Press & Media
Thalia has contributed to a range of publications and media platforms on topics including trauma, recovery, domestic abuse, and therapeutic practice. Below is a selection of press features and articles.
You can knock… but you can’t come in
Featured Articles
This article explores how people living with chronic and ‘hidden’ illnesses are often overlooked within medical systems, and the emotional toll of not being believed. Thalia shares both lived and professional insight into recovery, advocacy, and the impact of medical gaslighting.
5 ways to help a friend who is in a mental health crisis
"When a close friend is having a mental health crisis, it’s understandable to feel an array of powerful emotions such as fear, shock, confusion, or sadness. Perhaps they have been hospitalised because they are not safe or able to manage right now, or they are now working closely with a mental health team. Regardless of the type of mental health difficulties, or exact details of the situation, here, with help from counsellor Thalia Joyner, we share five tips for supporting a friend in crisis."
What is Gaslighting and what are the signs?
“Gaslighting comes from a 1938 play, then a movie in 1944 called ‘Gas Light’, where a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she is losing her sense of reality so he can commit her and take her inheritance,” Counselling Directory member Thalia explains.
“This term has now been used to describe a set of psychological manipulative behaviours, to get the person being gaslit to doubt their own reality.”
What to do if you’re scared to trust the Government’s lockdown exit plan
"Anxiety and stress are a normal response to anything that is a threat,’ Thalia says.
‘We all have a place in our brain that is like a smoke detector, an alarm that signals any possible threat to us, it can be a physical threat, emotional or psychological. The pandemic and the virus are a threat to us on many levels.
‘When a possible threat is detected, it mounts a response in our nervous system, triggering all sorts of physical and psychological symptoms such as anxiety, fuzzy headed, fatigue, digestive issues, low mood and sleep problems, to name a few."
7 Ways to manage chronic pain that don't involve painkillers
“Living with chronic pain is traumatic, stressful and isolating in itself,” says Counselling Directory member Thalia, who became a counsellor following her own experiences of chronic pain.
Counselling can provide a safe space to talk about all this. Joyner says there’s also evidence that “when we have experienced trauma or long-term stress”, the body’s baseline functioning can be impacted, which may have a role in things like chronic pain."