The Therapist’s Corner: October Inspiration

Oct

2026

The internet can be both a treasure trove of insightful content and entertainment, and also a source of overwhelming information. That’s why the BTP team has come together to curate a Therapist‘s Corner post for you.

This Autumn’s Therapist‘s Corner includes a selection of the best TV shows, books, podcasts, blogs, resources, quotes and memes (both classic and new) that we’ve come across to support you in your therapy and counselling work.

Our goal is to educate, inform and occasionally bring a smile to your face, and make your online experience a little more enjoyable.

🍁Enjoy sipping your tea or coffee and Happy Reading!☕️

TV/Cinema

Dear England (2026)

Dear England is a sharp four-part biographical drama tracking England football manager Gareth Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) as he attempts to break decades of high-pressure team failures. Alongside pioneering sports psychologist Pippa Grange, Southgate confronts the toxic “hard man” culture of English football. By encouraging his young squad to openly share their fears and vulnerabilities, they actively work to rewrite the crushing generational narrative that has historically paralyzed the team during critical matches. The series provides a clear blueprint for how establishing psychological safety within a group dynamic can heal institutional fear of failure. By prioritizing emotional regulation over grueling physical conditioning, the show masterfully demonstrates how vulnerability and collective cohesion can unlock human potential under immense public scrutiny.

Available to watch on BBC.

Carrie (2026)

The new Prime Video series Carrie is an 8-episode supernatural horror and teen drama miniseries based on Stephen King’s 1974 novel.

Carrie follows a cloistered, homeschooled teenager who is thrust into a cruel public high school following her father’s sudden death. As she faces severe viral bullying from peers and intense religious abuse from her controlling mother, she discovers she possesses powerful telekinetic abilities. Driven to a breaking point by relentless trauma and isolation, her repressed rage explodes into catastrophic destruction on prom night. The series is an extreme, supernatural case study in complex trauma, developmental stagnation, and the psychological impact of relational abuse. By modernizing the story, the series provides a vivid look at how traditional trauma intersects with modern digital triggers.

Books

“Anxiety is Your Wake-Up Call: Stop Fighting, Start Listening” – Paul Sheppard

In this book Paul Sheppard offers a radically different approach to managing mental distress by reframing anxiety not as an enemy to defeat, but as a vital internal signal. Drawing on years of personal insight and clinical experience helping individuals navigate panic, Sheppard explains that chronic worry and physical symptoms are actually the mind’s way of indicating that an important lifestyle shift or boundary change is desperately needed.

Instead of fighting or resisting uncomfortable sensations—which only triggers a greater physiological adrenaline spike – the book provides actionable strategies to improve emotional tolerance, navigate intense moments, and decode the underlying message of your stress. By shifting from constant resistance to active, mindful listening, readers are guided to build long-term emotional fortitude, clear up mental clutter, and reclaim a genuine sense of calm and confidence.

“My Stroke of Insight” – Dr Jill Bolte Taylor

This is a gripping biographical memoir detailing the author’s firsthand experience surviving a massive left-hemisphere hemorrhagic stroke at age 37. As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Taylor uniquely observed her own cognitive functions systematically go offline over four hours, losing her ability to speak, read, and remember. The silencing of her rational, analytical left brain plunged her into a euphoric, deeply peaceful state of sensory awareness driven entirely by her right hemisphere.

My Stroke of Insight chronicles Taylor’s grueling eight-year journey to rebuild her brain and physical capabilities circuit by circuit. For therapists, it provides a profoundly hopeful case study in neuroplasticity, psychological resilience, and emotional choice. Beyond offering patient-centered insights into neurological rehabilitation, Taylor maps out how individuals can consciously quiet negative internal chatter and tap into the inherent serenity of the right brain.

“The Psychology of Transference” – Carl Jung

The Psychology of Transference by Carl Jung is a seminal text that reframes the complex subconscious projection between therapist and patient not as an obstacle, but as the engine of deep psychoanalysis. To illustrate this highly abstract relationship, Jung uses symbolic imagery from a medieval alchemical text. He compares the intense therapeutic bond to an alchemical process where two separate elements must merge, dissolve, and transform each other to achieve psychological wholeness. For modern clinicians, the book provides a foundational framework for navigating countertransference and the co-created unconscious field. Jung asserts that a therapist cannot remain a detached observer; they must be deeply affected by the client’s psychic energy to facilitate genuine healing. It remains an essential guide for exploring individuation, showing how working through relational friction in therapy can integrate the shadow and repair inner fragmentation.

“Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-monogamy” – Jessica Fern

Polysecure by Jessica Fern is a trailblazing text that extends traditional attachment theory into alternative relationship structures. Fern challenges the mainstream view of emotional bonding by demonstrating that individuals can successfully cultivate secure attachments with multiple partners simultaneously. She maps out how childhood blueprints and sociocultural traumas shape adult intimacy, jealousy, and boundaries within open relationships.

The book introduces the pioneering HEARTS framework to help readers build internal and relational security. This model shifts the definition of security away from structural milestones like marriage and toward active practices like attunement, shared rituals, and self-security. It provides clinicians with a concrete guide to help clients navigate multi-partner complexities, heal trauma, and actively foster emotional safety.

“Everybody Lies: What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are” – Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Everybody Lies by data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reveals how massive digital datasets – specifically anonymous Google searches – expose the unfiltered truth about human nature. The author demonstrates that while people routinely lie to pollsters, friends, and themselves due to social pressure, the search bar acts as a “digital truth serum” where individuals confess their deepest anxieties and biases.

By analyzing this aggregated data, the book exposes hidden behavioral realities surrounding taboo subjects like mental health, sexual anxieties, and political radicalisation. It provides a striking study on the vast disconnect between the idealised personas patients present to society and the raw, unfiltered vulnerabilities they hide from the world.

Recommended Podcasts

“Hidden Brain” – Shankar Vedantam

Hidden Brain is a podcast about psychology, behavioral science, and the unseen forces that shape human decisions and relationships. Hosted by Shankar Vedantam, it combines scientific research with narrative storytelling to explain why people think, feel, and act the way they do, and has become one of the most widely recognized shows in its genre.

It can offer fresh perspectives on the people we work with, without feeling like another professional training session.

Find out more here

“Speaking of Psychology” – American Psychology Association

Speaking of Psychology is the official podcast of the American Psychological Association (APA), featuring conversations with psychologists and other experts about human behavior, mental health, relationships, work, learning, and current research. It is designed to make psychological science accessible to a broad audience, with episodes that connect research findings to everyday life and public issues.

he show explores a wide range of topics through interview-style episodes. Common themes include stress and resilience, sleep, anxiety and depression, child development, aging, technology’s effects on behavior, social psychology, and the science behind habits and decision-making.

Find out more here

Infographic

How do we recognise the edge of a client’s current capacity without pushing them beyond what feels manageable?

How can we balance offering support and guidance with allowing clients the space to discover their own resources and capabilities?

How might creativity, metaphor or art-making help clients express something they cannot yet put into words?

A final thought to reflect on: Perhaps therapeutic growth often happens in the space between “I cannot do this alone yet” and “I am beginning to discover that I can.” Our role is not to do the work for our clients, but to offer the relationship, support and conditions in which new possibilities can emerge.

Meme – For a Chuckle

Words to Ponder: Jed Diamond

Karen Horney’s reflection on wholeheartedness invites us to consider what it means to be fully present, both in our personal lives and in our therapeutic work.

As therapists and counsellors, we spend much of our time creating space for others to explore their feelings, contradictions and vulnerabilities. But how do we relate to these aspects of ourselves? What does it mean to show up authentically in the therapeutic relationship, while remaining mindful of our own boundaries, biases and emotional responses? Perhaps wholeheartedness is not about striving for perfection or having all the answers, but about cultivating the courage to meet ourselves and others with honesty, curiosity and compassion.

How might our own capacity for wholeheartedness shape the spaces we create for others to do the same?

Our Selected Blog Post: Transference and Countertransference

Learning to tell these apart, and to ask ourselves whose feeling this actually is, can transform a confusing countertransference reaction into an extremely useful piece of clinical information.

There are a handful of terms in psychotherapy that get used so often they start to lose their meaning. Transference and countertransference are two of them. We use them a lot but if you got a room full of us therapists together, we’d give you varying definitions of what they mean.

If you have ever sat in a session and felt a wave of irritation you could not quite account for, or noticed yourself unexpectedly sleepy, you already know what we’re about to discuss. Understanding what is happening in those moments, and learning to use the information, can be a challenging aspect of our therapy work.

READ HERE

Blogs, Training, Socials and More

Don’t forget we have a library full of therapy-related articles and blogs on our website. Have a browse, or search for something specific.

Join the BTP community on Facebook to connect with over 2.5K fellow therapists and counsellors.

Join Brighton Therapy Partnership on YouTube by subscribing to our channel.

Click here for BTP’s upcoming live and online CPD trainings in 2026 or see thumbnails below this blog.

* There are affiliate links in this post, if you buy a book using one of these affiliate links we will get a very small fee. It all helps! Thank you!

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The Therapist’s Corner: October Inspiration