How do you actually cope with all the pressure and stress that comes with the festive season?

In this episode of the Hello Therapy podcast, I'm joined by Health Psychologist, Jo Rodriguez. We talk about the real, often hidden challenges that people face around Christmas. Together, we explore everything from fatigue, family dynamics, loneliness, and the overwhelming “perfect Christmas” pressure, to practical strategies for checking in with yourself and regulating stress.

Whether you love or struggle with the holidays, you’ll find compassionate, relatable tips to make the festive period a little more manageable.

Highlights include:
3:18 Hidden Stresses Of The Festive Season
7:01 Loneliness, Exhaustion And Family Pressure
12:26 Spotting Fatigue And Early Warning Signs
19:01 Practical Basics To Reduce Overwhelm
24:11 Inner Critic, Perfectionism And Expectations
30:21 Flexibility And Rethinking Traditions
36:06 Body Regulation Over Head-Only Strategies

This week's guest:
Jo Rodriguez is a UK-based Health Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience helping people who feel anxious, overwhelmed, and stuck in their own heads. She works with the mind and the body. CBT, EMDR, EFT, and nervous system tools.

Jo is known for her straight-talking, compassionate style and her ability to explain why you feel the way you do, without making you feel broken or blamed. Her work focuses on helping people calm their bodies, untangle overthinking, and feel more like themselves again.

Website

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***Check out Dr Liz White's YouTube channel for help with anxiety and OCD***

If overthinking and worry is draining you, start with my 30-minute mini course How to Stop Spiralling. It gives you the exact tools I teach clients to interrupt thought loops in real time.

If you want something for the moments you’re already anxious or overwhelmed, the Spiral Rescue Kit has guided audios and a printable SOS plan you can use anywhere.

→ Get both HERE (get £5 off when you buy both or gift it to a friend!)

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-> DISCLAIMER <-

The Hello Therapy podcast and the information provided by Dr Liz White (DClinPsy, CPsychol, AFBPsS, CSci, HCPC reg.), is solely intended for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute personalised advice. Please reach out to your GP or a mental health professional if you need support.

What does it really mean to find your inner strength and embrace a new version of yourself after adversity, and how can stepping outside the traditional therapy room open up transformative change?

This powerful conversation explores how reconnecting with nature, embracing values, and facing life’s toughest moments can transform our approach to healing and personal growth. Dr. Kate Mason shares her inspiring journey through cancer, how it reshaped her career, and why therapy doesn’t have to happen indoors.

You’ll hear practical tools for the days that feel impossible: count small wins, lean on safe people, and return to your compass - adventure, connection, or freedom, whatever your values may be. We talk about post-treatment anxiety, the myth of instant transformation, and why vulnerability is strength, not failure. If you’ve felt lost through illness, divorce, menopause, or sudden change, this conversation offers grounded steps to rediscover purpose and joy, one walk at a time.

Highlights include:

02:52 Nature, Challenge and Values-Led Work

04:57 Kate’s Cancer Story and Impact on Identity

15:24 Challenge, ACT, and Weathering Storms

27:06 Firewalking and Trusting Intuition

This week's guest:

Dr Kate Mason is a Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years experience helping women reconnect with who they are and what truly matters. After facing her own life-changing experience with breast cancer at 35, Kate discovered the transformative power of being outdoors, stepping beyond our comfort zones, and reconnecting with ourselves and a community of like-minded women.

From cycling 250 miles from London to Paris to hiking 120km across the Sahara Desert and Cuban mountains, Kate has experienced first-hand how adventure and nature can spark deep healing and personal growth. That journey inspired her to create Women & Wild in 2023, a thriving community that blends psychology, coaching, and the great outdoors to help women rediscover their strength, purpose and joy. Her work has been featured in multiple media publications where she continues to champion the power of nature, connection, and courage as tools for lasting wellbeing.

Website: Women and Wild

Instagram: @womenandwil

Tell us what you thought of this episode!

***Check out Dr Liz White's YouTube channel for help with anxiety and OCD***

If overthinking and worry is draining you, start with my 30-minute mini course How to Stop Spiralling. It gives you the exact tools I teach clients to interrupt thought loops in real time.

If you want something for the moments you’re already anxious or overwhelmed, the Spiral Rescue Kit has guided audios and a printable SOS plan you can use anywhere.

→ Get both HERE (get £5 off when you buy both or gift it to a friend!)

-> SOCIALS <-

Subscribe to Dr Liz's YouTube channel

Follow Harley Clinical on Instagram

Follow Dr Liz White on TikTok

-> DISCLAIMER <-

The Hello Therapy podcast and the information provided by Dr Liz White (DClinPsy, CPsychol, AFBPsS, CSci, HCPC reg.), is solely intended for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute personalised advice. Please reach out to your GP or a mental health professional if you need support.

Experiencing a feeling of things being unreal or feeling detached from 'real life' and not sure what to do? This episode can help.

This week, I am talking to Dr Claudia Hallett, Clinical Psychologist and lead of the UK’s only specialist depersonalisation and derealisation service at the Maudsley in London, to demystify DP/DR and offer a practical path through the fear and confusion it creates.

Across a frank, compassionate conversation, we define depersonalisation and derealisation in plain language and explore why these dissociative symptoms show up across conditions like OCD, PTSD, low mood, and neurodiversity. Claudia explains the freeze response, what’s likely happening in the brain and we tackle the most persistent myths: that DP/DR is rare, untreatable, always trauma-led - and share prevalence data that puts DP/DR on par with better-known difficulties.

Most importantly, we outline what actually helps and hear how values-led action restores identity when chasing the “old me” keeps life on hold, and why grounding isn’t one-size-fits-all. We discuss promising approaches like body movement psychotherapy and mindful movement for safer reconnection with the body, plus the power of peer support through charities such as Unreal.

Highlights include:

02:31 What DPDR Feels Like

06:26 The Brain, Freeze Mode And Survival

12:38 Neurodiversity And Interoception

24:14 Practical Self‑Help

This week's guest:

Claudia is a highly specialist Clinical Psychologist and accredited Cognitive
Behavioural Psychotherapist. She is currently the clinical lead for the National
and Specialist Depersonalisation & Derealisation service, part of the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma service at the Maudsley NHS Hospital in South London. She is involved in the teaching and supervision of trainee psychologists on the Clinical Doctorate course at the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience and is involved in several research projects with colleagues across SLAM and KCL. She also runs her own private practice where she specialises in helping clients with DP/DR, anxiety and trauma difficulties

Claudia's instagram

Tell us what you thought of this episode!

***Check out Dr Liz White's YouTube channel for help with anxiety and OCD***

If overthinking and worry is draining you, start with my 30-minute mini course How to Stop Spiralling. It gives you the exact tools I teach clients to interrupt thought loops in real time.

If you want something for the moments you’re already anxious or overwhelmed, the Spiral Rescue Kit has guided audios and a printable SOS plan you can use anywhere.

→ Get both HERE (get £5 off when you buy both or gift it to a friend!)

-> SOCIALS <-

Subscribe to Dr Liz's YouTube channel

Follow Harley Clinical on Instagram

Follow Dr Liz White on TikTok

-> DISCLAIMER <-

The Hello Therapy podcast and the information provided by Dr Liz White (DClinPsy, CPsychol, AFBPsS, CSci, HCPC reg.), is solely intended for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute personalised advice. Please reach out to your GP or a mental health professional if you need support.