some seeds of your own. If you
begin right now, you can look forward
to roses in May…

DIANA ATHILL PHOTOGRAPH: REX

Diana Athill

As a journalist who specialises in
psychology and wellbeing with a
special interest in mental and
emotional wellbeing, Rin Hamburgh
considered herself pretty self-aware.
Still, sometimes it takes someone
else to see what’s really going on with
us and that’s what happened when,
over a long cup of coffee and much
denial, a good friend noticed and
helped to draw out a little problem
of Rin’s – ‘I realised I wasn’t being
honest with myself about the things
I was going through, nor was I being
honest with the people closest to me.
As soon as I opened up, life improved
almost immediately.’ Read more
about her discovery, and her
self-diagnosis of herself as part of a
quiet but growing gang of ‘attention
deflectors’, on page 62.

EDITOR’S LETTER

PHOTOGRAPH: LIBI PEDDER

Slowly but surely
When you look up the word ‘flourish’ in the dictionary, it is defi ned as doing
well, blossoming or succeeding. But for me, flourishing isn’t about success
so much as growth. And, unfortunately, growth is not always easy. (They
don’t call them growing pains for nothing.) I love the quote from French-born
American author Anaïs Nin: ‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight
in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.’ If 2013 wasn’t the
best of years for you, be comforted by the fact that pain can be a great motivator!
But I believe that in order to grow and flourish, you have to be willing to be
brave and take a risk. That’s why I love Keris Stainton’s piece about bravery
(page 38) in our dossier this month. ‘Courage is not something you have,’
she says. ‘It’s something you choose.’
Choice is a theme we explore throughout the issue; everything from the
friends we choose to surround ourselves with (see Clem Felix’s piece Best
friends forever? on page 46) to the food we choose to put into our mouths
(page 69). In the post-Christmas dieting-to-lose-five-stone-in-five-minutes
madness, we’ve focused our special report this month on comfort eating and
ask how we can make 2014 the year we choose to create a healthy relationship
with food. We’re not great believers in quick fi xes. (We would be if they worked.)
That’s why we’ve asked Amerley Ollennu, our beauty and wellbeing editor, to
chart her attempts to establish that healthy relationship over the coming year
in her new Brain Food column. I hope you’ll join us for that.
However, if it’s flourishing of a more general nature
you’re after, turn to page 24 and start creating your
12-month ‘Flourish masterplan’, which was devised by
inspirational life coach Cheryl Rickman and based on
the research of Martin Seligman, the godfather of
positive psychology.
If this all sounds like too much work in the bleakest of
bleak midwinter, we give you our full permission to do all
of this from your bed. (See page 114 for inspiration from
the lovely home pages of deputy editor Lauren Hadden.)
For now, get your notebook out and simply choose to do
the planning and plant the seeds of inspiration, which will
start to grow once we are able to train our faces towards
the sun again. In the meantime, plump up your cushions
and cosy up with your favourite magazine this winter –
and maybe line up a box set (see page 54) for later. Pass
Suzy Greaves
the remote control…
Editor
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 7

feedback

Viewpoint
We love hearing from the Psychologies tribe, whether you’re giving your thoughts, engaging
in phototherapy or sharing your letter of gratitude to someone who matters to you – this last
something that has been scientifically proven to improve health and wellbeing. Get in touch!

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

100
moments
in time

So much can happen in eight years. In that
time, we’ve produced exactly 100 issues of
the magazine you’re holding in your hands. It’s
been quite a journey – we’ve been through a
lot together, and come out the other side still
standing. For us, the magazine has always
been about discovery – whether it’s something
life-changing we’ve experienced and shared
with you, new advice from an expert,
revelations from unexpected places and
people, or simply a clever new health or beauty
tip. We could easily have listed a thousand
great moments from the last 100 issues, so
think of these as just a snapshot of what we’ve
learned, loved and laughed about as between
us we tried to figure out this strange but
beautiful thing called ‘life’.

100 moments

Dream big, fail better

1
2
3
4

To inspire others, live your values. Follow your own
rules, and others will come on board.
‘Show me someone who doesn’t ever have a crisis of
confidence and I will show you a psychopath.’
(Ol Parker, film director)

‘You think you can’t do something because nature
didn’t conspire to open that particular door for you.
But weirdly, you can.’ (Anna Chancellor, actress)

‘Her novels remind me how
hard it was only a short time
ago to be female and
ambitious.’ (Lionel Shriver, author,
on author Edith Wharton)

5

It is better to praise a child’s
progress in a certain area,
rather than the end result, as
the latter can lead to them putting
in less effort in the future. (Professor
Carol Dweck, psychologist)

6

12
13
14

(Brett Kahr, psychoanalyst)

(Octavius Black, CEO, The Mind Gym)

To boost your confidence, pick
someone who seems confident
and study what makes them
seem that way. By mirroring their
actions, you’ll feel less daunted.

If your child is worrying
about a new experience,
such as starting school,
tell them a funny story about when
you went through the same thing.

16

When a relationship
ends, make a list of 20
things you like about
yourself. This is the first step to
changing how you see yourself.
‘Avoid giving siblings
labels, such as “Sam is the
smart one” and “Rosie is
the pretty one”, as it can harm their
relationship into adulthood.’

‘Nothing was ever achieved
without hard work; putting in
hard graft counts at every stage
of life.’ (Sháá Wasmund, entrepreneur)

Find your pace

‘One of the functions of daydreaming is to keep life’s
agenda in front of you; it reminds you what’s coming up,
rehearses new situations and scans past experiences
so you can learn from them.’ (Eric Klinger, psychologist)
‘For me, the destination is less important than
the process.’ (Sally Brampton, Psychologies

18

‘If you inadvertently
insult someone, then
apologise. Don’t babble
or backtrack. Let it go, move on.’ (Emma Sargent, coach)

19
20

52 P s y c h o l o g i e s m a g a z i n e d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3

‘It’s vital to treat yourself with kindness. This
doesn’t mean self-indulgence or giving in to
any old desire that pops up. Compassionate
behaviour involves taking good care of yourself, through
rest, balance, exercise and sharing the company of friends
and family when possible.’ (Dennis Tirch, psychologist)

>>>

A few
good men
Alarmed by continuous casually sexist attitudes, The
Pa r enting
Great Initiative is hoping to teach boys how to grow into
young men who respect women, and it has enlisted the help of former
rapper and father of two girls, doc brown, to help it achieve this aim
WORDS LENA CORNER

56 P s y c h o l o g i e s m a g a z i n e d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3

Changed thinking

photograph: ki price/camera press

Explaining the imagery

He tells the boys about trips to the newsagents to buy sweets for his daughters
that have ended with awkward questions about the pornographic imagery
they see there. His youngest is only five.
‘I don’t know how to explain it to them.
I’m struggling with it,’ he says. ‘I don’t
want to end their childhood early, and
they wouldn’t understand. It’s hard.’
I have three young sons and this issue
has been worrying me, too. How do you
explain to a child why that woman has

this is Justin Timberlake,’ he says. ‘He’s
family-friendly. He does the voice of Boo
Boo in the Yogi Bear film. I sat down
with my seven-year-old to watch his
new video and it was like woah – naked
women. I’m not talking scantily clad.
I’m talking butt naked.’

Singer and author Karen Ruimy is a
founder of The Great Initiative, along
with journalist Mariella Frostrup and
human rights lawyer Jason McCue.
‘I think we have forgotten to explain
to boys how to be men,’ says Ruimy. ‘In
ancient society they had a rite of passage, it was a sacred moment. We don’t
have that now. We just send them to
school where they learn maths and
English. There is a void about their
identity. I think it’s really important.’

excitement. Quite the opposite. It’s
about finding excitement where you
didn’t know it existed, not about becoming some kind of martyr to dullness.

A cunning ruse

In fact, Foley describes this as ‘not a
worthy act of self-improvement, but an
audacious and cunning ruse.’ I like the
thought of having a ruse. It’s like playing
a trick on life – an act of one-upmanship.
I started planning my own personal ruse
and spoke to journalist Lola Borg, a busy
working mother of teenage children.
‘Every month or so I block off a day, get
a playlist ready, then spend the entire
day sorting out my house. And it’s very

therapeutic. I just love the feeling of
creating order out of chaos, sorting
things for the charity shop, cleaning,
and I prefer a dramatic grand clean-up
than the drip-drip-drip of endless daily
chores. The trick for me is to set a time
limit – say, between 10am and 6pm – and
do as much as I can in that time. For me,
doing it this way turns a dull, mundane
task into something I even (whisper it)
look forward to.’
Cathy Sidaway is a doula – a pregnancy and labour coach – which means
her working days are often full of lifeaffirming, moving experiences. But,
she tells me, the simple act of boiling an
egg can also give her a real moment of >>>

d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 P s y c h o l o g i e s m a g a z i n e 53

STA R LETTER

EMBRACE THE MUNDANE

I’ve just read ‘A few good men’ (December)
and felt compelled to write and tell you what
a great article it was. I consider myself aware,
but I’m so used to the exploitation of women
that I don’t see it any more and this initiative
is positively revolutionary. I’m pregnant with
a son now, and I want things to change so he
can grow up to be a good man. Jessica

no clothes on? What is the right age to
do it? My eight-year-old has already had
his first brush with pornography – he
found a page from Club International in
the street. As introductions to pornography go, it was fairly mild – a naked
woman with her legs open – and he took
it home and hid it in his desk. When I
found it, his questions came tumbling
out. Why did she do it? Was she trying
to get a boyfriend? Did she get paid?
What is ‘prawn’ (porn) anyway?
Brown talks about the energy drink
billboard adverts screaming out the
product name ‘Pussy’, which his girls
quiz him about. ‘It’s just some company
playing us as idiots, using the climate of
people not seeming to care about women’s sexuality to sell its stupid drink,’
he says. ‘And it would never happen the
other way round. Do you think we’d ever
be slurping on a drink called “Cock”?’
He also talks about the pornification
of pop music, which has spread even
to the likes of Justin Timberlake. ‘This
isn’t Snoop Dogg we’re talking about,

helps you to look at life “in the round”
and see that, in the grand scheme of
things, it’s good,’ she explains. ‘There
isn’t that sharp contrast between the
“good bits” and the “dreary bits”, more
a sense of “totality”. This attitude also
makes you more appreciative and more
likely to make downward comparisons’
– in other words, not wish for better for
yourself, but rather see yourself as
fortunate. If you’re more grateful for
your lot, you’ll be more content. People
who are happy to do humdrum things
are more relaxed and less stressed.’
But it’s not about ‘putting up with’
the day-to-day; it’s about learning to
delight in it. It’s not about avoiding

(Janet Reibstein, psychologist)

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 61

as part of a new initiative called Great
Men Value Women. He never set out to
be an advocate of women’s rights. His
career – lately working with Ricky Gervais and creating Bafta-winning drama
4 O’Clock Club for the BBC – was keeping him busy enough. He describes himself as an ‘accidental feminist’ – a man
brought up by women, who now, aged
35, as a father to two girls, is increasingly
incensed by the casual misogyny and
sexist attitudes around him.

doesn’t it? However, our escapist attitudes are not entirely our own fault.
Foley believes western history itself,
and our religious preoccupation, has
pre-programmed people to see the
everyday as some sort of ‘suffering to
be endured in order to earn a more
rewarding existence in the afterlife.’
But what if you’re not planning on
an eternity in paradise? I’m not, so I’ve
decided to start revelling in the routine,
leading a life that’s more – not less –
ordinary. And it’s turning out to be the
best decision I’ve made in years.
I spoke to Jessica Chivers, author
and career coach (jessicachivers.com),
about this. ‘Finding joy in the mundane

‘If you are breaking up with a partner, let them
state the terms and frequency of future contact
– they are the injured party.’

BLIND TO SEXISM

A

Embracing The Ordinary (Simon &
Schuster, £7.99) that there are ‘cultural
factors, such as the new obsession with
celebrity, that makes anonymous, mundane life seem worse than death.’ But
would you really want to be living in
your own version of a reality TV show,
lurching from one drama to the next?
‘Escapism… by means of entertainment, travel, partying, alcohol, drugs or
sex… does not work,’ Foley continues.
‘Sooner or later the escapee is back in
prison, more depressed than before,
also very likely out of pocket, hungover,
exhausted and afflicted by guilt, shame,
dread and a nasty, state-of-the-art STD.’
Well, that all sounds a bit depressing,

“Finding joy in the mundane
helps you look at life ‘in the
round’ and see that it’s good”

(Terri Apter, psychologist)

‘The lovely and banal truth is that even if we fail
a little, our families will almost certainly emerge
unscathed.’ (Angela Neustatter, journalist)

60 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Be kind

15
17

7
8

ordinary

ecently, I met a friend who I
hadn’t seen for a while.
Once we’d established that
we were both fine, in good
health, and that our families, jobs and homes were all in working
order, she said to me, ‘I just need something exciting to happen.’
Instead of thinking, ‘So do I’, I actually thought, why? What is ‘exciting’,
anyway? We live in a society obsessed
with fame, wealth and beauty, and it’s
making us lose sight of the everyday –
and the pleasure that can be found in
being in the present moment, no matter
how humdrum it might seem to be.
Michael Foley explains in his book

‘In counselling, we prefer to use the phrase
“working through” rather than closure – an
ongoing process rather than a goal in itself.’

‘The idea of
“spare” time
is a false one.
Instead strive to
ensure every minute
of your time is spent in
the best way possible.’

9
10

R

‘Regret can be a signal that there is a chance to
fix things. It lingers wherever there are still
opportunities.’ (Sarah Maber, journalist)

‘Parenting is so different from other work. It’s the
glacial pace. Half an hour to get a child’s coat on,
45 minutes to go to the corner. It teaches you
patience and management.’ (Julianne Moore, actress)

11

columnist)

ripple of excitement passes
through the hall at Kelmscott School in north London. Doc Brown, former
rapper, comedian, youth
worker and younger brother of author
Zadie Smith, is here – a surprise guest –
to give the first lesson of the day. His
audience, 75 teenage boys, most of
whom know Brown intimately via his
prolific YouTube output, are hanging on
his every word.
He kicks off with a few thoughts on
the day’s issue of The Sun. ‘On the front
page there’s a naked woman and across
her tits it has the words “Hello boys”,’
he says. ‘This is the number one selling
newspaper in the UK. Not 30 years ago,
now, when we’re supposed to see women
as equals. Imagine if it was a picture of a
black guy in a loincloth with bare feet and
it said, “Yes boss”. There would be outrage, we’d have a race riot on our hands.
But when it comes to women, they’re
expected to just shut up and take it.’
Brown, real name Ben Smith, is here

A life more

 these days, so
much is excused as
banter, but it’s more
dangerous. We’ve
made it such that
if you say anything
against it, you’re
a prude’’
If the casual misogyny that we are
surrounded by goes unquestioned, the
consequences can be much darker. On
the Great Men website, one teenager
tells how he was once at a party where a
15-year-old girl got so drunk that one of
his friends decided to have sex with her.
The girl was a virgin. Soon afterwards,

another of his friends decided to have
sex with her, too. Everyone just stood
around watching and laughing. At the
time, because everyone was doing it,
it seemed like OK behaviour. ‘I’d call it
rape now,’ the teenager says. ‘Since then,
everyone involved has done their best to
forget about it. I can see that much of the
problem stems from a lack of education.’
It only takes one person to speak up
to totally change a situation like that,
and that’s what The Great Initiative is
about. ‘These days, so much is excused
as banter,’ says Brown. ‘but it’s more
dangerous. We’ve made it such that if
you say anything against it, you’re a
prude. You’re the party killer.’
The Kelmscott boys are enthused
and inspired. ‘We should have more
talks like this,’ says one. ‘We have sex
education, but that doesn’t cover any
of this. It’s really made me think.’ And
another: ‘I’ve never looked at it this
way. When I see the billboards with
Pussy on them, I just go, “That’s a nice
drink”. Doc Brown has made me think
about it. They shouldn’t be putting stuff
like that on billboards and it shouldn’t
be going on front pages either.’
Brown ends his talk by seguing seamlessly into a rap sending up egotistical
hip-hop stars who brag about all the
bitches and hos they’ve slept with.
‘These boys’ minds are constantly
manipulated into thinking that women
are second-class citizens. It’s a human
rights issue – this is the next step in the
civil rights movement. It’s amazing
we’re still fighting on such a basic level,’
he says. ‘I think it’s like racism or religious differences – you’ve got to bring
these things out in the open and discuss
them. Honesty is the key. This is just a
starting point. Someone has to facilitate
a process of communication in these
groups. We’ve got a very long way to go.’
To find out more, visit thegreatinitiative.org.uk

Never before has an article changed my outlook in the way that ‘A life
more ordinary’ (December) has. I have a happy life but sometimes feel
as though I should be doing more. I have a job, a home, good health,
a husband and I am pregnant with my second child, but I often feel
the need to justify this ‘normality’. I always dreaded the inevitable
question, ‘What have you been up to lately?’ but I now realise I should
be embracing my happiness with the seemingly mundane. After all,
the grass isn’t always greener. Shirley

THIS MONTH’S STAR
LETTER AND PHOTO
COMPETITION PRIZE IS:
A selection of Manuka
Doctor skincare, worth £90*.
For more information, go to
manukadoctor.co.uk

d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 P s y c h o l o g i e s m a g a z i n e 57

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8 PSYCHOLO GIES MAGA ZINE FEB RUARY 2014

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PHOTOGRAPH: SARAH LISSETT. **FOR T&CS, SEE PSYCHOLOGIES.CO.UK

love

Does your life
LIFE
feel like a series
of mundane activities,
dotted with occasional
bursts of excitement? It
might be time to change
your perspective, says
eleanor Tucker, and learn
to embrace the everyday

phoTographs: geTTy images

I discovered Psychologies in a hotel lobby and
when I read it, I felt like it all could have come
from a therapist who knew everything about
me. Every page was like a nod of approval
rather than the shaking finger other magazines
offered me. I know many women feel this way,
but when I hear Psychologies land on my mat,
it’s like a very close friend arriving. Lianna

I’d like to thank…
THIS MONTH’S W INNING LETTER

PHOTO COMPETITION
W INNER: JA N UA RY

THEME: OPTIMISM

I make a personal choice to be open to optimism
and lean away from pessimism. As a young,
single parent I look at my daughter in my portrait
holding the rose-coloured glass and remind
myself how we can see rosiness in both of our
futures. It was taken in my studio in London
in November. Sarah Lissett

ARE YOU AN ASPIRING PHOTOGRAPHER?
Would you like to showcase your photographic
talents in the magazine and online? Each
month, we’re asking you to submit your best
photograph on a particular theme. We’ll print
the winning photograph in the next issue of
Psychologies and on psychologies.co.uk the
following month and the winner gets an
amazing bag of goodies**!
The theme for our February issue is ‘ZEAL’.
Please send your photograph attached in
an email to [email protected] by
midnight on 31 January to be in with a chance
of winning. Good luck!

When we first met, I was at an awful place in my life. A neurosurgeon
had told me my 11-year-old son Ashley needed corrective brain surgery
for a tumour. I’d put Ashley and my other son Josh to bed, and was at
the computer, alone and dazed, looking for an online chat forum for
parents of disabled children, finally releasing the tears I’d held in all day.
After some fruitless searching, I stumbled across a dating website
for parents I’d signed up for. I was in no place to talk that night, but you
popped up on my screen. ‘Hello, fancy a chat?’ you asked. I politely
declined. You asked again; again I said no. You were persistent. ‘Ooh,
go on…’ We vied to see who’d had the worst day. You’d been choosing
a headstone for your first wife, who had died of a brain tumour. A bad
day all round, we agreed. You understood my fear, because you’d been
through it yourself. From that day, your love, care and support got me
through that awful time. You moved 100 miles to be with me, and our
lives completely transformed. You brought me love and happiness, not
to mention your sweet two-year-old son Charlie. Our marriage was
the happiest day of my life. Even Charlie, who had delayed speech
development, said ‘and me’ when you said ‘I do’.
I’m grateful for your persistence, which led to that first chat.
Without that, we wouldn’t be celebrating our seventh wedding
anniversary in April. I am grateful for the difference you make to my
life. You were there when Ashley had brain surgery just two months
after we met. You watched him recover with me and turn into the
young man he is today. You love me unconditionally. You held my hand
and supported me when I had my own cancer scare, although you’d lost
one wife already. Nothing is enough to convey my love and immense
gratitude to you, just for being you, for loving me, for being in my life.

THIS MONTH’S LETTER
OF GRATITUDE WINS…
A year’s digital subscription to
Psychologies, worth £28.99

IS THERE SOMEONE YOU’D LIKE TO THANK? SHARE YOUR LETTER OF GRATITUDE BY SENDING IT TO [email protected]

FEB RUARY 2014 PSYCHOLO GIES MAGA ZINE 9

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the Fix
News i

Reviews

i

Books

i

edited by ALI ROFF

Film

i

Art

i

Ideas

For an uplifting and energy-charged
explosion of colour to warm even the
bleakest winter evenings, indulge in
The Merchants Of Bollywood, a vibrant
performance of theatrical Bollywoodstyle dance and award-winning music.

PHOTOGRAPH: the merchants of bollywood

Runs from 28 Jan-15 Feb, sadlerswells.com

Nobody cares if you can’t dance well.
Just get up and dance. Great dancers are
great because of their passion.”
Martha Graham

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 11

THE FIX

LOOKING BACK
Remember those sunny
days in the park, when
your only care in the
world was whether there
was enough wind to fly your
kite? Well it seems it’s good to
take a trip down memory lane, as
researchers say nostalgia and happy
memories can also make us feel more
optimistic by raising and maintaining
feelings of self-esteem, contributing to a
more positive outlook on our future.*
Traditional
diamond kite by
I LOVE RETRO,
£19.95, Not On
The High Street

BOOK OF THE MONTH

THE NIGHT GUEST
by Fiona McFarlane
(Sceptre, £14.99, out 16 January)
Elderly widower Ruth lives alone on
the New South Wales coast, and one
evening becomes half-convinced she’s
heard a tiger prowling through her
house. The next day a stranger arrives
with a suitcase – Frida, sent from the
government, announces she will be
Ruth’s carer. The enigmatic woman
brings life and laughter back to the
household, and listens to Ruth’s stories
about growing up in Fiji and the man she
fell for there. But Ruth can still hear the
tiger breathing in the dead of night, and
soon starts noticing things are amiss.
Addressing our fear of isolation in a
world where families are increasingly
scattered, The Night Guest is a
suspenseful debut novel that holds you
in its powerful jaws throughout. SB

86%
OF WOMEN
BELIEVE
SUNSHINE HELPS
THEM FEEL
MORE HAPPY
AND POSITIVE.**
WE’VE NEVER
HEARD A BETTER
EXCUSE TO
START LOOKING
AT SUMMER
BREAKS…

RAISE A GLASS
Whether you follow your heart or
your head, these beautiful beakers,
inspired by a lifelong obsession
with science, will get you thinking
as you’re drinking.

Recycled heart/head
glasses, £49 for six,
Space 1a Design

ARGUING THAT COOPERATION DRIVES EVOLUTION MORE THAN COMPETITION AND USING ALTRUISTIC VAMPIRE BATS AS AN EXAMPLE, COMEDIAN

12 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

HERE COME THE GIRLS
Need an excuse to book that getaway
with the girls this year? New research†
shows that regardless of age, marital
status or nationality, all-girl breaks are
important at every stage of life; from
providing bonding opportunities and
adventure in youth, to much-needed
breaks from careers or family as adults,
and for independence in later life.
Set of two
leather
luggage
tags in
violet lizard,
£35, Aspinal
of London

FILM OF THE MONTH

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

* ‘BACK TO THE FUTURE: NOSTALGIA INCREASES OPTIMISM’, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON.
**RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY ORIGIN, MANUFACTURER OF BI-FOLDING DOORS. †‘GIRLFRIEND GETAWAYS
OVER THE LIFE COURSE: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY’. HEATHER J. GIBSON, ET AL, ANNALS OF LEISURE
RESEARCH, 2012. BOOK REVIEWS: STACEY BARTLETT. FILM REVIEW: ALI ROFF

Directed by Justin Chadwick ★ ★ ★ ★
To pull the events of a person’s life into 146 minutes is tough, and even tougher if that
person is the late Nelson Mandela. But Justin Chadwick does an impressive job of
depicting Mandela’s legendary life events with momentum and meaning. Idris Elba as
Mandela is fantastic throughout, from a confident young lawyer whose once-peaceful
cause turned to violence, to a softly spoken older man showing great patience and
restraint, and as in his autobiography, the film doesn’t portray him as perfect by any
means. But for us, Naomie Harris steals the show as strong-willed, eventually radical
Winnie. Through her we observe how desperate black South Africa truly felt, and see
the stark contrast between the couple’s experiences, leading to their split. It’s a beautiful
film, doused in African sunlight and fuelled by a story that changed the world. AR

BOOK S TO SOOTHE THE SOUL

WE LOVE: White Beech by Germaine Greer (Bloomsbury, £25)
Our friends at Radio 4 tell us why her story will touch your heart:
‘Like many of us, I first became aware of Germaine Greer when I read The Female
Eunuch,’ says BBC Radio 4 producer Jane Marshall. ‘Her new book is written not
by a passionate young feminist but by a woman in her seventies who has lost
none of her energy to speak out for causes. This time, her quest is to “heal” a
piece of land in her native Australia with the help of her sister, a botanist. It’s a
book in search of “heart’s ease”, a story of struggle, generosity, determination
and triumph against the odds. I met Germaine when we produced a reading of
the book. Hearing her read her own story reminded me how difficult it must be to
have each half of your heart in countries so far apart. I am sure listeners will find
her love for her motherland, and for her sister, both touching and revealing.’
Germaine Greer reads from her new book ‘White Beech’ on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ slot from
27 to 31 January. The series is abridged and produced by Jane Marshall Productions. 

AND JOURNALIST ROB NEWMAN’S ‘NEW THEORY OF EVOLUTION’ IS AT THE SOHO THEATRE FROM 6–18 JANUARY 2014, SOHOTHEATRE.COM

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 13

THE FIX

CAFFEINE FIX
Whether you are trying to cut down on coffee or just use it more
efficiently here are our tips on making the best of your beans:
● Hold off your first coffee until at least 9.30am. Natural morning
cortisol production raises alertness, so neuroscientist Steven
Miller argues it is more effective to drink caffeine after this peak.
● Need a second wind? Try drinking a cup of coffee before a quick
nap, rather than after, so the caffeine takes effect as you wake up*.
● Cycle to work, or pick up your walking pace instead of a morning
coffee. Aerobic exercise has been found to boost cognitive ability**
as increased heart rate improves oxygen and nutrient flow through
the blood to the brain, allowing it to perform better***.

£45 for 4,
John Lewis

5%

NEW PA PER BACK S

The Rosie Project
by Graeme Simsion
(Michael Joseph, £7.99)
When Don, a borderline autistic
professor with high standards, decides
to create a survey to find a wife, he never
expects spontaneous Rosie to disrupt
his foolproof plan. A refreshing debut
that will make you laugh out loud.

OF US THINK HAVING A SMALL
CLOTHES SIZE IS A SIGN OF
HEALTH AND FITNESS, BUT 54%
THINK POSITIVE ENERGY IS
THE BIGGEST TELLTALE SIGN†

Big Brother
by Lionel Shriver (Harper, £7.99)
Pandora’s older brother is obese. Appalled
by his slovenly habits and bad diet, she
takes him into her home to try turn his
life around – at the expense of her own
family. Big Brother is a darkly humorous
take on a modern issue, based on the
writer’s experiences with her own brother.

DV D

Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson (Black Swan, £7.99)

PEACOCK

What if you had a chance to live your life
again and again till you got it right? This
extraordinary book follows the story of
Ursula Todd, born three times during a
snowstorm in 1910, who lives out her life
through various scenarios in Second
World War London. SB

Psychological thriller Peacock boasts a fantastic cast,
including Susan Sarandon, Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page.
It follows John [Murphy], a young man living with multiple
personality disorder. His alter ego identity is Emma; a woman
who does his housework daily. But when an accident thrusts
strangers into John’s seemingly normal life, his secret is nearly
exposed and Emma threatens to take over his life completely.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX AND SCARLETT JOHANSSON STAR IN ‘HER’, WHERE HUMANS USE DIGITAL OPERATING SYSTEMS AS THEIR ULTIMATE

14 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

† SURVEY CONDUCTED BY FITNESSFIRST. * ‘COUNTERACTING DRIVER SLEEPINESS: EFFECTS OF NAPPING, CAFFEINE, AND PLACEBO.’ HORNE JA,
REYNER LA. PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY. 1996 MAY;33(3):306-9. ** ‘BE SMART, EXERCISE YOUR HEART: EXERCISE EFFECTS ON BRAIN AND COGNITION.’
CHARLES H. HILLMAN, ET AL, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY. *** ‘SHORTER TERM AEROBIC EXERCISE IMPROVES BRAIN, COGNITION, AND
CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS IN AGEING.’ CHAPMAN ET AL, FRONT. AGING NEUROSCIENCE, 12 NOVEMBER 2013.FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

LSA Polka
Cup & Saucer,

THE FIX

CULTUR E

A love letter
to the world

Photographer Sebastião Salgado’s
collection Genesis (Taschen, £44.99) is
the result of an eight-year expedition to
encounter the people of the world who
have not been touched by modern society.
Here the women in
the Zo’é village of
Towari Ypy in
Brazil use the
urucum red fruit
to color their
bodies, especially
lips, giving it
the nickname
‘lipstick tree’.

So Many Books!
Bookends
£15.95, The
Literary Gift
Company

‘THERE IS NO FRIGATE LIKE A BOOK
TO TAKE US LANDS AWAY
NOR ANY COURSERS LIKE A PAGE
OF PRANCING POETRY…’
Emily Dickinson

PERSONAL ASSISTANTS. BUT LINES BETWEEN DIGITAL AND REALITY BLUR WHEN THEIR RELATIONSHIP EVOLVES (OUT 10 JANUARY).

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 15

THE FIX
Mareika mini
tablet case,
£50, Marc by
Marc Jacobs

Colbalt bra, £26,
and briefs, £12,
Boux Avenue

Two-tone
sweater, £140,
Sportmax Code

Windsor
overcoat,
£399, Hobbs

Rose gold
ring, £75,
Folli Follie

Floral dress,

ST Y LE

True blue

Trousers,
£95, Reiss

We might traditionally associate the colour blue
with feelings of serenity and calm, or sadness or
perhaps the cold, but just like a clear blue sky
invites us to jump out of bed and make the most of
our day, scientific researchers* have found that the
colour blue can actually make us more productive.
A cobalt hue has the power to boost creative
thinking, and even has a positive effect on our
intelligence. So, on a dreary morning, when the
grey skies threaten and all we really want to do
is drag the duvet back over our head, we
might just benefit from pulling on a cosy
cerulean jumper, or a pair of shiny sapphire
shoes. Or carry your tablet computer in a
cobalt case and inject a productivity hit
wherever you go. After all, colour is simply
light and light is energy, so let’s get colourful
ourselves while we keep an eye out for that
elusive blue sky.

Metallic
shoes,
£492, Pollin

‘I, WHEN IN GOOD HUMOUR, GIVE GRASS ITS GREEN, BLAZON SKY BLUE, AND ENDOW THE SUN WITH GOLD...’ SYLVIA PLATH, COLLECTED POEMS

16 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

* ‘BLUE OR RED? EXPLORING THE EFFECT OF COLOUR ON COGNITIVE TASK PERFORMANCES’,
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, RAVI MEHTA, RUI (JULIET) ZHU, 2009.
COMPILED BY BONNIE RAHKIT AND ALI ROFF. FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

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THE BIG CON V ER SATION

British actress Kate Winslet has been a household
name since starring in 1990s blockbuster Titanic
and winning an Oscar for her role in The Reader.
She talks to us about her new thriller, Labor Day,
as well as fame and motherhood

KATE
WINSLET

It’s
funny,
this
notion
that
when

you become a famous person,
you stop doing normal things’’
photography carolyn cole/los angeles times/contour

18 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4

the big conversation

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 19

the big conversation
>>>

Kate Winslet, 38,

I have just been

very lucky that I’ve

is threatening to sneeze at
the time of interview – with potentially embarrassing consequences. She is pregnant and wearing a fabulous, red,
sequinned gown for the premiere of Labor Day in London’s
Leicester Square. ‘I’m not quite waddling. Just don’t let me
sneeze, because I might wet myself at the same time – you’re
thrilled I said that, aren’t you?’ she laughs.
We’re catching up with her to talk about the film, based on
a novel by Joyce Maynard, which tells the story of a troubled,
agoraphobic, single mum. ‘I have admiration for mothers
everywhere, whether they’re single or not, and for fathers too,
because parenthood turns you inside out,’ Winslet recently Psychologies: Have you dared to sit and watch the film?
said. ‘It completely transforms your life.’ And she talks from We haven’t stopped crying since we saw it.
experience. She has a daughter, Mia, 13, from her first mar- Kate: I watched it with two friends the night before it was
riage to Jim Threapleton, who she met on the set of Hideous
screened at the Toronto Film Festival and actually sat there
Kinky in 1997, and a son, Joe, nine, from her marriage to direc- and thought to myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ There are some
tor Sam Mendes, who she separated from in 2010 and later particularly difficult scenes that involve my character and an
divorced. She married Ned Rocknroll, a nephew of Richard infant and I just wanted to run out of the cinema. I’m really
Branson, in December 2012, and at time of going to press she
very proud to be a part of the film, but yeah, it’s incredibly
had just given birth to a baby boy.
moving and I think I won’t watch it again for a while now.
Winslet originally hails from Reading and is the second of It’s not a typical Hollywood love story.
four children. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures
Kate: Well I don’t really like typical Hollywood, it’s not the
aged 19, and is the youngest person
kind of thing I tend to be drawn
to accrue six Academy Award nomto. No, it’s different, it’s based on
The film
inations, appearing in Titanic, the
a book by Joyce Maynard and set
highest grossing film in history at L abor Day
in the 1980s in the States. I play
the time, when she was just 22. She The story is seen through the eyes of 13-yearAdele, the single mother of Henry,
finally won a best actress Oscar for old Henry Wheeler (Gattlin Griffith) and the
and one day she finds herself helpher performance as a concentra- man he later becomes (listen for the dulcet
ing Frank, a stranger, at the very
tion camp guard in The Reader in tones of Tobey Maguire as the older Henry).
beginning of the film. She agrees to
2008. She’s being hotly tipped for Living with Adele, his depressed, agoraphobic
give him a ride and asks him where
mother (Kate Winslet), who has not got over
another Oscar nomination for her
he wants to go once he’s in the car,
her divorce from his father (Clark Gregg),
role as Adele in Labor Day, but
and he says, ‘Your house.’ So, lo and
Henry feels the heavy weight of the
Winslet is modest. ‘It hasn’t crossed
behold, she’s suddenly taking this
responsibility of caring for his mum. At the
my mind,’ she says. ‘Awards season start of Labor Day weekend, while on a rare
very strange, bloodied person back
is always huge fun and it’s been a excursion into town, Henry comes across an
to her home – and yes, they do fall
really exciting year for film, so I’m injured man, Frank (Josh Brolin), who asks for
in love. At first you think there’s
looking forward to it, but this time refuge in their home, and Adele reluctantly
no explanation for it, but as you get
I’ll be putting my feet up with the agrees. Over the course of the next four days,
to know these two characters, you
we
realise
that
all
is
not
as
it
seems
and
baby.’ Labor Day is directed by
realise there are lots of similarities
Jason Reitman (whose previous although mother and son are taken ‘hostage’,
between them and that actually he
films include Juno, Thank You For they enjoy a short-lived idyll of family life with
is a really wonderful man.
Smoking and Up In The Air) and this great hunk of a man, seemingly the answer
So what drew you to the role of
to everyone’s prayers. ‘I came to save you,
also stars Josh Brolin as Frank, the
Adele?
Adele,’ Frank says at one point. Adele’s hunger
mysterious man Adele picks up,
Kate: I just found the relationship
for love and her son’s need for a father figure
and young talent Gattlin Griffith are met metaphorically with Frank’s homebetween Adele and Frank beauas her son Henry. A coming-of-age cooked dinners – culminating in a pie-baking
tiful, so that was a big pull for me.
story, Labor Day touches on themes scene that is a feast for the senses. Ultimately
Also, I hadn’t really played a charof guilt and innocence – but be a film about grief and betrayal, Labor Day
acter like this before. She’s quite
warned, it’s a bit of a weepy.
weak in many ways, fragile, and
is romantic without being sentimental.

always been quite
comfortable with
who I am



20 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Kate Winslet as Juliet, with Melanie Lynskey, in
Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures in 1994

The role that put her on the Hollywood A-list,
as Rose in 1997’s blockbuster movie Titanic

Blooming in red
at the London
premiere of
Labor Day

WORDS: IFA/INTERVIEW HUB. PHOTOGRAPHS:
REX, TIM ROOKE/REX, PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Winslet, with David Kross, in her Oscar-winning role
as prison guard Hanna Schmitz in The Reader

I’m not used to playing characters like that. I’m used to playing people who are full-blooded and more obviously strong.
Although Adele has a degree of strength, it takes a while for
the audience to see it. So I just knew it would be challenging,
and I always look for that.
In the film, we see Adele being cooked for by Frank. Can
we just say that when you were cooking, you looked as
if you didn’t have a clue what to do?
Kate: It’s acting, darling! [She laughs.] But surely every
woman – and correct me if I’m wrong here – probably enjoys
being cooked for every once in a while. That’s definitely a
really nice gesture. But how do I go into this without making
it like I’m talking about my own life? There’s only a certain
number of times a man can unload a dishwasher before it’s
just not sexy any more. [Laughing.] That’s my opinion.
Really? Don’t you think men should share the load of
household chores?
Kate: Of course. When it comes to things within the home,
definitely. But at the same time, I couldn’t change a tyre.

As lonely single mother Adele in Labor Day, with Josh
Brolin as Frank and Gattlin Griffith as Henry

I wouldn’t know how to put the chain back on the bike or fix
cement in the wall. Maybe it’s us who are lacking. Maybe it’s
the girls who need to pump it up.
You must be better at cooking in real life than you were
on screen?
Kate: I’m fabulous. [Laughs.] But I was just saying this morning to the lovely girl who did my make-up, ‘Did you ever have
days where you think, “Oh, my God. I don’t know what to
cook any more?”. People say to me, “You cook?” and I’m like,
“Who else is going to fucking cook?” [Laughs.] Do you know
what I mean? It’s funny, this notion that when you become a
famous person, you stop doing normal things. Maybe some
people do, but I think I’d be so unhappy if I didn’t do it.
When you were making the decision to act, what did you
think it was going to be like?
Kate: In terms of what I imagined, I saw a life on the breadline, trotting around London, hopefully going for lots of
auditions. I grew up in a family of people who would have a
party if someone even had an audition, so when I was that >>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 21

the big conversation

22 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4

the big conversation



I have admiration
for mothers
everywhere.
parenthood turns
you inside out



>>> girl running around town with my bag and my script pages,

it was amazing. That was the life I imagined. I certainly
didn’t think I’d be in films, it didn’t even cross my mind. It’s
the reason I think I’ve been able to remain sane, because
it’s really exciting when there’s someone new that we talk
about and there’s someone exciting coming through and
doing well. But then you also hear horror stories where you
think, ‘God, who’s looking after these people and why does it
seem like they’re losing their way?’ I mean, you think about
someone like Miley Cyrus, and I said to my daughter the
other day, ‘I’m this close to opening my mouth about what’s
going on with that girl.’ [Laughs.] My daughter’s 13 and she
said, ‘Mum, just don’t Mum, don’t.’ I’m not going to go there.
But one’s heart does kind of go, ‘Who is actually saying, “Stop
for a second. What do you want? Who are you?”.’ I’ve just
been very lucky that I’ve always been quite comfortable
with who I am. Sometimes people ask, ‘What do you wish
for your children?’ and all I say is, ‘I want them to be happy
being them.’
Are you glad that you didn’t rise to prominence in the
internet age?
Kate: Yes I am. It’s really rough now, I think, for young
actors, actresses and pop stars. It’s a nightmare. They can’t
do anything. I’m so not going near that whole world – I don’t
need it. I don’t need to feed it, I don’t need to be fed by it. But
we live in a world where we have to be aware of all this stuff,
unfortunately. And it’s feeding this young generation in a
way that’s beyond terrifying, so normal friendships aren’t
even normal friendships any more because, half the time,
they seem to be forging relationships with people they’ve
never met. So I do feel incredibly lucky.
Are you judgemental when you watch yourself on the
big screen?
Kate: Oh, yeah. I think most actors are. I’ve not heard a single
actor ever say, ‘I loved my performance in blah, blah, blah.’
Because you don’t believe in perfection?
Kate: No, I actually don’t believe in perfection. I genuinely
don’t. But it’s not only that. I would hope I always do find
things wrong with performances that I’ve given because if

you don’t find something wrong, well, where do you go? What
kind of person would I be if I thought that I was brilliant or
I thought that I’d got it right every time? But I do still find
watching myself… well, it’s still really weird.
How do you manage having both a fantastic career and
a family, and now having another baby coming? How
do you cope with it all?
Kate: Mia and Joe are a bit older now. It makes it easier
because they dress themselves, that kind of thing. It is a juggle and you just somehow pull it together and it works. Ned,
my husband, is absolutely incredible and he looks after us
all. In fact, the other day Joe asked, ‘How come there are no
other dads on the school run?’ And we both went, ‘It’s because
this is the way we’re doing it.’ The kids really love that.
You’re very much admired for refusing to have plastic
surgery. What are your thoughts on women who feel the
pressure to stay youthful?
Kate: I could talk about this until the cows come home, but
why are we still talking about this shit? It’s ridiculous. It’s
very hard to comment in a generic way without making it
sound in any way critical. We all want to look good. I think
we do care to a certain extent – whether you’re a vain person
or not, you think about what you look like, even if you look
in the mirror for two minutes before you walk out the door.
But it doesn’t seem to be getting any better really, does it?
Can you tell us about why you chose not to do that?
Kate: It’s my face. I just wouldn’t want to do that to myself.
I care about myself and there are other ways of caring about
one’s appearance that don’t involve injections and being
carved up. Also, I think I’d feel a bit dishonest if I was making my face do less. I don’t know how I’d be able to do my job.
Did you always imagine you would have lots of children
and a big family?
Kate: I think when you come from a big family, which I did,
and my mother came from a very big family, I think you
always imagine you will be surrounded by a lot of people,
definitely. I always wanted to have children and I just
feel incredibly lucky. There I was thinking, ‘OK, I’ve got my
two wonderful children’, and here I am with another one
on the way. I just feel so, so lucky.
‘Labor Day’ is released in the UK on 7 February

Join THE Psychologies Film Club
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out to them?
2. What really attracts people to each other – desire or need?
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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 23

dossier

FLourish!
So, another new year. Does it fill you with energy and
excitement? Or do you feel overwhelmed, a hangover
from the things you failed to achieve last year? This month
we offer a different approach, backed up by research from
leaders in the positive psychology field. We don’t want to
tick goals off a list, we want to flourish! Flourishing is the
brainchild of Martin Seligman, the godfather of positive
psychology, who believes happiness is too fleeting to
invest all our energy in and if we aspire to flourish instead,
we’ll build something more lasting. We offer a 12-month
masterplan: tips on building a strong vision, courage and
self-knowledge that will set you up not just for January,
but, hopefully, the rest of 2014. Go forth and... flourish!
ILLUSTRATIONS LULU/ CWC INTERNATIONAL

DOSSIER
FLOURISH!

YOUR 12-POINT ACTION PLAN

Welcome to our month-by-month guide to creating change while
boosting your sense of wellbeing. Created by Cheryl Rickman, the key
elements of flourishing – positive emotion, engagement, positive
relationships, meaning and accomplishment (PERMA) – are built into
the plan. Follow our steps, log your progress, prepare to be amazed
JANUARY

Flourish at home

As our outer world affects our inner world, what better way
to start on this flourishing journey than to roll your sleeves
up and get your house in order? Our programme for change
is based on Martin Seligman’s positive psychology principles, and was drawn up by Cheryl Rickman, author of The
Flourish Handbook (CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, £11.99). So, the first step is to create a conducive
environment in which to plant your seeds of possibility.
You’ll save time with everything in its place, easy to locate.
Also, according to research, decluttering can reduce housework by 40 per cent. It’ll restore your mental energy, and is
incredibly uplifting, too. Make some room for what matters.

power can be increased tenfold by meditating under gentle
shades of violet, as often found in church windows. So, these
days I try to buy yellow flowers where possible, or put my
flowers (whatever colour) into yellow or purple vases.
FEBRUARY

Generate more energy

There’s a definite link between energy and wellbeing.
Happiness is energising in itself. The more energy you have,
the better you feel and the more able you are to achieve, parFEBRUARY
ticipate and stay motivated. The more energy you have, the
more self-control you have, too, so you’re better able to resist
temptation, avoid procrastination and get on with your life.

1

1

2

2

DECLUT TER FOR 10 MINUTES A DAY
From now on, dedicate a little time to tidying. That
way, you’re not greeted by chaos every morning.
Schedule in a weekly 15 to 30-minute slot to deal with paperwork and file it. Take it seriously: mark time in your diary or
phone calendar. Each time you leave a room, take an item
with you to put back in its original place.
PUT ASIDE MONE Y TO ENHANCE THE
SPACE WHERE YOU SPEND MOST TIME
Whether you spend £10 or £100, make your home or
office more welcoming or serene – whatever vibe you wish to
create. For me, buying luxury notebooks and fine tip coloured
pens, the tools of my trade, gives me a boost and makes my
work more pleasurable.

3

USE COLOUR TO LIF T YOUR MOOD
It’s a well documented fact that the colour yellow
can lift the spirits, while a violet hue can enhance
feelings of serenity. Leonardo da Vinci said that meditation

26 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

DEVOTE THE NE XT MONTH TO FINDING
YOUR IDE AL E XERCISE
Do this by trying different types of activities, for
example, cycling, running or swimming – which you can do
on your own – or a group class such as Zumba, or a team
sport, such as netball. Have a go and find out which activity
makes you feel happiest and most full of energy.
LIST ENERGISING ACTIVITIES TO DO AND
PL ACES TO VISIT WHEN FEELING LOW
For example, I’ve learnt that if I take a shower, visit
the library, go for a walk in a field or dance, I keep that glum
feeling at bay and replace gloom with bloom.

3

SCRIBBLE AND DOODLE
Do some colouring in – with or without children. Life
coach Karen Salmansohn suggests doodling hearts
with smiley faces: ‘The silliness of this, with the repeated
visual stimulus of seeing icons representing love, will cheer
you up.’ This is very effective if you then give your heart
doodles to a loved one, cheering them up in the process.
>>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 27

>>> MARCH

Let your mind flourish

In order to survive, thrive and sustain a real zest for life on
a daily basis, we need two kinds of energy. According to
Mira Kirshenbaum, psychologist and author of The
Emotional Energy Factor (Delta, £9.88), 70 per cent of our
energy requirements are emotional, while only 30 per
cent of them are physical. ‘It is the emotional component
that we need in order to face challenges, to have hope, to
be able to respond with interest and excitement to an
opportunity,’ explains Kirshenbaum.

1

Keep a thought diary
This will audit your emotional energy. List those
thinking patterns that boost and sap your energy.
For example, if you’re dwelling on a certain person’s behaviour, worrying about your finances or feeling jealous – any
of these can sap emotional energy. Conversely, when you
think about an activity with a person you’re looking forward
to seeing, or say ‘no’ to something that you don’t want to do,
you’re likely to feel your emotional energy is boosted.

2

Boost your energy
Once you’ve listed these thoughts, think about ways
to reduce the stuff that saps your energy and increase
the things that give you a boost. For example, when you start
dwelling on someone’s behaviour, notice your thought
process. Then stop. Focus with intent on thinking about
something else. Do something that requires your full
concentration, or simply take some deep breaths.

3

Detox your Facebook
If you feel like you are constantly comparing yourself
negatively to other people on Facebook, take some
time to list what you do have. Chances are that you have a lot
of what other people would like. If you can’t see that the
person you envy is quite possibly presenting a self-edited
version of their lives which doesn’t include the less rosy
stuff, then spend less time on Facebook or around those
people who make you feel inadequate. If you still think
there’s a problem then tackle it, and focus on improving
yourself and taking action to achieve what you wish for.

28 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

APRIL

Find your purpose
Having a purpose promotes essential growth and pride.
But why does a purposeful life make for a happy one?
Studies reveal that optimism is easier to cultivate and
obstacles easier to surmount if you are committed to a
set of values, a cause or a purpose. Having a purpose
strengthens your resolve to persist during tough times; it
fills you with determination and bolsters your confidence.
It is far easier to have the courage of your convictions if
those convictions are woven into an overarching purpose.

1

Find your cause
What matters most to you? What core causes do
you care about? What makes you cross? If you had
a magic wand, what would you like to change in society?
The glass ceiling? Fat cat bosses? Injustices? Unrealised
potential? Poverty? War? Gender stereotyping? List what
matters to you most.

2

Identify your values
Live your values every day. What is really important to you? Good manners, kindness, positivity,
family values, ambition, success, caring about the environment, human rights, education? Does your life reflect
these values? Sometimes with so much going on, it can be
really easy to lose sight of our core values, unless we have
ingrained them into our own identity.

3

Outline your mission statement
Write down your own personal mission statement
using some of the words from your values list that
resonate most powerfully with you.

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MAY

Have fun
By optimising each experience, life becomes instantly more
enjoyable. Instilling quality control over your day-to-day
experiences will enable you to enjoy your journey through
life far more.

1

Write a fun list
Brainstorm feelgood activities that you enjoy which
will provide you with the utmost satisfaction. What
do you love to do? Get scribbling and write non-stop for 10
minutes. Which are the topics and activities that interest
you and get you excited, that you could talk about or happily
engage in for hours on end? What are your favourite smells,
sounds or sights? How might you experience more of these
through your fun activities?

2

The challenge list
Now jot down a list of all the engaging activities that
you find gratifying, yet challenging. This will be your
engaging/challenging list. These activities should require
skills and concentration. Put a star next to the ones that
you love to do most. You will be scheduling them into your
flourish calendar later on.

3

Open a fun account or mone y box
Not a savings account but an account in which you
deposit between one to 10 per cent of your monthly
income to spend on you, to spend on having fun, on activities
that you or your family enjoy, whether those are gardening,
ice-skating, basketball, having a massage and a facial, eating
out with friends or buying magazines or books to read. You
might already do this, but making a point of putting aside
money specifically for free-time activities each month will
make you focus more on what you do and how you do it.

JUNE

Live in the present
moment
It’s time to regain control of your life. Have you ever noticed
how when others are preoccupied – nodding yet not really
listening or paying attention to what you’re saying – that it’s
annoying? But we do that to ourselves all the time. Thinking
‘ooh, I really ought to exercise more, go to bed earlier, or eat
more healthily’ but then being preoccupied and dismissing
the good intention as quickly as it popped into our minds.
We wolf down our food without savouring each mouthful.
Or we end up rereading a page of our book because we’re
thinking about all the stuff we need to do; we don’t pay full
attention to someone who is telling us something because
our mind is elsewhere.

1

Stop being preoccupied for at
le ast 1 5 minutes e ach day
Take the time this month to sit silently so that you can
regain control of your thoughts, become aware of what is
happening internally and externally in any given moment,
and listen to yourself.

2

Embr ace life , warts and all
Try to savour both the good moments and the bad,
and then you will feel better equipped to deal with
all that life entails. Learn to accept the fact that life is often
difficult, and that’s just how it is.

3

Notice more
Rather than watch your child running about on the
football pitch in between chatting to other mothers
and texting, instead notice the excitement in her eyes when
she manages that tough tackle. Breathe the moment in. Take
a mental snapshot of it, bottle it and cherish it. >>>

AUGUST

Be thankful
>>> JULY

Develop relationships
Positive relationships with other people contribute massively
to our level of wellbeing and mitigate stress. If you have at
least one close long-term friendship plus a relationship network of five or more key confidantes, you are, according to
studies, more likely to describe yourself as ‘very happy’.
Having someone (or something) who is always pleased to
see you and who you are always pleased to see is a vital
contributor to happiness, as is having people to rely on for
emotional support.

1

Hang out and spend time with
happy, positive people
Moods are contagious, officially so. The scientific name
given to the notion of someone lifting us up or bringing us
down is emotional contagion. So avoid being infected by
negativity and spend some time with positive people.

2

Declut ter your social
relationships
Create, build and maintain a network of people who
lift you up and make you feel good, and do all you can to help
them. Avoid spending time with those who bring you down,
those toxic people who pollute you with their negativity.
Avoid any people, activities or thoughts that drag you down.

3

List your happy friends
Think of those who make you feel so good that when
you say goodbye to them you sigh happily and feel
pleased and privileged to know them. Who’s got your back?

30 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Gratitude is all about enjoying life right now and appreciating what you already have. Despite having so many more
opportunities, more stuff and greater potential to flourish,
society as a whole is reportedly less happy than it used to
be. A major cause of this downward spiral can be attributed
to the modern-day default focus on what is lacking, coupled
with increasingly high expectations.

1

Cherish ‘now’ more
Don’t wait for your desired future to bring you happiness. Instead of thinking, ‘I’ll be happy when I get that
job/house/car/have children/get married,’ think to yourself
‘I’m happy now and here’s why’. This ‘I’ll be happy when’
belief that achieving a certain goal will make you happy is
known as ‘arrival fallacy’ – read more in Tal Ben-Shahar’s
book Happier (McGraw Hill Professional, £10.99).

2

Keep a gratitude jar
In addition to, or instead of, writing gratitude statements expressing thanks for specific moments or
things, write them on a scrap of paper in one sentence – either
as they happen or at the end of each day – and drop them in
a jar. This will allow you to capture those fleeting moments
that will soon disappear from your memory. For example,
‘Chloe really surprised me today when she called around
unannounced with coffee and cake. I am so grateful to have
her as a friend.’

3

Go on regular gratitude walks
Find a place to go to affirm your gratitude statements
and give thanks for all that you already have. Aim to
find a place that is quiet and frequented by few people – a
place you can call your own.

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SEPTEMBER

Create a flourishing vision
Whatever you wish to accomplish in your life, it is absolutely
vital to dream. Human beings end up thriving whenever they
are striving towards something. According to the Australian
nurse and author Bronnie Ware, who spent several years
working in palliative care – caring for terminally ill patients
in the last 12 weeks of their lives – the most common regret
of all that she lists in her book, The Top Ten Regrets Of
The Dying (Hay House UK, £10.99), was ‘not having had the
courage to live a life true to myself, instead of the life others
expected of me’. Keep that in mind – are you living the life
you want to live?

1

Cl arif y and set your goals
The first stop here is to define your destination. Visualise
where you wish to be and precisely what you wish to
achieve, going forward. Imagine if you were granted a wish
to create your dream life and write down your three biggest
goals based on that.

2

Consider why you want whatever
it is you want
For example, say you list ‘a dream home of my own
in such-and-such village’. Ask yourself, what would achieving that actually give you? It might be that safe feeling that
comes with security, perhaps? It might give you a place to
show off to your friends and impress people with. It might
give you a feeling of having made it, which in turn would
probably give you more confidence, which in turn might
give you peace of mind – might that be it? Ask yourself
what each thing gives you. There is always more to your
desires than you think.

3

find ways to cre ate those
feelings of safet y, securit y,
or confidence right now
Do something today and all week that will give you the
same feelings you’ll have when you’ve achieved your goal.
It’s a start. You can then begin to formulate a plan to help
you achieve your goal, but focus on this feeling first. >>>

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>>>

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

Be persistent

Make time to flourish

While your dreams should be wild, your plans should be real.
Plans are stepping stones to reach your wildest dreams, a
sequence of logical actions that take you step by step from
where you are now to where you wish to be. So let’s explore
how to create an achievable action plan and stick to it.

Lack of time is constantly cited as a major barrier to success,
no matter what it is we are trying to achieve. And trying to
cram everything in whatever way we can soon leaves us
feeling impatient and grouchy and like we haven’t really
got anywhere. Aim to create an extra hour in your day by
doing the following exercises.

1

Focus your actions
Your vision is only half of it. You need to ‘do’ as well as
think. Create an action plan and make sure you take
daily action steps. The plan should outline exactly what you
need to do in order to achieve your goals, step by step, action
by action. So be specific. List knowledge to learn, skills to
develop, obstacles to overcome and so on.

2

Give each task an
achievable deadline
Listing the required steps will reveal that your goal
is more attainable than you may have envisaged. And planning is vital. Writing down your goals, creating a plan and
then taking focused action will increase your chances of
achieving them tenfold. The bottom line? If you engage in
consistent action and take a step towards your goal every
single day you will reach your destination.

3

Reward yourself
We give our children stars and rewards for good
behaviour, so why not reward yourself for completing a task, particularly one you are not motivated to complete? By writing or drawing a
picture of your chosen reward that you’ll
give yourself when the job is done, you are
more likely to get on and do it.

32 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

1

Focus by giving yourself blasts of
allocated time for certain tasks
Focus on those tasks you have deemed a priority for
at least 45 to 60 minutes at a time and try to get rid of any
other distractions while you are concentrating on completing each of the top five priority items on your to-do list. Only
check your social media feed or your email once that 45
to 60 minutes is up.

2

Become a time detective
There are only so many hours in the day but there
are several ways by which you can maximise your
time by being more productive, spending it more wisely
and aiming to cut how much of it gets wasted. Keep a log
for a day or perhaps a week to track exactly how you are
spending your time, what takes up most of it, etc. It’s time
to catch those time thieves, as it were.

3

Use technology to harness time
For example, rescuetime.com informs you which
websites or programmes you tend to spend the longest periods of time on, so that you can discover which areas
you need to address soonest. If Facebook is your biggest
distraction, there is a tool that restricts the amount of time
you spend on that as well: go to FacebookLimiter.com.

DECEMBER

Carry on flourishing
In order to maintain your flourishing masterplan, you will
need to schedule in all of the tips and actions you’ve learnt
on an ongoing basis. You will not only schedule in tasks that
enable you to achieve your goals, you will also boost your
wellbeing by scheduling in activities that will make you feel
more positive emotions, and help you pursue your purpose,
give your life meaning and make you feel happier.
Draw up a flourish calendar so that you can schedule
ongoing actions and tasks that you have learnt from each
month. Try committing to doing the following:

1

Devote 15 to 30 minutes to tidying
every day to stay on top of clutter/
paperwork and to keep your spaces
clear and organised.
Schedule in early nights at least
three nights per week (and do
your best to stick to them).
Create time to reminisce – once a
week/fortnight/month revisit
your happy memories.
Make the time to laugh. Schedule
in a regular TV/DVD/book night
in or a night out to a comedy club.
Make an appointment with yourself and/or loved ones to do some
of the things that you used to love
when you were 10 or 11 years old.

2
3
4
5

6
7

Dedicate an evening to doing an
activity that you’ve never done
before that requires learning.
Make it a priority to arrange new
friend get-togethers or alternatively take some classes specifically
to meet new people.
Make time every day to record
what you’re thankful for in your
gratitude diary/journal or jar.
Schedule a block of time to lend
support to friends.
And lastly, make sure you also
remember to mark some time
on your planner for fun with friends
and family that you can really look
forward to.

8
9
10

The full Flourish masterplan – including downloadable worksheets, planners and
playlists is included in ‘The Flourish Handbook’. See flourishhandbook.com for more
details. To take part in a special 90-Day Flourish Challenge and get daily email reminders
visit FlourishChallenge.com
Join us on Tuesday 28 January at 8pm for a webinar How To Flourish In 2014 with
Cheryl Rickman. Log on to psychologies.co.uk/events/webinar-flourish-2014

DOSSIER
FLOURISH!

‘I HAVE A DREAM’

As a youngster, maybe you
dreamt of being an astronaut but your teacher told you to stop
being ridiculous and aim for ‘a proper job’. But now you’re all grown
up, can you really make your childhood dreams happen? Rosalynn
Try-Hane commits to dreaming big – in writing PHOTOGRAPHY MAGALI DELPORTE

M

y current dreams sound like a
grown-up version of the ‘so what
do you want to be when you grow
up?’ game that I play with my
six-year-old goddaughter –
they feel that fanciful to me
sometimes. But if I’m being really
brave and really honest, I would tell you that I would love
to be an (Oscar) award-winning storyteller, who writes for
television and the big screen as well as magazines, who is
known for delivering insightful, witty and creative work.
There. I’ve written it down for others to read – and
guess what? I feel silly already.
From the outside, my life looks absolutely fine. I am
a lawyer, and, not only that, I have the added bonus of
working and living in the beautiful city of Paris. Am I
completely insane to give this all up to try create a new
career and chase my childhood dream?
I always wanted to be a writer when I was young but my
mother and my teachers at school all told me to get my
head out of the clouds and train to do ‘a proper job’ – which
is how I ended up studying law for seven years, and
followed that up by working for everyone from former
Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, to a big City law firm as
a planning lawyer.
But at the age of 36, my writing dream is simply refusing
to die. It’s not going away. And this year, in 2014, I’ve
decided to do everything I can to try to make it happen.
Am I a fantasist who is fooling myself? I’ve decided to be
brave enough to find out.
My main challenge is that even though I know what
I want, I don’t have any idea how to go about achieving all
of this. So a friend suggested that I talk to Tamsen Garrie,
a ‘growth mentor’ who helps individuals and businesses to
create reality out of fantasy.

34 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

SESSION ONE

Start with the end in mind

Tamsen began by asking me what it might feel like to have
achieved my dream of being a full-time writer. I was stuck.
I said that I know what I want but how am I realistically
going to achieve it? Then she presented me with the first
of many ‘aha’ moment phrases: ‘Forget about the how and
focus on the what.’ Up until that point I hadn’t realised
just how often I say ‘how’ and it was this three-lettered
word that was ultimately keeping me stuck, like wheels
perpetually spinning rather than picking up traction and
moving the vehicle forward.
I trained as a lawyer so the how is something that is
entrenched in my psyche as a practical problem-solver.
I am a realist. And it didn’t feel realistic to change career
in my mid-thirties. How on
earth would I do it? Round
‘At the age of
and round I’d go, indecisive,
paralysed, doing nothing but
36, my writing
feeling
dissatisfied. Tamsen
dream is simply
explained that want is a
refusing to die. greater motivator than need.
And this year,
Why do I want to be a writer?
Because it’s the only time
in 2014, I’ve
I don’t feel like a fraud, I told
decided to do
her. As a lawyer in the City
everything
I felt perpetually unsure,
I can to try to
always second-guessing
myself,
but I came alive when
make it happen.
I had to sit down and draft
Am I a fantasist written advice to clients.
who is fooling
Then I always felt sure. Now,
when I’m writing an article >>>
myself?’

dossier

>>> or a chapter in my book I feel great every time I see my

words on the page. My second ‘aha’ moment came when we
talked about why writing energises me. It’s because I am
completely free to create whatever I want, and I discovered
that I have an intense desire to feel free.
As we discussed my desire to win an Oscar I started
to feel a bit superficial. Wasn’t that all about external
validation? However, Tamsen reassured me. ‘Attaching
your vision to an actual future occasion like the Oscars,
for example, gives your mind (psychology) and your body
(physiology) something to aspire to,’ she explained, ‘and
that’s an important part of creating outcomes as it creates
the feelings that go with that occasion now enabling you to
move towards it with more ease.’ So yes, the Oscar is simply
an external symbol of my inner dream. It’s the day-to-day
writing that I love.
Tamsen explained that in order to achieve my vision of
being an Oscar-winning screenwriter, I needed to write my
vision in a colourful way where I describe the tastes, smells,
as well as sights that I see. ‘This will actively engage your
subconscious mind into thinking that the vision is a future
reality. The vision is something to aim for, though you
needn’t get hung up on achieving all the minor details
contained within,’ said Tamsen.
My homework was to write my vision starting with
‘Today is (x day in the future) and I…’, from waking up in the
morning to going to bed at night and detailing everything
else in between. Most importantly, she said, it all had to be
written in the present tense.
My first response was ‘this is ridiculous, it’s just snake
oil.’ I felt foolish. But as I dug deeper, I realised that my
inner critic who sneers at my
dream and tells me to get ‘back
‘If I tell everyone
to reality’ and dismisses
exercises like this is the very
about my
part of me that holds me back.
dreams then of
I realised that part of me is
course I could
just trying to protect myself
make a fool of
from failure. If I tell everyone
about my dreams (and write
myself. I might
an article about it!) then of
fail, I might be
course, I could make a fool
rejected. But
of myself. I might fail, I might
be rejected. But then again,
then again,
I might just end up living
I might just
my dream. Do I listen to my
end up living
inner critic or do I make
my dream’
another choice?

36 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

SESSION T WO

Get your head straight

I started the session in pitiful form. Having told a trusted
friend about my writing dreams, he started with the ‘how’
questions, which simply got me straight back into the
doubt loop and the paralysis that ensues.
Tamsen started to chuckle as I told her my woes and she
explained that you have to have the breakdown before you
get the breakthrough. Not to worry, she said, creating a
positive mindset would help me the next time I have this
type of conversation. In order to achieve that, we went back
through my vision and broke it down – examining elements
such as earning a comfortable living as a full-time writer.
What were my negative thoughts around achieving these?
Well, I’ve yet to finish a screenplay or book so how will I
successfully support myself? And how am I realistically going
to achieve a comfortable lifestyle from writing?
We started generating a few affirmations and I was to
complete the list for homework. To cement my mindset,
Tamsen explained that I needed to look at my affirmations
every few hours during the day and read them first thing
in the morning and last thing at night for at least three
months to create a new thinking habit. One of my
affirmations is: ‘you do you, I do me fabulously.’
In my vision, I talked about going to the cinema at
midday. I know that I will be successful if I can go to the
cinema at midday, as it will mean I have achieved my vision
of being a successful screenwriter. According to Tamsen,
if you can qualify your success, it makes it easier to know
when you have achieved it. My epiphany came in the form
of qualifying questions – it’s the single most valuable
lesson I learnt during the coaching. Tamsen explained
that the answer to a qualifying question can only be ‘yes’.
If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ then forget it. Therefore
my qualifying question is: ‘Will doing x allow me to go to
the cinema at midday?’ Since crystalising my qualifying
question I’ve actually stopped spending money as
frivolously as I used to, because I know that I need savings
to achieve my vision.
My last piece of homework to really cement my mindset
was to create a vision board the old-fashioned way with
paper, scissors, glue and hours spent cutting pictures out
of magazines. I sat down one Saturday afternoon with a
bottle of red wine and lots of magazines and cut out images
of all the things I want in my life. Then I stuck them around
a fabulous photo of me.
It might sound a bit Blue Peter but it was fun to do, and

dossier

helped me to create a vibrant physical and visual picture
of what I want my future to look like. Don’t knock it till
you’ve tried it, I say.
SESSION THREE

Put it all into action

I arrived at this last session feeling very positive. My
affirmations were working. I now describe myself as a
writer with a 9-to-5 job. Also, looking at a picture of my
vision board on my smartphone during the day with a
happy, smiling self staring back helps me stay focused.
I am writing an hour a day. My blog, on which I write
about my solo foodie adventures in Paris, has attracted
more followers – including a New York Times food critic
– and I am seeing more and more opportunities to write.
I write 1,000 words a week of my novel, I’ve started to
provide film reviews for an online cinema magazine and
am writing one restaurant review a week for a popular
blog. I’ve also just been invited to do some copywriting.
I relayed all of this to Tamsen through shrieks and
garbled words but above all joy that it all feels like it’s
starting to come together. But Tamsen wasn’t surprised, as
I’ve really followed her steps for conditioning my mind and
forgetting about the ‘how’. For me, that was key – it made
everything seem more achievable and brought my vision
into my conscious mind. Now I faced the last but probably
most important aspect, Tamsen said: behaviour.
Reputation is vital to success and attracting opportunities
into our lives, and our reputation is based on how people
perceive our behaviour. So once we’re clear about what we
want then we need to start behaving in such a way as to
make it a reality. As Tamsen explained, our behaviour is
the aspect of our activity that is visible to other people –
unless you actually show them your vision board or explain
your vision to them. Of course it is important to be yourself,
but if you are not being what you claim to be then you are
not being an authentic version of yourself.
Tamsen asked me a series of questions about how I think
I am perceived and how I want to be perceived. I identified
several perceptions that I did not like such as ‘tenacious’
and ‘scary’ and what behaviour I needed to change in order
for people’s perceptions to change.
We also talked about ‘conversation strategy’. When
I speak to someone I must leave them with an impression
that fits with my vision, says Tamsen. If I meet someone
new who I think can help me in my quest to be a full-time
writer, rather than say how much I dislike the corporate

world, I should say how much
I love to write and talk about
what I’m currently working on.
By forgetting the how and
reinforcing my inner-belief
with my daily affirmations,
I’ve started 2014 with a strong
decision to stop listening to
my inner critic and start
taking baby-steps to creating
a new life for myself.
What I know for sure is that
I have a choice. I can listen to
doubts and fears or I can focus
on a compelling vision that
excites me and makes me feel
good. Whatever the outcome,
I’m making the choice to live a life built on possibility
instead of fear. And the best part is the realisation that
I don’t have to wait to live this dream. I’m writing every
day anyway. I’m already doing it. It may take a while to get
the Oscar on my mantelpiece but for now, I am living my
dream. By simply putting pen to paper and being a little
bit brave and honest, I’m no longer dreaming about what
I’ll be when I grown up, I’m living it instead.

‘My epiphany
came with
qualifying
questions.
The answer
to a qualifying
question can
only be ‘‘yes’’.
If the answer
is ‘‘no’’ or
‘‘maybe’’ then
forget it’

day-by-day dreaming
1 Affirmations. Make a list of affirmations or inspiring
quotes and read them at points throughout the day. This will
help you develop a positive mindset.
2 Qualifiers. Use your qualifying questions to make sure
that you are consistently moving towards your goal(s).
3 Create a vision board. Cut out images from magazines,
make a board then place it somewhere you’ll see it on a daily
basis. Or you could create a video vision board if you prefer.
4 Share your vision with people with a vested interest in
you achieving it and who will hold you accountable.
5 Unquestionable evidence. Make a list of all your
achievements that back up your vision.
6 YOUR Behaviour affects how people perceive you.
Behaving as if your vision is already a reality will attract the
right people and opportunities to help you achieve it.
7 Celebrate wins. Anything good that happens is a win,
no matter how small. Mark it with something pleasurable. As
humans we constantly seek pleasure so if you get into the
mindset, you will want to keep having that feeling.
For more information go to tamsengarrie.biz

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 37

DOSSIER

FLOURISH!

THE COURAGE CATALYST Bravery

is an essential ingredient for bringing about positive change, but
how do we get more of it? Some people find it takes a big birthday,
a major disappointment or tough times to make us strong enough
to choose to live an authentic life, says Keris Stainton
38 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

P

eople being rescued
by others from a
burning building
is what I think of
when I hear the
word bravery. It’s
something I doubt
I’d ever have the guts to do.
But bravery doesn’t have to involve
risk; it can simply be about doing something that scares only you, or pushes
you out of your comfort zone. Psychologist Erin Hitzke says people don’t
generally consider themselves brave.
‘What we forget is that courage has
never been a constant state of being
but requires a catalyst, or a crossroads,
that presents us with a choice.’ In other
words, courage is not something you
have, it’s something you choose.
When my mum died in 1999, I felt
lost, but my sister said she felt more
grown-up and, yes, braver. It was only
after my dad died three years ago that
I got what she meant. The loss of my
parents made me realise there’s no
safety net. That I’m in charge of my life
and can make my own decisions without worrying about their approval. 

A REBIRTH OF SORTS
Last year, sassyology.com writer and
coach Lisa Lister’s parents died within
a month of each other. She says: ‘Losing
my parents has made me fearless, like
I have no one to answer to in the world
any more, no expectations, no more
possibility of disappointing them – it’s
powerful. I’ve signed up for courses I’d
never have done before, I say things
without fear of what people might
think, I’m far more assertive. 
‘I’ve had a rebirth of sorts. It started
by marking out boundaries. Things I’d
previously have shrugged off, such as
people’s bad behaviour, I began calling
out. I cut people loose. I’ve discovered
my voice – I no longer feel the unspoken
censorship I felt when my parents were
both alive. I began asking myself what

DOSSIER
I wanted more of in my world and
started to pursue that. I used to focus
on the future, but now I’m focused on
experiencing life moment to moment.’
I, too, am more focused on living in
the moment but, for me, that didn’t
come out of my parents’ death, but
something more clichéd: turning 40. It
was partly the sense of time running
out, the idea of ‘if not now, when?’, but
also 40 had loomed large for so long
that when I finally got there, I felt free.
Free to be myself, to talk and write
about things I believe in and to decide
how I want to spend my time (reading,

‘What we forget is
that courage requires
a crossroads that
presents us with a
choice. Courage is
not something you
have, it’s something
you choose’
writing, travelling). And, yes, I felt
braver – I won’t be bungee-jumping
any time soon, but I’m taking more
chances and spending more time outside of my comfort zone (mine being
on the sofa with a tub of ice cream). 
Psychologist Dr Susan MarchantHaycox confirms this is a common
response to ageing. ‘As some people
grow older, they become more adventurous because they’re more confident,’ she says. ‘Suddenly there’s
nothing to prove to anyone. They’ve
learnt who they are and other people’s
expectations no longer matter to them.
The idea of conforming to the norms of
others is discarded, prized possessions
dumped, wardrobes changed.’  
For Lucy-Anne Holmes, an actress,
author and the person behind the ‘No
More Page 3’ petition, the turning
point came when one of her long-held

dreams came true and she actually
found she was... underwhelmed. 
LIFE- CHANGING INSIGHTS
‘I was doing a play at the Donmar
Warehouse in London. I had always
wanted to perform there, but I didn’t
enjoy it in the way I thought I would,’
she says. ‘People had been telling me to
read a self-help book called The Artist’s
Way for years, so I did, hoping it might
give me some insight into why I was
lacking confidence and holding myself
back. I found the Morning Pages [where
you write three stream-of-consciousness pages in longhand every day]
life-changing. They helped me know
myself, and once you know who you
are, you can trust your instincts – that
made me feel brave. It led to me starting my blog, which in turn led to my
book deal. Then I wrote another blog
about love and sex, which led me to
feminism and the campaign to take
bare breasts out of The Sun newspaper.’
But why should this be? Why does it
take a death, a big birthday, or a disappointment to make us brave? Because,
according to Hitzke, it’s easier to be
afraid. ‘Our first response to change or
challenge is usually fear,’ she points
out. ‘We tell ourselves, “I’m not brave,
I can’t do it, it’s not going to happen”.’
Painful as that may be, it’s an easier
road, because we’re choosing what is
familiar, what looks to us as a certainty. 
‘The problem with this attitude is
that, in reality, nothing in life is a sure
bet. But we work hard to lull ourselves
into a sense of security because it feels
“safe”. That is, until something wakes
us up – an event, a person or an idea –
and connects us with reality. Life is
uncertain, and this fact can propel us,
acting as a catalyst for courage.’
For me, the past few years have been
a revelation: when you stop worrying
about what people think, it’s easier to
be brave. And it doesn’t even feel like
bravery, it feels like being yourself. 

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 39

DOSSIER
TEST

ARE YOU STANDING IN YOUR
OWN WAY? We all start out feeling excited about our
dreams. But even the most determined can find it hard to keep the
momentum going. What are your best strategies for success?
Take our specially commissioned test to find out
1 You win £100,000 on the lottery.
You:

5 You usually have on the go:

a) Open a pizzeria in Naples
b) Make a down-payment on that flat
you liked so much
c) Put it to one side until you decide
what to spend it on
d) Make an impulse buy

a) Your own personal projects
b) Both small- and large-scale team
projects
c) One or two projects that you’ve
been working at for a while
d) More short-term plans than
long-term ones

2 A colleague reads the first pages

6 You meet someone who, like you,

a) Tell him to mind his own business
b) Return to your office to go back
over all the possible angles
c) Finish it anyway, skimping on the
detail
d) Ask him to expand a bit on his
criticism

a) Are really excited and suggest
renting a house together
b) Are really pleased that you have
met someone doing the same thing
and swap email addresses
c) Feel reassured and check you’ve
taken the same steps organising it
d) Are a bit disappointed and decide
to choose a different country

3 A friend announces that he is

7 When you’ve got plans that are

of a report you’ve written and says
there’s room for improvement in
your analysis. You:

going to go round the world on a
bike. You think:

a) He’ll get a lot out of it
b) It won’t be that difficult in this day
and age
c) You would like to go, too
d) It’s a bit of an eccentric thing to do,
really

4 How do you select the projects

is off to live in Australia. You:

important to you:

a) They are all you think about
b) You would go through with them,
even if others advised you not to
c) You relish the challenge to carry
them out
d) You devote a lot of time to them

8 You want to go on safari in

you undertake? By:

Africa but your plans aren’t
working out. What do you do?

a) Their feasibility
b) How interesting they are
c) How much they appeal to you
d) Their originality

a) Go anyway
b) Stick to the holiday plan but change
the destination
c) Give up the idea

40 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

d) Try to work out what the problem
is so you can get round it

9 You decide you want to live in

the country. After three months
you:

a) Are still working out the best place
to go
b) Have just fitted the final window
frame to your newly built home
c) Are now dreaming of living by the
sea instead
d) Have shown those carping city folk
a thing or two

10 Your friends think you are a
little too:
a) Dogged
b) Impulsive
c) Headstrong
d) Careful
NOW WORK OUT YOUR SCORE
AND TURN THE PAGE TO FIND
YOUR PROFILE >>>

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

a

b

c

d

4

2

1

3

4

1

3

2

2

4

3

1

1

2

3

4

4

2

1

3

3

2

1

4

3

4

1

2

4

2

3

1

1

2

3

4

2

3

4

1

42 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

dossier
>>>

If you scored between 10-18…

If you scored between 26-31…

YOU PUT PLANS INTO
ACTION WITH GREAT CARE

YOU FLIT FROM ONE
THING TO THE NEXT

Before you begin something, you like to know exactly
what you’re letting yourself in for – you don’t take things
on lightly. You’re suspicious of the unknown and try to
keep as much control over events as you can by being as
familiar with the details as possible. The important thing
for you is to leave nothing to chance. Because of this you
find yourself faced with so many options you don’t know
where to start. And that’s when you come face to face
with your worst enemy: doubt. Your behaviour suggests
that you have difficulty in sticking to just one idea. Yes,
your plans are detailed, but as soon as you have to enact
them, you panic and run as fast as you can back to your
notebooks and lists. It’s quite obvious that you are afraid
of failure: giving in to your doubts and getting stuck at the
planning phase of any event means that you never have
to do anything concrete and therefore things can never
go wrong. What can you do? Try throwing yourself into
things. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Take a few
risks, try things out, and remember that to err is human.

The biggest motivating factor for you is the initial
excitement you feel when you start something; which
can mean you get carried away easily. But after this initial
enthusiasm you’d rather leave it to other people. You
put plans to one side or forget about them altogether,
preferring to move on to something else new and exciting.
Your behaviour points to two things. The first is your
refusal to engage with any one thing and stick to it. This
would require you to make a choice and renounce other
possible projects, and you prefer to operate under the
illusion that you’re free to do what you like, without the
frustrations of other wage slaves. The second is a refusal
to take responsibility. Flitting from one thing to the next
allows you to be a spectator rather than a participant. But
it should be the project that drives your passion, not the
other way round. The way you’re going, you won’t get
much accomplished. You’re an enthusiastic, impulsive
person, but to achieve any of your grand plans you are
going to have to concentrate on one thing for a while.

If you scored between 19 and 25…

If you scored between 32-40…

YOU GET THINGS DONE
BECAUSE YOU PERSEVERE

YOU CARRY OUT YOUR
PLANS OBSTINATELY

When you decide to get involved in something, you are
full of drive and energy, but you try to do things bit by bit,
clearly defining what you need to do in order to give your
venture the best chance of succeeding. You move ahead
one step at a time, open to advice that others might have
for you, and are able to question your own actions where
necessary. You persevere without being stubborn; you
have proved your endurance and patience, and you take
great pleasure in seeing things take shape. You obviously
understand that to achieve your goals you have to allow
for some moments of self-doubt and difficulty, and that
sometimes there will be times when you just have to wait.
You know how to deal with these things because you find
it fairly easy to remain objective about what you are
trying to achieve. You manage to stay motivated despite
the obstacles in your way and of course you’ve always
got optimism and strength of will in reserve. Stay the
course: you’ll have the pleasure of seeing your plans
come to fruition and you’ll have plenty more enriching
experiences in the future.

You use your ability to get things done as self-affirmation.
And the things that you decide to do will generally be the
things that tend to show you in your best light. To mark
yourself out as different (and to get yourself noticed) you
often do original, unusual and even provocative things.
And if those close to you advise against going down one
route or another, you will take a mischievous pleasure in
going completely against their recommendations. For
you, placing yourself in opposition to others is a way of
defining who you are. Of course, there is an upside to
your stubbornness: you don’t ever leave things unfinished
and you really shine when tackling original and difficult
ventures. The only problem comes when your stubborn
side gets the upper hand and you go off in what you know
is the wrong direction just because you feel that you can’t
back down at that point. If you let your ego dictate your
behaviour like this, you could end up going against what
you really want. So a word of advice, then – be original
by all means, but leave pride out of it, it will rarely make
a helpful contribution.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 43

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It’s official, givin
g is
study, giving creat good for you. According to a
recent
es a ‘warm glow’
release of endor
phins in the brain effect, caused by the
of euphoria and
. These induce
feelings
allow us to feel
more connected
Get closer to your
to others.
loved ones and
feelgood beaut
opt for the ultim
y gifts: the scent
ate
that lifts you on
day, the lipstick
a dark
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With this in mind gives you uninterrupted ‘me
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E 99

the lens

83 7 3 8 3
SELF

way of

by participatory photography
Armed with a phone and inspired
explores a more mindful
project PhotoVoice, Rhiannon Harries
issue and tell her story
taking pictures to explore a specific

]

H

Participatory photography, as it is
ow many photographs do
involves a move away from our
you think you’ve looked at known,
scattergun approach to
today? Dozens, by flicking compulsive,
towards a more focused,
through this magazine. snapping,
way of taking pictures to
After a quick trawl through mindful
explore specific issues and tell a story.
a few news sites and friends’ Facebook
As Helen Cammock of charity Photouploads, I’m probably at 100 by elevenVoice, which runs community-based
ses. Like me, you may well have already
participatory photography projects,
taken and posted a few pictures of your
adds: ‘Lots of people, especially adults,
own too. On social media sites, photos
the
are replacing the written word as
dominant currency of communication
– or at least reducing it to a mere hashour
tag – as we capture fragments of
virtual
lives and share them with the
world, poring with equal relish over
those taken by strangers.

Powerful reflection

Perhaps it’s no wonder that photography has also emerged as a uniquely
accessible form of creative therapy.
Your little point-and-shoot or the camera on your phone could serve as a powerful tool for improving your mental
on
wellbeing, allowing you to reflect
experiences and relationships, to introor
duce more structure in your life
develop your self-confidence.

Branch address: ........................................................................................

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............................................................. Postcode: ......................................

in
making pictures has got very little
common with the PhotoVoice techas
nique, which Cammock describes
an on-going process of reflection, dia-

logue and reworking.
‘We encourage people to think conceptually about what they feel they
it,
want to say, how they want to say
and who they want to say it to,’ she says.
‘That process is key, and is perhaps
what makes it different from all those
photo-sharing platforms. The filtering
is
and editing that our participants do
it.’
of
a really important part
As important as the photos then are
the words that make sense of them,
whether in the form of group discussion
the
or captions written to accompany
and create a narrative.
photographs
write.
they
when
can’t find a free flow
The aim is coherent self-expression,
There’s something very self-conscious
in some
We and each project culminates
about sitting down to write a diary.
form of public exhibition.
work in particular with marginalised
The resulting imagery is often
groups; as photography transcends
visually arresting and always moving.
linguistic barriers and literacy issues.
In ‘Having Our Say Too’, a recent proThe workshops we run are about movpeople
for ject that worked with young
ing through different strategies
affected by or at risk of sexual exploitafinding your voice, and it’s always much
tion, artistic sophistication makes
easier to start with photography.’
many of the photos – such as those
Our modern mania for randomly

‘‘It isn’t just about
making the image,
it’s about what it
represents”

pHotogRApH: olAf HedtJARN/plAiNpictURe

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44 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

2 0 1 4 P S YC
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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 45

Best friends

forever?

[

]

What do our friends mean to us as we grow older?
Are we still operating as if we were children in
the playground or have we got a handle on it? Clem Felix finds some
grown-up dos and don’ts for friendships that work both ways

M

y friendships have given
me more pleasure than
almost anything over
the years, but they have
been a source of angst at
times as well. It is not just the heartache
when things go wrong for people you
care about, there are all those strange
rules to get your head around.
Are you ‘there’ for your friends
enough? What if you haven’t always
got the time or energy? Or you’ve just
landed a new job? What if friends aren’t
there for you? Are you too demanding?
Where do the boundaries of loyalty end?
Should you put your best friends ahead
of your man? What if you find you don’t
have anything to talk about any more –
is it time to move on? Is that allowed?
Should you really be 2gever 4ever like
you promised when you were 10?
I’m joking, but not entirely. The truth

is the conversations I have with women
of all ages ring with this stuff, still lingering from the playground. So for those
in doubt, here are a set of grown-up
rules for dignified, adult relationships.
 

1

Try not to compete

The core of any friendship is that
you want the best for each other. You’re
on each other’s side. Does that sound
obvious or naïve? Friendships may have
a competitive element – it’s only human
– but if you can’t want the best for your
friends, and celebrate their successes
with an open heart, then this is not
friendship. And you have every right to
expect the same in return.
Relationship research indicates that
it is more important for the long-term
prospects of a marriage that partners
can celebrate each other’s successes

46 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

than that they support each other when
they’re down. Maybe the same is true of
friendships. Julia, a friend in her forties,
got the job of her dreams after an awful
five years when her husband walked out
leaving her a single mum to three children. Her best friend couldn’t be happy
for her – she told her she had issues
with it, admitted jealousy and generally
ruined any sense of celebration. The
emotions are human, yes, but was it OK
to express them? Julia doesn’t think so.
Philosopher AC Grayling’s new historical survey, Friendship, (Yale University Press, £12.99) quotes Cicero, who
wrote more than 2,000 years ago: ‘Eliminate goodwill from an acquaintanceship and it still exists in name; eliminate
it from a friendship and that friendship
no longer exists.’ For Virginia Ironside,
agony aunt at The Independent, the mirror image of this is schadenfreude, when >>>
photographs: dANIEL WARD/GALLERY STOCK

friendships

friendship
>>> people take pleasure in friends’ misfor-

tunes. ‘Everyone experiences this; it
can even be helpful because we see
other people fail as we do and that our
friends’ lives aren’t perfect,’ she says.
‘But you have to keep it to yourself.’

2

Don’t expect too much…

Lynda Lee-Potter, the late newspaper columnist, wrote years ago that
one of the keys to happiness is not to
expect more of your friends than they
are capable of giving. These words have
been a comfort when I’ve felt let down.
The dear friend who, in 20 years, has
never made it to my home? At one time
that hurt; now I just see it as a measure
of her reclusiveness. The new, funny,
clever friend who confided in me, then
vanished when I was in need? I see now
she has her own issues with depression
and, I suspect, couldn’t handle my anxiety. It affected our closeness, but I don’t
take it personally, and still enjoy elements of our friendship for what it is.
 ‘I have friends who aren’t always
there for me but who amuse or stimulate
me,’ agrees Ironside. ‘I have one who, if
I’m ill, turns her back on me, but she’s
phobic about illness and supportive in
other ways, so I accept that. It all depends
on what your definition of a friend is.’
Lee-Potter’s words have also helped
me to be a better friend, in that I’m more
forgiving of myself. For me, the issue is
usually about energy and time – basically I don’t see enough of my friends.
But I value them so much and rather
than feeling guilty that I’m not doing
more, I try to make sure they know that,
and also that I’m doing my best – texting
to express concern, offering practical
help where I can, really listening when
we do get a chance to meet up.

3

…but do expect enough

The ancients valued friendship
so highly – believing that once chosen,
your commitment should be iron-clad –

 One of the keys
to happiness is
not to expect more
of your friends than
they are capable
of giving’’
that selecting friends was taken very
seriously. And there are lessons for us
in that today. Cicero believed that any
candidate for friendship must prove
‘unswerving constancy’, and that there
would be ‘no feigning or hypocrisy’. Tell
that to Facebook…
It’s useful to think about what we
value in friends. ‘It’s not so much whether
they’re there for me as that can be difficult for a person to gauge,’ says Ironside.
‘They may not understand your needs, or
just have other pressures in their lives.
It’s what they do to you that matters. If
they’re unpleasant and upset you and
don’t apologise, for example.’
Our friends are fallible, like us, and
some of the most difficult people can
prove to be amazingly loyal, or fantastic
in a crisis. It’s very easy to talk about
toxic friendships, but it can be a matter
of degrees and redeeming features.
What I value in friends has changed
as I’ve got older. In my twenties, I was
drawn to sparky, funny, magnetic
people; now I value more constant, less
showy friends. My deepest friendships
are with people who care, and show it.
They are people I feel comfortable with
and can be myself around. They’re also
people who want to be friends with me
as much as I want to be friends with
them, which might sound like an obvious point but is one that took me years
of sitting outside inner circles to learn.

4

Friendships can change

We can be very romantic about
friendship these days. As families have

48 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

become more disparate and divorce
more common, friends have come to be
seen as the great constant. The message
from popular culture is that our best
friends are the people who will always be
there, through thick and thin – except it
often doesn’t work out that way.
 ‘Different people provide the friendship we need at different times in our
lives,’ writes Grayling. Only very few – if
any – will ‘stay the whole course’. Most
people, he adds, ‘will change with time
and experience, and since all parties to a
friendship are changing simultaneously,
it is not surprising that they might eventually drift apart.’
People change. If you want to continue as friends, you have to accept that
and support them, not resist it. And
the same is true the other way round –
any friends who resist your development are not worthy of the name. This
is a lesson many twenty­somethings
learn the hard way, as friendship groups
from school and then university come
under pressure and people start settling
into couples or having children, which
they naturally put first, or divert their
energy into career goals.
Change can be hard from both sides
– if you’re the person feeling left behind
or the one who wants to do the moving
on – but actively trying to manage these
changes with grace and generosity is
good for the soul. If you’re the one who
is still single and your stalwart friend is
suddenly not around, it’s tough and you
may well feel resentful, but what will
you achieve by expressing it? Better to
focus on developing other friendships,
or meeting new people. If you’re the one
feeling guilty about missing another
group meet-up because you’re too tired
from your new job, that’s OK – email to
explain you wish you could be there but
it’s just not possible right now.
Keep the door open. ‘A friend can
drop off the radar for years then come
back,’ says Ironside. ‘They can change
a lot but, particularly as you get older,
shared history counts for so much.’

5

Honesty vs kindness

Are our friends the people who
tell us the truth, warts and all, or the
people who don’t? To the ancients,
frankness was crucial, but then they
were men – do women value honesty
so highly? My friend Julia insists that
honesty – telling your friends things
other people may not – is the measure
of a true friend, but Ironside is not so
sure. Honesty can be useful, she says –
but only up to a point. ‘I would not be
friends with someone who takes the
kid gloves off and says, “right, this is
how it is”. More important are kindness,
tact and gentleness,’ she says.
The problem, I think, is that honesty

A friend can
drop off the radar for
years then come back.
They can change
a lot but, as you get
older, shared history
counts for so much’’
can be a veil for controlling behaviour.
If I ask for an opinion, I want to trust it’s
true, but what if I haven’t asked? For me,
too, true friends are confidantes who
are not judgemental, and ‘honesty’ can
often be a cover for being judgemental.
Perhaps Grayling has it right when he

writes: ‘A loyal friend, whom one trusts
can tell us when we are going wrong,
reprove us, advise us … She can also tell
us helpful lies when we need reassurance or calming down.’
This one works both ways, of course
– it can be tempting to dish out advice,
much harder, I find, just to listen, but
this is what most of us really want from
our friends. ‘A principal fruit of friendship,’ wrote Francis Bacon in the 17th
century, ‘is the ease and discharge of
the fullness and welling of the heart,
which passions of all kinds do cause
and induce.’ A friend to whom one can
‘impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels’ is one of life’s great
blessings, he believed. Hear, hear.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 49

50 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Writing the next
[

]

chapter

As she reached her forties, single and childless, Bibi Lynch
was unable to see what the next chapter of her life might
contain. It took some wise words from women who’d been there before
her to open her eyes and change her thinking
self

photograph: felix clay/the guardian

W

ere I to tell you that a
few years ago I pitched
a book idea called 40
Is Not The New 30: It’s
Shit, you’ll have some
notion of my attitude towards this fifth
decade of mine. I have found it very
harsh. And incredibly judgemental. It
seems to have mainly been about loss –
from my jawline to my dad – and what
fortysomething me should or shouldn’t
be doing: I should be settled down; I
shouldn’t accept people or situations
that aren’t good for me. (Oh, yeah, the
mid-life-inspired intolerance is coming
from me, too. But, happily, society and
I are on the same page regarding your
writer and the wearing of skirts above
the knee.)
The very worst thing about my
forties, though, is that they will soon
be over. And when they are gone? A
fair to middling breakdown, I imagine.
Let me explain.
My friends have started talking
in ‘winding down’ terms — and it’s

sending me over the edge. ‘We’re too
old to be ambitious now,’ said one; ‘You
don’t make friends at our age,’ insisted
another. And then there’s ‘I’m home
with my children on Saturday’ and
‘That bar is full of young people’…
All innocuous comments, you’re
saying? Well, no. Because a) I don’t
want to fall into age-prejudice traps
(stamps feet like a toddler) and, b) this
means they’re moving to the next
chapter in their lives, and I can’t follow
them! They –
­ the married, the parents,
even the grandparents – all seem to
be approaching Chapter 7 of their
12-chapter life and, age-wise, I should
be, too — but single, childless me is still
sharpening her pencil. Their lives are
established and naturally slowing
down, while I don’t feel like mine ever
really began. And, at 47, what are the
chances that it will? Fuck. And I can’t
even go to bars to drink to forget any
more? Double fuck. And hold the ice.
It’s a hit-you-in-the-gut place to be
— fearing you’re too old to be who you

were but also too old to change anything and move forward. I talked to
Psychologies about this sickening
feeling of mine and how I had this
really horrible, debilitating sense of
everything being over for me.
And they sort of changed my life. In
a way writing a feature has no right
to. First of all, the magazine asked the
wondrous Diana Athill to write to me.
Can you imagine? A legendary literary
editor – her list of authors included
the 20th-century greats Philip Roth,
Norman Mailer, Simone de Beauvoir,
and VS Naipaul – and writer, whose
Costa Book Award-winning memoir
Somewhere Towards The End was published when she was 90. Wow! What I
have read of this ballsy and brilliantly
unconventional woman makes me
think that my fawning will amuse her.
But I love her! There, I said it!
And Psychologies gifted me Diana
Athill because she, too, had been where
I am: in her forties, single and without
>>>
children. Here is what she wrote:

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 51

When I look back at my life, now that I’m 95, I can truly say that I see it as
a happy one. Yet there was a time – I find it hard to remember but it did
exist – when I was convinced that nothing lay ahead but a struggle to endure
grief. I supposed I would manage it, but it was a grim prospect. Having fallen
in love at 15 and become engaged at 18, I was expecting to join my love in Egypt
(he was in the RAF and had just been posted there) as soon as my education at
Oxford came to an end so that we could marry, and my real life could begin. I took it for granted, like most young
women at the time, that loving, marrying and making a family was the natural and inevitable career for a woman:
what she was for. So when he stopped answering my letters until, after many dreadfully painful months, he told me
he was marrying someone else, I was not only plunged into the icy misery of being unloved, but I also lost my job.
I can’t now remember how long the worst of it lasted, but I can clearly recall trying to convince myself that eventually
something good would turn up, and answering myself, with what seemed like simple common sense, that there was
no real reason why it ever should.
How people get over such disasters must depend a great deal on their temperaments, so I doubt whether what
happened to me can be of much value to someone else. All I can do is report my own experience. I had three things in
my favour: I had inherited an optimistic nature, that inheritance had been confirmed by a happy childhood, and I was
not by nature maternal. To many women, being childless is an affliction, but not to me. I used to hope that if/when
I had a child, the instinct would follow and I would make a reasonably good mother, which was probably true; but the
only time that instinct ever gave a twitch was in my early forties when I found myself sliding into carelessness, getting
pregnant, and (to my surprise) feeling glad about it. Whereupon, life being what it is, I miscarried, and was even
more surprised, even dismayed, at how rapidly and completely I got over the disappointment.
Having that temperament was lucky. Even luckier was finding a job in publishing which I loved. Through it I met
interesting people, went to interesting places, and had a number of unserious but agreeable affairs – intense romantic
involvements, no! They now scared me stiff. Finally, I settled into an unromantic but loving partnership which suited
me and the man involved so well that it lasted for 40 years, until his death. And during those years there happened the
luckiest thing of all: I learnt that I could write. And out of all this came happiness.
Perhaps two survival-aids of general application might be found in that particular life: foster your personal
interests, and do not romanticise sexual attraction and marriage. Of course, happy marriages exist and are lovely, but
they are rare. Being unhappy as a pair is much worse than being unhappy alone; and even steady making-the-best-of-it
marriages are not really very enviable. A woman’s value simply does not depend on being wanted by a man, and living
your own life is often much more enjoyable than living one dictated by a man’s career.

52 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

self

>>>

I won’t even bother trying to tell you just
how thrilled I was that 95-year-old
Diana would share some of her life
lessons with me – I’ll just say how it
made me feel: inspired, emotional and
a bit of a twat.
That she suffered such heartache
but could look back at her life and see it
as a happy one filled me with hope. That
she adored her career so much and
found love and joy in the act of writing
made my chest heave. That this woman
achieved all that she did, in the times
that she did, and continues to achieve
into her nineties, made me feel like a
moaning, mid-life cliché.

photograph: geoffrey swaine/rex

Not my story

And yet… There were two messages in
Diana’s letter that rained on my pep-talk
parade somewhat: the first was her
assertion that sexual attraction and
marriage shouldn’t be romanticised
(oh Diana, please don’t take that away
from me, as well!); and the second was
her acknowledgement that she’d never
really felt maternal.
As glorious as her life has been – and
I am honestly so very grateful for the
wisdom and power of her words – her
story will never be my story. Because
childlessness is at the very crux of
my ‘next chapter’ pain: women who
have become parents will be mothers
and grandmothers; and I will simply
disappear. My eyes kept going back to
the top of her letter: ‘I was convinced
that nothing lay ahead but a struggle
to endure grief…’
And that’s the point at which this
feature brought Jody Day into my life.
Jody is a writer, activist and founder
of Gateway Women, which is a website
and network that aims to support,
inspire and empower childless-bycircumstance women, like me and her.
Jody, who is now 49 years old, was in
‘babymania’ for 15 years, trying in vain

 It’s a hit-you-inthe-gut-place to
be – fearing you’re
too old to be who
you were but also
too old to change
anything and
move forward”
to conceive in her former marriage,
being diagnosed with ‘unexplained
infertility’, and, for many varied reasons, not able to pursue IVF treatment.
We spoke on the phone for about 45
minutes – and I’m not sure a phone call
has ever had such an effect on me as
that one had.
We talked all about the isolation,
the taboo and the cultural blindness
around childless women. We talked
about the ‘shame’ that we are encouraged to feel, the misogyny we face, and
‘social infertility’ (which was my story
exactly: fertile and able to have children, but just never met the right man
at the right time). We talked about
friendships changing and the death
of the future you thought you would
have. And then, when I started crying,
we talked about me. ‘Will I get through
this?’ I sobbed down the phone.
‘Definitely,’ Jody replied. ‘I’m proof
of that.’
‘How?’ I asked her.
‘Grief-work, sisterhood, creativity,’
she told me. ‘This is what we all need
to go on to create a life with meaning.
My life today is meaningful and
fulfilling in ways that I could never have
anticipated. My dream of adulthood
was to be a writer and to leave the world
a better place than I found it. And it
seems that it’s working out – just not
the way I expected.’

‘Why creativity?’ I asked.
‘Giving birth is possibly the ultimate
creative act for a woman,’ continued
Jody. ‘We will never experience the
visceral love that a mother has for her
child, but if you’ve been passionately
in love, and you know what that feels
like, [you know] that energy exists
within us. We just have to find a way to
express it.’
‘Like Diana’s writing!’
‘Like Diana’s writing.’
‘I understand sisterhood for support,’ Jody said. ‘I have a theory that
grief is actually a form of love. Because
we never grieve what we haven’t loved.
Grief is the shadow-side of love. It’s
there to heal our hearts – so that we can
love again.
‘It’s actually part of love. And by
denying it, not understanding it, and
not going through the process, it’s like
we’re not completing the transformation. Grief is the gift of love. And then
we’re ready for the next chapter.’

Change in a heartbeat

That broke and fixed my heart in the
same beat. I’m not ready to embrace
the grief fully yet – because that means
finally giving up on having my family
(in some way) and I can’t even complete
that thought in my head, let alone act
on it – but it’s OK.
Because now I know – thank you,
Diana, and thank you, Jody – that there
is a next chapter, whatever happens.
A chapter that has the potential to
be fabulous, valid, meaningful and
fulfilling. I honestly didn’t know that
before. I feel like I’m breathing out
for the first time in years. What an
extraordinary feeling hope is.
Visit gateway-women.com
‘Rocking The Life Unexpected’ by Jody
Day is self-published and available on
Amazon, priced £12.99.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 53

Boxing
[

]

clever

Feeling guilty about holing up with a box set this winter?
Don’t. You’re just tapping into the evolutionary pull of
transformational storytelling and learning valuable life lessons, say
experts. Time to press play on that third episode in a row then…
TREND

W

hat better way to
soothe the stresses of
a weekend away with
two nieces under five
than to return to my
quiet, child-free home on a Sunday
night and put my feet up in front of the
woodburning stove, with my boyfriend,
our kitten, and the last three episodes
of my current favourite box set?
As I closed the front door, my man
poked his head round the corner with a
slightly sheepish expression on his face.
I caught the unmistakeable aroma of
beef bourguignon simmering on the
hob. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. He never
makes me food.
‘Don’t be cross,’ he muttered, ‘but I
finished Breaking Bad this afternoon.’
I was surprised to discover that I was
fuming – and hurt. Together, we had
spent almost 45 hours over a fortnight
watching the first 59 episodes of this
series which details the exploits of
Walter White, a chemistry teacher with
terminal cancer who turns to crystal

meth production to safeguard his
family’s financial future, yet he had
watched the last two hours on his own!
Talk about a let-down.
We sat in silence as he re-watched
the last three episodes with me, but
knowing he knew the ending ruined the
shared intimacy of the drama unfolding
before us. I felt short-changed. Worried
I was overreacting, I canvassed the
opinions of several friends the next
day at work. All were outraged on my
behalf; one colleague even remarked
that my boyfriend’s behaviour was a
betrayal ‘not far short of cheating’.
That might be a bit strong, but the
shared experience of binge-watching
six back-to-back series of your favourite show has become one of the new
bonding experiences of modern life.
Discovering a new one – and then
introducing the rest of your friends to
it too – is not only a great pleasure, it
marks you out as the woman in the
know, the go-to cultural trendsetter.
Box sets and the rise of subscription

54 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

streaming services, such as Netflix,
allow us to stream our favourite shows
to computers, iPads and even phones
any time, anywhere and back-to-back
if we choose – and according to Kevin
Spacey, Oscar-winning actor and star
of the first Netflix series House Of
Cards – this is the future of television.
At The Guardian’s international TV
festival last August he gave an emphatic
speech. ‘The audience wants control
and freedom,’ he said. ‘And if they want
to binge, we should let them binge.’
Whether it’s House Of Cards, The
Wire, 30 Rock, Luther, True Blood or
The Walking Dead; everyone I know
has invested serious chunks of their
hard-won leisure time in a box set. In
winter, I like giving myself permission
to hibernate. There’s something about
watching an entire series over a weekend that feels like a holiday from the
stresses of everyday life.
Experts agree. Dolf Zillmann, the
pioneer of entertainment psychology,
came up with the ‘excitation transfer

photograph: rein er ohms/plain picture

words Nicole Mowbray

>>>

trend

 The shared experience of
binge-watching six back-to-back episodes
of your favourite show has become one of
the new bonding experiences of modern life”
J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 55

trend

>>> theory’ to explain why we watch dis-

tressing or harrowing shows. He says
we derive more pleasure from shows
that force us onto an emotional rollercoaster – be it Downton Abbey or The
Killing – yet, end (mostly) happily.
Other theories claim our reactions
to dramatic box sets actually reinforce
the feeling we have about our emotions being ‘right’. For example, the
fact we’re angry with Brody for treating Carrie so terribly in Homeland
proves us to be kind, generous and
warm-hearted, with good judgement.

The whys and hows

One thing’s for sure, the psychology of
our viewing habits is now so important to TV producers that entire international consultancies are opening up
to find out how we feel about what we
watch, how we watch it and why.
Zak Shaikh is a partner at Attentional, an international media consultancy that advises companies on why
shows succeed or fail. ‘One of the most
important indicators of success is narrative,’ he says. ‘Storytelling has been
a key factor in human evolution. Stories have been experienced in groups
since the earliest times when humans
spent nights talking around the camp
fire. It enriches our social network.’
Shaikh says that around 70-75 per
cent of human interaction is gossiprelated, which explains the value of
shared ‘watercooler TV moments’ that
you talk about in the office the next day
– whether that’s Don Draper’s exploits
in Mad Men or Walter White surviving
yet another cartel shooting.
‘Box sets really play into our love of
gossip,’ says Shaikh. ‘People can watch
them in their own time, binge on them,
and dismantle them with friends. Box
sets hark back to the heyday of novels.
In the 1840s when Dickens wrote The
Old Curiosity Shop, it was released in
instalments. Such was the anticipation that hordes of New Yorkers would

 Box sets play into
our love of gossip.
People can watch
them in their own
time, and dismantle
them with friends.
They hark back to
the heyday of novels’’
flock to the docks, to wait for the next
shipment to come ashore. Television
never really had that kind of cliffhanger structure until recently.’
‘Box-set culture’, as screenwriter
Gemma Clarke describes it, has profoundly changed the realities of her
job. ‘Whenever I write a pilot show for
American television, I have to have
one eye on it being able to last multiple
seasons,’ she says. ‘It’s a lot of writing.
There’s often 12 episodes minimum
in one season for cable shows – while
some networks have as many as 24 or
25 episodes. Then there can be several
seasons. I read an article the other day
by Zadie Smith talking about Game Of
Thrones. She said: “Literary novelists
would do well to learn plot from these
people”. She’s right. You have to be a
master of storytelling to keep people
engrossed over many series.’

Enriching experience

Mary Beth Oliver, professor of media
studies at Pennsylvania State University, believes box sets provide more
than just enjoyment or storytelling.
Her work centres around the theory
of eudaimonia (which comes from a
Greek word that roughly translates as
‘human flourishing’) – that people’s
real lives are enriched by the lessons
they learn from on-screen dramas.
‘The shows that receive popular or
critical acclaim these days are mostly
eudaimonic shows; in other words,

56 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

they contemplate larger issues in life
– be it compassion or poignancy,’ she
says. ‘These elements in shows often
come with painful truths, for example, that life is fleeting, that not everyone is good. The tales enable people to
learn about themselves and to contemplate the meaning of life in some way.’
Oliver does, however, sound a note
of caution. ‘When we watch a series
for a long time, it’s possible to form
“parasocial relationships” with the
characters – as if they are really in our
lives,’ she warns. Professor Jonathan
Cohen at the University of Haifa in
Israel has done a lot of work around
this idea. He’s found that our involvements can go so deep that when the
‘relationship’ ends – perhaps after
several years – ‘it’s like losing a friend,
almost like a break-up’.
So there we have it. And if my boyfriend ever dares to skip ahead during
our next box-set marathon – which is
going to be The Sopranos – his experience will be exactly like a break-up.

W h at w e’r e watching
Press play for…
l The Vampire Diaries. ‘There’s nothing
like some silly vampire thriller/romance
to escape to of a winter’s evening!’
Ali Roff, features writer
l Modern Family. ‘Because of the
quirky character interaction and
the humourous one-liners.’
Jo Beadle, designer
l Game Of Thrones. ‘It’s not just gore
and dropped gowns – the power and
family dynamics are fascinating.’
Lauren Hadden, deputy editor
l Scandal. ‘Part political thriller, part

bawdy romp, with an interesting,
flawed heroine.’
Amerley Ollennu, acting beauty
& wellbeing editor
l The West Wing. ‘The writing is so
intelligent and it’s an ensemble cast
where everyone gets good storylines.’
Lynne Lanning, designer

.CO.UK
For tests, tips, events, advice and articles to help you to get more from life

HOW TO: use social
media to get a job
Rachel Harris, director of
employability at the University
of Law, offers tips for using social
media to enhance your job prospects:

Check your online profile before
you start job-hunting. Google yourself
to see what is attached to your name
online, and delete anything you can
that doesn’t show you in the best
professional light.

Use Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn to follow companies you

want to work for. You’ll be the first to
learn about any vacancies, and you’ll
get a good insight into the company.

Make the most of privacy settings.
Ensure only people you trust can
easily access what you upload, and
use the option to review items that
you’re tagged in before they go public.

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to you?

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from your friendships.

COMPETITIONS

We’ve all got that one song we love that can make us immediately
sing along or get up and dance every time we hear it. And scientists
have now proven what we already knew – that music can improve our
mood – only if we want it to, however.
A study showed that people who actively tried to improve their mood
while listening to music ended up happier than those who passively
listened to the same music. So the next time you’re feeling down, pop
your favourite tune on and concentrate on feeling better.

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58 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Celebrate each
[

moment
]

Lucy Murphy had already lost one baby to a rare blood
condition that affected her pregnancy, so when she found
out she was pregnant again, there was concern amid the joy. But
not only did she get Henry, she also gained a new perspective on life
FAMILY

T

PHOTOGRAPHy Johnny savage

here are some moments that change your life for
ever. The deafening silence of the trace monitor
through the emergency room, when I was just 27
weeks pregnant with our second son, Jude, was
one such moment. Heartbreakingly, he was
stillborn. In that instant all our hopes and dreams seemed
lost. Would I go through the horror again? I wasn’t sure. But
when I fell pregnant for the third time four years later, I was
willing to take the risk. I felt elation and joy, but with fears
and doubts about what would follow thrown in too.
And 25 weeks into that third pregnancy, the scan showed
the baby hadn’t grown at all in the previous four weeks and
weighed just 440 grams. The placenta was failing – how
much longer could he hang on? The consultant said unless
he reached 600 grams, they would not intervene. We were
devastated. I had a rare condition, Antiphospholipid
Syndrome, which meant my body was making antibodies
it shouldn’t have been making. I was more likely to develop
clotting problems involving the placenta, reducing the
blood flow, and its ability to nourish the growing baby.
Another traumatic week passed, the baby’s movements
never more than feeble. By Sunday, I doubted he was
moving at all, and we headed back to hospital, the Rotunda
Maternity, in Dublin. They ran a trace and the heartbeat
was there but it was not reassuring. An alarm sounded,
and within minutes I was wheeled out of the emergency
room past Café Rotunda, where my husband Stephen and
six-year-old son William waited for news, unaware I was

on my way to theatre. Our tiny Henry arrived that Sunday
in June 2011 by emergency Caesarean section at just 26
weeks and one day, weighing only 510 grams (1lb 1oz).

A tiny hold on life

Nothing can prepare you for the shocking visual reality of
seeing your baby hovering in the borderlands of existence.
He seemed so far away, so embryonic. In the incubator,
Henry’s head was not much bigger than a satsuma, but
large in comparison to his withered body and matchstick
limbs. His skin was translucent; there were wires and
tubes all over his little body. His eyes, still fused together,
were protected from the UV light with tiny shades and he
was intubated and on a ventilator to give him the strength
he did not possess to breathe.
Nothing could extinguish the instinct of motherhood
for me – he was ours, I loved him. But I’d taken him as
far as I could and his mechanical womb would now try to
sustain his fragile grasp on life. Like all newborn babies
he lost weight; at his lowest he was a mere 440 grams.
It was a frightening period, feeling my husband’s quiet
anguish, often added to my own. All we could do was sit,
pouring love through the incubator, willing him to live.
Henry was one of the smallest babies a hospital in Ireland
has ever dealt with. The nurses would tell us he was a fighter.
Was he? We hoped so. At that point the only thing I could
do for him was express milk, which I did every four hours.
Day 14 was my first ‘kangaroo care’ day; skin-to-skin >>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 59

family

 Nothing can
prepare you for
the shocking 
visual reality of
seeing your baby
hovering in the
borderlands of
existence”
a vein for 14 days and given triple antibiotics. But this was
incubator, it took about 10 minutes to position all the
just one of the many storms he weathered. We got to hold
wires and tubes, then they laid him gently on my chest. For
Henry again, to change a nappy, to hear his cry for the first
a while he moved his arms and legs as I syringed my breast
time – eventually he’d have his first bottle. Henry finally
milk through his feeding tube, then nestled into me and
left the hospital after 17 weeks, weighing 2.18kg (4lbs
fell asleep. I can still feel the warmth of his body on mine.
12oz), and with the largest helium balloon I could find.
I’ll always remember how hard it was to fight back the
Back from the brink
tears as I caught my dad’s eye at that moment (above). The
Henry is now two-and-a-half; a happy, determined boy
emotion in his face was palpable. If I had fed Henry that
who loves rummaging around in the flowerbeds with his
day, then he’d fed me so much more; sheer magic, pure joy.
spade, climbing, playing ball and looking at books with his
I spent my days at the hospital, watching Henry, and
brother. He amazes us every day. Our little hero fought so
taking breaks downstairs in the café. I shared emotions
hard to be here, we’re hugely proud of all he has overcome.
and confidences with other parents from the intensive care
We did try, but words could never convey the depth of
unit. Against the backdrop of parents leaving daily with
gratitude we felt to the hospital staff, who brought Henry
their new babies, I began to realise that actually this time
back from the brink so many times. The last six years have
we were the lucky ones; we’d been given a second chance.
taught me life can be fragile, but it’s important to try and
Every day was a bonus, for which we were truly grateful.
celebrate each moment. Experiencing loss makes joyful
I often thought about Jude, how on the morning of the
moments all the more vivid. We still visit Jude’s grave, it’s
funeral I carried his little white coffin on my lap in the car,
my way of telling him we still love him and he is our family.
holding him close, William in his car seat behind. I’d felt
Even if we move back to the UK at some point, part of me
empty in a thousand ways.
will forever remain in Ireland.
Upstairs Henry battled on. So little
It would be wrong to pretend
separated him from Jude save his slim
A R ECIPE FOR HEN RY
the mundane frustrations and
grip on life. It was critical that he
What it took for Lucy’s baby to beat the odds
irritations of motherhood are any
started gaining weight. The meaning
● 70 medical and nursing staff – Team
easier to deal with because of my
of the word ‘gram’ suddenly took on a
Henry

applied
skill
and
dedication
experiences. Amid the day-to-day
whole new significance. I was picking
● 38 minutes – the time it took the
chaos, I’m as prone to the odd
up those thin 150-gram packets of
consultant to get in, scrub up and deliver
sense of humour failure as the next
sliced meat in the supermarket,
Henry from the time he received the call
person. But I make a conscious
thinking just over three of them
● At least 14 blood transfusions
effort to remind myself how lucky
weighed the same as Henry.
● More than 12 weeks of ventilation
we are, and seeing Henry laughing
Just as the weight started to go on,
● 193 Heparin injections (to treat the
with William is a daily reminder.  
at 680 grams he hit a complication
Antiphospholipid Syndrome)
– necrotising enterocolitis, which can
● 1,476 bottles of expressed breast milk
cause disintegration of the bowel, and
● The love and support of family and friends
To support the hospital’s research, go to
death. He was put back on total
● The power of positive thinking
Friends of the Rotunda Hospital at for.ie
● Hope. And love, so much love
parental nutrition through a drip into

60 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF LUCY MURPHY

>>> contact with the baby. They lifted Henry out of the

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Books to soothe

your soul
[

]

It might be something from
culture
your childhood or something you
discovered last year but chances are you’ve
read it numerous times, and it warms your heart
as soon as you turn the title page. Rosie Ifould
investigates the appeal of the comfort read

photogRAph: shUtteRstock

T

o research this piece, I took
an old friend to bed. A kindred spirit, you might say.
For almost 30 years I’ve
looked in on her every so
often, to catch up on her exploits, from
dramas with cake baking and escaped
cows, to the tragic death of her friend
Matthew, and her romance with an
old school rival, via a dalliance with
Roy Gardener, a man with suitably
melancholy eyes.
I am, of course, talking about Anne
Shirley, better known as Anne Of Green
Gables. I first discovered her creator
LM Montgomery on my grandmother’s
bookshelves as a child, and spent all my
pocket money on my own copies, which
chart Anne’s life from 11 to middle-aged
mother of six. I read everything then –
even memorising the ingredients on

56 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4

cereal packets if there was nothing
else around – but Anne stayed with me,
like no other character. Those books
are my ultimate comfort read.
And most of us have one. Even if we
have now embraced Kindles or iPads,
there will be one or two dog-eared old
paperbacks that have a special place in
our hearts. On a rainy day they never
fail to give us exactly the right kind
of satisfaction. It isn’t an exaggeration
to call a comfort read a friend.
‘Books provide the opportunity for
social connection and the blissful calm
that comes from becoming a part of
something larger than oneself for
a precious, fleeting moment,’ writes
psychologist Dr Shira Gabriel of the
University of Buffalo, who discovered
in a recent study that we can derive a
similar amount of life satisfaction from >>>

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 57

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19/11/2013 14:40

Are you an

attention
deflector?
[

]

‘I’m all right, really!’ Ever found yourself uttering those
words as you stagger under the weight of a million
responsibilities? If so, you might be a closet attention deflector
(they do like closets). Sufferer Rin Hamburgh makes a diagnosis

H

ave you ever had the flu? I
mean influenza, the disease
that causes between a quarter and half a million deaths
worldwide every year. If you
have, you’ll know about the bone-aching
weariness, the waves of fever, the relentless pain that all conspire to send you to
bed for a minimum of a week or more.
You’ll also know the frustration of hearing someone with a sniffle and a weak
cough stating with satisfied resignation,
‘Oh yes, I have the flu.’
Attention-seeking is an incredibly
irritating phenomenon for those on the
receiving end of such bids for sympathy.
Fed up of endless moaning over seemingly minor ailments or circumstances,
we vow never to be so over-dramatic,
and so we play down our own difficult
circumstances. But in doing so, some
of us can swing just a little too far in

the opposite direction, denying our
stresses, struggles and strains to the
degree that we risk missing out on help
we desperately need. Some of us, in fact,
become, attention deflectors.
I think I’ve been this way all my life,
but it came as something of an epiphany
to me not all that many months ago, as
I sat having a coffee with a friend. I’d
been going through a rough time, and
she had noticed, despite my best efforts
at making light of the situation with
clever deflecting phrases like ‘Oh, I’m
just a bit overtired’ (read: I want to go
to sleep and never wake up).
Despite the fact that I have known
plenty of people with depression –
including close family members – it
took this kind but firm friend to point
out that perhaps it might not be such
a bad idea to go and see someone about
how I was feeling.

62 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

‘It’s probably just because I’ve been
working hard, and I really am quite
tired...’ I argued when she suggested it.
‘You do know that constant tiredness
is one of the signs of depression, right?’
she countered.
‘But I have so much to be grateful for,’
I tried again. ‘There are so many people
worse off than me.’
She stared back but said nothing.
‘I’m sure I’ll be OK, I just need to
make more of an effort...’ I said.
It went on for ages, as I listed all the
reasons I didn’t want to ask for help. In
among them was, I suddenly realised,
the fear that people – the doctor, my
friends, my family – might think I was
making a fuss over nothing. After all,
who doesn’t get a bit tired, stressed and
down every now and then?
It took another half hour of back and
forth argument with my friend before it >>>
photograph: old visuals/image source

BEHAVIOUR

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 63

behaviour

>>> dawned on me that it was true, I really

was struggling and I did need to ask
for help, and that my constant denial
of my suffering might be just as irritating for those friends and family as an
attention-seeker’s pleas for notice.
I was diagnosed with depression the
following week and was soon getting
the help I needed, not only from the
medical profession but from loved
ones. The diagnosis legitimised my
struggle in a way – after all, if a neutral
outsider could state there was a problem, then perhaps I wasn’t being an
attention-seeker after all. That thought
allowed me to ask for help and, surprise,
surprise, I started to feel better.

Admit it

Why did it take so long to admit I was
struggling? After all, I consider myself
to be relatively self-aware. But that may
well be one of the problems, according
to Dr Lucy Atcheson, a Harley Street
chartered counselling psychologist.
‘The more self-aware and socially
aware you are, the more you can see the
people who are making a big fuss, and
so you’re more likely to be a deflector,’
she says. ‘Lots of people are so keen not
to seek attention that they deflect, but

ACTING THE m a rty r
Does this sound like you?
● When someone asks, ‘How are you?’
is your standard response, ‘I’m fine’,
even if you’re not?
● Do you put off going to the doctor,
thinking, ‘I’ll be fine in a couple of days’?
● Do you tend to be the person everyone
else goes to with their issues?
● Would you say you generally like to
be in control, or to be the ‘rescuer’ who
looks after other people?
● Do you struggle to ask for help?
Try noting down each time you find
yourself playing down a problem.
Then try asking for help with at least
one of them.

 People are
inherently busy,
so if you never flag
up that you need
support, you’ll
never get support’’
what happens is they can feel lonely or
isolated. People are inherently busy,
so if you never flag up that you need
support, you’ll never get support.’
Most of us are also bad at taking our
own advice, says Professor Gail Kinman, professor of occupational health
psychology at the University of Bedforshire. ‘It doesn’t matter how intelligent
or knowledgable you are, it doesn’t
apply to you,’ she says. ‘Recently, I was
at a work-life balance conference and a
lot of us were whinging about how bad
our work-life balance was, and we’re all
international experts on the subject!
We’re very good at giving advice, but
we don’t seem to allow it to apply to us.’
As Brits, we’re at a particular disadvantage when it comes to deflecting
attention. It’s a cultural thing: ‘Me? I’m
fine’, ‘Mustn’t grumble’, ‘Don’t mind
me’. Remember that advert where two
women, clearly full of nasty head colds,
meet on the street and chat to each
other about their busy schedules, and
conclude by revealing that their poor
husbands are sick in bed? These are
the role models who encourage our
attention-deflecting behaviour. It’s not
good to rest in bed when you’re ill, they
say, it’s better to rush about looking
after others and not making a fuss…
Then there’s the work culture that
says that weakness – emotional and
physical – is to be avoided at all costs,
especially if you’re female and trying to
compete in a male arena.
In 2008, Professor Kinman conducted a study around women showing
emotion in the workplace, and she

64 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

concluded that there is still a stigma
attached to crying. ‘The women felt
that if they let go emotionally, they’d be
letting the side down,’ she says of her
research subjects. ‘Someone said they
would be a “gender traitor”. It’s this idea
that you have to be strong, you have to
be in control. It’s difficult to know
sometimes just how much emotion is
appropriate to expose to people.’

Strike a balance

The key is to avoid attention-seeking
and attention-deflecting behaviour, as
both can leave us feeling isolated. ‘If
you’re self-aware and know you’re in a
good place, you can be supportive of
others and just happy you’re having a
good patch,’ says Dr Atcheson, author of
Guide To Perfect Relationships (Hay
House, £7.99). ‘Be conscious that you’ll
have a bad patch at some point too but
you can ask for help then, because you
haven’t been pointlessly asking for help
when you didn’t need any.
‘Ask yourself, “Do I take as much as I
give? Do I even take 50 per cent as much
as I give?”’ she adds. ‘When you’re helping other people, try to make a mental
note, “I’ve been there for others, so I can
ask them to be there for me”.’
Remember that it works both ways.
As you admit your needs, you give
others permission to admit theirs.
Having finally faced up to my struggles with depression, I spent one very
tearful afternoon with my best friend,
pouring my heart out. Naturally, she
was kind and sympathetic, and I felt so
much better for having shared.
A couple of weeks later, she called me
early in the morning, in floods of tears
after a particularly rough night with
her colicky baby. I was more than happy
to go round with pastries, coffee and
sympathy. And you know what? I never
once thought she was making a fuss.
For more from Dr Lucy Atcheson, go to
counsellingpsychologistlondon.com

Next month in
18-PAGE speciaL section

RELIGHT YOUR FIRE
and invite love into your life

How to deal with
aggressive people
– a guide for softies

LEssonS from the
world’s happiest nation

Go FORTH and
multiply – why

embracing your many
selves is good for you

TRAIN YOUR BRAIN
for happiness

PLUS: Anxiety-busting

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FEELING A BIT
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changing it’’
MARY FENWICK

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THE LIFE LAB

} special report

* National centre for eating disorders

WHAT’S EATING YOU?

Diets don’t work. We all know that to maintain what doctors
call a ‘healthy weight’, the only thing that really works is eating
nutritious foods in moderation and taking regular exercise.
But our relationship with food, and with our bodies, is never
merely physical. For example, what we call ‘comfort eating’ –
eating for emotional reasons, rather than to satisfy hunger –
now affects up to 12 million people in the UK*. Psychologies’
acting beauty & wellbeing editor, Amerley Ollennu, is one of
them. Sick of turning to food for solace when the results of
her behaviour just gave her grief, she decided to investigate
the comfort-eating phenomenon and see what she could
learn about herself in the process >>>
photography Victoria Ling

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 69

} special report

A

deadline is looming, so
I eat. I have an argument
with someone, so I eat.
I am disappointed, overwhelmed or stressed –
guess what? Yup, I eat. I’ve learnt
from an early age to comfort myself
with food. We all do it at times, but
when it starts to get out of control,
and when it’s affecting your health
– that’s when comfort eating can
become a serious problem.
What’s interesting is that none
of us are immune: we’ve all eaten
for comfort at some point. ‘Children do it, adults do it, we all engage in
the kind of eating that has nothing to do
with hunger. Eating to treat ourselves,
eating to have a good time with others,
eating as a response to anxiety or stress
and to distract ourselves from what is
bothering us,’ explains psychologist Dr
Deanne Jade, who specialises in weight
and eating issues and founded the
National Centre for Eating Disorders.

Food, glorious food

As in many households, in mine food
was often given as a reward for good
behaviour, or an exam passed, or as a
treat, to express love. I remember an au
pair picking me up from nursery every
day and we’d often go to a lovely bakery
where she’d buy me a croissant – just
because. And my extended family’s gettogethers often revolved around food –
if you didn’t eat, something was wrong.
But equally, because I had overweight
relatives, there was an underlying fear
of getting fat, too. My grandma would
buy me chocolate but then comment
if I’d put on weight. So I have learnt to
associate food with love, to use it as a
way to reward myself – but, as I later
discovered, to punish myself, too.
Dr Jade believes there are many different types of emotional eaters but
what they have in common is that their

eating serves a purpose. A traumatic
childhood could be to blame in some
cases. These people may suffer from a
stress disorder, and develop emotional
hyper arousal. They feel too much, so
use food to dampen feelings down to a
manageable level. People who feel low
all the time without being sure why use
food to ‘wake them up’ just to feel ‘normal’. Some use food to stimulate them,
a bit like an alcoholic or a drug addict.
Others may have learnt early on that
it’s not OK to have negative feelings, so
they eat to distract or punish themselves
as they believe that having a less than
positive feeling means something is
wrong with them. And – and this is the

70 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

40%

OF ADULTS IN THE UK
ADMIT TO COMFORT
EATING WHEN SAD,
ANXIOUS, LONELY
OR STRESSED*

‘purpose’ that rings most true for
me – many of us don’t know what
to do with feelings of anger, sadness
or helplessness so we eat instead.
Two years ago, after a cycle of
eating to self-soothe resulting in
weight gain, then yo-yo dieting and
binge-eating (which last year was
acknowledged in the US as a legitimate disorder), I thought that I had
finally found a way of eating and
living that worked for me. I was the
smallest I’d ever been.
Looking back now, I can see how
extreme my regime was: no more
than 1,200 calories a day, no alcohol,
and three hours of exercise, six days a
week. The tipping point was a relationship that turned sour. It triggered some
emotions that at the time I thought were
to do with my relationship history, but
that I later realised had more to do with
my childhood. I began to comfort eat in
an attempt to block out my feelings, as
well as to love and reward myself, but
now, almost three years on, my out-ofcontrol emotional eating has affected
not only my weight but almost every
aspect of my life.
I knew I wanted to stop, and that just
starting another diet wasn’t going to
help. Depriving myself often leads to allor-nothing thinking – the minute I eat
something ‘bad’ I decide I’ve blown it
then gorge on every ‘bad’ food I can find.
I needed to confront my issues and delve
deeper to figure out why there was such
a disconnection between how I wanted
to eat and how I was currently eating.

Spotting the pattern

I decided to begin by trying therapy
so went to see psychologist Dr Sonia
Greenidge, who specialises in Cognitive
Behavioural Therapy, a form of goalorientated, problem-focused treatment.
The CBT model states that the way a
person thinks will in turn affect their

* THE PRIORY CLINIC. ** WEB MD. PHOTOGRAPH: CHRIS TUBBS

THE LIFE LAB

emotional state, which will then affect
their behaviour. With emotional eating,
we’re already aware of the behavioural
response – eating. What we need to
understand is our idiosyncratic interpretation of events and how this affects
us emotionally, thus leading to certain
patterns of eating.
At my first session, I explained I felt
as if every meal and snack choice was
driven by a need to self-soothe rather
than to satiate hunger. Before I lost
weight in 2011, I was under the impression that my life would be perfect if I
was slim. Finding out this wasn’t the
case, I just let go. Denying myself to look
a certain way hadn’t got me anywhere,
so to comfort feelings of failure, I ate.
I discovered through my sessions
that I also ate to protect myself from
future failed relationships. Eating this
way meant I’d gain weight, which would
protect me from interest from men. I
wouldn’t have to go through another
break-up, or, if I did have another relationship and it didn’t work out, it would
be because I didn’t look perfect, not
because of any character flaws I may

have. What had begun as a way to protect
and comfort myself had turned into
behaviour that only made me feel worse,
and led me to comfort eat more to push
down feelings of self-loathing.
With Dr Greenidge, I looked closely
into events that shaped my life growing
up, and how they’ve had an impact on
my relationships with others since. I’ve
always felt I had to work hard for people
to love me, which may be why I go out
with emotionally unavailable men, and
why I push myself to take on difficult
regimes in a bid for perfection. Eventually it’s all too much hard work and I let
go by comfort eating. I figured out that

75%
of overeating
is caused by
emotions**

through TV, films and magazines I’d
formed an idea of how women should
look. In my mind, slim women were
more loved, successful and happy.
I remember going to a friend’s house
when I was about eight to go swimming.
I was taller than her with some baby fat
– there was no way her swimsuits would
fit me. So her mum gave me one of hers.
I felt embarrassed that I wasn’t small
and skinny like my friend and the perfect
women I saw on screen.
As I got older, these insecurities got
worse, as I adopted the formula that I
could only be loved if I were ‘perfect’.
This way of thinking has had a profound
impact on my romantic relationships.
It’s almost as though I seek out the
wrong type of men to punish myself
because I don’t think I’m perfect, and
therefore don’t deserve love. What had
been an unconscious way of thinking
and being was, all of a sudden, revealed.
Dr Greenidge gave me a number of
tasks to do each week to help me understand more about myself. One was to
write down every time I felt annoyed. I
wrote about two women who sat next >>>

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 71

} special report

>>> to me on an empty train then had a loud

conversation; a man on the tube who saw
a pregnant woman and didn’t get up for
her; the radio station I listen to being
taken over by a big conglomerate to the
detriment of its listeners. I realised I
become incredibly angry with people for
not behaving in the manner I think they
should, even when I’m just a bystander.
This helped me to recognise my high
expectations of myself and others and,
coupled with keeping a food diary,
allowed me to see how I use food to
sedate my strong feelings.
I recorded everything I ate and how I
felt before, during and after. This helped
me see I’d become so adept at pushing
my feelings down that often I had no idea
how I felt. There are different reasons
why I turn to food. For example, one
night I noticed my mood shifting as a
concert I’d gone to came to an end. I
passed a shop on the way home and
bought chocolate because I felt like it.
But as a result of the therapy I realised
I didn’t really fancy some chocolate; I
was sad because my amazing evening
was over, and I felt like comforting
myself. If I’d been more in tune with
my feelings, I could have looked for a
different way to address that, such as
listening to the same music from earlier
on my iPod to keep the ‘buzz’ going.
So, having addressed the source of

50%

of people who
binge-eat have
been depressed
at some point in
their lives*

my behaviour, now I needed help shifting it. One of the first things Yvonne
McMeel, nutritionist at Urban Retreat
Harrods, told me was that ‘all the mindfulness in the world won’t help regulate
emotional eating if you’re surviving on
one sugary or carby hit after another’.
‘When we eat sugary foods, the pancreas produces insulin, which helps
regulate the level of sugar in our blood,’
she explained. ‘With too much sugar the
pancreas can struggle to get the balance
right, and blood sugars can drop below
normal levels. This causes hypoglycaemia, the sluggishness better known as a
sugar crash, which makes us want to eat
more sugary or carby foods to feel what
we think is normal, thus starting the
process all over again.’ When a person
has an unbalanced diet there is physiological chaos too, as a spike in blood
sugar can result in panic, anxiety, impulsiveness, nervousness and anger that
are caused by the diet itself – rather than
by what’s going on in their life.
I’ve often suffered from nervousness
and irrational anger when I’ve ‘crashed’,
then attempted to comfort myself with
the same high-sugar foods that got me
on this emotional rollercoaster in the
first place. McMeel advocated healthier
food choices, and coached me in EFT as
a way to work through my emotions.

Free yourself

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
or ‘tapping’ is a form of psychological
acupressure, said to help with anxiety,
stress, chronic pain and emotional problems. It’s a fairly new technique based on
acupuncture and acupressure, and uses
the body’s meridian points. You stimulate them by tapping gently with your
fingers – like acupuncture without the
needles. You start by rating the intensity
of your negative feelings on a scale of
0-10, where 10 is severe. Then you determine a set-up phrase, which must have
specific meaning for you. For example,
‘Even though I feel really stressed and

72 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

1 in 3
women put on
weight when
stressed**

all I want to do is eat loads of chocolate,
I love and accept myself anyway.’ Then
you start tapping on the side of your
hand while repeating the set-up phrase
three times. This is followed by tapping
about seven times each on the various
meridian points around the body, while
repeating the set-up phrase.
At first, it felt odd. I’d learnt about
positive self-talk so couldn’t understand
why I was now addressing my negative
feelings, repeating them over and over
again. But as I continued, I began to
notice that not only did it make me more
mindful and reveal things about myself
I’d not previously been aware of, it also
brought me a sense of peace. I was able
to safely feel my emotions while accepting them and myself at the same time.
Although both CBT and EFT opened
my eyes to the issues I’ve been facing and
the core beliefs I must let go of, they’re
not a quick fix. I’ve become more mindful about how I eat but have also found
it difficult to let go of food as a means of
comfort. It’s a journey I must travel,
long and – I imagine – at times arduous.
I will spend the rest of the year documenting my experience. Join me on
my quest to think and eat better, as
I test new theories, adopt a healthier lifestyle and set myself and you, the reader,
some challenges along the way.
For EFT scripts see psychologies.co.uk.
Amerley Ollennu will try new techniques
and thinking around comfort eating in
her new column, Brain Food, beginning in
our March issue, out 31 January.
>>>
*NHS.CO.UK. ** Henry Potter Advisory Committee.
photograph: stephen Lux/image source

THE LIFE LAB

THE LIFE LAB

} special report

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 73

THE LIFE LAB

4 tips for dealing
with comfort eating
There are practical steps you can take to help you make the distinction between eating to sate
your appetite or merely having food to comfort yourself – Dr Sonia Greenidge tells you how

1

Physical hunger v.
emotional hunger

Before you eat, ask yourself ‘how
physically hungry am I right now?’
Learn what hunger and fullness feel like.
Physical hunger is felt in the stomach
but emotional hunger in the mouth, with
cravings for specific foods. Physical hunger usually comes on gradually; emotional hunger can strike suddenly as a
result of an external or internal trigger.
Physical hunger means you stop eating
when full; emotional hunger can mean
you keep eating until way past fullness
as your aim is to deal with emotions,
and food is not a solution. Rate hunger/
fullness on a scale of 1 to 10; where 1 is
very hungry and 10 very full. Anything
above a five and you’re probably not
physically hungry. By doing this you’ll
be better equipped to decrease bouts
of feeding emotional hunger with food.

2

Sit with your
emotions

To deal with the emotions that lead
to emotional eating, you first need to be
able to recognise them. If you rate your
hunger/fullness and it’s as high as an
eight, your emotional eating alarm bell
should ring. Shut your eyes, breathe
calmly, scan your body for emotion.
Stress in your shoulders? Sadness in
your heart? Anxiety in your tummy?
Once you’ve identified it, it will be easier
to start dealing with it without food.
Next, you need to learn to sit with it
and give it the space it needs instead of

trying to push it away. One way to do this
is be curious about what you feel. Let’s
say it’s anxiety. Shut your eyes and
imagine it. Are there butterflies flitting
about? Or a grey cloud hovering? Open
your eyes and imagine the object that
represents the emotion in front of
you. Look at its form, size, colour. It can’t
hurt you. When you’re familiar with it,
shut your eyes, put it back where you
found it. You’re accepting this is your
experience now rather than rejecting
it, ignoring it or judging yourself for it.

3

Discover your triggers

Saying ‘I feel emotion A right now
because...’ will help you understand
what triggers emotions. For example, ‘I
feel sad right now because I wasn’t
understood’ or ‘I feel angry right now
because I was treated unfairly’. As soon
as you understand the triggers, think
of ways to deal with the situations that
led to the emotions that caused them.
Perhaps your anger would be eased by
speaking to the person you feel has

74 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F EBRUARY 2 0 1 4

32

The number of
years britons
spend on a diet*

treated you unfairly, expressing how
you feel and why. If someone else was
dealing with this emotion what would
you do? Give them a hug, perhaps?
Maybe that’s what you need. Do something nice for yourself. Have a bath,
book a massage, turn your mobile off,
have ‘me’ time. Deal with the emotional
hunger without responding with food.

4

Challenge your
behaviour

Placing Post-its where you keep
food at home or at work can help you to
keep a check on your reason for eating.
Write questions such as ‘Am I physically
hungry?’ or ‘Did something happen to
make me sad/angry/anxious?’ If you’re
aware you’re about to respond to emotional hunger you can opt to have a glass
of water, get some fresh air, speak to
someone about what happened or write
down how you feel. Just a sentence in a
journal can be a great way to express the
emotions you’re feeling so they are not,
quite literally, eating away at you.
When you are about to reach for a
snack, do a quick cost-benefit analysis
in your head. What are the short-term
gains and losses from indulging, and
what are the long-term ones? If you
need more support, working with a
therapist can help you become familiar
with your emotions, more accepting of
them, to recognise your triggers and to
seek alternatives to food.
Dr Sonia Greenidge can be contacted at
prudentiacounselling.co.uk

*Study commissioned by Del Monte Naturally Light

>>>

} special report

THE LIFE LAB

} special report

Learning to just feel
my feelings, rather than
stuff them down with food,
was so important”
Ani Richardson, 35, has grappled with emotional eating
since her teenage years. She is a nutritionist, founder of
website Nurture With Love (nurturewithlove.com) and
author of Love Or Diet (Sassy Books, £14)

IN MY EXPERIENCE, there isn’t any neat 10-point
plan to follow when it comes to emotional eating.
Healing is a deep, evolving journey that can feel
challenging but ultimately provides true personal
and spiritual growth.
Until I was 14, I had a good appetite and ate what
I was given at mealtimes. This changed when I made
new friends and became privy to the rife diet
mentality at my all-girls school. At the same time
I became really unwell with stomach problems and
quickly lost vast amounts of weight. A pivotal
moment was overhearing someone
tell my mum not to worry about my
weight loss because I’d been ‘plump’
before. I had never thought of
myself as plump – the comment was
devastating. I began restricting food
and obsessing about it. Guilt and
shame came up, emotions I’d never
associated with eating before. Secretly I would eat, or
restrict, and it was tiring. At 16, I changed schools and
food became less of an issue. I went to university,
pushed myself hard, got a first-class honours degree
and went on to get a Masters in nutritional medicine.
Learning about the healing power of nutritious food,
and also the damage that can be done to the body with
poor nutrition, was fascinating.
Aged 22, accompanied by my super-healthy diet,
I moved to London where I worked as a health and
nutrition writer. My eating issues returned. I felt
overwhelmed, anxious and out of place. I was isolated
in a big city and craved nature. When I felt stressed
about meeting a deadline or having to go to a
networking event, I would eat to stuff down those
feelings, to numb myself. As I ate I would feel comfort
because I was disconnecting from the uncomfortable



feeling of being overwhelmed and anxious. It was like
an escape. The escape never lasted long though and
afterwards I’d feel guilty, like a failure. I binged on
health foods but it doesn’t really matter what you binge
on – if you’re eating to cover up emotions or problems
it hurts and has an impact on life at all levels, from
psychological to physical. I was ashamed, thinking
‘surely a registered nutritionist should know better?’
It all came to a head when my body gave up. I was
later diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. My
fiancé broke off our engagement, I lost my home and a
close friend began to drift away all
at the same time. It was definitely
a rock-bottom moment for me and
I knew I had to change. For the next
four years I stayed single and learnt
to care about myself. I studied for a
counselling qualification and as part
of that I had to attend therapy for a
year. I also got a qualification in eating disorders and
obesity management. Yoga, qigong, spirituality,
meditation, mindfulness and journaling all helped
me to stay in touch with myself and I learnt assertion
skills that helped to dampen down my people-pleasing
tendencies. Learning to just feel my feelings, rather
than stuff them down with food, was so important.
Feelings often point towards authentic needs and
I realised I was worthy of having needs.
After these four years, which I refer to now as ‘the
cocoon’, I emerged and moved to the countryside.
Fast-forward another four and I’m happily married to
an amazing man and we have two beautiful dogs. Do
I still have the urge to comfort eat sometimes? Yes, but
now I know the urge is never about food, it’s always
about something else and if I’m open to exploring the
feelings then I’ll find the wisdom behind the craving.

Now I know
the urge is never
about food, it’s
always about
something else



F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 75

THE LIFE LAB

} experiment
MIND

The takeaway project
Every month Martha Roberts invites you to road-test research around feeling good

him to observe a world in
which those blessings never
came about. This forces
George to realise just how
rare and precious the good
things in his life are, which
instantly cures his depression.’ So how does it work?
Koo says that although this
may be a ‘saccharine’ view,
the George Bailey effect can
reintroduce an element of
‘surprise’ that the event actually occurred and can lead to
real feelings of increased
happiness at the outcome.

TRY THIS
THE THEORY
Koo asked participants to
A number of studies conducted over the past decade have chal- describe an event for which they felt grateful from one of
lenged people to try the ‘count your blessings’ hypothesis. The
seven categories: education, health, safety/security, possesevidence was mixed – some found that thinking about positive
sions, break/vacation/weekends/holidays, act of kindness/
events did improve their wellbeing (Burton & King, 2004) while
support from others, achievement and performance. Pick
others found that it had no effect on their positive or negative
one – for example, a holiday you had that you really enjoyed
emotions or feelings of wellbeing.
and are grateful for having had the opportunity to go on.
However, in 2008, Minkyung Koo and her colleagues sug- 1. Write about the scenario by describing ways in which the
gested that where these studies went wrong was that they only
event might never have happened or been part of your life.
urged respondents to think of the ‘presence’ of something in
2. Write about the ways in which it is ‘surprising’ that this event
life, not the ‘absence’ of it. Why should this matter? Koo et al
is part of your life. On a scale of 1 to 7 (1 = ‘not at all’ and 7 =
say that when we reflect on only positive events, they soon ‘extremely’), rate the extent to which you feel the following:
become familiar and the impact of their positivity fades. The
distressed, happy, thankful, upset, grateful, joyful, sad, hopeful,
key is to ‘unadapt’ to positive events by considering
appreciative, lonely, depressed, secure and optimistic.
their absence. They refer to the 1946 Frank Capra film MARTHA
3. Next, write about the same event but this time
It’s A Wonderful Life where an angel, Clarence Odbody, ROBERTS is an describe the ways in which it isn’t surprising that it
award-winning
takes suicidal George Bailey on a tour of the world as UK health writer became part of your life. Rate it by the same scale.
it would have been had George never been born.‘Rather and blogger
According to the study, your ratings should show more
at mentalhealth
than asking him to count his blessings, Clarence allows wise.com
positive feelings during the first test than the second.

JOIN US! PLAY ‘WHAT IF’ WITH US AT FACEBOOK.COM/PSYCHOLOGIES OR ON TWITTER @PSYCHOLOGIESMAG

76 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

ILLUSTRATION: NAOMI WILKINSON/EASTWING

IN LIFE, we spend a lot of
time thinking about what
might have been, so much
so that we may be in danger
of taking for granted what
we actually have. But what
would our lives be like without these loved ones, prized
possessions or significant
events? Well, University of
Virginia experts suggest
imagining their absence –
so-called ‘counter-factual
thinking’ – could make us
feel more content with what
we’ve got and how our lives
have panned out.

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01386 832 844 | [email protected] | www.packtypes.com

m a ry fen w ick on LIFE

Feeling overwhelmed, overloaded and wondering if there’s something
wrong with you? Reach out for help – there are many practical strategies
that can help change how you feel and how your brain works



Q

I’m a 23-year-old student currently
studying medicine. It’s hard work and
I enjoy it, but recently I’ve been easily
muddled when it comes to simple
things like my timetable or topics I’m
learning. I’ve also started to feel as if
I’m losing my sense of self; my friends
would always refer to me as an extrovert, but I can’t be
bothered to socialise any more and often find myself being
negative about others. I don’t recognise this confused,
unenthusiastic person I’ve become – it’s ruining my years
studying medicine, which have always been the focal point
of my life and something I’ve enjoyed. How can I get back
to being the old me and enjoy this exciting part of my life?

A

When I took on this job, the first question most
of my friends asked was, ‘Are the letters real?’
Reading your letter, they’d be in no doubt. Your
situation rings very true – to have achieved
something you really wanted, yet to feel as if you’re watching
yourself from the outside and don’t quite like what you see.
In your future career, you will have an important role in
helping other people decide how to define their experiences:
‘Mental health problems are problems that can be diagnosed
by a doctor, not personal weaknesses,’ according to the
website mentalhealth.org.uk.
You might be having a strong reaction to me even using the
words ‘mental health problems’, but I have complete faith

78 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

that your personal experience will be an enormous gift to
your professional life, no matter how you label what is going
on right now. You’re discovering just how hard it is to say out
loud ‘there’s something not right in my head’. Indeed, you’ve
chosen to write it down to a stranger, rather than ask
someone in your circle face to face.
Just as your future patients might ask you, you’re asking
me whether this is normal, or if you need to do something to
change it. I’d be inclined to say it seems normal so far, yet you
still need to do something about it.
What is normal? In the words of author Elizabeth Gilbert,
‘We don’t have centuries of educated, autonomous female
role models to imitate here, so nobody has given us a map.’
But it does seem like a good idea to use this as a reminder that
if you don’t look after yourself, you can’t look after anyone
else. At a public lecture on neuroscience and creativity, I have
a quick word with the speaker, Dr Cathy Stinear, afterwards.
‘If we really appreciated how plastic the brain is, we’d be more
careful with it in daily life,’ she tells me. ‘Do you mean with
what we put into it?’ I ask, thinking of my coffee habit. ‘Yes,’
she answers, ‘but also we’d be more careful with the thoughts
we allow ourselves to have, especially the habitual ones.’
Thoughts lead to feelings, the process becomes circular:
feelings create the environment in which different thoughts
are possible. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, then your brain is
in the equivalent state to an overloaded computer – with that
little icon that looks like a whirling beach-ball of doom.
This might be what is contributing to your confusion. In
2008, the UK government brought out a paper on Mental

photograph: victoria birkinshaw

Find someone you
can talk to honestly’’

THE LIFE LAB

} wise words

Mary Fenwick
is a business
coach, journalist,
fundraiser,
mother, divorcee
and widow

Capital and Wellbeing. The link between wellbeing and
the brainpower that we have at our disposal was deliberate
and explicit. If you boost your wellbeing, you boost your
brainpower. A number of ideas have come out of this, using
the ‘five-a-day’ template, but this time for mental health.
I like the postcards that remind us to ‘Connect. Be Active.
Take Notice. Keep Learning. Give.’ Another way to remember,
with essentially the same message, is by using the acronym
GREAT – Giving, Relating, Exercising, Appreciation,
Trying Out.
There’s evidence that meditation is like doing push-ups
for your brain, and physical changes, including better sleep
patterns, can happen quite quickly. If you do nothing else,
though, I’d urge you to connect, no matter how daunting it
may feel. Find someone you can trust and talk to honestly.
It will be immensely reassuring when your future patients
realise that you, in turn, are one of those people who can be
trusted. You won’t have to say so for them to know. In the
1987 film The Untouchables, Robert De Niro insisted on

wearing the same style of underwear that Al Capone, the
character he was playing, wore, even though it’s never seen on
camera. If you choose, the way you deal with this experience
can be your invisible underwear, giving you warmth and
confidence. I would say, however, don’t keep it a secret from
everybody. Being able to name accurately what’s going on is a
necessary part of changing it. Sometimes hearing or reading
other people’s stories helps us to recognise our own. That’s
why pages like this exist.
GOT A QUESTION FOR MARY? Email [email protected],
with ‘MARY’ in the subject line

more inspiration:
Read bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/publishedprojects/mental-capital-and-wellbeing
Take action at neweconomics.org/publications/entry/
five-ways-to-well-being-postcards
Learn how to do a simple daily activity that’s good for your
mind with mindapples.org

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 79

actionforcharity

Cycle
Africa
women V cancer
1-9 October 2015

Join the next Women V Cancer cycle challenge in Tanzania
and raise funds to fight breast, cervical and ovarian cancers

For information and to register online:

www.actionforcharity.co.uk
[email protected] • 01590 677854

Raising
funds
for these
charities:

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ction
for charity
lifechangingevents

THE LIFE LAB

} experiment

LOV E

Keeping the passion alive
Every month Sarah Abell invites you to improve your love life with small changes

ILLUSTRATION: NAOMI WILKINSON/EASTWING

EARLY ON in a relationship,
passion comes very easily
to most couples. Almost
every touch, glance or word
is loaded with desire. But
what happens to passion
when you are six months
into a relationship, or even
60 months in – or 60 years?
Is it inevitable that it will
fizzle out eventually or can
you expect passion to last
and even grow?
Dr Sue Johnson, clinical
psychologist and the author
of Hold Me Tight (Piatkus,
£13.99), believes that ‘the
passion of infatuation is
just the hors d’oeuvre.
Loving sex in a long-term relationship is the entrée’.

objectified rather than
valued as a person.
Solace Sex: The goal here is
reassurance. If you feel insecure about your attachment
you are likely to look to sex
for proof that you are valued
and loved. If your partner
doesn’t want to have sex
for any reason, you are
more likely to take it as a
personal rejection. If this
type of sex is the norm in a
relationship you might find
yourself trying to perform to
please or being so demanding that it is a turn-off for
your partner.
Synchrony Sex: The goal for
sex here is that it fulfils, satisfies and connects. It is when emotional openness, responsiveness, tender touch and erotic
exploration come together.
Johnson explains that this is the way sex is supposed to be.
She suggests that the best guide for erotic and satisfying
sex is ‘practice and emotional presence make perfect’.

THE THEORY
If we want to have great sex in a long-term relationship, then
we need emotional connection and if we want to have emotional
connection we need great sex. The two go hand in hand. Johnson
believes you will have different goals for your sex life, depending
on how comfortable you are with closeness overall and how TRY THIS
safe you feel in needing your partner. She calls these three kinds This month write a ‘Brief Guide for the Lover of ________
(insert your name here)’. Include anything that you want your
of sex Sealed-Off Sex, Solace Sex, and Synchrony Sex.
partner to know about what turns you on before and
Sealed-Off Sex: The goal with this type of sex is to
SARAH ABELL
release your sexual tension, to achieve orgasm and is a relationships during sex, your preferred positions, anything that
to feel good about your performance. You are quite coach and author you want to try or don’t want to try, and what helps
of ‘Inside Out –
you to feel connected during lovemaking.
likely to have this type of goal if you have never learned How To Build
You might want to share what you have written with
to trust, or struggle with being emotionally vulnerable Authentic
Relationships
your partner, you might not. If not, you could perhaps
with your lover.
With Everyone
Your Life’
start a conversation with them about how hard you
Johnson says this type of impersonal sex is toxic in In
(Hodder &
a loving relationship, as your partner is likely to feel Stoughton, £8.99) find it to talk about these things.

‘WE WASTE TIME LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT LOVER, INSTEAD OF CREATING THE PERFECT LOVE’ TOM ROBBINS

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 81

ESTHER PER EL ON R EL ATIONSHIPS

Bedroom power struggles can not only dampen desire but extinguish
the flame altogether. So how can we stop the battling and create a new
dynamic to promote intimacy instead of destroying it?



Recapture a feeling
of personal energy”

82 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

he’ll feel rejected again,’ she tells me. ‘It is always too little,
too late. I am always accused of something.’
Philip’s outbursts occur mostly when she approaches him
sexually. Ironically, she, too, sees herself as having no control.
‘I feel like I’m constantly stepping into traps, that no matter
what I do or say, it’s wrong. I’ll make an effort but then he
somehow feels rejected again,’ says Lisa.
She confesses that to initiate sex, she has to turn herself
on alone first, independently of Philip. She does not respond
to external stimulations. As many men do, he sees all this as
a power manoeuvre, in which sex is all on her terms. While he
sees her attitude as a way to control him, she claims it is a way
to get some control back.   
In everything else outside of their sex life, Philip is the
‘master’. He is 10 years older than Lisa, knows best, and
micro-manages his wife, wanting her to do things his way.
She describes herself as a Stepford Wife. He always needs to
initiate sex, and her passive response is important to him.
His motto is along the lines of: ‘I act, you react.’

Breaking the stalemate

I point out that the situation appears to be that both of them
end up feeling that it’s the other one who is in control. Lisa is
on the look-out for Philip’s explosions, while he is looking out
for her rejection. I tell them that Lisa’s description of herself
as a Stepford Wife may have something to do with their
control struggle in bed. Maybe for her this is less about being
in control than about getting some control back.
To break the stalemate, I suggest that Philip takes one

photograph: christopher lane

M

y client Lisa, who is sitting in my
therapy session, stony-faced, along
with her husband Philip, begins by
saying they had the worst fight last
weekend, nastier than usual, she says.
Philip agrees. ‘Yes, three days in a row
I initiated sex and each time she rebuffed me. I can’t take it
any more,’ he says. It’s been years of rejection, he continues,
and he feels hurt and angry. And what hurts him most is the
total lack of interest from Lisa. According to Philip, she has
never in the last two years responded sexually to his advances.
He feels undesired, misses the erotic connection, and feels
that she controls the sexual switchboard.
He is so frustrated that he sits in our session, pouring out
an endless litany of complaints that certainly doesn’t make
things any better. Lisa’s face simply tightens as he starts
spitting out statistics. ‘I would be able to tolerate 25 per cent
of rejection, even 50 per cent, but not 100 cent. I feel like a
dog waiting at the table for a bone, then she says “I gave you
one yesterday”. Even when we have a great day, it makes
no difference in bed,’ he says, angrily.
But instead of empathy for her husband, all Lisa feels is
pressure. I dig a little deeper. At this point, this sexual
stalemate seems to be less about sex, and more about the
fact that Philip has lost his ability to have a say in matters.
He feels like he has no control over his sex life.
However, Lisa argues that when she tries to connect,
she is always on guard, wondering when she’ll step on the
minefield. ‘I’m always trying to avoid the trigger point where

THE LIFE LAB

} wise words

ESTHER PEREL
is a psychologist,
author and
speaker regarded
as one of the
world’s most
insightful voices
on sexuality

month to focus solely on himself, to take control in his own
life and make a major change. He’s decided to take up yoga,
to stop smoking, to go back to swimming, and not to eat red
meat. The goal is to recapture a feeling of personal energy,
a sense of control and to take Lisa out of the picture for a
while. There will be no sex, no talking about the lack of sex,
and no begging from Lisa.
In our next session, Philip reports that he feels like he is
getting his dignity back, even while he does not have sex,
but he is able to stop the negative spiral. Most importantly,
he is the one saying no.
For Philip, waiting for the other person to make the first
move is very uncomfortable – in all areas of his life. He says
it makes him feel young, vulnerable and unmanly. From his
childhood patterns, he has learned that if he does not take
charge, he won’t get anything, that if he doesn’t throw himself
at the thing, he’ll be left with nothing at all. And this belief is

now at the centre of his sex life with his wife. Philip needs
to do his part, but Lisa’s role is to make sure that he does
not wait in vain.
If Philip stops controlling Lisa for sex, then she will not
need the power of refusal to establish her sense of control
in their relationship and they should find they set up a new
dynamic in their relationship and in the bedroom.
Got a QUESTION for ESTHER? Email esther@psychologies.
co.uk, with ‘ESTHER’ in the subject line

more inspiration:
Read Male Sexuality: Why Women Don’t Understand It
– And Men Don’t Either (Rowman & Littlefield, £9.99) by
Dr Michael Bader
Watch ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_
in_love.html
Visit estherperel.com

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 83

Ten key ways to weather and bounce
back from stress and trauma

“This book teaches
you how to become
stronger...”
Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson (5 times NBA champion and
founder of the Magic Johnson Foundation)

Resilience
The Science of Mastering Life’s Great Challenges
Steven M. Southwick, M.D. and Dennis S. Charney, M.D.

£14.99 | OUT NOW
ISBN: 978-0-521-19563-8 | www.cambridge.org/resilience

Resilience_195x125.indd 1

17/07/2013 14:35

THE LIFE LAB

} experiment

WOR K

How to tame your inbox
Every month Oliver Burkeman invites you to try out a new work routine

ILLUSTRATION: NAOMI WILKINSON/EASTWING

YOU PROBABLY RECEIVE
too much email – and even
if you don’t, there’s a good
chance that you check it
compulsively, or get similarly
distracted by Facebook,
Twitter, texting and so on.
When it comes to managing
these constant streams of
electronic messages, two
common mistakes fuel feelings of being overwhelmed
and a lack of focus. The first
is checking your inbox or
gadgets whenever they
demand it, instead of when
you choose. The second is
failing to distinguish between
the three basic types of
email (or text or message). Learn this crucial distinction, and
you could halve your data-overload at a stroke.

work emails, Groupon ads
and so on. (Do you use your
doormat to store physical
mail? Thought not.) When a
message comes in, decide if
it’s rubbish, in which case
delete it; or something you
should keep for future reference, but that requires no
action, in which case archive
it in a folder. The third category is ‘active emails’: those
that demand a fast reply, or
some other action. They’re
the only kind that should
remain in your inbox. As
soon as you’ve taken the
action, archive the email.

TRY THIS
If your inbox contains emails older than (say) two months,
move them all to a folder called ‘backlog’. To be honest, you
THE THEORY
can probably ignore them: anyone who still needs a reply is
In his laboratory at Harvard University, the psychologist BF
likely to email again. But if you must, spend 20 minutes a day
Skinner trained pigeons and rats to peck at levers, causing
ploughing through the backlog, using the three categories
pellets of food to pop out. But he made a surprising discovery:
above: rubbish, reference material, and active emails. For
the creatures pecked more compulsively when they only some- every new incoming message, ask yourself which category it
times got a pellet in return, instead of when it was certain.
belongs to, and act accordingly.
We’re alarmingly similar to those pigeons: what makes
Meanwhile, turn off any alerts that interrupt you when
checking messages addictive is the uncertain possibility of
an email comes in; or for a real challenge, consider removing
Join us! If you want to report back on your experiment or join the discussion on how to build great foun
finding something important or fun. So if you can schedule your
email from your smartphone altogether. Then, for one week,
email-checking instead – checking twice a day, for
try experimenting with different ways to schedule
OLIVER
example, or once an hour; the details will depend on BURKEMAN
inbox-checking, finding out what works for you. You
your job – you’ll gradually break the spell, because you’ll is a journalist
might opt to check at 9am, 2pm and 5pm; or you could
and author
be much more certain of finding a ‘pellet’ of interest.
refuse to check it in the morning at all until you have
of ‘The
The other key tactic is to stop using your inbox for Antidote’
done
at least one hour’s work. Or maybe you could make
(Canongate,
general storage, mixing up important current tasks, old £8.99)
a rule never to check it from home.

JOIN US! SHARE YOUR PROGRESS WITH US AT FACEBOOK.COM/PSYCHOLOGIES OR ON TWITTER @PSYCHOLOGIESMAG

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 85

ILONA BONIW ELL ON FA MILY

When is the right time to have a child and will having one make you
happy, especially if you already have older children? It might depend on
how you define happiness and how you create meaning in your life



Late parenthood
does have some perks”

86 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

in bed in order to keep the placenta in place the second time
round. It’s all change too when you discover that your older
children have all their usual demands the very first day you
get out of hospital! And now that you’re older yourself that
you don’t fall asleep after you get up to breastfeed during
the night – and neither does your husband, despite the daily
exhaustion of running a 30-strong company and fighting the
economic crisis. What can I say? Having a baby at (nearly)
40 and (nearly) 50 is not easy.

On the upside…

Luckily, older parenthood does come with some perks. First
of all, money – we are far from rich, and the pay cheque for
childcare is a black hole in the family budget, but this time
round, we don’t struggle as much to write the cheque. We can
hire a babysitter for a night and go out for a romantic meal.
We can buy quality baby food instead of slaving for hours in
the kitchen armed with the mixer.
There are no bedtime fits, because having paid a high price
first time around, I learnt the trick – a little kiss on the cheek,
lie him down, turn around, exit the room, close the door and
don’t worry about any noises (excluding difficulties with
breathing) coming from the bedroom. Our bedtime routine
now takes a maximum of five minutes, including changing
into pyjamas, all completely in the ‘French children don’t
throw food’ style. And, to be honest, you are nowhere near
as anxious as a new, inexperienced mother – you can even
send your own mother away with ease, as when necessary
your own experience is more recent and plentiful enough.

photograph: victoria birkinshaw

P

sychologists have long said that children do not
make you happier. Particularly when they are
under five, or teenagers. Well, there are some
variations – the happiness levels of married
and single mothers go up temporarily for a
few months straight after birth, while for
co-habiting new mothers the impact is more commonly
negative. For fathers, on the other hand, it’s usually bad news
regardless of their marital status. This is hardly surprising,
considering that sex and attention from their partner become
inversely proportional to the levels of tiredness.
What’s interesting is that research shows we consistently
ignore or minimise the majority of useful facts concerning
the negative impact of children on finances, marital health
and overall emotional wellbeing, preferring to idealise the
picture instead. So given all that I know, why on earth did
I choose to have a baby when my new husband and I already
had four teenagers between us from previous marriages?
My first two pregnancies happened easily (not even by
accident) at the early ages of 20 and 22. So it was not until 35
that I first discovered the term and associated abbreviation
of ‘trying to conceive’ (TTC). I never imagined the torture of
monthly counting – first the ovulation days, then the cycle
days, hoping that the period wouldn’t come – once, twice, the
count going on and on, not quite believing the miracle when
it finally happened...
And what a difference between dancing Christmas night
away right before going into labour early on Boxing Day
morning the first time around, and having to spend six weeks

THE LIFE LAB

} wise words

Dr Ilona
Boniwell is
our new expert
on family and is
one of the most
respected positive
psychologists in
the world. She lives
with her husband,
their baby and four
teenagers

I know I haven’t quite answered my own dilemma – why
have a baby knowing it won’t make you happy? Well, it
depends on what we mean by happiness. True, the hedonic
enjoyment of life goes down substantially and doesn’t recover
until children leave home (and my husband will be in his
seventies then.) Long live the British common-sense wisdom
insisting children must fly the nest during university years!
However, research talks of two types of happiness – hedonic,
which is concerned with homeostasis and pleasure, and
eudaimonic, which is concerned with meaning and fulfilment.
So, while the pleasure plummets in the permanent run for
the satisfaction of everybody else’s needs rather than your
own, the happiness-as-meaning factor does actually improve
after having children.
I find almost every moment with my baby Theodore
meaningful – helping him to put three words together into a
sentence; ignoring a temper tantrum, knowing that contrary
to appearance it would undoubtedly benefit his own

wellbeing; or happily exclaiming ‘cow!’ for the 3,021st time,
confirming again and again that it actually does give milk.
So the decision to have children – be it the first or the fifth
– is certainly not an easy one. Do you listen to your heart, or
your friends, or pore over the scientific research statistics?
Perhaps the best decision at all is to use all of your life
experience to help you evaluate what decision is the right
one for you as a family.
Got a QUESTION for Ilona? Email [email protected],
with ‘ILONA’ in the subject line

more inspiration:
Join us Ilona Boniwell is speaking on 6 March in London,
on Positive Psychology For A Happier World. For details
go to http://happierworld.eventbrite.co.uk
Visit psychologies.co.uk/family/do-children-make-ushappy.html and the Happiness Formula at http://news.bbc.
co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 87

THE LIFE LAB } events

JOIN OUR TRIBE

You’re not alone, there’s nothing wrong with you, we are all in this together.
These are three messages you’ll hear again and again at our workshops.
In collaboration with NOW Live Events, we’re delighted to work with
broadcaster and writer Claudia Hammond at our January event, who will
show us how we can change our relationship with time. And in February,
we have three inspirational speakers from The School of Life, offering
practical strategies on how to negotiate some modern-day challenges
LIV E SELF-DEV ELOPMENT WOR KSHOPS

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR
RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME
WITH CLAUDIA HAMMOND
DATE: Wednesday, 29 January 2014
VENUE: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 4RL
TIME: 7-8.30pm
Does each year feel as if it goes faster than the one before? Why does
time slow down when you’re afraid? Why do we sometimes take on
more than we can fit in and then find ourselves rushing? In this
workshop, Claudia Hammond, broadcaster and author of the awardwinning book Time Warped (Canongate, £8.99), will guide you through
the latest research, which will explain how we perceive time and how
we can change our relationship with it.

IN THIS WORKSHOP, YOU WILL LEARN:
● Why

it feels like there’s not enough time
to make the weekends feel longer
● Ways to help you worry less about the future
● What you can do to make time go faster
● How to more effectively predict how you’ll feel in the future
● How

JOIN US! TICKETS FOR THE CLAUDIA HAMMOND EVENT COST £15 AND CAN BE BOOKED AT NOWLIVEEVENTS.ORG/EVENTS

88 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

HOW TO CHANGE
YOUR LIFE IN 2014
WITH THE SCHOOL OF LIFE
DATE: Wednesday, 26 February 2014
VENUE: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 4RL
TIME: 7-8.30pm
The School of Life is dedicated to exploring life’s big questions,
which are guaranteed to stimulate, provoke, nourish and
console. At this event we pick the brains of three of its
renowned authors as they speak on their areas of expertise:

PHOTOGRAPHS: RII SCHROER, THE SCHOOL OF LIFE,
STEPHANIE WOLFF, JEREMY GILL/CLARENDON CREATIVE

HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
John-Paul Flintoff trained as an investigative reporter and his
work has led directly to changes in UK government policy

HOW TO THRIVE IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Tom Chatfield, author and columnist for the BBC, has worked
with companies including Google and Mind Candy, and
spoken at forums such as TED Global and Science Foo Camp

HOW TO AGE WELL
Anne Karpf is a writer, medical sociologist and
award-winning journalist

At Now
Productions UK,
we believe that 
life happens right
here. Right now. 
We champion
engagement
with live events
as a way of being
in the moment
and enjoying
what
it brings’’
JANA STEFANOVSKA, FOUNDER
OF NOW LIVE EVENTS

JOIN US! TICKETS FOR THE SCHOOL OF LIFE EVENT COST £20 AND CAN BE BOOKED AT NOWLIVEEVENTS.ORG/EVENTS

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 89

PRE-ORD
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NOW R

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FIONA BRUCE

Behind the scenes!

Hints, tips
and tricks on
antique
hunting and
collecting

BRAND NEW OFFICIAL BBC
ANTIQUES ROADSHOW MAGAZINE

How to use
antiques and
collectables
in your own
home
Information
on valuation,
restoration,
care and
maintenance

IN EACH ISSUE WE BRING YOU:
● Behind the scenes at roadshow
filming and locations
● The stories behind the objects
and people seen on-screen
● Fascinating tales of objects that
don’t make it on to screen
● Travel and events
● Follow ups on previously featured items
FIRST ISSUE TO BE PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2014

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The Boost
Beauty I Wellbeing

I Home

I Living

I Food

I Travel

94

LIGHT YEARS
AHEAD

114
PHOTOGRAPH: BAROS MALDIVES, DIRK LAMBRECHTS/BLAUBLUT EDITION

HIDE AWAY
AT HOME

125

DRINK ME , EAT
ME , GIF T ME

126
DIVE IN

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 91

Advertising feature

Begin
your IVF
journey

Seeking fertility advice and
treatment can be an emotional
prospect, so knowing you’re in
expert hands makes the whole
process a lot easier

Seeking treatment
Making the decision to seek advice
on fertility issues can be daunting
and you may feel nervous. The ethos
of HSFC is to offer a personalised
service in a relaxed environment.
The clinic boasts one of the highest
success rates in London. Dr Venkat
believes a large part of this is due to
its caring approach and the
continuity of care offered to patients.
Patients will always see the same

doctor and, where possible, the same
nursing support team. Staff try to
ensure appointments are flexible,
including evenings and weekends.
They aim to tailor treatments to
individual needs which helps achieve
the best possible outcome.
HSFC offers an extensive range of
fertility services for couples who are
unable to conceive on their own, from
simple techniques such as timing
intercourse and inducing ovulation,
through to more advanced treatments,
such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and
IVF/ICSI using a sperm donor, egg

CASE STUDY

Nuria, 42, and her husband had
been trying for a baby for two years
with no joy. She visited one fertility
expert, but wasn’t happy with the
initial consultation. She then
visited Dr Venkat, who she clicked
with straight away – the friendly,
caring and relaxed atmosphere
of the clinic put her at ease. Tests
found Nuria’s egg reserve wasn’t

donor or surrogacy. HSFC offers
fertility check-ups for both men and
women, including hormone blood
tests, semen analysis, ultrasound
scans and follow-up advice and
consultations.
The first step is to book an initial
consultation. HSFC holds regular open
evenings where you can come and
meet the team. These evenings provide
a great opportunity to learn more about
the clinic, the treatments available and
the facilities within an informal setting.
Visit the HSFC website (www.hsfc.org.
uk) for details of the next event.

very high, so she was prescribed a
drug treatment, which resulted in
nine eggs of good quality being
available, three of which were
transferred to her ovaries. Nuria
got pregnant with the first attempt.
Her baby girl, Mamoca, was born
on 23 June 2012 – the same birthday
as Nuria’s great-grandmother.
• For confidential advice, please
call 02037 338 220

visit hsfc.org.uk, call 02037 338 220, follow us on twitter @HSFC_UK or on Facebook ‘Harley Street Fertility Clinic’

photograph: shutterstock

Dr Geetha Venkat
MBBS, DGO, MD,
FRCOG has more than
25 years’ experience in
obstetrics and
gynaecology, with the last 15 years
as a fertility specialist in a number of
high-profile clinics. In 2010 she
founded The Harley Street Fertility
Clinic (HSFC). As an established
expert, Dr Venkat is regularly asked
to present her work at conferences
worldwide, has published many
articles in peer-reviewed journals and
is a media spokesperson on fertility.

THE BOOST } beauty notes

TLC FOR
HAIR

SMOOTH OPERATOR
Soft, creamy textures are the ultimate
in self-love beauty. Add a veil of delicate
mousse shadow with Lancôme
Hypnôse Ultra Dazzling Colours,
£21. Spinelle Rose is a suit-all shade
with a creaseproof, long-lasting
finish. For the rest of your face there’s
Givenchy Prismissime Euphoric
Pink, £44.50, with nine different lip
and cheek cream colours. And for
second skin-like base, Becca
Ultimate Coverage Complexion
Crème, £34, is your best bet.

FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

CREAM OF THE CROP
Like a cashmere jumper for your skin
Caudalie Premier Cru La Crème Riche,
£92.50, has a potent blend of botanical
extracts that infuse nutrients, firm skin,
and protect from winter weather. And
nourish the rest of your body too with a
daily dose of Vitamin A and E-enriched
Alpha-H Firming Body Therapy, £34.95.

‘‘A barrier
against
pollution,
this cream
is gentle,
nourishing
and packed
with Moringa
seed oil’’

TREAT

STYLE

Pantene Expert
L’Orèal Paris
Collection Advanced Elnett Volume
Keratin Repair
Excess,
Masque, £6.99
£3.79

Clarins Extra-Comfort
Anti-Pollution Cleansing
Cream, £25

Now’s the time for...

soothing
Cracked lips, dry skin, brittle
nails – and that’s just how
I look on the outside! This
time of year can be tough on
our bodies and the bitter cold and dark
can also make us feel a little glum. I’ve
begun to gravitate towards soothing,
thick textures that repair my winter-worn
skin and the upside to the extra care
I’m taking is that it feels like a physical
action of self-love. To promote a sense
of wellbeing, spending time nurturing
your body is essential. For me it’s like
a snowball effect – I become more aware
of my physical self and as a result
I begin to feel more connected to my
emotional state too. Many people
advocate repeating self-love affirmations;
I like to do this while I preen and pamper
– there is nothing vain about looking
good as a by-product of feeling better.

Acting beauty and wellbeing editor

LIP SERVICE
Just because your lips need intense moisture,
there’s no reason to forgo colour – or your
desired finish. These three little wonders
will take care of everything…

Elizabeth Arden Limited Edition
Beautiful Color Gloss Stick in Coral
Reef, £17. NARS Satin Lip Pencil in Villa
Lante, £17.50. Revlon ColorBurst Crayon
Matte Balm in Shameless, £7.99

I’VE BEEN… PROTECTING MY SKIN FROM UVA AND UVB RAYS WITH ASTALIFT DAY PROTECTOR SPF35, £39

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 93

94 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

the boost } beauty

see the

Light

Want a naturally radiant, glowing complexion? Let’s face it,
who doesn’t? Try letting go of over-perfectionism and work
on skin enlightenment instead, says Catherine Turner

S

main PHOTOGRAPHs dirk lambrechts/blaublut edition

mooth. Luminous. Glowy. Radiant. These are
the words I’d use to describe great skin. When
someone has that sort of gorgeous, even, dewy
complexion, it’s alive with natural imperfections. Age doesn’t matter. There may be laughter lines
(let’s not say wrinkles); freckles (rather than age
spots); redness (a healthy glow), even visible pores,
spots or dark circles. It’s just that they’re not the focus.
This became clear to me recently when I met a
woman who had the most beautiful complexion:
golden, youthful, outdoorsy. Later, when we became
friends and she found out I was a beauty editor, she
began to ask my advice. It turned out she was suffering
quite badly from uneven pigmentation. I can honestly
say that, until then, I hadn’t noticed, but she had just
come back from a holiday and, on closer inspection, I
could see the brown patches that troubled her.
We live in a notoriously visual world – that feeling
we have to be Facebook-ready at any moment – is this
having an effect? ‘I don’t think so, it’s always been depicted, in paintings for example, and now in the media,’
says chartered clinical psychologist, Dr Reena Shah, a
specialist in psychodermatology, which recognises the

emotional aspect of skin conditions. ‘But I do think we
are more infatuated with it because of airbrushing.’
Dr Shah’s NHS work involves helping patients
deal with the psychological fallout from serious skin
diseases, and in her private practice it often means
helping those with milder skin problems, too.
‘I see patients with small imperfections that have a
devastating effect, yet others might have eczema or
psoriasis and it’s not a problem. It is your own perception of what you think is “perfect”. In some cases, it has
traits of body dysmorphia – the more a person thinks
about the problem, the more sensitive they become.
They can start blaming their situation on their skin
condition and it becomes a vicious circle,’ she says.
While Dr Shah uses various techniques to gradually restore confidence, for most of us attaining and
keeping that glow has no real short cut – it’s a matter
of good day-to-day maintenance and healthy living.
‘Moderation is a huge driver – eating well, lots of water,
no smoking or excess alcohol,’ Dr Shah says.
Beyond that, there is a wealth of amazing knowledge and skincare technology at your fingertips to
bring back the radiance. >>>

F EB R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 95

>>>

Armour up

‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’ sang Joni
Mitchell, and that’s very true of skin – that it’s plump
and unlined in our twenties we take for granted. While
many of us are aware of the dangers of sunbathing, it
doesn’t really sink in that daily exposure to UV light
(even in winter those rays, particularly UVA, penetrate
cloud and glass) is the main cause of ageing, leading to
uneven pigmentation, lines and crepey texture.
It’s easy to think it’s not happening, as damage may
not show for up to 10 years, but though we can’t see
it, the harm is occuring at a cellular level, explains
Dr Tom Mammone, executive director at Clinique
research and development. ‘We used to think it took
longer, but now we know even minimal exposure
causes changes to the biochemistry of skin. Recent
research shows it can take as little as three minutes to
cause an inflammatory response and for the release
of the enzyme, collagenase, which can lead to the
destruction of collagen [the “stuffing” in skin that
makes it plump and young-looking].’
The answer is simple: use a daily moisturiser that
offers a different protection to the sort of sunscreen
you’d use on holiday. ‘Classical sunscreens are a shield
from UVA and UVB but not other changes in skin.
We don’t need high
SPFs every day, but we
need multiple layers
of protection,’ says
Mammone. As well as
sunscreens, skincare
companies now use
ingredients to support skin’s own cellular repair mechanisms. ‘We use
antioxidant vitamins C and E, which work to prevent
the chain reaction of damage; marine extract, which
helps to fix DNA; plus caffeine as a calming ingredient
to counteract the inflammatory response,’ he adds.
This might all sound very hi-tech, but the simple
fact is that skin needs to be moisturised. Think about
it – a smooth surface will reflect the light better, creating a dewy, fresh look. Plus, as Mammone points out,
‘Being a barrier is the skin’s number one function.’
That doesn’t mean you need a heavy cream though –
most are available in light textures – also, think about
layering. Easily absorbed serums can deliver high
percentages of actives to correct any problems, be they
uneven pigmentation, oiliness or dryness, then you can
wear a protective cream on top.

Clinique
Superdefense
SPF20, £30. This is a
great daily staple with
hi-tech protection and
efficient moisturisers
to keep skin supple

Best protectors
DAILY PROTECTION AND
MOISTURISATION IS THE
NUMBER ONE PRIORITY FOR
GLOWING, HEALTHY SKIN

Sisley All Day All Year,
£230. This groundbreaking lotion protects
and really seems to
improve the look of skin
after a couple of weeks.
A real investment buy

 Being a
barrier is the
skin’s number
one function”

96 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Clarins Extra Firming
Day SPF15, £48. Great
for those aged 40+
who need a little more
help with lines. Easily
absorbed, with a
radiant finish

Bobbi Brown Extra
Repair Moisture
Cream, £45. An instant
comfort cream for skin
suffering the effects of
dehydration from the
cold or general dryness

Elemis Liquid Layer
Sunblock SPF30,
£26. If your favourite
cream doesn’t have
protective elements,
use this on top as a
barrier

Bliss Triple Oxygen
Ex-‘glow’-sion, £55.
Like a breath of fresh
air for skin, this has
Vitamin E to protect,
and collagen boosters
to restore suppleness

THE BOOST } beauty

LIGHT
WORK

Daily correctors
FIX MINOR ISSUES LIKE
DRYNESS AND UNEVEN
SKIN TONE WITH PROBLEMSOLVING SERUMS AND MASKS
Tata Harper
Concentrated
Brightening
Serum, £170. A luxe
natural brand with
Madonna Lily and
Sea Fern extract to
help even skin tone

Wild About Beauty Rose
Water Illuminating
Serum, £22. This serum
contains organic rose
water to soothe skin, plus
light-reflective pigments
for a subtle iridescence

L’Oréal Paris
SkinPerfection
Serum, £12.
This uses
cutting edge
technology to
improve uneven
pigmentation
and pores

Dior Capture
Totale Dream
Skin, £79. A great
quick fix, you can
use this peachy
fluid on its own or
over moisturiser

Estelle & Thild
Repairing Oil
Complex, £59. A few
drops will soothe dry
skin, plus it has marine
algae to help combat
environmental damage

Aÿsse Masque
Tendre, £42. Think
of this as a huge
glass of water for
skin – use it as a
moisture fix to bring
the bloom back
after a late night

Chanel Le Lift
Crème, £89. This
ultimate glamour
cream smooths and
plumps skin instantly.
Choose from three
airy textures

Certain types of light can offer great
skin benefits. ‘Light treatment gives a
healthy glow by boosting oxygenation
and hydration. It can also be used to
treat pigmentation, sensitivity and
acne,’ explains skin therapist Marie
Reynolds. Not to be confused with
lasers, these are LED (Light Emitting
Diode) treatments using ‘scattered’
light (violet clears bacteria, blue kills
infection, yellow helps clear pigmentation), which is less invasive than lasers,
with a more concentrated beam that
goes deeper into skin. LED is going
mainstream and national this February
too, as Elemis introduces Biotech light
therapy into its treatments.

Breathe and refocus

But there are also very simple ways
to help yourself if stress has had
a detrimental effect on your skin.
Naturopathic doctor Nigma Talib
explains: ‘Stress can really speed up
the ageing process due to the release
of the fight-or-flight hormone, cortisol.’
Cortisol hardens skin protein, making
it less supple. In addition, inflammation in the body weakens the immune
system, which makes skin more fragile,
sensitive and prone to allergies. Try
these two simple breath and mindclearing techniques below to help.
● When stressed, breathe in through
your nose, and visualise the colour blue;
then as you breathe out, visualise red
as the stress leaves your body. ‘Repeat
three times, in and out. You can do this
any time you feel stressed,’ says Dr
Reena Shah.
● Pick an object to concentrate on and
begin to notice every single detail about
it. What size is it? What colour is it? Are
there any patterns? What is the texture
like? ‘This diverts attention away from
what’s going on, immediately lowering
stress levels,’ Dr Shah says.
For more information, visit drreenashah.com,
mariereynoldslondon.com, elemis.com

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 97

>>>

>>>

Time to reflect

If great skin is as much about our own perception,
then simply using the right make-up tricks to create the desired effect means that we can face the
day brimming with confidence. Nowadays we have
lighter-than-light foundations and concealers that
use incredibly tiny pigments that sit on the skin to
produce the illusion of smoothness and radiance.
Make-up artist Nicolas Degennes creates new
make-up products in his role as artistic director for
Le Makeup at Givenchy. ‘Every week I have new
polymers [film-forming ingredients] land on my
desk from around the world that make it possible
to correct tone and texture without being heavy on
the skin,’ he explains. In his most recent foundation,
he used a micronised mother-of-pearl pigment –
‘it can’t be seen on skin, but it plays with the light’
– so we need never look like we’re even wearing
make-up. Rather than focusing on coverage, think
of this new breed of skin correctors as a veil over
the skin, and then
use specialist concealers on those
blemished areas
that need a little
more coverage –
which is usually
the T-zone and
around the eyes.
Last but not
least, the final
touches for extra glow are blusher and highlighter
– and if that sounds a little bit 1980s disco, bear in
mind that the finely milled pigments of today mean
textures look natural on the skin, and you don’t
need to be an expert make-up artist to apply them.
If all-over glow is what you are aiming for then a
‘neutral’ powder is a good idea and gives a stylishly
finished look to your make-up. Or you can use it to
highlight areas of the face that would naturally
catch the light – for example, your temples, along
the top of your cheekbones, or down the centre of
your nose. A hint of rosy pink colour on the fuller
part of your cheeks (in line with the centre of your
eyes, blending out) will bring an instant radiance,
especially if you choose creamy textures that melt
into skin. Easy to apply with the fingertips, it’s a
handbag make-up staple that will boost your skin
tone any time, anywhere.

 The finely
milled pigments
of today mean
that textures
look natural
on the skin”

98 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Hourglass Ambient
Lighting Palette,
£56. Get ‘lit-fromwithin’ skin with
this trio of glowy
powders

Instant
illuminators
GET THE ULTIMATE QUICK-FIX
RADIANCE BOOST WITH OUR PICK OF
CREAMY, ILLUMINATING POWDERS,
FOUNDATIONS AND BLUSHERS

Givenchy Teint
Couture LongWearing Fluid
Foundation, £32.
Light and liquid, a tiny
bit goes a long way
to even out skin tone
for a radiant finish

Clarins Opalescence
Face & Blush Powder,
£30. Use a big brush
to blend for a hint of
glow, or highlight
along cheekbones
and beneath brows
By Terry Rose
de Rose Sheer
Liquid Blush No1,
£40. A few drops
of this blended
on cheeks gives
a ‘country walk’
freshness to skin

Benefit
POREfessional
Shine Vanishing
Powder, £23.50.
Shake in a little
powder at one
end, use the brush
at the other end to
dust on

Bourjois CC Eye
Cream Concealer,
£7.99. Blended
pigments brighten
eyes, cancelling
out dark circles

Liz Earle Healthy
Glow Cream
Blusher in
Camellia, £16.50.
A foolproof creamy,
sheer texture that
goes on in seconds
for a hint of colour

PHOTOGRAPH: SHUTTERSTOCK. FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

THE BOOST } beauty

THE BOOST } beauty

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 99

THE BOOST } beauty trend

BEYOND THE
BEAUTY COUNTER

S

hopping for cosmetics
has always been something I’ve loved – much
more than clothes or
shoes. It began, age 11,
when my Saturday ritual was
about meeting my friends to look
around ‘the beauty bit’ at Boots.
We’d spend all our pocket money
on a Max Factor Lip Potion – a
1970s-style sticky, liquid roll-on
lip gloss – I can taste the cherry
flavour even now. As a teenager,
I’d risk the intimidation of the
glossy sales ladies in department stores
just to soak up the exotic mix of aromas,
my eyes ablaze with the reflected glory
of gold compacts and sparkling perfume bottles I couldn’t afford.

Shopping and emotions

The reason beauty halls are on the
ground floor of department stores is
because of sensory ‘pull’. I was reminded
how important that can be as I walked
into the re-vamped La Maison Guerlain
in Paris, flagship store of the French
perfumer at 68 Champs Elysées, a-buzz
with crowds at the recent grand opening. If beauty shopping was ever to give
you a high, it’s here. The brightness of
the shiny, white marbled floor in a room
with hundreds of Guerlain’s perfumes

Guerlain’s Champs Eysées store has always
been synonymous with luxury shopping

made my heart beat a little faster. And
I couldn’t help but smile as I saw the
oversized golden bumble-bee ‘balloons’
floating above me (actually metal sculptures, a nod to the bees that featured on
a perfume bottle designed for Empress
Eugénie of France in 1853).
‘We wanted to create a “temple of
beauty”, to bring about different states
of mind, to move hearts, not just products off the shelf,’ says Guerlain CEO
Laurent Boillot, who masterminded
the look. Of course, he does want us to
buy at the store (it’s a business, after all),
but this emotional acknowledgement is
an indication of the heady heights we
are reaching in terms of shopping as

100 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

recreation. Karen Welman, founding creative partner of Pearlfisher,
brand designers and consultants
who create spaces such as luxe
wellness-meets-fitness venue The
Library in London’s Notting Hill,
agrees: ‘It’s ever more important
for physical environments to offer
what the virtual cannot – to engage
the senses, to enrich, to immerse
us and become part of our lives.’
Internet shopping has made the
‘behind the counter’ attitude from
my teens redundant. ‘You can be
in bed, watching a film of a perfumer
describing a fragrance, then click to buy
it. It comes straight to your house. This
has changed what we offer in-store,’
says Frederic Malle, founder of luxury
perfume line, Editions de Parfums.
‘We’ll have 30 per cent fewer stores
in 10 years’ time because of the growth
of our web business, but those stores
will be more important,’ says Shimon
Kalichman of L’Occitane. ‘They’ll be
places that tell the stories of our products, where customers can learn.’
Past and future meld cleverly at La
Maison. The ground-floor extension to
the original store will change constantly, with the energy of new ‘exhibits’ contrasting with an air of mystery
and calm in the older space.

IMAGES SUPPLIED BY GUERLAIN

In our click-and-buy world, carefully thought-out beauty boutiques are
bringing back the heady joy of shopping, says Catherine Turner

A thing of
beauty

our favourite homegrown
beauty boutiques:
BeautyMART
(Harvey Nichols
Leeds, Liverpool
and London)
A curated edit of
products by ex-Vogue
beauty director
Anna-Marie Solowij,
and make-up guru Millie Kendall. Brands
range from the cute and obscure to the
top picks of must-have mainstreams.
Shop shelves are designed to act like
website drop-downs, so you can either
quick shop or browse.
CONTENT BEAUTY
& WELLbeing
(Bulstrode Street,
London W1) This
tiny shop is packed
to the gunnels with
the best natural
beauty brands –
everything from skincare to make-up,
with superfoods on offer to beautify your
insides. One of our favourites.
The skincare
corner at
La Maison
Guerlain

In my space

What’s exciting about this trend is that
we’re being treated better than ever
in-store. ‘Customers expect salespeople
to have a huge amount of knowledge
now because they’ve become experts
themselves, through the explosion of
blogs and YouTube channels. We have
had to really raise the bar in terms of
service,’ says Sarah Coonan, beauty
buyer at Liberty. Malle adds: ‘I treat my
customers as friends – as if I am greeting them at my home.’
Peter Marino, creator of the interiors for La Maison, says he wanted it to
have ‘a feeling of being at home and not

a commercial establishment’. That
could mean sitting in the peaceful light
of the deep-carpeted beauty ‘institut’
lounge, sipping tea and eating petits
fours made by the chef in the basement
restaurant while you wait for your
made-to-measure treatment, or perusing the make-up bar on the ground floor
beneath beautiful mirrored artwork.
Look closely and you’ll notice a Proust
quote in crystal beads that reads: ‘The
real voyage of discovery consists not in
seeking new landscapes but in having
new eyes.’ It’s the message of Guerlain’s
continual re-invention, and an inspiring thought to take home with you.

Aesop (Marylebone
High Street,
London W1)
Minimal modern
design makes this
a peaceful place to
shop the brand’s
pared-down skin,
body and haircare range.
Liberty (London,
W1) recently opened
its ‘beauty musthaves’ freestanding
counters stacked
with cult problem/
solution products
to browse through.
There’s also a
Frederic Malle Editions de Parfums
boutique where you can experience the
scents in the futuristic pod-like fragrance
booth first launched in Paris, and a teeny
Josh Wood Atelier hair salon.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 101

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THE BOOST } positive beauty

‘‘This lotion
contains tea
tree, lavender,
echinacea and
aloe vera juice
and is brilliant at
healing blemished
or damaged skin’’
Odylique Spot-On
Serum, £6.50

SIMPLIFY
Aromatherapy
Associates
Support Massage
& Body Oil, £40.

RESCUE
Barefoot Botanicals
SOS Face & Body
Rescue Cream, £10.50.
Gentle chamomile and
neroli oils make this
cream a real multi-tasker.

Dr.Hauschka Rhythmic
Night Conditioner, £40.
This light serum is a great
‘blitz’ for sensitised skin to
get it back into balance.

FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132
PHOTOGRAPHS: JO FAIRLEY, SHUTTERSTOCK

‘I’ve given this
tender loving potion
to several touchyskinned friends and
they’re now converts.’

Trilogy Very
Gentle Calming
Serum, £28.50

It’s all about...

I adore the calming
chamomile in this.

creating calm
When we talk about natural products, we tend to assume
they’re gentle – but is that really the case when it comes to
skin care? Author and beauty journalist extraordinaire
Jo Fairley takes a look at the evidence
I’m often asked, ‘Are natural cosmetics
best for sensitive skin?’ As 63 per cent
of us self-diagnose as having some
level of sensitivity, this is pretty relevant
to many beauty hounds. None of us want
skin that’s red and inflamed.
My honest answer is: there are no
guarantees. It’s not like nature doesn’t
have some itch-making tricks up its
sleeve. Nettles are natural. So is poison
ivy (a scourge in the US; it can take
months to recover from accidentally
brushing against a plant). I’ve one friend
so allergic to essential oils, she ended up
in A&E with a face like a chipmunk. My
Beauty Bible co-author Sarah Stacey’s
eyes are sensitive to the herb eyebright,
which – the irony – makes hers red.
For most of us, though, natural
products seem to be fairly trouble-free
– and I’ve a couple of hunches why. First,
ingredient lists for natural products are
generally less complex, so there’s less
chance of there being something in it

that you’ll react to. Second, lovers of
naturals tend not to be ‘product junkies’:
our bathroom shelves are less cluttered
because our regimes are streamlined.
Chopping and changing products can
make skin rebel. My serious ‘sensitive’
phase was when, as a beauty editor, I
tried everything that crossed my desk.
I often meet women who use something
for a few weeks, before they’re off trying
the next ‘wonder cream’. Since cell
turnover takes at least 28 days (longer,
as we age), nothing gets a chance to
make a difference – but at the same
time, the complexion gets stressed. The
result? Breakouts, redness, sensitivity.
So, keep it simple as well as natural.
Nobody needs an army of serums on the
bathroom shelf. Touchy skin certainly
doesn’t – nor does the planet.

SOOTHE
Magnesium Oil
Original Flakes,
£9.95. These really
help eczema and
psoriasis sufferers –
the ‘front line’ of
sensitive skins;
throw generously
into the bath.

I’VE BEEN…SLOWING DOWN WITH PURE LIGHT BOTANICS’ RELAXING ENGLISH LAVENDER FLOWER CANDLE, £24

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 103

THE BOOST } wellbeing notes
‘‘I love how the
red tint of this
soothing lip balm
is natural – it comes
from Alkanet root,
part of the borage
family’’

MOVE AND STRETCH

Napiers
Alkanet &
Elderflower
Lip Tint,
£5

WINTER WARMERS

MAKE
A SPLASH

Serene and green:
the beads of this
bracelet are made
of Green Aventurine,
thought to bring
calm and balance

of high-grade Italian jersey, these will perform
whether you’re working out or going out.

The ideal time for...

re-energising
In Traditional Chinese
Medicine, it’s believed
winter is ruled by water –
which relates to the kidneys
– and that our kidneys store all of our
body’s energy (Qi). So, one way to shake
off post-New Year sluggishness is to
protect our kidney energy. Number one,
keep warm. No bare lower backs, for
example, when exercising: wear long, fine
thermal tops tucked into leggings. Also,
keep drinking water. I find this tricky
when it’s cold, but have hot water rather
than cold, and drink herbal teas (nettle is
purifying; try Heath & Heather Organic
Nettle Tea, £1.89). Instead of fruits and
salads, have warming soups like miso
soup with seaweed; kidney bean-packed
stews; eat seafood (scallops, oysters
and mussels); and add invigorating spices
such as cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger
to hot drinks or porridge.

From the Earth Collection
at satyajewelry.co.uk,
from £54

Acting beauty and wellbeing director

FIVE-A-DAY
Extra running or power yoga classes
always make me hungry so I’ll supplement
my meals with organic, nutrient-packed
cold-pressed juices. I love that juice
company Radiance Cleanse asked
personal trainer Dalton Wong to come up
with a specific collection of pre and
post-workout juices,
The Radiance Fitness Box, £90

I’VE BEEN… TRYING TO GO SUGAR-FREE WITH THE SUGAR DETOX BY BROOKE ALPERT AND PATRICIA FARRIS (BANTAM, £8.99)

104 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

PHOTOGRAPH: SHUTTERSTOCK.
FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

Rev up your morning with an
enlivening citrus shower gel such
as Miller Harris Citron Citron
Shower Wash, £20, packed with
lemon, orange and lime. Or Bliss
Lemon & Sage Body Bar, £10,
has a zesty scent, loofah pieces
and massage nubs to really get
your circulation going. Follow with
a self-massage while your skin
is still damp using therapeutic oil:
Tri Dosha Energise Body Oil, £23,
made of pick-me-up grapefruit oil
and spicy ginger.

Hey Jo Cassini leggings, £145. Made

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THE BOOST } wellbeing

BIG SLEEP

THE

We all know the benefits of sleeping well, but new research shows just how
good it is for our minds and bodies. So how do we access that elusive
night of rest to wake revitalised? Sally Brown has some solutions

T

PHOTOGRAPH MANUEL PANDALIS/BLAUBLUT EDITION

here are few things that get
between me and my duvet – I
once turned down a chance
to party with the Stereophonics because it was past my bedtime.
I need a full eight hours of sleep to function properly. After a poor night, stringing a coherent sentence together is an
achievement: I feel like my IQ drops by
20 points and my memory deserts me. I
walked around in a permanent fog when
my children were young and waking at
night. Now that they’re heading for their
teens, I’m often in bed before them.

Skipping sleep

A wealth of research is proving my natural instinct to prioritise sleep is right. It
seems feeling tired is just the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to the effects of
poor sleep. The latest research shows
skipping sleep can be toxic for the brain,
as it’s during sleep that waste products –
such as the protein that has been linked
with Alzheimer’s disease – are flushed

out of brain cells. New research from the
University of Surrey found that a week
of poor sleep affects the activity of over
700 genes, disrupting a number of metabolic processes, including the ability of
cells to regenerate. It backs up previous
findings that lack of sleep doubles your
risk of depression, and puts you at higher
risk of cancer and heart disease. Not
getting enough sleep makes it harder to
maintain weight, too – after just three
nights of two hours’ less sleep than normal, the body pumps out 15 per cent
more ghrelin (the hormone that makes
you hungry), and 15 per cent less leptin
(the ‘full-up’ hormone). Lack of sleep
even affects relationships. A study from
the University of California in 2013
found couples show less empathy and
more negativity towards each other after
just one poor night’s rest.

Sleepless nights

But the irony is that we’re sleeping less
than ever. On average, we sleep for two

106 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

hours less than we did in 1960 – in a
recent survey, 48 per cent of us said we
need eight hours, but often only get six.
‘It’s surprising we are so bad at it,’ says
Professor Colin Espie, director of the
University of Glasgow Sleep Centre.
Part of the problem is we see it as a habit
rather than a life essential, he believes.
‘Sleep is the reason we’re conscious; why
we’re able to perform and concentrate,
but we’ve come to view it as an optional
lifestyle choice, or even an annoyance,’
he says. According to one survey, the
average bedtime has been pushed back
from 10.30pm to midnight to allow more
time for Facebook and emailing.
I view an early night as an investment
in my future health and have no qualms
about heading to bed at 9.30pm whenever I can. The rewards are instant – you
feel better in so many ways the next day.
And could there be a more enjoyable way
to improve your physical and mental
wellbeing than climbing into bed, under
a duvet, and closing your eyes?
>>>

the boost } wellbeing

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 107

tired and tested:

7 sleep solutions

Just going to bed early isn’t a guarantee of restful slumber. But there are numerous products,
therapies and services designed to improve sleep quality – we put the latest to the test

1

THE PILLOW

The theory: Most of us sleep on at

least two pillows, but osteopath Kulwinder Bajwa says raising the head too
high throws the spine out of alignment,
which leads to restlessness. ‘The right
height of pillow depends on the distance
between shoulder and neck, which can
vary widely,’ he says. ‘The right pillow
means longer hours of deeper, more
restorative sleep.’ Bajwa’s prescription
pillow service, available at osteopathy
clinics across the UK, bases pillow size
on your individual shoulder-to-neck
measurement (from £49.99, goldilocks­
pillows.co.uk for clinics). Alternatively,
you can buy a bespoke pillow online,

designed by sleep guru and osteopath
Sammy Margo, by filling out a questionnaire about your sleeping position, body
size and personal preferences (£14.99,
thegoodsleepexpert.co.uk). ‘To avoid
problems, good posture is as important
in bed as it is during the day,’ says Margo.
Cost: From £14.99

Sleep success rating: ***

‘I measured as ‘1’, the flattest pillow in
the Goldilocks range. Sleeping on it felt
very odd at first, especially as it’s made
of fairly firm foam, and I sleep on soft
feather pillows. But by the third night,
I loved it. My husband said I’m far less
restless and I seem to wake up feeling
less achey.’ Sally Brown

108 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

2

THE MONITOR

The theory: Jawbone UP is a
slim bracelet that logs your movements
during the day, and also during sleep. By
synchronising it with an app on your
phone, it produces a graph of phases of
light and deep sleep through the night,
tracking how long it took you to get to
sleep, or how often you woke up. You
can note your mood and energy levels,
so you get an overview of how you’re
affected by your sleep habits.
Cost: £99.95 from jawbone.com or
Apple stores.
Sleep success rating: ****

‘An addictive bit of kit that taught me a
lot about my sleep habits, like how my

photograph: MARLIN KARLSSON/PLAIN PICTURE

>>>

the boost } wellbeing

deep sleeping periods are drastically
reduced if I’ve had wine in the evening.
I’d known alcohol reduces sleep quality
but seeing proof motivated me to cut it
down to once or twice a week.’ Sally Brown

3

THE THOUGHT
PROCESS

The theory: Sleep problems can be

caused by unhelpful beliefs about our
ability to sleep, says Professor Espie.
Thinking of yourself as a poor sleeper
sends unconscious messages to the
brain meaning you won’t sleep well. A
new online course using CBT, Sleepio,
can help replace unhelpful thinking,
like ‘I won’t cope at work if I don’t get to
sleep’ with more realistic ones, such as,
‘I’ve coped before when I’ve felt tired.’
Cost: From £6.99 per week (from
sleepio.com or boots.com).

Sleep success rating: *****

‘After having six children, I had trouble
getting to sleep and staying asleep. I’d be
anxious about going to bed and was
given sleeping pills eventually. But I
never liked that idea. This programme
has changed my mindset. I now have a
set wind-down routine to follow, and
I no longer feel anxious about going to
bed. I know what to do to ensure I get a
good night.’ Sheila Fitzgerald

4

THE MUSIC

The theory: Drifting off to
relaxing music can improve sleep quality. ‘A carefully created playlist of relaxing songs helps the body prepare for
sleep by lowering blood pressure and
bringing us into a much more relaxed
mental state,’ says Dr Tomas ChamorroPremuzic, a psychologist from University College London. He recommends
long, repetitive songs with no lyrics
and fewer than 80 beats per minute –
so get out the old Ibiza chill-out albums.
Cost: Free (if you use music you already
have). For maximum comfort, invest in

SleepPhones (£29, sleepphones.co.uk),
headphones in a super soft headband.

Sleep success rating: ****

‘I’m studying part-time for a Masters
and need to be up by 7am for work so I’m
always tired. But recently I went to the
UK’s first Sleeping Gig, held by Direct
Line. We lay on chaise longues in masks
and blankets, listening to an orchestra
play soothing versions of Coldplay and
Snow Patrol songs. I didn’t expect to, but
I drifted off to sleep and felt fantastic
when I woke up. I now use music to help
me wind down for bed and I’m definitely
getting more sleep.’ Isabel Friar

5

THE CLOCK

The theory: We’re meant to go

to sleep when it’s dark and get up when
it’s light, so getting up in the dark can
disrupt us. The Lumie BodyClock Go
alarm clock mimics dawn, waking
you with a gradually increasing light.
Waking like this kick-starts your body
clock, so you not only have more energy
by day, but should sleep deeper at night.
Cost: £74.95 (from lumie.com).

Sleep success rating: ***

‘I used this to wake up at 3.30am to catch
a flight. It felt a bit more like someone
putting on a light than a “gradual awakening”, but getting up did feel effortless

 I thought I slept
in the dark but
doing a check of
the room, I realised
there was ambient
light from a digital
radio and a charger.
I was amazed at the
difference switching
them off made’’

and I wasn’t as tired as I expected to be
during the day.’ Sally Brown

6

THE GURU

The theory: Many people are
shallow breathers, which means the
sympathetic nervous system is permanently activated, raising heart-rate and
blood pressure and making deep sleep
hard, says Sleep Guru Anandi, who
overcame her insomnia using yogic
breathing techniques, and runs Breathe
Yourself To Sleep workshops in London.
Cost: £70. There is also a DVD, The
Practice Of Sleep, which costs £14.95
from thesleepguru.co.uk.
Sleep success rating: ****

‘Learning to breathe more slowly and
deeply has been life-changing for me, as
it stops my anxiety levels creeping up
during the day. I used to lie awake for
ages with my mind racing. One of the
techniques I learned was bumblebee
breathing – where you make a humming
sound on each outbreath. If I do 10 minutes of this before getting into bed, I fall
asleep straight away.’ Natasha Green
 

7

THE DARK

The theory: There is mounting

evidence that we’re designed to sleep in
the pitch dark, and even the glow from a
clock can disrupt the release of melatonin, the hormone that triggers the
deepest sleep, and is also linked with
reduced rates of certain types of cancer.
Cost: Free

Sleep success rating: *****

‘I thought I slept in the dark but doing a
check of the bedroom, I realised there
was ambient light from a digital radio
and a charger. I was amazed at what a
difference switching them off made –
complete darkness seemed to create a
deeper sleep that left me feeling more
refreshed. It’s such a simple thing but it
made a really noticeable impact on the
quality of my sleep.’ Sally Brown

F EB R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 109

Dora says people see
her home as ‘a blank canvas
where there are few rules’
and the house has been
used for events from art
classes to a funeral

110 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

THE BOOST } my home

“The walls have their
own stories to tell”
Artist Dora Dewsbery invites us into her eclectic seaside home in Sussex
where both family and community come together to get creative
INTERVIEW: SAMANTHA WOOD PHOTOGR APHY: ALUN CALLENDER

‘I use a lot of my sketches
and artwork to promote
the events that are held
at The Beacon.’

‘On the odd days that I
have to leave Nico at home
she gets separation anxiety!’
NOT MANY 32-YEAR-OLDS would
relish the thought of leaving their
independent urban lifestyle behind
and moving back into their familial
home – complete with parents – with
a view to it being for ever. Yet this
was exactly the proposition that artist
Dora Dewsbery didn’t have to think
twice about. Deciding to leave London
last April, she returned to The Beacon
in Hastings – the sprawling clifftop

mansion that she left when she 19. ‘I
feel such a connection with this place,’
she explains, showing us the warren of
rooms squirrelled over four floors.
‘I spent my formative years in this
house. I feel free here.’
Today, the family set-up is still
unconventional, as is every bit of this
great space. Dora, her boyfriend Tim
and their one-year-old Schnoodle
puppy, Nico, live on the fourth floor,

and aunt Sarah is on the third. The
second floor belongs to mum Judy,
with Dora’s dad – who separated from
her mother a decade ago – renting
Dora’s childhood bedroom across the
hallway. Another room is earmarked
for Tim’s brother, due to move in soon,
with the final floor a patchwork of
kitchens, a bar and other rooms stuffed
with elaborate, vibrant materials and
hired as studios by local artists. It’s a >>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 111

‘This necklace was my grandmother’s
– she died last year.It stays where
I can see it, with a picture of my
grandfather, who I never got to meet.’

LEFT: Dora painted this
picture of a cat when
she was three. ‘I have
a photo somewhere
of me holding it up
in assembly. You can
just about see the top
of my head above it.’
ABOVE: Dora’s mum
painted this picture
years ago, and the
Corgi heads pop out

112 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

so you can put your
head in, like seaside
photo-boards. They
made the gilt frame
together by spraying
pasta gold, and it was
stored in a kitchen
cupboard for years.
When they eventually
came to put it up,
a mouse had eaten
his way around the
entire frame!

THE BOOST } my home

‘I used to bomb
around London on this
Chopper bike until
recently with my friend
Jess on her BMX.’

‘Mum bought this dog from a junk
shop in town as she has a black lab
called Bonnie.She walked home with
Bonnie on a lead and the statue on
a trolley – it looked pret ty funny.’

>>> commune of highly creative people,

all drawn to walls that are hung with
artwork, dusted by dog tails and heavy
with stories.
The family bought the house 21
years ago, having sold a two-bedroom
maisonette on a London council estate
to move to the seaside town. Dora,
then aged 11, couldn’t believe her luck.
‘The thing I remember most about
the place was the sheer size of it. My
brother and I were beside ourselves
with excitement. We basically had a
floor each.’ A magical Hallowe’en party
is a stand-out memory – a framed picture of them all dressed as The Addams
Family still hangs in one of the downstairs toilets. ‘My mum went to town
creating a ghost walk all around the
house and grounds,’ she recalls. ‘There

were jelly-filled gloves on the washing
line and she’d rigged up a skeleton on
a bicycle and one on a swing, rocking
in the moonlight. The trail ended in
one of the outhouses, which was decked
out as a terrifying vampire’s den with
bottles of blood everywhere. People
came miles to be part of the evening.
It was quite something.’
And people are still coming miles
for the variety of art classes, pop-up
suppers, garden parties and events
that the house hosts and that Dora,
when she isn’t creating her artwork,
commits time to organising. ‘We have
had speakeasies, weddings and even a
funeral. The house is a blank canvas –
it can be anything you want it to be.’
And it would appear that the walls
really do have stories they can speak

of. In the early 1990s, not long after
the family moved in, a group of elderly
people arrived one day explaining that
they’d lived in the house as children,
asking if they could come in. ‘Mum spent
the afternoon showing them around,
letting them explore,’ Dora recalls.
It was only when the group came to
leave that they noticed one of the ladies
was absent, coming downstairs some
15 minutes later.
Dora continues: ‘She told us she’d
spent a long time talking to the “greyhaired lady” living on the fourth floor
and how this lady was thrilled that our
family had moved in and had brought
so much joy to the house.’ Of course,
there was no such lady and she hasn’t
appeared since. ‘But we were glad she
approved of us being here,’ says Dora.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 113

A battered old chair
gets a touch of glam
with a jacquard silk
cushion. Pair with:
The latest copy of
Psychologies and
something with
bubbles
114
114 PPsychologies
S YC H O L O magazine
G I E S M Adecember
G A Z I N E2013
F E B RUA RY 2 0 14

the boost } living
Antiques, traditional
panelling and retro
details create a
cosy scheme. Pair
with: Dodie Smith’s
I Capture The
Castle and a snifter
of vintage port

GIVE ME
SHELTER
It’s the coldest time of the year: time to hide away
from it all in your favourite corner
edited by: LAUREN HADDEN PHOTOGRAPHY: POLLY WREFORD

>>>

L

et’s be honest, all we want to do
at the moment is hole up and
hibernate. A quick vox pop of
Psychologies’ friends and family
found the favourite place to curl up is
in our own bed with – and this is the
crucial bit – freshly ironed sheets.
When you imagine your ‘cosy spot’,
what do you see? A roaring open fire?
An easy chair by a bookshelf stacked
with your favourite reading materials?
Or simply the comfort of a well-worn

Opulence and
comfort: these
cushions are made
from remnants of
furnishing fabrics
and are layered with
plump eiderdowns
and lengths of exotic
sari silk. Pair with:
Georgette Heyer’s
The Black Moth and
a cup of jasmine tea

116 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

sofa? Whatever your optimal nook,
there are easy ways make it even more
welcoming. ‘Being comfortable at
home is key to feeling relaxed and
secure in general,’ explains Atlanta
Bartlett, author of Easy Elegance,
(Ryland, Peters & Small, £19.99), who
discovered some of the homes you
see here. ‘Introduce comfort through
texture for intimacy, via colour for
warmth or simply surround yourself
>>>
with your favourite objects.’

the boost } living
Pale colours don’t
have to be clinical.
Layer different
textures for warmth
and depth. Pair
with: Elizabeth Jane
Howard’s Cazalet
Chronicles series
and a mug of cocoa
with double cream

F EB R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 117

THE BOOST } living

Cove 1 stove,
from £1,230,
Charnwood

Job copper
table lamp,
£220, Heal’s

Clandestine
hare print, £28,
Anthropologie

Little Gems
posy vase, £20,
John Lewis

Permission
to snuggle up
Evora orange cup,
£6, Habitat

Striped linen
cushion, £19.99,
Zara Home

Comfort. When it comes to interiors,
it means a room that feels warm and
welcoming: an armchair that gives you a
hug, some favourite artwork on the wall
and an open fire or wood-burner. Dusky
pinks, terracotta orange and warm
browns are all soothing colours that look
good in low light. Vases are flower-free at
this time of year, but a coloured glass one
is beautiful in its own right – set it on a
mantelpiece to catch the light from the
fire. Got a pile of yet-to-be-read books
waiting on a side table? Add an enticing
reading lamp and create a circle of quiet,
focused light to draw you in. All that’s left
is to put the kettle on…

Log basket,
£39, Toast

Easy Elegance is available
to Psychologies readers for
the special price of £10.99
including postage & packaging
(rrp £14.99) by telephoning
Macmillan Direct on 01256
302 699 and quoting the
reference GLR 9MU.

118
118P Psychologies
S YC H O L O Gmagazine
I E S M Adecember
G A Z I N E 2013
F E B RUA RY 2 0 14

Rubens wingback
armchair, £659,
Made.com

FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

Orchha blanket,
£49, Urbanara

imagine comfort
stressless.co.uk

Ea
80 y rS
EST.1934

Download our catalogue & locate your nearest retailer.

the
boost
} feasting
Pork
Cheeks
in Cider
with Black Pudding
& Butter Beans

Cherry &
Cinnamon
Bundt Cakes
120 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

the boost } feasting

RICH piCKINGS
It might be winter, but there are still seasonal treats that will
add depth and flavour to your meals
recipes: MARCUS VERBErNE PHOTOGR APHY: LAR A HOLMES

Cinnamon Ring
Doughnut with
Perry-Poached Pears
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 121

>>>

the boost } feasting
Beetroot and
Orange Salad

122 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

the boost } feasting

>>> At this time of year, there’s nothing better than

spending some time pottering in the kitchen preparing
meals for friends or loved ones – something that Marcus
Verberne, head chef at London’s Borough Market
restaurant Roast, can attest to.
‘Being one of seven brothers and sisters, some of
my fondest memories come from sitting round the table
as a family enjoying our evening meal,’ he recalls. ‘For
us, it was an important part of our day, when we were
all together and could enjoy not just the food, but also
each other’s company.’
Winter foods tend to be rich and warming, but not
all of it has to be heavy – now is the perfect time for
ingredients such as blood oranges and ruby red beets.
And although the cinnamon doughnuts may require a
little technical skill, they’re perfect for sharing.
‘In the hustle and bustle of daily life, make sure you
find the time each day to enjoy good food with the ones
closest to you,’ says Verberne.
We couldn’t agree more.

MIXED BEETROOT AND
BLOOD ORANGE SALAD
WITH FORAGED HERBS AND
RAGSTONE GOATS’ CHEESE
Ragstone cheese is a soft-to-firm goats’ milk cheese
made with unpasturised goats’ milk and uses
traditional animal rennet. It has a sharp creamy
flavour with a slight citrus after-taste
SERVES 4
● 400g baby beetroot (red,

● Blood orange, honey and

golden and candy, if

mustard dressing (see below)

available)

● 150g Ragstone goats’

● 80ml extra virgin

cheese at room temperature

rapeseed oil

● Sea salt and freshly milled

● 5 sprigs thyme

black pepper

rapeseed oil and add the thyme. Season liberally with sea
salt and freshly milled black pepper. Lift the sides of the foil
into the middle to create a trough and pour in about 80ml
of cold water. Seal the foil at the top to create a small parcel.
Step TWO Place the parcel into the middle of your oven

and bake for 40 minutes, until the beetroot are cooked
through. Test one with a sharp knife. Allow the beetroot
to cool a little so they can be handled. Once cool, the skins
will rub off easily in your hands. Make sure you peel the
red beetroot last or the dye on your hands will leave its
distinctive mark on other varieties. Cut the beetroot into
bite-sized wedges and place to one side.

Step THREE To segment the oranges, cut both ends off

each orange using a small sharp knife. One at a time, sit
each orange on its flat end and, in a curved motion, cut
the skin off all the way down to the flesh, removing all
the bitter white pith. Holding the now peeled orange
in the palm of your hand, carefully cut out each segment,
removing them one at a time and removing any pips.
Step FOUR Serve the salad on a flat platter so all the

vibrant colours can be seen. In a small bowl, dress the
beetroot lightly with some of the blood orange dressing and
season. Lay out the beetroot first and add the goats’ cheese,
breaking it into bite-sized nuggets as you go. Scatter the
wild herbs over it and then the orange segments. Finally,
drizzle a little more dressing over the salad and serve.

To make the blood orange, honey
and mustard dressing

Step ONE Bring 500ml blood orange juice and 100ml red

● Selection of picked and

washed wild herbs, such as

Good vegetarian alternatives:

chervil, sorrel, wood sorrel

● Childwickbury or fresh

● 2 blood oranges

goats’ curd

wine vinegar to the boil and reduce until you’re left with
about 150ml of liquid.

Step TWO Remove from the heat and put in the fridge.
Step one Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Remove the stems and leaves from the beetroot, saving any
delicate new leaves for the salad. Wash the beetroot and
place in the middle of a large sheet of foil. Drizzle over the

Once cold, place in a large rounded bowl with 3 tbsp clear
honey and 3 tbsp wholegrain mustard.

Step THREE Slowly drizzle in 600ml rapeseed oil,
whisking quickly to emulsify the dressing.

>>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 123

the boost } feasting

CINNAMON RING
DOUGHNUTs
WITH PERRYPOACHED PEARs

PORK CHEEKS
IN CIDER WITH
BLACK PUDDING
& Butter beans

>>>

● 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Serves 6

● 3 celery sticks, chopped

MAKES 12

● 100g dried butter beans,

● 4 garlic cloves, chopped

● 75g unsalted butter

● ½ tsp salt

soaked in water overnight

● 6 sprigs thyme

● 100g caster sugar, plus

For the pears

● 18 pork cheeks, fat

● 2 bay leaves

about 200g to coat the

● 500ml perry (pear cider)

removed

● 1½ tbsp tomato purée

doughnuts

● 100ml water

● 100g plain flour

● 750ml dry cider

● 1 tsp ground cinnamon

● 6 ripe Williams pears

● 3 tbsp vegetable oil

● 2 litres chicken stock

● 2 medium eggs

● 300g caster sugar

● 45g butter

● 750ml beef stock

● 100g soured cream

FOR THE SAUCE

● 1½ onions, finely chopped

● 300g black pudding

● 1 tsp vanilla extract

● 150g dark cooking chocolate,

● 2 carrots, roughly chopped

● 3 tbsp chopped flat leaf

● 350g plain flour

chopped into small pieces

● 1 leek, roughly chopped

parsley

● 2½ tsp baking powder

● 150ml double cream

Step one Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas mark 2.

Step one Pour the perry and water into a saucepan big
enough to hold the 6 pears standing. Add the sugar, but don’t
heat as poached pears should always start in cold syrup. Peel
them, leaving the stalk attached. Remove the core, leaving the
pears whole, and place in the saucepan. Add more water and
a little more sugar if not submerged. Place a disc of baking
parchment over, and gently simmer. The harder the pears,
the longer they will take to cook; 15-20 minutes should be
enough time. Check with a knife and allow to cool naturally
in the poaching liquor. Reheat gently when ready to serve.

Step Two Stir in the reserved flour and tomato purée and
cook for another minute, stirring to avoid it sticking to the
pan. Stir in the cider a little at a time, then the stocks; bring
to the boil. Pour the liquid and all the vegetables over the
pork cheeks, cover with a lid or foil and cook in the oven for
2 hours, until tender. While cheeks are braising, drain and
rinse butter beans. Place in a saucepan and cover with cold,
lightly salted water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 45
minutes or so, until soft, topping up with water to cover as
required. Once cooked, drain and set aside.

Step TWO Preheat a deep fat fryer to 170°C. Mix about
200g of sugar in a dry bowl with the ground cinnamon. For
the dough, whisk the sugar and eggs together in a bowl until
fluffy. Gently fold in soured cream and vanilla extract. Sift
dry ingredients into the mixture and fold together to form
a ball of soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface for
6-8 minutes until you feel the dough become more elastic.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1cm
thick. Use a 7cm round cutter to cut 12 circles. Use a 2cm
cutter for the holes. Test the mixture by putting one of the
small circles in the fryer. If it cracks, knead the dough for a
few minutes more. Deep fry the rings for 1½ to 2 minutes on
each side. Use a slotted spoon, remove and drain on kitchen
paper. Toss in cinnamon sugar to coat, and serve hot.

Season pork cheeks with sea salt and black pepper and put
in a plastic bag. Add the flour to the bag and, holding it shut
at the top, shake to coat them. Remove cheeks from the bag;
save the flour for later. Heat a saucepan on a high heat. Add
vegetable oil and fry the floured pork cheeks in two batches,
until all evenly browned. Transfer to a casserole. Reduce the
heat and add butter, onion, carrot, leek, celery, garlic, thyme
and bay leaves. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring regularly,
until soft and slightly caramelised.

Step THREE Once the cheeks are tender, remove from the

oven, lift out of the casserole with a slotted spoon. Sieve
the sauce into a saucepan. Bring the sauce to the boil over
medium heat before reducing to a simmer. Skim with a
ladle to remove any fat that may collect on the surface.
If it appears thin, reduce slightly until it has the desired
consistency, then season and add the beans.

Step four Break the black pudding into nuggets and add
to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Add chopped parsley and
serve with crusty sourdough and buttered winter greens.

124 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Step three Place the chocolate in a heavy-based saucepan
with the cream. On a low heat, warm the cream until the
chocolate starts to melt into it. Stir constantly until a
smooth, rich sauce is achieved. Serve while still hot.
Extract taken from ‘Roast: A Very British Cookbook’ by Marcus
Verberne (Absolute Press, £25)

THE BOOST } food news

“Let your food be your
medicine, and your
medicine be your food”
Hippocrates
Try your hand at aromatic
roasted red cherries from
Sally Bee’s new book

FIND THE FUN

FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132

It’s still dark outside, so brighten up
your kitchen with these great Red
Candy vintage scales, £27. Meanwhile,
the Alice In Wonderland-inspired Drink
Me bottles, £12.99, from the British
Library shop, hold only 125ml of
sparkling wine so you can indulge in
your favourite tipple in moderation.
And a selection box with a difference
– Bellucci’s Bella Box Grande, £34, is
filled to the brim with Italian gianduja,
nougat and cremini chocolates. You
can prolong the pleasure by having
one a day with your coffee.

This month we’re inspired by

reinvention

Add something special to your coffeemaking ritual with beans from Alma
de Cuba, £20 for 250g. They’ve
been making coffee since the 1940s
but it wasn’ t readily available in
the UK until now. We think it
was worth the wait.

The food writer Sally Bee
knows a thing or two about
starting over. At the age of
36 and otherwise healthy,
she suffered three heart attacks in one
week due to a rare, undiagnosed
condition. She wasn’t expected to
survive. However, Sally overcame the
shock and the subsequent depression,
launching herself into recovery, helping
herself to heal by eating nourishing
meals, and writing some fantastic healthy
recipe books along the way. We love her
aromatic roasted red cherries recipe
from her latest, The Secret Ingredient
Family Cookbook (Harper Collins,
£14.99). She’s a great reminder of just
how empowering it is to take charge of
your health, and why wholesome food is
the bedrock of good living.

Contributing food editor

CURRY IN A HURRY
Sometimes, cheating is the best way forward
– especially when the cheat involves these
clever curry kits from The Spice Tailor, at
£2.89 each. Created by food writer and TV
chef Anjum Anand, the packet of individual
spices gives a real depth to the flavour that
means you could pretend you’d cooked it
from scratch yourself. We won’t tell.

EVER EATEN SOBA NOODLE SUSHI? TRY CLEARSPRING’S FOOLPROOF RECIPE, AVAILABLE AT CLEARSPRING.CO.UK/BLOGS

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 125

THE BOOST } travel

UNDER
THE SEA
Wary of the water, Lorna V usually keeps
her feet firmly on the beach. So how would
she manage a diving trip in the Maldives?

126 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

C

an you cry underwater? Because I’m pretty
sure I did. A turtle the size of my torso swam
up to me, almost touching me as it passed by.
Then slowly it paused, and cocked its big eye
towards me, looking me right in my gogglecovered eyes for a long, long moment before carrying on.
I knew that there were seven turtles at Baros, one of
around 100 or so luxury resorts in the dream Indian Ocean
destination that is the Maldives. Baros, in the west, is one of
the few island resorts with its own coral reef, an underground rainforest that starts barely a metre from its shores.
I really wasn’t expecting to see a turtle. Not actually being
a diver, I wasn’t expecting to see anything much. I never
imagined I’d be capable of going on a snorkelling tour, and
there I was squealing with joy behind my mask as we swam

through shades from blue to turquoise with marine life
spanning all the colours of a rainbow. It was a bit like
swimming in an aquarium with no sides.
Was this really me? Me, pointing out the shark to the
others? I went to Baros a beach-brat, and surfaced from
the endangered coral kingdom a changed woman. All my
life I’d loved the sea and beaches, only now, thanks to the
encouragement of the Baros Dive Centre, something else
had happened. I felt a divine connection with the cosmos.
Decades of meditation and mumbo-jumbo and I’d never felt
that. I knew I wasn’t one for ‘activities’ ever since I fell off
my first bike around the age of five. Everything that followed
confirmed this: last in the school races, failing to learn to
swim at school, never picked for the rounders’ team, or any
team, and ridiculed as a teenager by a bully PE teacher for >>>

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 127

>>> being last and useless. I did eventually learn to swim thanks

to my patient dad. As an adult, I was great on beach holidays
involving watersports – at guarding everyone’s valuables.
When I tried snow instead, fellow skiers weren’t impressed
that I couldn’t even walk in my boots, thus holding them
up from precious skiing time. The instructor gave up on me.
So, a trip to the Maldives diving and snorkelling? I don’t
think so. Past tense: didn’t think so.
I looked at the Baros website shaking my head, thinking
no-no-no, it might be a dream trip for someone else but what
with it being a popular honeymoon destination, I don’t want
to be reminded that marriage is a box I’ve never ticked either.
Then I took a deep breath. Changed ‘no’ to ‘yes’. Felt euphoric.
Life’s too short to do what you don’t want to do. But how
do you know if you don’t try? I was curious, having met many
divers and snorkellers who were so passionate it was as
though they belonged to a cult. What made their eyes light
up? I knew from them the Maldives is the aquatic Holy Grail.
So my goal was to give the diving and the snorkelling a go,
rather than cast myself as the non-adventurous type.

‘Not being a diver, I hadn’ t been expecting to
see much, let alone one of around seven turtles
in the waters around Baros, but I did!’

Like yoga underwater

It takes about 20 minutes to walk around Baros, a clever
eco-resort that resists crude bling. Once you’re through the
coconut palm trees on to ivory coral sand leading to a luminous
blue lagoon, it’s hard not to feel a calling. And from spotting
the sudden ripples of tuna bobbing up and down when you’re
on a sunrise boat trip, to catching sight of black-tipped sharks
(which don’t attack humans) swimming up to shallow waters
just below the resort’s flagship restaurant, the Lighthouse,
you realise marine life isn’t just everywhere: it is it.
The Maldives is a cluster of islands known as atolls, which
are the result of coral secretions that have taken place over
45 million years. I felt ignorant for not realising until now
that coral is a living thing and that stepping on it, touching it,
kills it. So I stayed carefully on sand and peered through the
water from above at shapes and forms moving underneath.
Fear of going underwater is tied up with issues that can
have nothing to do with water. When you fill in the medical
form for diving it’s obvious it isn’t for everyone. Aside from
a long list of medical conditions, diving is not for those who
faint, have claustrophobia issues, or are prone to panic
attacks (all of which I’d experienced at one time or another).
This actually made me feel better. ‘I don’t have to give myself
a hard time,’ I thought. I realised that sometimes our fear is,
in fact, a gut feeling for taking care of ourselves. But if I could
do a little, if I could make a start, I’d be happy. ‘I’m ready for
this now,’ I said to myself.
Ronny, who heads the Eco Diving Centre at Baros, told
me to see this as yoga underwater, which was smart, as

128 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

‘You don’ t go to the Maldives with maps
and lists, you go for the complete beauty’
telling someone nervous to relax makes them feel worse,
and I practise yoga regularly. I also do Pilates, so he told me
to breathe the Pilates way: out through the mouth, and in
the through the mouth, too. OK, I could do that.
Once I got the wetsuit on I was excited but the weights
around my waist felt strange. In the water I struggled to get
the flippers on. Everything felt unfamiliar. Seeing the coral
and fish helped distract me but I didn’t like the sensation of
the breathing apparatus in my mouth. I felt safe with Ronny
right by my side, though, and managed to swim 10 metres
with the diving gear. That was my limit.
Hannah, a seasoned diver, congratulated me later, which
meant a lot. She told me I was lucky to have my first experience
at Baros. Many resorts have induction courses at the hotel
pool, sometimes in full view of other non-diving guests. I’d
have been too self-conscious. Typically, a group will then be
taken out by boat to dive shortly afterwards. I’d have bottled
out. The limit at Baros is four people rather than the more
usual eight and a big group wouldn’t have suited me at all.
The two divers with me, Hannah and Catherine, were both

the boost } travel
Spend a night Arctic glamping

Lorna triumphant,
having taken to
the waters
around Baros

rooting for me and I realised the obvious: if you’re nervous
you need supportive people around you, not impatient alpha
adventurers. For the next few days they encouraged me to
practise snorkelling so I could do the big educational tour.

photographs: baros maldvies, lorna v

Fantasy setting

Just minutes from my villa I could slip underwater for
instant wild sea life, getting the hang of coordinating flippers
and breathing with a mask. Thanks to Ronny I kept thinking:
it’s just yoga, it’s just breathing – I can do this.
The morning before our marine biology lecture and the
educational tour, Hannah and Catherine went diving. I had
a choice to go and see the Maldivian capital Malé, then in full
pre-election fever, or to idle away the morning around my
idyllic personal beach spot. But you don’t go to a place like
Baros for street life and to check out sights. You don’t go with
maps, lists and must-see venues. You go to experience total
beauty and to play and be looked after. You don’t even have to
worry about nabbing a sun lounger because you have so much
space of your own. It’s your moment of being in a Bounty bar

Was this really me? Me,
pointing out the shark to the
others? I went to Baros a beachbrat, and surfaced from the coral
kingdom a changed woman”
ad only it lasts for a week or more. The unreality is the point
of the trip. And from this unreality, the fantasy me slipped
into her flippers to enter a marine reality. It really was me
who returned two hours later having followed other snorkellers
around the lagoon. There was no question as to whether I’d
last the tour that afternoon though I still had to come up to
take a proper breath, and consider if I was up to going past
that wall into the open ocean. But I did it, entering a state
of ecstasy looking down onto steep mountain-like coral.
On our last day, I found out the marine team had identified
‘our’ turtle. It was Pana, whose name means ‘hope’.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 129

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THE BOOST } travel

Try everything
– the dishes
are bitesize

Filmic luxury
in the Glenn
Close room

Just for the weekend…

be a barfly

SHOULDER ON

Genevieve Roberts samples the delights of San Sebastián

*FOR T&CS, VISIT CORTIJO-ROMERO.CO.UK/DOWNLOADS/PSYCHOLOGIES.PDF.
FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 132. PHOTOGRAPH: TAN YILMAZ/GETTY IMAGES

Why go? Txikiteo, as it’s known in

Basque, is the art of wandering from
bar to bar, grazing as you go, and you’ll
see it every night in San Sebastián.
Hundreds of bars offer pintxos (small
snacks) displayed across their counters;
just pop in and try bitesized specialities
of the region for a few euros a plate.
First impressions: We stayed at
Astoria7, a hotel themed around cinema
and the city’s film industry (there’s a
film festival every September). A lifesize figure of director Alfred Hitchcock
sits on a bench in the foyer, playing
tribute to his status as a regular visitor,
and each bedroom is dedicated to a different movie star. It’s a 10-minute walk
from the Old Town, and 15 minutes to
the beaches in the bay formed by the
mountainous Cantabrian coastline.
Don’t miss: Bar Zeruko, for its pintxos
– the ox cheeks from La Cuchara de
San Telmo were amazing; Bar Gorriti,

alongside the market, which has served
thirsty traders for the last century; and
La Brexta market, where you can see
fishmongers cut steaks from giant tuna.
San Sebastián is the Michelin capital
of the world, with 16 stars in the city
and surrounding area. We sat at the
chef’s table at three-star Restaurant
Arzak, which has been experimenting
with foods and creating wonderful new
dishes long before The Fat Duck.
Perfect for: Foodies, of course – and
wine lovers. An hour from San Sebastián
is Villabuena de Alava in Rioja country,
and home to the four-star Viura hotel.
A four-night Gastro-tour package with two
nights at Astoria7 and two at Viura costs
from €837 for two people (transfers not
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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E 131

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PSYC H O LO G I ES
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134

Psychologies MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014

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To advertise on these pages, please contact Anne on 01959 543 716 or email: [email protected]
FEBRUARY 2014 PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE

135

c l a s s i f i e d d i re c to r y
H e a l t h , Pe rs o n a l D e v e l o p m e n t a n d A r t Th e ra p y

PSYC H O LO G I ES

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HRI GOOD MOOD FULL_125wx154h.pdf

1

18/09/2013

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SALLY BRAMPTON

ANY RESOLUTIONS this year? I have none, which
end of comfort, the end of pleasure, the end of
I suppose is a resolution in itself, but I don’t make
freedom. It’s a hell of a dreary way to start a new
them because I find loud, emphatic imperatives
year. My line tends to be, ‘Thank God that’s over,
so punishing. We have quite enough nagging inner
let’s get on with the next, which, of course, will be
critics in our heads without adding to the noise.
FABULOUS.’ Delusional, perhaps, but at least
Here’s the classic: the D-word. I must lose weight.
optimistic. No ‘should’ or ‘musts’ there. Not unless
Really? Who says? Oh, it was me. And the inner
I’m having a tetchy conversation with the gods,
critic, of course. So there’s the first imperative; must. who have failed to live up to their promises – which,
A short, but brutal word, which is useful for doing
naturally, are all in my head.
the shopping, because it adds a frisson of urgency to
An infinitely better option is to say, ‘I want to lose
fix when the milk reaches perilously low levels in the weight,’ because action tends to follow desire and is
fridge. So I must remember to buy milk on the way
infinitely less punishing. We may veer off the road,
home, but ‘I must lose weight’? Not unless you want
but we’re more likely to get back on track if there’s
a guilt gremlin setting up home with the spiteful
no bony finger wagging at us, saying we’re useless,
inner critic. Then we have the haunting spectre of
in which case we are likely to hide under the duvet.
low self-worth and the ghastly shadow of shame. It
So what if we make a mistake? It’s not a punishable
gets awfully crowded up there.
offence, unless we make it one. The universe does
Then there is ‘ought’, as in ‘I really ought to’,
not revolve around a slice of lemon drizzle cake,
followed smartly by ‘should’. At this point, we are
however important we think it is – or we are.
about two weeks into the diet, or giving up alcohol
Let’s face it, we are specks. Tiny, little, demented
or going to the gym, or whatever. All those bright
specks, hopping around our neuroses like fleas. The
new thoughts have turned to leaden gloom. That’s
only thing bigger than ourselves is the inner critic
when the inner critic revs up a decibel or five. You
(‘hello, again!’) who inhabits a world made huge by
can’t even manage a fortnight? Man, you’re a loser.
all the surplus energy with which we feed it. Ignore
The end of the month dawns, on a grey and dreary
it and it grows feeble through inattention.
day. FAIL. Back to the bottom of the class.
So here’s a decision – by which I empathetically
Do we feel better for our forays into resolution?
do not mean a resolution. I’m not going to listen
We do not. At least, I don’t. By February (the cruellest
to my inner critic. No, siree. You don’t get airtime.
month, to my mind), I am under the duvet,
That’s reserved for all my hopes and
Sally Brampton is
mainlining chocolate intravenously.
dreams. Sure, I want to be thinner, but
a journalist, agony
and author.
Even the word, resolution, is a disaster. aunt
guess
what? The only one who cares
Follow her on Twitter
In another sense, it means the end. The
about that is you, inner critic.
@SallyBrampton

138 P S YC H O L O G I E S M A G A Z I N E F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

PHOTOGRAPH: JENNY LEWIS

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