Science | The Guardian

As fears of a global recession continue in the wake of Donald Trump's tariffs, Keir Starmer insists the UK should keep a cool head. But with markets in turmoil and a looming economic crisis, does the prime minister need to be bolder? John Harris asks the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff.Plus, he speaks to Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, about whether people should buy British' to combat the tariffs.--Listen to John discuss how music helped him connect with his autistic son on the Today in Focus podcast here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2025/apr/04/how-the-beatles-helped-my-autistic-son-find-his-voice-podcast-- Continue reading...

Billionaire Jared Isaacman has funded his own journeys into space and insists he would not abandon moon missionsThe next Nasa leader will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars if he is confirmed, a Senate panel heard on Wednesday.But the billionaire Jared Isaacman, an entrepreneur who has privately funded his own journeys into space, insisted he would not abandon current plans to land humans back on the moon in 2027, despite placing greater emphasis on missions to the red planet. Continue reading...

World Cancer Research Fund goes further than UK and WHO advice on alcohol after review of evidenceWomen should avoid alcohol altogether to reduce their risk of breast cancer, a charity has warned.The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has published a review of evidence on how diet and lifestyle factors can play a role in the development of the disease. Continue reading...

If we stay on this administration's course, future life-saving medicines may never be inventedLike many scientists, I came to the US as a young adult, driven by idealism and ambition. I arrived with all my belongings contained in two suitcases, and just enough cash to cover the first month's rent on a small apartment. But I also had something of greater value: an offer to work and train in one of America's top biomedical research laboratories, a chance to participate in the revolution that is modern biological science.In the years that followed, I became an American scientist and raised an American family. Now, I lead a laboratory in one of the US's great universities. I am a member of America's National Academy of Sciences. From a scientist's perspective, I have lived the American dream.Paul Darren Bieniasz is a British-American virologist whose main area of research is HIV/Aids. He is currently a professor of retrovirology at the Rockefeller University Continue reading...

Trump administration's dismantling of institutions under guise of efficiency' will lead to a grim future for AmericansMass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) portend a future with more infectious disease outbreaks, chronic conditions, and a widening gulf in health between the most affluent and vulnerable, experts told the Guardian.Further, they said, the Trump administration's multipronged attacks on American science represent a generation-defining experience, a new chapter in the boom and bust" cycle of health funding, and a masterclass in branding, as Donald Trump and the secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, dismantle institutions in the name of improving them. Continue reading...

Alessandro Coatti described by former colleagues at Royal Society of Biology as passionate and dedicated'Tributes have been paid to a passionate and dedicated" scientist after parts of his dismembered body were found in a suitcase in Colombia.Alessandro Coatti, who worked at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) in London, was discovered on the outskirts of Santa Marta, a port city on the Caribbean coast. The 42-year-old molecular biologist was travelling and conducting research in South America after working in London for eight years. Continue reading...

Blue Skies Space - commissioned by Italian Space Agency - hopes faint signals from dawn of universe could be detected from far side of moonA British space company is designing a fleet of satellites that could orbit the moon and map the early universe.The Italian Space Agency has commissioned Blue Skies Space to design the satellites that could detect faint radio signals from the dawn of the universe. These signals are almost impossible to detect from Earth's surface due to human-made radio interference, but the far side of the moon is shielded from this noise. Continue reading...

Pouring water slowly, steadily and from height is key to achieving avalanche' mixing effectForget expensive beans and pricey filters - if you want a stronger cup of pour-over coffee, just add water slowly, steadily and from a height, researchers say.While there are myriad ways to make coffee - from moka pots to cafetieres and barista-style machines - pour-over coffee is an everyday staple for many. Now scientists say they have discovered how to make a stronger cup using the same quantity of ground coffee. Continue reading...

The UK is known for its national parks: areas of outstanding natural beauty with rolling hills and crystal-clear streams and lakes. But research has shown that England's most protected rivers are full of pharmaceuticals.In episode one of a two-part series, biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston tells Madeleine Finlay about the problem of chemical pollution in our waterways, and how it could be contributing to what the World Health Organization has described as the silent pandemic' - antimicrobial resistance.Rivers you think are pristine are not': how drug pollution flooded the UK's waterways - and put human health at riskSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

California Institute of Integral Studies, located in San Francisco, will welcome its first undergrad class this AugustThe home of the Summer of Love will soon house the first undergraduate program in psychedelic studies.The California Institute of Integral Studies - a non-profit university founded in 1968 and located in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood - will welcome its first class of undergrads to its Bachelor of Science in Psychedelic Studies program this August. The program's launch symbolizes the renewed attention hallucinogens like MDMA and psilocybin have received in recent years as a growing body of evidence suggests they may be powerful treatments for psychiatric conditions, like PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. Continue reading...

Researchers suggest troponin tests could help detect silent' harm and predict the risk of future cardiovascular eventsThousands of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented with the aid of a simple 5 blood test, research suggests.Checking levels of troponin in patients could enable doctors to predict their risk of cardiovascular events with much greater accuracy, according to a study funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Continue reading...

George Freeman urges country to act as global lead for space regulation, insurance and financeThe UK's role in the next generation of interplanetary exploration should be that of a space watchdog" leading on regulation, insurance and finance, a former science minister has said, in an effort to rein in a situation he compared to the wild west.George Freeman, the MP for Mid Norfolk who was minister for science, research, technology and innovation under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, said the need for standards was pressing. Continue reading...

Pairing of moon with brightest star in constellation of Virgo will be easily visible from southern hemisphereThe full moon will meet the blue giant star Spica on 12 April, making for a pleasing pairing in the evening sky. Although officially the moon only becomes full in the early hours of the following day, it will be indistinguishable from full to the naked eye, with more than 99% of its visible surface illuminated.The chart shows the view looking south-east from London at 2200 BST on 12 April 2025. Spica is the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo, the virgin, and the 16th brightest star in the whole night sky with a mass fully 11.43 times larger than the sun's and a radius of almost 7.5 times that of our star. As befits such a giant, it emits roughly 20,500 times more light as the sun. Continue reading...

UK's 800m research body backs project that might unlock radical therapies to extend human lifespansThe curious case of the queen bee has long had scientists pondering whether the head of the hive harbours the secret to a long and healthy life.While queen bees and workers have nearly identical DNA, the queens enjoy what might be regarded as royal privileges. They are larger, fertile throughout life and survive for years compared with workers, who last a few months at best. Continue reading...

Children taking ADHD drugs showed small increases in blood pressure and pulse rates but risk-benefit ratio is reassuring'The benefits of taking drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outweigh the impact of increases in blood pressure and heart rate, according to a new study.An international team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Southampton found the majority of children taking ADHD medication experienced small increases in blood pressure and pulse rates, but that the drugs had overall small effects". They said the study's findings highlighted the need for careful monitoring". Continue reading...

Considering everyone is a protagonist in their own narrative brought clarity for Will StorrFor nearly 20 years, I've been researching and writing about the human brain as a storyteller. My work has unalterably changed the way I see the human world in general, and myself in particular. It has helped me understand everything from political hatred and religions to cults to the nature of identity and suicidal thought. It has even made sense of my own lifelong struggle with making friends.Our evolution into Homo narrans, the storytelling animal, is the secret of our success. Like other animals, humans exist in a realm of survival in which we seek sustenance, safety and procreation. But, uniquely, we also live in a second realm, a story world that's made out of the collective imagination. The human brain has evolved to remix reality and turn it into a narrative. We are made to feel like the underdog heroes of our own lives, surrounded by allies and enemies, pursuing meaningful goals and striving towards imagined happy endings. We have a voice in our head that authors a constantly unfolding autobiography of who we are and what we're doing. We experience, and remember, the events of our lives in three-act episodes of crisis, struggle, resolution. We think in stories, we talk in stories, we believe in stories, we are stories. Continue reading...

This inner critic isn't you, it's just a voice that has been given far too much authorityThe question I am struggling with intrusive and increasingly critical self-talk around my appearance. So much so that some days I struggle to look in the mirror. I've recently had a baby and assumed that my long history of feeling ugly, lesser and fundamentally inadequate would be surpassed by being a mother and having an external concern other than myself but, if anything, it's worse.It has become so bad I have convinced myself that my partner will find someone else despite him being lovely, reassuring and committed. I know this cognitively, but emotionally I feel deeply flawed as a woman and ugly in the world. I judge myself constantly when I'm around other women. Continue reading...

Prof David Liu is among the winners of 2025's Oscars of science', with honours also going to researchers for landmark work on multiple sclerosis, particle physics and skinny jabs'For the past five years, David Liu - a professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical research facility in Massachusetts - has marked Thanksgiving by handing over his entire annual salary, after taking care of taxes, to the staff and students in his laboratory.It started as the pandemic broke and Liu heard that students who wanted to cycle instead of taking public transport could not afford bicycles. Given how hard they worked and how little they were paid, Liu stepped in. He couldn't unilaterally raise their incomes, so emailed them Amazon eGift cards. This ran into problems too, however. Everyone thought they were being scammed," he recalls. And so he switched to writing cheques. Continue reading...

The bankruptcy of genealogy company 23andMe has resulted in a fire sale of millions of people's genetic information - and there's no shortage of eager buyers with questionable motivesEver thought of having your genome sequenced? Me neither. But it seems that at least 15 million souls have gone in for it and are delighted to know that they have Viking ancestry, or discombobulated to find that they have siblings of whom they were hitherto unaware. The corporate vehicle that enabled these revelations is called 23andMe, which describes itself as a genetics-led consumer healthcare and biotechnology company empowering a healthier future".Back in the day, 23andMe was one of those vaunted unicorns" (privately held startups valued at more than $1bn), but is now facing harder times. Its share price had fallen precipitately following a data breach in October 2023 that harvested the profile and ethnicity data of 6.9 million users - including name, profile photo, birth year, location, family surnames, grandparents' birthplaces, ethnicity estimates and mitochondrial DNA - and there have been internal disagreements between its board and the CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki. So on 24 March it filed for so-called Chapter 11 proceedings in a US bankruptcy court in Missouri.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

US political scientists' book argues aggressive Covid policies such as mask mandates were in some cases misguidedWere conservatives right to question Covid lockdowns? Were the liberals who defended them less grounded in science than they believed? And did liberal dismissiveness of the other side come at a cost that Americans will continue to pay for many years?A new book by two political scientists argues yes to all three questions, making the case that the aggressive policies that the US and other countries adopted to fight Covid - including school shutdowns, business closures, mask mandates and social distancing - were in some cases misguided and in many cases deserved more rigorous public debate. Continue reading...

Revolutionary scanner to be fired into Earth orbit this month to measure effects of deforestationScientists are about to take part in a revolutionary mission aimed at creating detailed 3D maps of the world's remotest, densest and darkest tropical forests - from outer space. The feat will be achieved using a special radar scanner that has been fitted to a probe, named Biomass, that will be fired into the Earth's orbit later this month.For the next five years, the 1.25-tonne spacecraft will sweep over the tropical rainforests of Africa, Asia and South America and peer through their dense 40m-high canopies to study the vegetation that lies beneath. The data collected by Biomass will then be used to create unique 3D maps of forests normally hidden from human sight. Continue reading...

Pharma firms are developing drugs that avoid the brain's opioid receptors to minimise the risks of dependence and overdoses, but not all experts are convincedIn January, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first new type of painkiller in more than two decades. The decision roused excitement across the healthcare sector for a key reason: the drug, which is called suzetrigine and sold under the brand name Journavx, is not an opioid.Opioid painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine are still used to treat severe pain in the UK and US. But they come with an obvious downside: the risk of addiction. Continue reading...

We're moving toward a society where genetic information is a part of everyday life - and we don't want it in the wrong handsWith a heavy heart, I clicked on my 23andMe account on a recent morning, confirming that I wanted to delete my data. The genetic testing company filed for bankruptcy late last month and the California attorney general and others have recommended that users delete their data lest it be acquired by less scrupulous companies as the company is stripped for parts during bankruptcy proceedings.I was one of the company's earliest customers and had used their service to genotype not just myself but my entire extended family. I even got my kids' babysitter a kit.Dalton Conley is Henry Putnam university professor of sociology at Princeton University and author of The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture Continue reading...

While the act may help some, it can harm others, says Amanda Ann GregoryWhile I deeply respect the work of Fred Luskin and Robert Enright, psychologists should be careful not to suggest that forgiveness is beneficial for everyone (Leave the hurt behind! How to let go of a grudge, 26 March). It isn't. There is no one-size-fits-all solution in mental health. While forgiveness may helpsome, it can harm others.Trauma survivors are often encouraged to forgive their abusers, with the promise that it will aid their healing. However, there's no evidence to support the idea that forgiveness improves trauma recovery. Mandatory forgiveness can, in fact, impede healing and is a major reason many survivors avoid seeking help. Instead of promoting forgiveness as a moralistic ideal, we should encourage individuals tofind what truly works for them.

Nests on Amsterdam canals provide archive of plastic waste and show how the material is really here to stay'One day in 1996, someone ate a McDonald's McChicken burger in Amsterdam.Perhaps it was a quick bite after work? A leisurely stroll down the canals? A family outing? These details are lost to time, but others are hard to erase completely. Continue reading...

As LRIs put pressure on health services, a Spanish-led study examines what role exposure to air pollution may playThe Covid crisis highlighted gaps in our understanding of the role that air pollution plays in infections.A flurry of studies carried out during and after the crisis allowed a UK government advisory group to conclude that long-term exposure to air pollution may contribute to worse coronavirus symptoms. The group offered examples that included a study of more than 3 million people in Denmark that showed air pollution added to the risk of death or hospital admission with severe Covid, especially in the least well off. Continue reading...

Meteorite falls are extremely rare and offer a glimpse of the processes that formed our world billions of years ago. When a space rock came to an English market town in 2021, scientists raced to find as much out as they couldBy Helen Gordon. Read by Sasha Frost Continue reading...

Phrases used to smooth over tense social situations have meanings beyond the sum of their parts, study suggestsBonobos use a combination of calls to encourage peace with their partner during mating rituals, research suggests.The discovery is part of a study that suggests our close evolutionary cousins can string together vocalisations to produce phrases with meanings that go beyond the sum of their parts - something often considered unique to human language. Continue reading...

Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential - and requires constant work. It's time for Congress to return to the seed businessFrom 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegetables. A century later, far fewer Americans till the soil for a living, but seeds remain central to our lives.To understand the importance of seeds, try to imagine a morning without them. It would begin naked on a bare mattress, with no cozy sheets or pajamas, and there would be no fluffy towel to wrap up in after your shower. All of those things come from the seeds of the cotton plant. Stumbling wet into the kitchen, you would find no coffee, and no toast or bagel to go with it. There would be no eggs, no bacon, no cereal, no milk. All of those staples come from seeds or from livestock raised on seed crops. And if you thought you might console yourself with a chocolate bar, you can forget it. Cocoa powder, and the cocoa butter that makes it melt in your mouth, are both derived from seeds. Continue reading...

Sanger Institute's Tree of Life team say genomes offer invaluable insight into how species will fare under climate crisis

Archaeologists say catastrophic military event' took place at site where 129 bodies have been found so farAs construction crews churned up dirt to renovate a football pitch in Vienna last October, they happened upon an unprecedented find: a heap of intertwined skeletal remains in a mass grave dating to the first-century Roman empire, most likely the bodies of warriors killed in a battle involving Germanic tribes.This week, after archaeological analysis, experts at the Vienna Museum gave a first public presentation of the grave - linked to a catastrophic event in a military context" and evidence of the first known fighting in that region. Continue reading...

Invertebrates don't get the attention lavished on cute pets or apex predators, but these unsung heroes are some of the most impressive and resilient creatures on the planet. So when the Guardian opened its poll to find the world's finest invertebrate, readers got in touch in their droves. A dazzling array of nominations have flown in for insects, arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals and many more obscure creatures. Patrick Barkham tells Madeleine Finlay why these tiny creatures deserve more recognition, and three readers, Sandy, Nina and Russell, make the case for their favourites.Invertebrate of the year 2025: vote for your favouriteSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

I've become addicted to the show. But as a scientist I wonder: how many couples actually stay together?It has finally happened. After a decade of avoiding the show, my wife and I decided that we would try out the new season of Married at First Sight. We consume quite a bit of reality TV, so it's not that we avoided it precisely, but something about the idea of watching people struggle to build a healthy relationship amid a storm of cameras and manufactured drama just never drew us in. At least until we watched Married at First Sight and realised it was actually kind of fun.Relationship drama makes for addictive viewing. But after watching most of a season of weird marriages", screaming matches and couch quizzes accompanied by deep and meaningful music, one part of the show has struck me as really weird. Everyone keeps referring to the saga as an experiment". From the narrator to the experts who counsel the hapless couples on their relationship dramas, the entire show seems to be calling the experience a social experiment for which we don't know the outcome.How many couples stay together until the end of filming?How many couples stay together after filming is completed?How many couples are still together and is it fewer than we'd expect? Continue reading...

Survey finds vast majority of doctors are concerned at impact of health inequalities on their patientsDoctors have reported a rise in the number of patients with Victorian diseases such as scabies, as the Royal College of Physicians urged the government to do more to fight poverty.The survey of 882 doctors found 89% were concerned about the impact of health inequalities on their patients, while 72% had seen more patients in the past three months with illnesses related to poor-quality housing, air pollution and access to transport. Continue reading...

Agency canceled about $17bn in grants in move that went beyond Trump's orders targeting diversity, suit alleges

Jacobite leader was unknowingly following the footprints' of megalosaurs after escaping to the Isle of Skye in 1746When Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the Scottish Highlands after defeat at the Battle of Culloden, his route may have crossed the fossilised footsteps of massive meat-eating dinosaurs, researchers say.Newly discovered impressions at Prince Charles's Point on the Isle of Skye, where the Young Pretender is said to have hunkered down in 1746, reveal that megalosaurs, the carnivorous ancestors of the T rex, and enormous plant-eating sauropods gathered at the site when it was a shallow freshwater lagoon. Continue reading...

An Australian study found that babies with early exposure to antibiotics had lower levels of antibodies against jabs in later infancyBabies who are treated with antibiotics as newborns have reduced immune responses to vaccines in later infancy, likely due to changes in the gut microbiome, new research suggests.The Australian study tracked 191 healthy babies from birth, finding that those who received antibiotics in the first few weeks of life had significantly lower levels of antibodies against multiple vaccines at seven and 15 months. Continue reading...

Older adults in Wales who had the jab were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia that those not vaccinatedResearchers who tracked cases of dementia in Welsh adults have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the shingles vaccination reduces the risk of developing the devastating brain disease.Health records of more than 280,000 older adults revealed that those who received a largely discontinued shingles vaccine called Zostavax were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next seven years than those who went without. Continue reading...

To prevent a catastrophic failure of the drugs modern medicine relies on, look to animal farming in middle-income countriesIf the antibiotics we use to treat infections ever stopped working, the consequences would be catastrophic. It is estimated that the use of antibiotics adds about 20 years of life expectancy for every person worldwide (on average). As the King's Fund put it, if we lose antibiotics, we would lose modern medicine as we know it". Doctors, public health experts and governments take the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) very seriously, yet the problem appears to be getting worse.A report from the National Audit Office in February finds that out of five domestic targets set in 2019 to tackle AMR, only one has been met - to reduce antibiotic use in food-producing animals. Others, such as the target to reduce drug-resistant infections in humans by 10%, haven't made much progress; in fact, these infections have actually increased by 13% since 2018.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon) Continue reading...

Research highlights link between low LDL cholesterol and reduced dementia risk, with statins offering additional protectionLowering your levels of bad cholesterol could reduce the risk of dementia by 26%, a study suggests.People with low levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in their blood have a lower overall risk of dementia, and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease specifically, according to research published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. Continue reading...

Experts say previous economic models underestimated impact of global heating - as well as likely cascading supply chain disruptions'Economic models have systematically underestimated how global heating will affect people's wealth, according to a new study that finds 4C warming will make the average person 40% poorer - an almost four-fold increase on some estimates.The study by Australian scientists suggests average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2C above pre-industrial levels. This is a much greater reduction than previous estimates, which found the reduction would be 1.4%. Continue reading...

In his first news conference since returning home, Nasa astronaut Butch Wilmore said he holds himself partly responsible for what went wrong on the space sprint-turned-marathon and - along with Suni Williams - said he would strap into Boeing's Starliner again. SpaceX recently ferried the duo home after more than nine months at the International Space Station following their bungled mission. The astronauts ended up spending 286 days in space - 278 days more than planned when they blasted off on Boeing's first astronaut flight on June 5

While other diet fads come and go, the ultra low carbohydrate Keto diet seems to endure. But as scientists begin to understand how the diet works, more is also being discovered about its risks. To find out more, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Javier Gonzalez, professor in the department of health at the University of Bath, with a special interest in personal nutrition. He explains how the diet works, what it could be doing to our bodies and what could really be behind the weight loss people experience while on itSupport the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...

Termination of at least 145 grants will decimate progress toward eliminating epidemic, scientists sayThe federal government has cancelled dozens of grants to study how to prevent new HIV infections and expand access to care, decimating progress toward eliminating the epidemic in the United States, scientists say.The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated at least 145 grants related to researching advancements in HIV care that had been awarded nearly $450m in federal funds. The cuts have been made in phases over the last month. Continue reading...

Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams' story markedly at odds with abandonment narrative painted by Trump and MuskIn the end, whatever Elon Musk and Donald Trump liked to insist, astronauts Barry Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams were never stuck, nor stranded in space, and definitely not abandoned or marooned.The world heard on Monday, for the first time since their return to Earth two weeks ago, from the two Nasa astronauts whose 10-day flight to the international space station (ISS) last summer turned into a nine-month odyssey. And their story was markedly at odds with the narrative painted from the White House. Continue reading...

Members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine warned Americans of real danger in this moment'More than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signed an open letter warning Americans about the danger" of the Trump administration's attacks on science.The letter comes amid the administration's relentless assault on US scientific institutions which has included threats to private universities, federal grant cancelations and ideological funding reviews, mass government layoffs, resignations and censorship. Continue reading...

The answer to today's puzzleEarlier today I set you the following problem featuring Albert, Bernard and Cheryl, the protagonists in a viral puzzle from a decade ago. Here it is again with the solution.Cheryl's house number problem Continue reading...

Procedure for patients with thinking and memory problems could help medics decide which drugs are most suitableResearchers have developed a blood test for patients with thinking and memory problems to check if they have Alzheimer's and to see how far it has progressed.The team behind the work say the test could help medics decide which drugs would be most suitable for patients. For example, new drugs such as donanemab and lecanemab can help slow the progression of Alzheimer's, but only in people in the early stages of the disease. Continue reading...

Plan to cut most standalone positions in favour of shorter fellowships will hurt international recruitment, critics say

Follow your instincts' has become a modern mantra. But what if they lead you astray?What should I do?" Whether openly stated or implicit, this is the question a new client usually raises in their first therapy session. People come to see me for many reasons: relationship problems, addiction and mental health difficulties, such as anxiety. Increasingly, I have found that beneath all of these disparate problems lies a common theme: indecision, the sense of feeling stuck, and lack of clarity as to the way forward.Making decisions is difficult. Anyone who has lain awake contemplating a romantic dilemma, or a sudden financial crisis, knows how hard it can be to choose a course of action. This is understandable, given that in any scenario we must contend with a myriad conflicting thoughts and emotions - painful recollections from the past, hopes for the future, and the expectations of family, friends, and co-workers. Continue reading...