The Spark Blog

Category: relationships

  • Songs For Sound Minds #17 – Bon Jovi

    Songs For Sound Minds #17 – Bon Jovi

    Songs for Sound Minds are our picks of the best music that uplifts, inspires and boosts mental health. Songs written as an anthem to overcoming the storms of life. The songs that give hope in those times when we are struggling. In the Songs for Sound Minds series we often pick tracks because of they…

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  • The Need for Emotional First Aid

    The Need for Emotional First Aid

    When we experience aches, pains or a chesty cough where do we head? Straight to our local doctor of course. When it comes to emotional pain – guilt, loss, loneliness – what do we do? Most of the time we try to sort it ourselves. We (try to) keep calm and carry on. Instead of…

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  • The Benefits of Online Counselling

    The Benefits of Online Counselling

    When we think of counselling most of us will picture people sitting together in a quiet room talking. For the majority of individuals, couples and families this is indeed what counselling looks like. But the growth of digital technology has opened up a new form of therapy that is changing how we view counselling. Limited…

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  • Dementia and Its Impact on Relationships

    Dementia and Its Impact on Relationships

    According to the Alzheimer’s Society around 900,000 people in the UK are living with dementia. The impact of dementia on sufferers and their carers is deeply upsetting. In particular the effect on their relationship is a very emotionally and mentally painful feature of this illness. The symptoms of dementia and the inevitable loss of the…

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  • Parents’ Guide to Exam Results Day

    Parents’ Guide to Exam Results Day

    Being a parent of a teenager is tricky at the best of times. High school exams are barely over when attention turns to the next stress-triggering milestone: exam results day. Parents can end up just as distressed as the kids who sat the exams. The near constant squeeze on prospects for an increasingly disadvantaged millennial…

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  • Male Postnatal Depression is Real

    Male Postnatal Depression is Real

    Male postnatal depression has long been considered in the same terms as man flu. Reactions can vary from a raised eyebrow to thinly veiled contempt when the subject is broached. Familiar gender stereotypes entrench the belief that a dad ‘can’t get’ postnatal depression because of their limited role in pregnancy, childbirth and the early months…

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  • Bad News, Anxiety and the Media

    Bad News, Anxiety and the Media

    Escaping bad news and tragedy feels like an impossible task. For years war, terrorism, racism, persecution and fear have dominated the news. Thanks to digital technology we are stuck on a 24-hour a day loop of breaking news and broadcasts from the scene of the latest tragedy. Which for almost all of us, now feels…

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  • Life Hacks for Mental Health – Part 3

    Life Hacks for Mental Health – Part 3

    In the final part of our life hacks series we are looking at how doing what you are good at, keeping in touch and asking for help can set you on the path to good mental health. Catch up on part 1 and part 2 of the life hacks series. 7. Do things you are…

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  • Infant Mental Health Before Birth

    Infant Mental Health Before Birth

    There is no denying that the mental health of children and young people is in decline. Last week further data was released confirming more children and young people are requiring support for mental health issues. Worse still NHS therapeutic services are struggling to meet government targets of 18 weeks from referral to accessing support. In…

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