Dr Katherine Peckitt Clinical Psychology

01/12/2021

Saw this today and I think it's a great reminder that when we feel mentally unwell our body shows it too. Body and mind are not separate.

Repost from Coping With PTSD]
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01/12/2021

Covid had exhausted us and and research suggests Covid may be pushing more of us down the mental health curve, with increasing anxiety, low mood and reduced wellbeing ....so these are ideas of how to continue to look after your mental health when you are already depleted and exhausted.

1. Understand this is not you, or a failiure in you. How you are feeling is a product of months of living with high stress, uncertainly and anxiety, along with the inability to use our normal coping strategies. The depletion and exhaustion is a result of our body having it’s foot on its gas pedal for too long, which leaves us feeling and being depleted.

2. Hold onto your buoys, the things that keep you afloat when waters are choppy. What gentle activities do you have capacity for that will help keep you afloat? Make breakfast the night before, drink enough fluid, get some day light, go to bed early. These things don’t use much resources, but not doing them can make you sink far faster when you are feeling bad already.

3. If your normal coping strategies seem too much effort, try to think of a small gentle way you could use those coping strategy, so it still has some effect. Can’t face zooming, can you text instead? Can’t face the gym, go outside for a few minutes walk instead? Seeing coping strategies as all or nothing can lead to Abandoning them, but finding gentle alternative keeps some of the positive impact which is far better than none at all.

4. Be extra gentle on yourself.... when we are tired we have less cognitive resources. More things may go wrong, we can do less, and we may not function how we expect to. This is lighter fuel for your inner critic and your brain can fall into well worn paths of self criticism. This is a sign to hold on to self compassion and not let go but you may not have the resources to initiate this. Find ways to remind yourself of your compassionate voice that requires less effort, such as prompts or saved kind messages.

5. Remember that none of us can always function alone. We all need extra input at time. Seeking and accepting help is not a failure, it’s a basic human need and a form of active coping to help keep us afloat.

TBC

10/10/2021

Today is world mental health day, but you’ll know by now that I think that looking after your mental health is important every day of the year because we all have mental health that needs looking after and fluctuates throughout our lives.

This image was in my first book ‘A Toolkit for Modern life’ and it aims to bust the myth that just some people experience difficulties with their mental health. This outdated belief is problematic in a number of ways. Firstly it can lead to othering and stigmatisation of people experiencing mental health difficulties, which can make help seeking difficult and create taboo around mental illness. Secondly it can stop us looking after our mental health as we think the idea of poor mental health isn’t relevant to us, we dismiss and ignore our mental health when mental health is relevant to everybody. Because of course we all have mental health which fluctuates on a continuum throughout our lives.

I’ll be speaking to this morning about parental mental health. In the meantime though here’s a wee text and illustration excerpt from my first book about my thoughts on mental health as a clinical psychologist:

“We all have mental health that needs looking after. We need to shift away from the concept that mental health is something some people have, and we only need to think about reactively when it goes wrong. Mental health is something we all have and need to look after proactively. We need to understand that, just like physical health, mental health is changeable and can vary throughout life. It sometimes needs extra care, and given the right (or wrong) mix of situation and person, anyone’s mental health can suffer. Rather than seeing this as a flaw we need to recognise the contributing factors and know how to help or seek help.

We need to recognise that mental health is not all in the brain- it is fundamentally linked to our bodies and the environment we live in. It’s about learning the signs our mental health is suffering so we can take action to help as best we can.”

06/04/2021

Rest can be so many things and maybe your way of resting is different to others. That's ok!

06/04/2021

What do you think?

Now change the word “trauma” to “healing” 🤍🌱

14/05/2020

08/04/2020

http://www.katherinerobb.com/feargardenproject/listening-to-the-body-as-a-guide-through-the-trauma-of-covid-19

On Friday evening, right after my phone blared out an emergency alert labeled Extreme Alert , which read: Attention all healthcare workers; New York City is seeking licensed healthcare workers to...