Reading · for you
Understanding what is happening to you
Written for the person trying to work out what they are dealing with, before they are sure they need a therapist at all. No diagnosis, no quiz, no urgency.
Nothing here yet — this is what is going here
- What actually happens in a first session The hour where you both work out whether there is going to be therapy at all.
- Burnout, depression, or the job One usable distinction instead of a symptom checklist: whether the low follows you home.
- Why competence can be the symptom High-functioning anxiety, and why the output is the thing hiding it.
- What a nervous system response actually is Fight, flight, freeze and fawn, without the infographic version.
- How to tell whether therapy is working What progress looks like when it is not dramatic, and when to say it is not working.
Every piece here carries a byline and a dated licence receipt. Nothing is published under a house name, which is why this list is titles rather than drafts — each one waits on a named clinician whose licence we have checked.
A clinician? Running a practice in the current landscape
Also worth your time
Written by clinicians listed here, published on their own sites. We link, we don’t reprint.
- "It Wasn't That Bad": Why C-PTSD Makes You Minimize Your Own Trauma Their site
Argues that minimising is a learned rule rather than an accurate measurement, and carries a real citation for the claim underneath it (Swedo et al., MMWR, 2023, n=264,882). Cited writing is rarer in this corner of the internet than it should be.
Matthew Sexton, LCSW · Jul 24, 2026
- Trauma Bonding: Why You Can't Just Leave Their site
Opens by conceding the thing most writing on coercive relationships skips: people who stay are usually not short of information. They have read the threads and recognised the pattern already. Starting there, rather than at the explanation, is why this one is worth the click.
Matthew Sexton, LCSW · Jun 3, 2026
- Burnout or Depression? How to Actually Tell the Difference Their site
Gives you one usable distinction instead of a symptom checklist: burnout is domain-specific, depression is pervasive. Whether the low follows you out of work is a question you can answer about yourself tonight, which is more than most pieces on this leave you with.
Matthew Sexton, LCSW · Jun 3, 2026
- High-Functioning Anxiety: When Competence Is the Symptom Their site
For people who would never call themselves anxious, because anxious people fall apart and they never have. Takes the reliability and the output seriously as evidence before reframing them, which is the only way this argument lands on the people it is about.
Matthew Sexton, LCSW · Jun 3, 2026