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Spirituality, whether or not rooted in religion, is a core feature of what it means to be human. In this important practice manual, two very experienced writers and educators explain  why spirituality and religion should be a fundamental consideration for the people professions, broadly defined – that is, professions based on helping people tackle their problems and fulfil their potential. Available from here or Amazon

Our muscles need time to recover form exertion before we exert ourselves further if we are not to strain them. The same applies to our mental and emotional ‘muscles’. If we keep stretching ourselves in our work efforts (and in our lives more broadly) without giving ourselves time to recover, we run the risk of doing ourselves harm, potentially significant harm. Exertion plus recovery plus more exertion can produce growth and development (of muscles in the direct physical sense or of learning in our more metaphorical sense). Exertion followed by more exertion without recovery time in between can produce muscle strain and/or psychological stress. Time for recovery is therefore not an optional extra of we are to take our physical…

“How Are You?” These are three simple words that used to be easy to ask one another, almost as if we assumed the answer carried no weight at all. But, with each passing month of Covid-19, these words have become all the more challenging to both ask and answer. With more than 720,000 people having died since the start of the pandemic, grief has touched so many lives. In fact, according to an estimate published recently in the journal Pediatrics, at least 140,000 American children had lost a parent or caregiver because of the coronavirus by the end of June. Or, put more poignantly, one of roughly every 500 children, had a lost primary support in their life. Additionally, according…

Research has found significant racial biases when judging the emotions of others. Black people are more likely to be misjudged as angry, for example, and recent research has suggested that even children are victims of this “anger bias”. Black children are also frequently subject to “adultification” — being perceived as older and more mature than White peers. A new study explores the links between these two phenomena, finding that the older adults believe Black children to be, the more likely they are to (incorrectly) judge them to be angry too. Writing in Cognition and Emotion, Alison N. Cooke and Amy G. Halberstadt from North Carolina State University argue that such judgements could have serious consequences for Black children. Click here…

I have been immersed in the world of autism since my son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Graham had many of the traits of autism from when he was a baby: speech and motor skill delays, sensory sensitivities, anxiety in big social gatherings and more. He had seen professionals for evaluations, but did not get a diagnosis until he was seven. This was a kid who had meltdowns over the sound of a blowdryer one floor up, the feel of a new shirt and the sight of a slice of cherry pie. Our lowest point was when he started refusing to enter homes he hadn’t been in before, or getting so upset at entering a restaurant that he would throw…

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