Jan, Feb, March 2019

Hello…

I’ve decided to review these newsletters and keep them quarterly from now on. Partly because I am so busy, that in my usual haphazard style – especially under pressure – I forget to make a note of what I actually have been working on in recent times. But mainly, because my work is evolving and a great deal of it these days is both clients, many of them celebrity, and working behind the TV scenes on psych assessment, evaluation, participant support and aftercare – both of which are always confidential, at least the former always is – the latter’s cat can come out of the proverbial bag, once a show has been broadcast!

So, in the first three months of this year – which seems a while ago now, as I’m writing this in June, though the grey weather seems sadly appropriate, life was more busy than ever with clients. January is the big month, for both couples and singles. Couples, who may have a had a difficult Christmas, where their relationship was under pressure and want some help getting back on track, and singles who resolve to never spend another Christmas alone…

January is also a time for ‘New Year, New You’ and so I wrote, broadcast and commented for a number of features on that – including the Daily Mail, Radio 5 Live and Channel 5’s Big Fat Lies about Diet and Fitness.

Radio is always a big part of what I do, thank goodness – as I really enjoy the variety of things that I have to talk about, usually triggered by news events, research or studies. And those subjects ranged from talking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour about whether you should ever reconnect with an ex (no, probably not…) to Talk Radio on whether women over 50 are too old to find love (no, definitely not!) and many, many more.

I wrote a few features for The Sun, ranging from why Wes and Megan from last year’s Love Island broke up; sadfishing, which is how we use sadness to comments and shares on social media, why we maybe having multiple relationships with sex dolls in years to come (!), why being competitive with your partner can improve your sex life  and endless speculation on the state of Victoria and David Beckham’s marriage.

I also wrote for Hello on the psychology of trolls, the Daily Mail on how to keep a good relationship with your ex, the significance oh how many ‘xxx’s’ we put at the end of texts, why celebs stay friends with their exes and why women lie more than men, but are also better at it; Marie Claire on losing the art of phone communication and the Daily Telegraph on the penalty that women pay for not returning to work after their children are born.

There was also a lot of focus on the (then) heavily pregnant Duchess of Sussex and her relationship with her father moving forward, so as well as writing for a number of magazines including Closer and New!, I also appeared on Channel 5’s Meghan and the MarklesSky News and Yahoo’s Royal Box.

March saw me really busy for the saddest of reasons. After Mike Thalassitis, who appeared on Love Island, tragically took his own life, there was a great deal of focus on the role of Duty of Care for TV contestants. For those who know me, have worked with me, or follow me on Twitter, you’ll know just how passionately I feel about TV companies and their responsibility to the welfare of their participants. So, I was happy to work with the BPS as a spokesperson as well as respond to as many of the requests to discuss the situation and what could/should be done moving forward as I could. As well as Radio 1, 4 and 5, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sun, Grazia, Glamour, the Radio Times and others, the issue was picked up globally and I found myself explaining how a better aftercare system could be implemented for RTE in Ireland, CBC Radio in Canada and ABC in Australia.

Until next time, much love

Jo
xx