Photo by Shane Rounce  on Unsplash The reality of mental health and substance abuse is the intertwined effect, rippling beyond the self and through the closest to us; family, loved ones and carers. Despite this reality, interventions often focus only on the person directly suffering, failing to apply intervention design to the rest of the patient’s life and those affected within it. Co-production appears to be an inclusive, insightful and beneficial to the development of trea

Photo by shahin khalaji  on Unsplash Can machines be trained to truly listen? Can they hold pain without judgement, guide people towards hope? Can a machine replace a human therapist who is too expensive or too busy or too fallible? It is not a question of what is possible; large language models (AI) can be programmed to sound empathetic, so it’s not a question of whether they can, but more a question of whether they should . What is lost in humanity if the safety and respons

Photo by Matthew Henry  on Unsplash Coaching breeds it’s own kind of solitude; sitting in silence with another person’s truth and bound by confidentiality and ethics that sound simple on paper…until they aren’t. Holding this space and silence for others creates a paradox; a coach is expected to offer clarity amidst navigating their own fog. What happens when ethics and confidentiality clash? A 2022 study by Puleng Ratlabala and Nicky Terblanche gave sound to that silence thro

Photo by Martin Sanchez  on Unsplash The silent cost of caring; a kind of exhaustion hidden behind purpose. It wears a mask of meaning, feigned smiles, the belief that one is competent. A quiet, yet nagging, voice insist that one more meeting or taking on one more client or that one more act of service will be that which makes the difference. But how much of the self being chipped away by the cost of caring? How many instalments is the ‘optimal’ price to pay? Rosefield’s rece