JD Psychotherapy - LGBTQ Affirmative Therapy

JD Psychotherapy - LGBTQ Affirmative Therapy Providing compassionate and inclusive psychotherapy for LGBTQ+ individuals aged 21+. Safe, affirming, and confidential care.

Ware’s Sequence is a well-established concept within Transactional Analysis (TA) that explains how individuals move thro...
28/12/2025

Ware’s Sequence is a well-established concept within Transactional Analysis (TA) that explains how individuals move through ego states in predictable ways when stress, conflict, or relational pressure builds. Originally described by Paul Ware in the early 1980s, it remains a useful and clinically relevant model for understanding interpersonal patterns and for guiding therapeutic intervention.
What Is Ware’s Sequence?
Ware observed that when people experience increasing tension or relational stress, they tend to move downward through ego states in a consistent sequence. This sequence reflects attempts to reduce discomfort, re-establish safety, or regain control.
The pattern follows four stages:
1. Adult
The individual begins in Adult, responding with grounded awareness, reasoning, and present-moment processing.
2.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

IntroductionThis Christmas, a friend made a lovely gift for her son-in-law. When he showed it to his parents they delibe...
28/12/2025

Introduction
This Christmas, a friend made a lovely gift for her son-in-law. When he showed it to his parents they deliberately broke it. Now Christmas gatherings can often amplify long-standing relational patterns. When in-laws deliberately damage or sabotage a gift given to someone else, the act is rarely about the object itself. Within a Transactional Analysis (TA) framework, such behaviour can be understood as a relational manoeuvre that invites blame, retaliation, or withdrawal. This article explores how holding the “I’m OK, You’re OK” life position can support adult responses, protect dignity, and reduce escalation when all parties involved are adults.
The “I’m OK, You’re OK” Life Position
In TA, life positions describe fundamental assumptions people hold about themselves and others. The “I’m OK, You’re OK” position reflects an internal stance of self-respect and respect for others. It does not imply approval of harmful behaviour, nor does it require passivity.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

IntroductionThis Christmas, my sister-in-law made a lovely gift for her son-in-law. When he showed it to his parents the...
28/12/2025

Introduction
This Christmas, my sister-in-law made a lovely gift for her son-in-law. When he showed it to his parents they deliberately broke it. Now Christmas gatherings can often amplify long-standing relational patterns. When in-laws deliberately damage or sabotage a gift given to someone else, the act is rarely about the object itself. Within a Transactional Analysis (TA) framework, such behaviour can be understood as a relational manoeuvre that invites blame, retaliation, or withdrawal. This article explores how holding the “I’m OK, You’re OK” life position can support adult responses, protect dignity, and reduce escalation when all parties involved are adults.
The “I’m OK, You’re OK” Life Position
In TA, life positions describe fundamental assumptions people hold about themselves and others. The “I’m OK, You’re OK” position reflects an internal stance of self-respect and respect for others. It does not imply approval of harmful behaviour, nor does it require passivity.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

People whose internal world is organised around a schizoid process often experience ordinary questions as criticism. Th...
17/12/2025

People whose internal world is organised around a schizoid process often experience ordinary questions as criticism. This reaction is not about being ‘overly sensitive’, nor is it a sign of interpersonal indifference. Instead, it reflects deep relational learning, shame vulnerability, and a protective stance developed early in life to guard against intrusion, engulfment, and misattunement.

This article explores why questions can feel threatening in the schizoid experience and how therapists can work with this sensitively within a relational, attuned, humanistic framework.

Early Misattunement and the Threat of Intrusion
Many individuals with a schizoid organisation have developmental histories marked by intrusive, evaluative, or unempathic caregiving.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

Ware’s Sequence is a well-established concept within Transactional Analysis (TA) that explains how individuals move thro...
10/12/2025

Ware’s Sequence is a well-established concept within Transactional Analysis (TA) that explains how individuals move through ego states in predictable ways when stress, conflict, or relational pressure builds. Originally described by Paul Ware in the early 1980s, it remains a useful and clinically relevant model for understanding interpersonal patterns and for guiding therapeutic intervention.
What Is Ware’s Sequence?
Ware observed that when people experience increasing tension or relational stress, they tend to move downward through ego states in a consistent sequence. This sequence reflects attempts to reduce discomfort, re-establish safety, or regain control.

The pattern follows four stages:
1. Adult
The individual begins in Adult, responding with grounded awareness, reasoning, and present-moment processing.
2.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

A Neurodiversity-Affirming Reading List for Therapists and ClientsI was chatting with some other therapists about good b...
02/12/2025

A Neurodiversity-Affirming Reading List for Therapists and Clients
I was chatting with some other therapists about good books for neurodivergent folk. They came up with a list. This aims to be a curated, community-informed reading list for therapists and clients exploring neurodivergence. All books listed:

- support the neurodiversity paradigm

- offer lived experience or neuro-affirming perspectives

- avoid deficit-based or pathologising narratives

- were positively received in the peer discussion

- exclude authors or titles noted as problematic

Books for Autistic and Otherwise Neurodivergent Clients
Untypical
Wharmby, P. (2022) Untypical: How the World Isn’t Built for Autistic People and What We Should All Do About It. London: HarperNorth. ISBN: 9780008529307.
A clear and affirming account of autistic experience in a neurotypical world, offering practical insights for clients and clinicians.
The Umbrella Picker
McNeice, J.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

For many neurodivergent people—particularly those with ADHD, autism, or social anxiety—the process of arranging therapy ...
23/11/2025

For many neurodivergent people—particularly those with ADHD, autism, or social anxiety—the process of arranging therapy can be daunting. Traditional booking methods often involve making a phone call, navigating conversation scripts, and responding spontaneously under pressure. An online booking system can significantly reduce these barriers, offering flexibility, autonomy, and clarity.
Barriers in Traditional Booking
Making a phone call to arrange an appointment can present multiple challenges:

- Executive functioning demands: remembering to call during working hours, finding the right number, and preparing what to say can be overwhelming.

- Social anxiety: fear of being misunderstood or judged may increase avoidance.

- Auditory processing issues: phone conversations can be hard to follow, particularly if there’s background noise or rapid speech.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

I often find myself unintentionally collecting subscriptions — streaming platforms, productivity apps, fitness membershi...
14/11/2025

I often find myself unintentionally collecting subscriptions — streaming platforms, productivity apps, fitness memberships, software trials, and more. I may start with enthusiasm but soon forget to cancel, even when no longer using them. This pattern can be frustrating and expensive, yet it often reflects a genuine challenge in executive functioning rather than carelessness.
Why It Happens
Impulsivity and Reward Sensitivity
ADHD is strongly associated with impulsivity and heightened reward-seeking behaviour. A new subscription offers an immediate sense of promise and excitement — the dopamine hit that makes it feel like the perfect solution. Over time, that initial interest fades, and without immediate consequences, the subscription quietly continues.
Time Blindness and Decision Fatigue
For those with ADHD, future consequences can feel abstract.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

For many people with ADHD, getting started can be the hardest part. Even when motivation is high, tasks can remain untou...
08/11/2025

For many people with ADHD, getting started can be the hardest part. Even when motivation is high, tasks can remain untouched, delayed by overwhelm, distraction, or inertia. One increasingly popular technique to break this cycle is body doubling: working alongside another person—virtually or in person—to stay focused, get started, and keep going.
What Is Body Doubling?
Body doubling means pairing up with someone else, often called an accountability buddy, to work in parallel. The other person doesn’t need to participate in your task—they might simply sit nearby reading, studying, or doing their own work. The power lies in shared presence: knowing someone else is there, expecting you to follow through, and quietly modelling focus.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

Often when I really need to get something done I find that I don’t. Having spoken with many people, I find that there is...
25/10/2025

Often when I really need to get something done I find that I don’t. Having spoken with many people, I find that there is a familiar set of circumstances: the creeping delay, the mental circling, the sudden urge to tidy the kitchen instead of starting the task that actually matters. Procrastination is often framed as laziness or poor time management, yet what if it’s more about emotion than organisation?
A useful perspective comes from the short YouTube video Why We Procrastinate, which highlights that avoidance is not necessarily a failure of willpower but a form of emotional regulation. When faced with a challenging or uncertain task, our nervous system interprets it as a potential threat, triggering anxiety or discomfort. To reduce that discomfort, we distract ourselves — temporarily relieving the feeling but keeping the task unresolved.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

IntroductionI was recently discussing with a colleague some new offices that they are considering. Part of the scenario ...
17/10/2025

Introduction
I was recently discussing with a colleague some new offices that they are considering. Part of the scenario was that they are hoping to offer late evening, face to face sessions. This got me thinking about the potential dangers of working alone. So I put together some thoughts about a lone working policy.
This article outlines some considerations for a lone working policy suitable for psychotherapists in solo practice.
Purpose
To protect the safety and wellbeing of the psychotherapist when working alone with clients, whether in person, online, or by telephone, and to ensure reasonable steps are taken to manage risks associated with lone working.

Offering face-to-face psychotherapy in Carmarthen and Swansea, specialising in LGBTQ+ and ADHD: trauma, anxiety, and depression. Your path to healing and self-acceptance starts here.

Address

19 Uplands Crescent
Swansea
SA20NX

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9:30am - 12:30pm
Wednesday 10am - 3pm

Telephone

+441269508064

Website

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