You can know exactly what is wrong and still not be able to move. Many of the people we speak to can describe their situation in detail. They have thought about it for months, sometimes years. What they are missing is a way of thinking it through that leads somewhere other than back to the start.
That is what Us Together is for. It is a structured psychological practice, built on psychology and philosophy, for people who overthink, who keep going over the same ground, or who are facing a change in their personal life or career. We explain the work in three parts, each one a question you may already be asking.
What brings me here?
Most days run on quiet order. Then something outside your control disrupts it, and a feeling arrives: frustration, fear, loss. That feeling reaches back and pulls up other moments that felt the same. Low mood makes memories that match it easier to recall, so the past starts to look like proof of how things will always go (Bower, 1981).
Under stress, people also fall back on old habits, the rules they learned early that once got them through (Schwabe & Wolf, 2009). Some withdraw. Some keep asking why, circling the same events, which tends to keep a low mood in place instead of lifting it (Watkins, 2008). Picture someone backing into the corner of a room. The corner feels safe. From there, the room seems to have no way out.
What choices does it leave me?
Pressure narrows thinking. Under acute stress, the parts of the brain that weigh options and think flexibly work less well (Arnsten, 2009). The sense of choice shrinks until it seems there are none left, only things to endure.
Choices remain, even when they can't be seen. The room has two doors. One leads back to what you have always done. The other leads somewhere new. Many people arrive wanting change and wanting to stay where it feels safe, both at once. That is the normal state before change, and it does not mean you are not ready (Miller & Rollnick, 2013).
How do we move forward?
The space widens in small steps. The first is accepting what really is outside your control, and finding the parts of what feels uncontrollable that are not. The second is looking at past events again, as signposts showing what happened and what to watch for, instead of hard stops that decide what is possible. The third is action: small, achievable steps taken at your own pace, each one treated as an experiment. If something doesn't fit, you try something else, and the attempt becomes information.
You open the new door yourself. Beyond it is an open space, where you can take back some control and build something new. Over time, that space becomes a room of your own, furnished with what you found along the way.
What the work looks like
Sessions are online. We bring structure, method and a relationship in which you can think clearly. You bring your situation and do the work, and what you build belongs to you. Between sessions you practise, with materials chosen for you that are yours to keep. We measure success by your independence: the aim is that you can carry the method forward without us.
The work draws on cognitive behavioural approaches, acceptance-based approaches, Stoic philosophy and existential thought. Gareth Sidwell, who founded the practice, holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Liverpool and an MRes in Neuroscience from Newcastle University.
We make one promise. Change is possible because thinking and action both respond to practice, and choosing to act is already the first step. New habits form through repeated action, and how long that takes varies a great deal from person to person (Lally et al., 2010). That is why the work moves at your pace, and why we never promise how you will feel or how long it will take.
Us Together is a structured psychological practice, not a clinical or medical service. If you're living with a mental health condition, this work can sit alongside your care. It doesn't replace it.
If any of this sounds familiar, the first conversation with us is free. It is a chance to talk through where you are and whether this way of working suits you.
If you know someone who has been going over the same ground for a while, feel free to share this with them.
References
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648
Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36(2), 129–148. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.36.2.129
Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2009). Stress prompts habit behavior in humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(22), 7191–7198. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0979-09.2009
Watkins, E. R. (2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 163–206. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163
