Community Spirit ezine, July 2019

a CBT therapist, Occupational Therapist and Mindfulness teacher, who has significant experience of working with people with
Is
variety of physical and mental health conditions. She is English speaking and lives in Valencia city. She has over 17 years
a
of working within the NHS and more recently private practice.She works work with a range of treatment models –
experience
Solution Focused Brief Therapy, Compassion focused therapy and Mindfulness based interventions. Typical mental health
CBT,
she works with include, depression, generalised anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, selfesteem
issues
issues, OCD, phobias, eating disorders and psychosis.
Friend... "a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection,
typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations"
(English Dictionary)
We all need special people in our lives to have coffee with , share laughs, share secrets and generally enjoy
life with. But friendship isn't all about the good times, it's about the "thick and thin". It's about having
someone there for you when times are tough, but also you being there for the other person.
T H E SCIENCE BEHIND FRIENDSHIPS
Friendship and friends are vitally important and researchers have found they can be so important in helping
to prevent or lower heart disease, increase life expectancy and help beat cancer. One study found that
loneliness can have a massive impact on survival from cancer (McClintock et al 2005). This research
suggested that people who experience high degrees of loneliness may also be prone to developing breast
cancer as well. Friendship, in essence, helps us survive.
Having friends sets off a chemical reaction in the brain -
it ignites the part of the brain that makes us feel good.
A chemical called oxytocin is released during
social interactions and this then floods this area of the brain.
Karen's Bio