Resources
Resources: things to read before you call anyone.
Two pieces of writing about the patterns that bring people here, and a free self-check for men who feel stuck, shut down, or on edge. No account needed, nothing to buy, and nothing here is therapy or a substitute for it.
The free self-check
A free place to start.
If you would rather do something than read something, start here. Ten printed pages of plain questions about stress, withdrawal, shutdown, irritability, avoidance, pressure and communication. It is a self-check, not a diagnosis.
Free self-check for men
Why Do I Keep Shutting Down?
A practical self-check for men who feel stuck, shut down, or on edge: plain questions about stress, withdrawal, shutdown, irritability, avoidance, pressure and communication.
Sent as a printable PDF. Free, private, no diagnosis, and one click to unsubscribe. Your email stays with Ray.
It's on the way
The self-check is heading to . If it hasn't arrived in a few minutes, check the spam folder, or take it now:
Download the self-check (PDF)Articles
Two things worth knowing about patterns.
Written the way I would explain it in a first session, without the jargon and without pretending that any of this is simple.
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Why couples keep having the same argument
The argument is rarely the problem. The cycle underneath it is, and cycles run themselves once they start. Here is how the pursue and withdraw pattern holds couples in place, and what interrupts it.
Read the article -
How faith and therapy can work together
Faith can be part of the work if you want it there, and it never has to be. The two worries people bring in opposite directions, and what it actually looks like in a session.
Read the article
Reading is not therapy
When it is worth talking to someone.
Articles are useful for recognition: they help you name what is happening and stop assuming it is unique to you. They are much less useful for change. If you have read something here and thought "that is us", that recognition is usually the beginning of the work rather than the whole of it.
The honest test is not whether you understand the pattern. Most people who come to me understand it already, which is part of what makes it so frustrating. The test is whether understanding has changed anything in the last six months. If it has not, that is worth taking seriously rather than waiting for a better moment.
A free 30-minute conversation is enough to find out whether this is the right kind of help, and whether I am the right person to deliver it.
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation
Not sure which kind of work this matches? Therapy for men, couples therapy and premarital counseling each set out what happens and who it suits, and the men's self-check is the free place to start if you are not ready to talk to anyone yet.
Take the self-check, or take the call.
Both are free. One you can do tonight, and the other takes thirty minutes this week.