• The Elephant in the Room: Mental Health – Psychosis

    The Elephant in the Room: Mental Health – Psychosis

    The main forms of psychosis are schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, it often takes a long time to diagnose properly and to treat effectively. Psychosis is a condition in which the person has changes in their thinking, perception, mood and / or behaviour. As you might imagine, all of these can be a problem in…

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  • The Elephant in the Room: Mental Health – Self-harm

    The Elephant in the Room: Mental Health – Self-harm

    Self-harm is widely misunderstood. There are many people who self-harm as a way of exerting control over themselves or a situation. Contra to popular belief, self-harm is NOT an attempted suicide, however, the people who self-harm are at increased risk of suicide, often because the stress triggers are the same. Self-harm is a behaviour which…

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  • The Elephant in the room: Mental Health – Anxiety

    The Elephant in the room: Mental Health – Anxiety

    Anxiety can be a good thing. It helps us to avoid dangerous situations and it motivates us to solve problems. However, like many mental health issues there is a spectrum of anxiety which ranges from good mental health through to debilitating mental health. There are a number of different disorders which are classified as anxiety…

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  • Added Value

    Added Value

    Today is Valentine’s Day. The origins of the day vary, but it is believed that Valentine’s Day dates back to Pagen times with the holiday of Lupercalia celebrating fertility. In 3rd century AD Emperor Claudius II executed 2 men, both named Valentine on different Lupercalia holidays. They were martyred and honoured by the Catholic Church…

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  • Fit

    Fit

    Valentine’s Day is approaching, and we are encouraging all employers to show their staff some love. We don’t want any sexual harassment claims! We are not encouraging any inappropriate fraternisation! But we are asking employers to think about how they show their staff that they care. That they care about their physical and mental health…

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  • Seeds

    Seeds

    Plants in the office Plants / flowers in hospitals Playgrounds and fields at schools Open green spaces For years, we have known about the benefits of having natural living plants around us. The joy of seeing things grow and the satisfaction of eating what we have grown. Many employers will have plants in the office…

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  • Self-Care

    Self-Care

    In 2020, the government took the unusual stop of allowing employers to change their policy on annual leave so that employees could roll over annual leave they had been unable to take due to the pandemic. Some of our clients took advantage of this relaxation because their staff were needed at work as a result…

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  • What do you need?

    What do you need?

    Years ago, when I was a Psychology student at University, the first concept we studied was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For those of you not familiar with this model, the concept is that there is a basic level of needs which everyone has and once this foundation is in place, you can progress up the…

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  • Do you need to worry about the well-being of your staff?

    Do you need to worry about the well-being of your staff?

    The inspiration for this week’s blog is from an interview which I did last week on the BBC Three Counties Radio drive time show. The interview was all about the well-being of employees and the duty of care that employers have towards their staff. The conversation was sparked by the announcement by Easyjet that one…

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