Therapy with Rick

23/02/2026

New on the blog: When Conspiracy Thinking Becomes Emotional Avoidance
Most conversations focus on belief and correction. In therapy, the more useful question is often: what function is this serving?

This post explores how rigid certainty can regulate anxiety, how identity can become enmeshed with a narrative, and why therapy works best when it stays relational rather than turning into education.

A related discussion also appeared in BACP’s Therapy Today:
https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/therapy-today/2026/articles-march/the-big-issue/

Read here: https://www.therapywithrick.com/blog/when-conspiracy-thinking-becomes-emotional-avoidance

12/02/2026

Why does Wuthering Heights still affect people so strongly?

I published a short psychological reading of the story today after receiving the newly released soundtrack on vinyl. Beneath the gothic drama is something clinically familiar: unresolved emotional experience tends to repeat until it is understood and worked through emotionally.

The post explores attachment, emotional memory, and why certain relationships feel intense. If you’re interested in how literature mirrors real psychological patterns, you may find it thought-provoking.

https://www.therapywithrick.com/blog/wuthering-heights-and-the-psychology-of-haunting

19/01/2026

If you’ve been following recent discussion in the UK about psychotherapy and counselling not being statutorily regulated, you may have noticed a lot of uncertainty being voiced. For people thinking about starting therapy, that uncertainty can easily turn into confusion or anxiety.

This short post is intended to clarify one part of that picture: what professional accreditation means, what it does not mean, and how it might be useful when choosing a therapist.

https://www.therapywithrick.com/blog/what-bacp-accreditation-means-and-why-it-matters-right-now

12/01/2026

From Repetition to Integration: A state-based clinical guide for therapists who work with depth

This guide examines why repetitive patterns persist despite insight, motivation, or interpretation, and how change becomes possible when underlying emotional states become tolerable and integrated.

It introduces a state-based model that reframes repetition as regulation rather than resistance, with implications for assessment, timing, and therapeutic stance.

This guide is intended as a complete clinical position rather than a reference document.

https://www.therapywithrick.com/guides/from-repetition-to-integration

18/12/2025

For a long time, therapy sat on the edges of public life. Something people turned to quietly, often late, and sometimes with a sense of shame.

That picture has changed.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has just released its 2025 Public Perceptions Survey, based on responses from more than 5,000 UK adults. The findings are striking, not just in scale, but in what they reveal about how people are actually living now.

More people are seeking therapy. More people find it helpful. And yet, many are still unsure how to choose safe, effective support in a crowded mental health landscape.

This matters…

Get to the root and heal beyond history. Confidential online psychotherapy across the UK with Rick Cox, MBACP.

31/10/2025

After four thousand hours of online psychodynamic work, I’ve learned that profound emotional work is possible when convenience meets courage. It depends on what both therapist and client can bear to feel, and what they can stay with long enough to transform. Depth work goes beyond ‘fixing’ surface-level symptoms. Here, we build the capacity to feel, experience emotions and tolerate anxiety. So you can stop letting the history you carry dictate your present and derail your potential future. This is the path to emotional freedom

Full reflection here ↓
therapywithrick.com/blog/four-thousand-hours-online-therapy

Get to the root and heal beyond history. Confidential online psychotherapy across the UK with Rick Cox, MBACP.

27/10/2025

The Unseen Battle: What Netflix’s Stranger Things 5 Teaches Us About Trauma, Shame, and the Inner Critic

Psychodynamic therapist Rick Cox links Stranger Things 5 to depth therapy. Vecna embodies the inner critic and shame; the Upside Down mirrors unconscious conflict. Healing requires the courage to face emotional avoidance and build the capacity for emotional freedom.

Get to the root and heal beyond history. Confidential online psychotherapy across the UK with Rick Cox, MBACP.

14/10/2025

From the new blog.
We’re drawn to monsters because they show us what we deny in ourselves. Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story reveals how empathy, horror, and truth coexist in the human mind...

Netflix’s new true crime series reveals more than horror. A psychodynamic look at what happens when the monster speaks and why we feel empathy.

09/10/2025

Hit publish this week on something i've been working on behind the scenes. It’s a fresh reflection of how my work’s evolved with more of what actually matters: anxiety, shame, closeness, self-sabotage, and all the stuff we usually try to outrun.

There’s a few new things on there too —
💭 Blogs that mix therapy, music, and psychology
🗞 A growing media section (Guardian, HuffPost, BACP Therapy Today)
🎧 Some reflections for anyone curious about what therapy really is beneath the surface

It feels good to finally bring it all together in one place.

Therapy that helps you face what feels impossible, and discover what changes when you stop running from it.

28/09/2025

You say you’re fine. Inside, two voices are at war.
One says “move on.” The other won’t stop dragging you back.
That split is exhausting, and pretending it’s not there makes it worse. Therapy is where you stop pretending and start facing it.

Free intro session. www.therapywithrick.com

24/09/2025

Part of you wants change. Part of you resists. That tug of war is draining. You’ve tried ignoring it, distracting yourself, powering through, but the conflict always returns.
In therapy, you don’t have to silence either side. You learn why both exist, and how to live without being torn apart.

Ready to take the first step? Free intro session. www.therapywithrick.com