Dr Lauren Rooney - Clinical Psychologist

24/11/2025

Soothing Your Nervous System: Essential Techniques

The nervous system, particularly the autonomic nervous system (ANS), controls your body's response to stress. It has two main parts: the sympathetic nervous system (the "fight-or-flight" response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (the "rest-and-digest" or soothing system). The techniques below are designed to activate the soothing parasympathetic system to quickly reduce feelings of anxiety, panic, and emotional overwhelm. Soothing Rhythm Breathing (SRB)...

The nervous system, particularly the autonomic nervous system (ANS), controls your body’s response to stress. It has two main parts: the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight-or-flight…

17/11/2025

Tired of Your Anxiety Calling the Shots? Anxiety can often feel like a core part of who you are, making you feel trapped and powerless. However, in therapy, we use a powerful technique called Externalizing—which means separating you from the problem. We're going to stop thinking of anxiety as "my anxiety" and start seeing it as an intrusive, unhelpful character we can challenge....

Tired of Your Anxiety Calling the Shots? Anxiety can often feel like a core part of who you are, making you feel trapped and powerless. However, in therapy, we use a powerful technique called Exter…

14/11/2025

The Problem: Being an Oak Tree Imagine a giant, sturdy Oak Tree in a fierce storm. The oak is proud of its strength and stiffness. When the wind blows, it resists with all its might. It tenses up and stands firm, fighting to keep its posture and refuse to move. The Oak Represents: Resistance: Trying to rigidly control or fight unwanted thoughts, feelings, or circumstances....

The Problem: Being an Oak Tree Imagine a giant, sturdy Oak Tree in a fierce storm. The oak is proud of its strength and stiffness. When the wind blows, it resists with all its might. It tenses up a…

07/11/2025

Healing from trauma, whether a single, significant event or multiple, complex traumas, can be a difficult and challenging process. When we're in the process of healing, it can be painful and hard to remember why we began our therapy journey. To highlight the importance of exploring and working through trauma, I've created some slides that use a physical health metaphor to illustrate the process (with some AI-generated cartoons to help bring the point home!).

06/11/2025

NHS days are always super busy and whizz by! Today is a slower one to catch up from a busy few days on the ward and in clinic

Morning - neuropsychology supervision group to discuss dementia assessments, and older people's psychology business meeting

Afternoon - preparing reports, preparing for our new 1st year Trainee Clinical Psychologists starting placement with us next week and other little admin bits

20/10/2025

Mindfulness of sounds. It's not about finding silence, it's about truly listening to the sounds around you without judgment. I love it as a practice to help us learn to become less judgemental in general - including of ourselves

How to Practice Mindful Listening:
🌦️Stop and Notice: Take a moment right now. What sounds are present? The gentle hum of your computer? Distant traffic? Birds outside?
👂🏻Listen Objectively: Try to listen to the sounds as they are. Don't label them as "annoying" or "pleasant." Just notice the pitch, volume, and duration.
⚓ Use It as an Anchor: When your mind starts to wander, gently bring your attention back to a specific, present sound. It's a fantastic, portable anchor for the present moment.

The simple act of tuning in can shift you from a state of 'doing' to a state of 'being,' reducing stress and increasing your overall awareness.

If you'd like more mindfulness tracks, you can download my recordings at SoundCloud.com/lrooneypsych

📹 A beautiful "Roald Dahl" rose in my garden this afternoon

13/10/2025

Values 🌈

Do you know what your values are? Do you allow them to be the compass that guides your actions? For example - a value of fun might encourage you to call a friend, go to the pub quiz, get a joke book out the library, or make your own pizzas, using the ingredients to make faces.

I love my new "live your values deck" of cards. My old ones were lacking the colour, definitions and ability to inspire.

30/08/2025

Are you looking for a clinic room in Bournemouth?

If you're a local therapist offering talking therapies, we have space in our beautiful Bournemouth Lansdowne therapy room available. You will be sharing with a Clinical Psychologist and a Counsellor who have established private practices

We'd prefer regular booking tenants rather than someone wanting ad hoc hours but we will try to be flexible. We can offer discounted clinical supervision and some free hours of start up mentoring/support if you needed.

We look forward to hearing from you

28/08/2025

Lovely view from an NHS building today 🌳