Bedroom confidential: what sex therapists hear from the couch

Sex counsellors have a unique insight into our shared concerns and insecurities. Where once they focused on physical issues, now they are tackling psychological ones

Denise Knowles, a sex and relationship therapist with the charity Relate, says patients often say to her: “There are so many options, I don’t know where to start.” Thirty years ago, Knowles was mostly approached with physical problems: erectile dysfunction, painful intercourse, issues with ejaculation. Now she describes the scope of her work as “bio-psycho-social”. That is to say, everything has got a lot more complicated.

“I think it has gone from being very much: ‘This is the problem; this is how we resolve it,’ to: ‘How do we approach sex? What does it mean to you? How does it fit into the relationship, and how have you got to this place?’” She laughs. “Then we can start to deal with it.”

Continue reading...

‘Getting out of bed is the first hurdle’: how I cope with my anxiety

Dread and despair have been a part of my life since childhood – and then I started writing about politics ...

The anxiety is ever-present. Sometimes only as a form of background noise; a voice that tells me I’ve failed at the day before it’s even begun. At other times it’s more insistent. An almost physical presence. A heart-pounding feeling of dread that makes it a struggle to get out of bed. A longed for desire to go back to sleep, to rewind the clock, in the desperate hope that I could start the day again.

I stare at the clock, calculating how long I can leave it before I have to get out of bed and engage with the day. Another 10 minutes maybe? Twenty if I choose to skip breakfast. Hoping that the anxiety will have passed by the time I do get up, while knowing that every delay merely makes it worse. I know it’s a kind of madness. But it’s one to which I invariably succumb.

Continue reading...

Scientists are working on a pill for loneliness

Modern life has led to greater isolation, which can fuel an array of disorders. If there are medications for social pains like depression and anxiety, why not loneliness?

Loneliness is part of the human condition. A primeval warning sign, like hunger or thirst, to seek out a primary resource: connection. Millions of years of evolution have shaped us into creatures who need social bonds in the same way that we need food and water.

And yet we increasingly find ourselves isolated. Loneliness is no longer a powerful enough driver to break us out of the silos created by modern life. Like our insatiable love of high-calorie foods, what was once an adaptive tool has become so misaligned with the way we live that it’s causing, in the words of the former surgeon general Vivek H Murthy, an “epidemic”.

Continue reading...

Don’t Throw Away Criminal-Justice Reform for a Short-Term Win

Politics has always featured cheap tricks and sloppy expressions of principle, but the sheer scale and promotion of these techniques in the coverage of the Kavanaugh case signal a dangerous trend. My point here is not to argue for his innocence or for his guilt, but to correct some misconceptions - the truth of which our political classes have seen fit to blatantly ignore.

Who is the woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault?

Christine Blasey Ford, 51, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, is a psychology professor at Palo Alto University. Christine Blasey Ford came forward Sunday as the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her more than three decades ago, an allegation that threatens to derail his confirmation.

Woman Accusing Kavanaugh of Sexual Misconduct Comes Forward

President Donald Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court was thrust into turmoil Sunday after the woman accusing him of high school-era sexual misconduct told her story publicly for the first time. Democrats immediately called for a delay in a key committee vote set for this later week and a Republican on the closely divided panel said he's "not comfortable" voting on the nomination without first hearing from the accuser.

Kavanaugh accuser speaks out on sexual assault claim

California professor Christine Blasey says Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. Earlier this summer, Christine Blasey Ford wrote a confidential letter to a senior Democratic lawmaker alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland.

Illinois bill would reward schools for hiring social workers, not armed security officers

Friday that would create a grant program for schools that employ social workers or psychologists instead of armed security officers to keep students safe. The bill would establish the Safe Schools Healthy Learning Environment grant to "promote school safety and healthy learning environments by reducing the reliance on law enforcement to address school disciplinary matters and implementing alternative strategies that will better address the full range of students' intellectual, social, emotional, physical, psychological, and moral developmental needs."

OGSystems’ Awarded MOJAVE Security Support Services Contract

OGSystems , a leader in technology innovation for the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community , has been awarded the MOJAVE Functional Area 2 : Security Support Services contract by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency . "We have invested heavily in data analytics, visualization, and system integration across the personnel, counterintelligence and insider threat missions," said Garrett Pagon, OGSystems President and co-founder.

UN pressure on Sri Lanka over torture, rape allegations

Sri Lanka's government is facing increasing pressure to answer for alleged human rights violations following an Associated Press investigation that found more than 50 men who said they were raped, branded or tortured as recently as this year. The men's anguished descriptions of their abuses came eight years after Sri Lanka's civil war ended and days ahead of a review of the Indian Ocean nation by the UN's top human rights body.

PEOPLE v. NAVARRA

Audrey R. Chavez, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Louis M. Vasquez, Lewis A. Martinez, Tia Coronado and William K. Kim, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.