Juliet shares some of her knowledge and insights, along with case studies that have proved informative.
These insights are released each week in part on our mailouts, but here we will collect them in full for viewing at any time.
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1. The Six Human Needs: A Useful Lens for Therapists
In the tender unfolding of our human experience, there is a powerful lens through which we can understand the deep drivers of behaviour. Human Needs Psychology proposes the six core human needs that live at the heart of every action, every conflict, and every longing for connection or change. These are not mere preferences—they are essential nutrients of the psyche. (click here to see full article)
2. The Cycle Of Arrogance And Disconnection Is A Barrier To Intimacy And Trust.
In my therapy room, I often see how arrogance—manifested through the “one-up” position—shows up in couples. It’s a subtle, yet pervasive dynamic. The person in the “one-up” position behaves as though they are above their partner, in control, superior in some way. But, when we peel back the layers, it becomes clear that this arrogance often hides a deep fear of vulnerability and an overwhelming need to protect the self from feeling inadequate. (click here to see full article)
3. Different Types of Intimacy
Intimacy is often misunderstood as being purely sexual, but in truth, it’s far more layered and nuanced. As someone explained to me, the word intimacy can be broken down as “into me I see.” It speaks to the courage of self-revelation—allowing ourselves to be seen by another, and equally, being willing to see into ourselves. In therapy, I often explore with clients the many different kinds of intimacy that exist: emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, creative, and even practical intimacy, like sharing daily routines or responsibilities. (click here to see full article)
4. Mistakes Hold the Seeds of Growth: Rupture and Repair
Mistakes are an inevitable part of being human. We all make them. They don’t discriminate—whether big or small, they are an integral part of our lives, marking our paths with both regret and potential. Some mistakes are fleeting, barely noticeable. Others linger, casting shadows over our days. But the truth is, every mistake holds the seeds of growth. (click here to see full article)
5. Honouring the Wisdom of Revenge – Symbolic Expression Loosens the Knots
In the therapy room, I have sat with many people who carry a deep longing for revenge. Often, it is a silent hunger—unspoken, but simmering just beneath the surface. When someone has been harmed, especially in childhood, there is a part of the psyche that wants justice. Not just in a rational sense, but emotionally, viscerally. It wants the perpetrator to hurt too. It wants to level the scales .(click here to see full article)
6. The Politeness — Authenticity Continuum
People-pleasing is a subtle, often unconscious pattern—a way of living that prioritises others’ comfort over our own. It’s a protective mechanism, born from the need to avoid conflict, to seek approval, or to maintain peace. But it comes at a cost. Over time, the more we suppress our true feelings to please others, the more we lose sight of ourselves. We begin to blur the line between authenticity and politeness, not knowing where we end and the other person begins. (click here to see full article)
7. Sitting With the Stretch: A Therapist’s View on Non-Monogamy
As a therapist who lives monogamously, I’ve had to learn how to sit with the stretch—how to hold space for couples exploring ethical non-monogamy, even when it’s not a path I walk myself. The stretch isn’t resistance—it’s reverence. For love, for honesty, for the vulnerability it takes to have these conversations at all.(click here to see full article)
8. Boundaries are like an Orange: A Juicy Metaphor for Safe, Connected Living
Boundaries, says Terry Real—founder of the Relational Life Institute—are like an orange. The outer skin—vivid orange, textured, slightly tough—symbolises our protective boundary. It’s what shields us from the outside world. This is the part that says, “I will not let in what is harmful, shaming, or intrusive.” It acts as a filter, discerning what to allow through: it lets in warmth, care, and connection, while keeping out what might bruise or overwhelm. It’s strong, but not a wall—porous enough for intimacy, firm enough for safety.(click here to see full article)
To watch the 3 minute video click here
9. When Boundaries Become a Love Letter to Yourself
For many of us, boundaries were never taught—they were survived. I learned, quietly and often painfully, to shape-shift: to be good, agreeable, accommodating.
I learned to dim my light to keep the peace.
To silence my discomfort in the name of love.
To say yes while my body screamed no – but I wasn’t listening to my body – I didn’t even hear the no.
I abandoned myself, again and again, calling it kindness – I thought I was being kind to the other person.
This became my normal.
Then, through my own therapy as a client, I learned that boundaries are not rejection. ((Click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video click here
10. Toxic Shame is Often Unrecognised
“The feeling of toxic shame is one that is all-consuming. It’s more than just a sense of wrongness.
It is an identity issue to the point where you are wrong. Shame is about who you are if guilt is about what you do. Toxic shame tends to be built up over time. It is not a switch that is turned on. It is a thing that is built up by experience, by life experience.
To watch the 9 minute video and read the transcript click here
11. If You Never Say No, Then I Can’t Trust Your Yes
There was a time when I didn’t know how to say no—not really. I’d smile and agree to things because I should, or because I didn’t want to disappoint. It felt kinder to go along with things. I was afraid of letting someone down.
And on top of that, was an anxiety. What if they have the best time ever, and I miss the fun? That old ache, the fear of missing out lingered just beneath the surface. So I said yes, even when my body whispered no. I said yes, even when I was running on empty.
My dear friend Jacquie saw through it…..((click here to see full article))
To watch the 4 minute video click here
12. Blast from the Past
My colleague Sandy Cotter has a wonderful phrase for those moments when someone pushes our buttons. She calls it a blast from the past.
It’s that flash of heat when your partner forgets to put the bins out. “You never think of me! I do everything round here!” Or the icy silence you fall into when a colleague sighs heavily. “Oh God, I’ve messed up again, they are fed up with me making mistakes. They want me to leave.” The trigger seems small, but the reaction is volcanic. Why? Because it’s not really about bins or sighs. It’s about some old hurt waking up, stretching its legs, and shouting, “Remember me?”
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video click here
13. Self Appreciation – If Only I’d Known Then
I’m writing this on holiday, flicking through the photos we’ve taken. And it makes me think about how often we look back at old pictures and say,
“Amazing! I looked so good then. Why on earth didn’t I see it at the time?”
I had one of those moments recently. There I was, ten years younger, hair fuller and blonder, lines a little softer. Back then, I’d been fretting about my weight, focussing on my double chins and my big belly. Yet now, looking back, I thought: “I was actually rather lovely. Why couldn’t I have known that then?”
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 2.5 minute video click here
14. The Quiet Truth of Who I Am
By Juliet Grayson
For much of my life, I thought I was an extrovert. I was sociable, animated in groups, often the one to keep a conversation alive. I’d learned how to read a room, how to bring energy, how to be what others seemed to need. It didn’t occur to me that this was more performance than preference.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3.5 minute video: Click here
15. The Courage, the Beauty to Let our Vulnerability Be Seen.
Vulnerability is often misunderstood. It’s seen as weakness, as exposure, as something to be managed or hidden. But in truth, vulnerability is one of the greatest acts of courage a human being can offer.
To be vulnerable is to let yourself be seen—not just the polished parts, but the trembling ones. It means risking rejection, disappointment, misunderstanding. It means lowering the armour we’ve carried for decades, often built in childhood, designed to protect us from shame, blame, or abandonment.
And yet, paradoxically, it’s in this softening that true strength resides.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3.5 minute video: Click here
16. The Journey from Chasing Belonging to Choosing Peace
FOMO – The Fear of Missing Out. And JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out
There’s a quiet joy that comes from sitting still, choosing not to run after the next thing. A relief in saying, no, thank you, and meaning it. The Joy of Missing Out – JOMO – is a subtle but potent shift. It’s when we stop chasing what everyone else seems to be doing and start listening to what we need instead.
I grew up with a fear of missing out FOMO. I had an older brother. and I didn’t want to be left behind. I was determined to be included in everything, be a part of every adventure, every conversation, every moment. If he (or my parents) shut the door, it felt like a loss. I didn’t want to go to bed earlier than him. I was scrabbling to belong, to keep up, not to miss the magic that I imagined was always happening – just out of sight.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3.5 minute video: Click here
17. When Words Are Not Enough: A Wife’s Reflection on the Power of Ritual
There are moments in life when language falters. When talking no longer soothes, and insight alone doesn’t bring peace. As a psychotherapist, I have spent decades sitting with people in pain – but some thresholds, I’ve come to realise, are better crossed – not through dialogue, but through ritual.
We used to know this. Long before boardrooms and email threads, we gathered around fires and stones, baptised our young, buried our dead with care, and marked our transitions with rhythm, song, and symbol. A man wasn’t simply told he was a father now — he was brought to the edge of something and walked across it. A woman didn’t quietly mourn in private — she keened with others until her grief became part of the ground. We had ways of making the invisible, visible. Of saying to the soul: This matters.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 8 minute video: Click here
18. The Humbling Art of Choosing Well
Starting a new relationship is hard. Whether it’s romantic, professional, or even a friendship—there’s always that early hope, that wish to trust, and the uneasy truth that we don’t really know who we’re dealing with.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
19. On Receiving An Award
There is a particular pleasure, and a deep humility, in receiving an award. Not the blinding glare of attention, but a warm, steady glow. A sense of being quietly seen. And I have received two! One as a therapist, and another one I’ll tell you about.
As a therapist, much of my work is invisible. It happens in whispered moments, in tears that finally fall, in the courage it takes to tell the truth. It is intimate, sacred, and often unnoticed.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
20. Deepfakes and the Rising Cost of Trust
I’ve been struck by the story of Arup, the British engineering firm behind London’s Crossrail and the Sydney Opera House, losing the equivalent of £20 million to a deepfake scam. This happened in May 2024, but I have only just heard about it.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
21. Focus on the Good
One of my clients, in a Pesso Boyden personal development group, recently said a phrase I’ve haven’t forgotten: “Focus on the good, and the good will come into focus.”
It’s deceptively simple. Our minds are wired to notice danger – the criticisms, the flaws, the things that went wrong. If you get ten compliments and one sharp remark, where does your attention land? Usually on the remark. And so the good blurs into the background, while the one negative steals the show.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 2.5 minute video: Click here
22. When Shame Came into View
When I first thought about shame, I didn’t even know I felt it. I would’ve said I was shy, easily embarrassed perhaps, but I didn’t realise it was shame. Toxic shame.
Looking back, I see it everywhere in my childhood and adult life. I couldn’t ask the neighbours for a cup of milk. Shame stopped me. I never expected people to remember me, even those I worked with every day for over a year. Shame also shut down my anger. I think my inability to hold my own anger led me to marry the angriest man I could find, and then I shamed him for it. That was my first husband. When I was sacked after twelve years at a company, I carried that shame too, masking it with resentment and blame, and quietly passing it on.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
23. The Age of Awakening: How Parenting Can Stir Up Buried Trauma
Over the years, I have worked with many people who were sexually abused as children. One of the things I have noticed, time and again, is the danger point that arrives when their own child reaches the age they were when the abuse happened. It is as if the past, which has been tucked safely away, suddenly stirs and wakes. The child’s birthday becomes a mirror that reflects something long buried in the parent’s body and psyche.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
24. What I Have Learnt from 35 Years as a Couples Therapist: Ideal Ordeal Real Deal
When couples come to see me, most of them are not in crisis yet, they’re in what I call the ordeal phase. Something feels off, they’re still in love but maybe the connection’s gone a bit numb, the spark has faded, or one partner feels invisible.
They sit in front of me and they say, can you help us get back to how it was at the beginning? And I always say, well the truth is we’re not trying to go backwards. The honeymoon phase is over, what I’ll help you do is get to the real deal, which if you manage it is the richest and most marvellous phase.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
25. When To Walk Away, And When To Stay
I’ve been watching Married at First Sight on Channel 4. I started after a friend died, and I discovered that she used to love it. I’d always dismissed it because of the title, but when I heard that this woman, who had impeccable taste, was a fan, I decided to give it a try. And I have to admit, I’m hooked. I’m on series six of the Australian version. In episode nineteen, about sixteen minutes in, one participant starts to physically attack another. And it got me thinking about conflict.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
26. Staying Steady in the Storm – Managing Escalation and Aggression in Couples Therapy
Working with high-conflict couples can be intense and demanding. Setting clear expectations and boundaries from the start creates safety for both the clients and the therapist. Below are guiding principles, sample interventions, and practical tools to support de-escalation when emotions run high.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 7 minute video: Click here
27. Healing the Hidden Wounds: How the Right Kinship Relationship Can Restore What Childhood Left Behind
A partner cannot heal childhood wounds, but symbolic role-play of the ideal mother or father can finally fill those gaps, offering lasting healing
I’ve been thinking – about love, about longing, about the things we hope to find in another person, and how sometimes those things are never quite fulfilled. As one client, Peter, said, “I wonder if I expect too much of him, my Jonathon. He says he loves me, and I know he does, but sometimes it feels like there’s something missing, something he doesn’t give me. I am never satisfied, no matter how hard he tries.”
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 7 minute video: Click here
28. Speaking Up with Care: Calling Out Behaviour that Hurts Without Hurting Back
How to name and address challenging behaviour with clarity and calm, holding boundaries without shaming or escalating.
There is a quiet art to calling out a behaviour without tipping into heat or shame. It begins with remembering that the moment you feel fiery, something in the present has touched something from your past. Your reaction has been shaped by old history. When we speak from that place, we often escalate rather than illuminate. The real skill lies in pausing, settling your own body, and addressing what happened with steadiness and clarity.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
29. Wanting More, Wanting Them to Have Less: Unravelling Envy and Jealousy
A clear, compassionate exploration of envy and jealousy, revealing how longing and fear shape our relationships and offer pathways back to ourselves.
In a conversation with friends the other day, I became aware of the important distinction between envy and jealousy. When we can name what we are experiencing, something in the body settles. Envy is the pang of desire, the wistful I wish that were mine. Jealousy is different. It is the tightening in the chest, the contraction around I don’t want you to have it. One reaches outward in longing. The other pulls inward in fear.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
30. The Quiet Wisdom of Thresholds
Reflections on aging, loss, and the grace of accepting life’s crossings as both departures and arrivals.
Thresholds are not only marked in stone or wood — they live within us as emotional crossings. With age, we encounter thresholds that are not chosen but given: the loss of vitality, the fading of certain dreams, the departure of loved ones. There is no going back to the body I once knew, no return to the innocence of earlier years.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
31. The Felt Sense of Safety
Highlighting the embodied experience at the heart of PBSP
I have always loved the proverb: Trust in God, but tie your camel up. It speaks to the paradox at the heart of living — faith and responsibility, surrender and action. We cannot simply lean on trust without also tending to the practical. For me, it is a reminder that safety is not only an idea, but something we create with our hands, our choices, our bodies.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
32. The First 30 Days Set the Tone
The turn of a year always invites a particular kind of tenderness. Not the loud optimism of resolutions shouted into January air, but a quieter listening. A pause. A hand resting on the doorframe before we step through.
In my work, I notice how the New Year stirs longing around relationship. New hopes. New promises. And often, old habits dressed in fresh clothes.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
33. Goals That Gently Pull You Forward
The turn of a year always invites a particular kind of tenderness. Not the loud optimism of resolutions shouted into January air, but a quieter listening. A pause. A hand resting on the doorframe before we step through.
In my work, I notice how the New Year stirs longing around relationship. New hopes. New promises. And often, old habits dressed in fresh clothes.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
34. Living with a Nitpicking Partner – and How to Protect Yourself
This piece grew out of recent work with a couple I saw in therapy. As we listened carefully to their everyday interactions, a familiar pattern began to emerge. Nothing dramatic. No single explosive incident. Instead, a steady accumulation of small corrections, comments, and critiques that had quietly worn one partner down. It is a dynamic I see often, and one that can be surprisingly hard to name.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
35. The Hidden Cost of Partnering a Defensive Person
This reflection comes from working recently with the same couple who inspired the first piece in this series. As often happens in therapy, once one pattern was named, another quietly came into view. The details were unique, but the emotional experience was deeply familiar. As one partner spoke, it became clear how much energy was being spent managing reactions, choosing words with care, and slowly losing trust in their own perceptions. That session stayed with me, because it named something many people live with but struggle to articulate.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
36. When Negativity Colours Everything: Understanding Negative Sentiment Override
This piece grows out of the same clinical work that informed the earlier reflections in this series. As the couple I was working with began to name nitpicking and defensiveness, another layer became visible. Beneath those behaviours was a more pervasive emotional filter shaping how one partner interpreted almost everything the other did. Once seen, it explained a great deal.
Relationship researcher John Gottman uses the term Negative Sentiment Override to describe this phenomenon. It refers to a state in which negative feelings about the relationship, or about one’s partner, become so dominant that they override the ability to register the positive. Kindness is dismissed, neutral behaviour is read as hostile, and mistakes are magnified. What is happening is not simply pessimism, but a shift in perception.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
37. When You Start to Disappear: The Quiet Cost of Self-Abandonment
This fourth piece also comes from the same clinical work that shaped the earlier reflections. By the time we had named nitpicking, defensiveness, and the fog of negativity that hung over the relationship, something else became painfully clear. One partner was not just coping with these patterns. They were slowly disappearing inside them.
Self-abandonment rarely announces itself loudly. It develops quietly, as a series of small adjustments made in the hope of keeping things steady. You speak less. You ask for less. You smooth your edges, soften your needs, and tell yourself it is not worth the tension. You become very good at accommodating, anticipating, and managing, while losing touch with what you actually feel or want.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
38. Holding Your Ground: Bringing the Patterns Into Focus
The four pieces in this series grew out of one piece of clinical work, but they point to something much wider. Nitpicking, defensiveness, negative sentiment override, and self-abandonment rarely appear in isolation. More often, they weave together into a relational atmosphere that is difficult to name from the inside, yet deeply felt in the body and the nervous system.
What connects these patterns is not malice or intention, but impact. Each one quietly shifts the balance of the relationship away from mutuality and towards vigilance. You become watchful rather than relaxed. Careful rather than spontaneous. Adapted rather than fully present. Over time, it is not just the relationship that changes, but your relationship with yourself.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
39. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK ONE
The Orange and the Edge of the Self: What Boundaries Really Are
When people talk about boundaries, they often mean rules. Or lines. Or something you put up once you’ve already been hurt. That misunderstanding causes a great deal of suffering.
Boundaries are not rules. They are not walls. They are not something you announce once and then forget. Boundaries are the living edge between self and other. They are how we stay in contact with another person without losing contact with ourselves.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
40. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK TWO
When Everything Gets In
Boundarylessness, Shame, and the Cost of Adaptation
Boundaryless people are often deeply relational. They are the ones who notice everything, care a lot, and work hard to keep the peace. They are often the emotional glue in families, workplaces, and friendships. On the surface, that can look like kindness. Underneath, there is usually fear.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 4 minute video: Click here
41. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK THREE
When Nothing Gets In
Walls, Withdrawal, and the Fear of Being Taken Over
Not all boundary problems look emotional. Some look calm, capable, and contained. These are the people others describe as “so together”, or “low maintenance”, or “never a bother”. Underneath, there is often a very different story.
A walled-off orange has very thick skin. Nothing gets in. Other people’s feelings, needs, and bids for connection are kept at a safe distance. This is not cruelty and it is not indifference. It is protection.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 4 minute video: Click here
42. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK FOUR
The Pith and the Pressure
Containment and the End of Emotional Spillage
One of the persistent myths of our time is that intimacy means saying everything you feel, when you feel it, in whatever form it arrives. “I’m just being honest,” people say, as they tip a bucket of unprocessed emotion over those closest to them.
Honesty without containment is not intimacy. It is spillage.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 4 minute video: Click here
43. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK FIVE
The Courage of No
Refusal as an Act of Care
Saying no is one of the most spiritual acts we can perform in relationship. Not dramatic refusal shouted in rage, but quiet, clear refusal spoken early enough to protect both people.
Many of us grew up equating no with rejection. We learned that to be lovable we should be agreeable, flexible, available. So we said yes when we meant no, and paid for it later in resentment, exhaustion, or emotional distance.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 3 minute video: Click here
44. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK SIX
Invitation, Request, Demand
When Desire Becomes Safe – and When It Doesn’t
Desire is not the problem in relationships. What destabilises couples is how desire is expressed, and what happens when it is not met.
From a boundary perspective, there are three ways our orange can reach towards another person: invitation, request, and demand.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
45. THE BOUNDARIES SERIES: TALK SEVEN
The Orange, the Pith, and Relational Balance. The dance of The Quadrants
Our metaphor is an orange. The orange skin protects the inside from what is coming in. It protects the juiciness, the segments, and keeps the orange whole. Just as boundaries separate me from you, from the world, and protects me.
But there is more. Inside the orange, there is white pith. The pith holds the segments together. It contains me. It allows me to feel without flooding.
((click here to see full article))
To watch the 5 minute video: Click here
Juliet enjoys hearing comments about how these talks impact people – both positive and negative. If you have time, please let her know your thoughts
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