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Beyond the One and Only? – Understanding Non-Monogamy Through Attachment, Attitudes, and Communication
“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness” (attributed to Sigmund Freud). But are those cornerstones unchangeable? Love hardly fits into neat boxes. Ideas of peace, freedom, prosperity and humanity may be faltering as social orders seem more unstable than they have in a long time. Revisiting inter-personal connectedness evidently seems—from a psychological point of view—more topical than ever; thinking about relationships cannot be apolitical, not today. Consider this phenomenon: When you look around, it appears that the idea of one other person being the perfect match is engraved in the design of our world: Wedding invitations call for “plus ones”, hotel bookings generally start at 1-2 adults per…
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The Story We Write Together: About Identity Development and Romantic Dynamics
Since the beginning of philosophy humans asked themselves questions about their identity and relation to others. Although the discussion has history, comprehensive research examining the relationship between identity and relationship in depth is lacking – especially studies on different aspects of identity such as narration. The aim of this text is to point out overlaps between the fields and showcase the concepts of commitment, continuity, and intimacy. How does identity and relationships develop alongside each other? Why is it important to look at both? Commitment Looking at the two main drives both of them have a similarity. Every creation and every destruction involves a definite part. As soon as something…
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From Relational Insecurity to Emotional Vulnerability: Attachment and Adult Psychopathology
Have you ever wondered why some people seem grounded and emotionally resilient, while others struggle with intense fears of abandonment, self-doubt, or emotional overwhelm? One explanation lies in the ways we learn, early in life, to relate to others. This text explores how attachment patterns formed in childhood can shape our emotional world as adults, sometimes increasing vulnerability to conditions such as addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and depression. The goal is to offer a clear and accessible overview of these connections, without turning the discussion into a clinical manual. Every person is born with the need to feel close to others, a drive rooted in…
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AI is Fundamentally Unable to Replace Human Mental Health Workers
It’s 9 pm, and I load up my computer. I’m connected to a person in crisis immediately, as there are dozens waiting. They talk, I talk, and over the course of an hour, I help them move from extreme mental distress to a state of calm, with a safety plan in place. This is the reality of working as a mental health crisis support volunteer. Mental health workers, from volunteers to psychologists, know that supporting someone in mental distress means getting to know them with limited time and a great deal of care. However, now some people are searching for help somewhere new: AI chatbots, which have exploded in popularity.…
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Buffering Burnout: How Mindfulness Changes your Emotion Regulation to Deal with Everyday Stress
Science is, at its most fundamental, an attempt at accurately describing how the world is. Planets move in elliptical orbits, for example. But some of the most fascinating scientific discoveries come from going one step further; from attempts at accurately describing why the world is how it is. Newton’s law of gravitation, for example, explains why planets prefer the funkier circle. Psychological science is no different. Accurately describing the world between our ears is already a substantial challenge–but it gets really interesting (and useful for interventions) when we start questioning why it is that way. Several reviews have established that mindfulness leads to reduced burnout symptomology (Li et al., 2019;…
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The Echoes of Intergenerational Trauma: Navigating Intimate Relationships in Adulthood
Have you ever wondered why some people struggle to fully open up to close friends or partners, even when they really want to? Our ability to explore and build such trust and intimacy with others does not develop in isolation. Rather, it is shaped long before our first relationship, influenced by our own childhood experiences and early environments. Yet, for many second-generation immigrants, it is not only their own experiences that shape their emotional reality, but also those of their parents. Alongside cultural values and traditional practices, second-generation immigrants may also inherit the psychological effects of past trauma they never directly experienced. Often rooted in displacement and migration, traumatic experiences…
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Shaping Romantic Relationships: Exploring Interactions with Psychotherapy and Culture
How did you spend Valentine’s Day? Whether it was spent with a loved one, happily or unhappily single, or doing university work, romantic relationships are a common experience for the majority of people at some point in their life. Most people can vouch for the fact that they greatly impact wellbeing, life-satisfaction, and stress. However, relationships don’t just affect us; we shape our relationships through our own emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and attachment styles. Interestingly, many of the variables that shape romantic relationships are also skills and characteristics which are often worked on in psychotherapy, yet this link has been previously neglected. In recent years, psychotherapy has become a common…
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January webinar: Dry January
Dear RP friends, The Research Office has started the year strong with a new webinar on the 22nd of January, which revolved around the topic of Dry January with our speaker Richard Visser. Richard Visser, is the professor of Health Psychology at Brighton & Sussex Medical School (UK). With over 30 years of experience in health psychology and public health research, his work focuses on topics such as alcohol use, gender and health, sexuality and relationships, and health service use. He is co-author of Psychology for Medicine and Healthcare (4th ed., Sage, 2025) and has extensive expertise in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research. He was first involved in the Dry…
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How to Write an Amazing Blog Post: From Idea to Impact
Let’s be honest: we’ve all read blog posts that feel like they were written by a machine. Perfect grammar, flawless structure, and absolutely no heartbeat. Then there are the ones that make you stop scrolling. They open with a line that makes you laugh, nod, or pause. They pull you into a story, teach you something new, and leave you thinking, “That’s exactly what I needed today!” Those are the ones we remember. The difference between the two isn’t luck. It’s intentional writing. Great blog posts are built on three things: clarity, connection, and care. You need structure, yes, but you also need to sound like an actual human being…
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Not Every Silence Is a Crime
Public reactions to the deaths of children in different conflicts often vary markedly. Some individuals, for example, feel a strong emotional response to the suffering of children in Ukraine, while others react more intensely to the suffering of children in Gaza. But what accounts for these differences in empathy? What factors influence why some people respond more strongly to certain tragedies than others, and what does this reveal about the nature of human empathy? Empathy is commonly defined as the capacity to understand and share the feelings of others (Decety & Jackson, 2004). However, especially in the context of social events, individuals’ tendencies to empathize are largely shaped by the…
