Mental & Emotional Wellness Journal

Streaming lights to show how the brain rewires through addiction and how we look to heal through counselling in Cornwall

Addiction & Dopamine, Understanding How Your Brain Gets Rewired Through Therapy

Understanding Addiction and Dopamine Your hand reaches for the phone again. You tell yourself this will be the last scroll. The last drink. The last bet. But your body moves almost on its own, as if someone else is steering. Afterwards, there’s that familiar wash of shame, fear, and confusion. The thought that you should be able to just stop. That if you really wanted to, you could. When we talk about addiction and dopamine, this is the lived reality

Living Others' Expectations: Finding Your Authentic Path - Artistic image with colours and expressive style

The Grief For An Unlived Life, Breaking Free from Expectation

You wake up to a life that looks perfect on paper but feels like it belongs to someone else. The job, the choices, the whole trajectory makes sense to everyone around you. Except there’s this quiet voice saying: this was never my dream. When you’ve spent years living according to other people’s expectations—from parents wanting security, culture defining success, society measuring worth through achievement, you can lose yourself entirely. Recognising the pattern is the first step toward finding your way

Understanding How Reality Decomes Distorted Through Gaslighting and Manipulation

How Reality Becomes Distorted Through Gaslighting and Manipulation

You replay the conversation endlessly. You’re certain they said one thing, but now they insist they said the opposite. Despite your clear memory, you start wondering if you got it wrong. Maybe you’re the problem. Making someone doubt their own perception to maintain control is gaslighting. It erodes mental health, self-worth, and the ability to trust yourself.

We're conditioned to seek validation and answers externally, but person-centred counselling helps you trust the wisdom you already carry within. Exploring intrinsic vs extrinsic values in therapy.

Exploring Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Values in Therapy, The Answer Within

We’re conditioned to seek answers externally—through podcasts, mentors, achievements, approval—but person-centred therapy works differently. It trusts that beneath the noise of external voices and junk values, you carry the wisdom you’re seeking. The journey inward isn’t easy, but it’s where real clarity lives.

Exploring the Space Between Reaction and Response in Therapy

Someone says something that lands wrong, and suddenly you’re reacting before you’ve even thought. Words fly out, doors slam, or you go completely silent. Then comes the regret. Your nervous system is simply doing what it’s wired to do. But automatic doesn’t mean unchangeable. Between trigger and response lies a space where choice becomes possible. Explore the crucial difference between reacting and responding, the neuroscience driving both, and how person-centred therapy helps you build that space where you can act

Why We Drink, What Alcohol is Really Doing For You

The bottle of wine on a Tuesday evening. The beers that have become routine. The part of you that wonders if it’s becoming something more, and the part that doesn’t want to look too closely. I’m not here to tell you whether you drink too much—that’s not the point. What I’m interested in is this: what’s the alcohol actually doing for you? Because it’s almost never just about the alcohol. It’s about what softens, what quiets, what becomes bearable.

When Your Mind Tells You Lies: Understanding Thinking Patterns That Hold You Back

Cognitive Distortions & Negative Thinking Patterns, When Your Mind Lies

Ten positive comments and one criticism. Which one loops through your mind? If the negative thought wins every time, you’re experiencing cognitive distortions, the thinking patterns that filter reality through anxiety, self-blame, and worst-case scenarios. These aren’t character flaws; they’re learned responses that once made sense but now keep you stuck. This article explores the most common thinking traps, why they develop, and how person-centred counselling helps you develop a more balanced, compassionate relationship with your thoughts.

An image of a maze to signify the complex and painful ways people end and maintain unghappy relationships

When You Can’t Find the Door, The Painful Ways We Leave Relationships

Sometimes leaving a relationship doesn’t look clean or healthy. When self-worth is low and fear runs deep, we might withdraw, provoke, or betray to create an exit we can’t ask for directly. And sometimes, someone’s fear of being left leads them to hold on through control and manipulation. This article explores both sides of painful relationship endings with compassion, offering insight into why we stay, who we become when we can’t leave well, and how therapy can help everyone involved

A spiral to symbolise the feeling of vertigo when a relationship ends and we feel like our foundations become unsteady,.

When Relationships End, Understanding Attachment and Loss in Counselling

When relationships end, the pain often reaches deeper than we expect. Through an attachment lens, we can understand why some of us cling desperately while others withdraw, why people-pleasing intensifies, and how the fear of being unloved shapes our responses to loss. Explore how childhood attachment patterns influence the way we navigate endings in romantic relationships, friendships, and professional connections, offering compassionate insight and practical steps toward healing.

Death anxiety affects your body, your thoughts, and your ability to feel present. When the fear takes over, therapy offers steady support and space to understand what sits beneath it.

Exploring Life with a Fear of Dying Through Therapy

The chest pain that results in a Google rabbit hole at midnight. The headache that feels like a warning. The sudden shock of realising that one day you will not be here, that the people you love will not be here, and you cannot change it.

A blurred double-exposure to visually show the Introjection in Modern Society That Disconnects Us From Our Authentic Selves

How Introjection Shapes Modern Identity and Self-Doubt

Social media and marketing flood you with messages about who you should be, what you should want, and how success should look. Over time, these beliefs become so familiar you mistake them for your own. This article explores introjection—the unconscious adoption of external standards—and how it drives anxiety, burnout, and disconnection. It offers practical tools and therapeutic approaches to help you recognise these borrowed beliefs, rebuild self-trust, and reconnect with your authentic self.

A metal sheet with two colours split by a rusting line - the erosion of worth and shame we feel after abuse

Shame and the Power of Self-Abuse, Breaking Free from Trauma’s Legacy

Shame can feel like a constant inner critic, telling you that you’re not enough and punishing you for simply being. It often begins in childhood or trauma and shows up as self-criticism, self-sabotage, or neglect. Healing is possible when shame is met with understanding, compassion, and safe support.

Sparks being sprayed to symbolise the emotions that we expereince when limerance hits us.

Exploring Limerence From a Therapeutic Perspective

Limerence is an intense, involuntary state of romantic obsession that can overtake your thoughts, distort your emotions, and damage relationships. This article explains what a limerence affair is, how it differs from love or lust, the stages it follows, and the warning signs that something deeper is happening. You’ll learn how limerence forms, why it feels addictive, and what steps you can take to break free, rebuild trust, and move toward genuine emotional connection.

An image of a black and white hand being reflected in a mirror, to show Unconscious Bias

How We Develop Unconscious Bias and How It Impacts Our Lives

Unconscious bias shapes how you see and judge others without realising it. These mental shortcuts come from your experiences, culture, and upbringing. They influence your relationships, decisions, and self-perception every day. Understanding and managing them takes awareness and compassion, not perfection. Therapy offers a safe space to explore these hidden patterns, trace their roots, and learn strategies that align your actions with your values. Recognising bias is the first step toward genuine self-awareness and change.

Looking out of a well, Therapy and Your Inner Voice

Your Inner Voice: How Self-Awareness Builds Compassion & Confidence

Discover how your inner voice shapes your thoughts, feelings, and self-confidence. Learning to listen with awareness and practise self-compassion can transform self-criticism into encouragement. At Liminal Therapy, we offer a compassionate, supportive space to explore your inner dialogue, helping you build resilience, clarity, and a kinder, more authentic relationship with yourself.

When Losing Your Job Feels Like Losing Yourself

The redundancy letter arrives and suddenly you’ve lost more than you income. You’ve lost the answer to “What do you do?” The structure organising your days. The identity built over years. For many people, losing a job means losing yourself. This isn’t just practical stress about money. It’s an identity crisis touching everything, often spiralling into depression. When work has defined your worth for decades, therapy helps untangle the two and rebuild on foundations that can’t be taken away by