This is a blog that I’ve wanted to write for ages, as it’s the thing that comes up so often in therapy sessions that gives people a lot of pain. I learned about this principle when I was doing my PTSD training but actually it doesn’t just apply to trauma, it applies to the whole range of psychological distress. The Double Arrow effect takes its name from a Buddhist parable the Tale of Two Arrows and its used widely in Mindfulness to describe how we judge ourselves for feeli

Dr Jo Leather is a Psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner working in Manchester, UK and online. One of the most common things my clients want to work on is changing their pattern of people pleasing. People pleasing can look like: · over-functioning · always putting yourself last · never meeting your own needs · avoiding conflict I have found people pleasing to be especially common in anxious, care-giving, neurodivergent and/or ‘parentified’ clients. Under