My Little Black Book… of therapy tips and tools: A pocketbook of practical tips and tools – self-help meets psychological theory to hold vulnerability and support change

By Kate Younger

My Little Black Book… of therapy tips and tools is a pocketbook full of key theoretical and practical strategies for helping anyone – ideally people who are in or have been in therapy – to navigate their vulnerability.

We all have mental health problems, it is a fundamental human affliction that we all experience to varying degrees. And so, we need to manage and take care of our vulnerability on a daily basis, just as we might do with our physical health. This pocketbook is packed with ideas to use dependent on need.

And like many therapeutic interventions, treat the book like a ‘dripping tap’ – often you need to read, practise and re-read something before you can really integrate it. So, keep it handy – in your pocket – and dip into it when helpful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jul 28, 2025
• ISBN: 9781836289401

Kate Younger

Dr Kate Younger is a clinical psychologist, cognitive-analytic therapist and EMDR therapist. She works in private practice in a busy Central London clinic (www.thebluedoorpractice.com) and online, having previously spent several years working in the NHS. Kate specialises in working with people impacted by trauma, personality disorders and relational difficulties. Originally from Australia, she has resided in the UK for the last twenty years, where she lives with her husband, two children and various animals of all shapes and sizes.

Book preview

Contents

Prologue – What Am I About?

In the Beginning (Of Therapy)

Go Slow to Go Fast – Short-Term Pain, Long-Term Gain

Practical Interventions for Regulating Our Internal States

Grounding Exercises and Techniques

Basics – R.E.D.S

The Middle (Of Therapy): Key Psychoeducation Ideas and Principles – Theory Meets Practice

Boundaries

People Are Not Mind Readers!

‘Position of Vulnerability’ – Being With, Not Doing or Fixing

Reciprocity – Tennis Rally – Shared Responsibility

Good Enough Does Not Mean F.I.N.E.

Drawn Towards Partners Who Possess the Parts of Our Parents We Found the Most Challenging

Sex – A Physical Manifestation of the Emotional Connection

Anger as a Secondary Emotion – Its Role in Concealing the More Vulnerable

Reassurance from Others is Leaky and Unsustainable – You Need to Self Soothe

Rational to Emotional Mind – Journaling Technique for When Too Entrenched in One

What’s That About?

Very Rarely ‘Either/Or’, Typically ‘Both/And’ – A Golden Systemic Therapy Principle

Lean into Things – If the Temptation is to Avoid, Move Towards – IFS Conversation

Complete the Story – Don’t Stay at the Place Of Activated Trauma

Respond, Not React – Pause. Think. Respond.

Mind the Language, Please!

Dreams

Be Curious About the (Psycho)Somatic

The Ending (Of Therapy): Concluding Cautionary Tales in Supporting Real and Sustainable Change

Stay On the Step You Are On

Consistency

Control What You Can Control – You… More Specifically, Your Words and Actions

Challenges Enable Us the Most Growth

Therapeutic Relationship Itself as an Intervention

Epilogue: The Importance of a Planned and Healthy ‘Goodbye’

Selected Bibliography

Appendix 1: Glossary – Meanings Used in Therapy, According to Kate

Appendix 2: Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercise

Appendix 3: Journaling from One Side of the Mind to the Other – How It Looks in Practice

Appendix 4

Appendix 5: IFS Informed Conversation – How It Looks in Practice

Prologue – What Am I About?

Welcome! I am Kate – a psychologist who works within a busy Central London private practice. I initially created this book as a resource for my patients – a reminder of the practical strategies and key psychoeducation principles shared by me during therapy. Something patients could physically hold onto of the work after therapy had come to an end. I also felt that it may be helpful for those in a relationship with my patient, so they can have an insight into the therapy, potentially feel less threatened by it and instead hold a supportive position. Indeed, I encourage patients, especially when working within a one-to-one framework, to share aspects of the work with others, and their intimate partner in particular. This practice has been informed by the findings of my doctoral dissertation, in which I explored the impact of individual therapy on a couple’s relationship (Younger, 2008). One finding was that consideration may need to be given to the coupledom when individual therapy is provided because emotional separation can ensue.

And so, the inception of this book was relational and patient-led and, as I continued to write, it evolved into something of a tool that I felt most people, ideally familiar with therapy, may find useful. This is not a classic self-help book, where help is often directed at a specific diagnosis (e.g. depression) or presentation (e.g. self-worth). Instead, it is about strategies for how to live in a more psychologically healthy way, regardless of diagnosis.

As a psychologist, I intervene based on a formulation, rather than a diagnosis. That is, a detailed understanding of the individual’s vulnerabilities and how they are impacting them. A formulation tends to be more holistic and personalised. It may include a diagnosis, and it expands and extrapolates in an idiosyncratic way, enabling much richer understanding of one’s unhealthy patterns and processes. These often reveal how there are many parts to an individual and their difficulties. And so, to really manage and hold vulnerability, I believe you need a varied toolkit of both theoretical understandings and practical strategies. Some of these will work for some people in some situations and some will not – and yet, the point is you have options. For me, options give us hope; hope allows us to carry on. Carrying on gives us the opportunity to survive and, eventually (hopefully), to thrive…

While some of the presented strategies are my own, several have been collected and adapted from various sources and therapeutic approaches, which I will reference as we go. To make things clearer, I have emphasised the key take-away interventions within grey-shaded boxes. This is meant to reflect my view that the theory is the complicated bit in therapy – interventions are best when simplest. I would encourage you to highlight and/or put tabs on sections that really stand out for you as helpful. And there are some blank pages for you to add your own understandings and interventions.

Like most psychologists, I take a research-led approach to my practise. I work integratively, meaning that I draw on and interweave different schools of therapy depending on the patient’s presenting difficulties and needs. I am a big believer in knowledge is power, and so wherever possible I will direct you towards other resources. These will undoubtedly give an indication of my therapeutic preference – I take a very relational lens, even when working individually. In addition to my primary therapeutic model (Cognitive Analytic Therapy, CAT; Ryle & Kerr, 2008), I am inspired by the work of Rachel Shapiro (Eye Movement, Desensitisation and Reprocessing, EMDR), Richard Schwartz (Internal Family System, IFS) and Terry Real (Relational Life Therapy, RLT).

I use this lens to work therapeutically with both individuals and couples, in time-limited (e.g. single-session intensives, twenty-four once-weekly sessions) and open-ended therapy frameworks. As alluded to in my dedication, I have a special interest in working with people who have traits consistent with a personality disorder diagnosis and those who are in a relationship with someone with such a presentation.² Quite simply though, we all have degrees of personality disordered traits – in truth, we need a healthy dose of narcissism for instance, as it gives us a sense of potency to survive the brutalities of this world (Kets de Vries, 2010). So these traits are not all bad and can actually be helpful when moderated, and are part of being human. This isn’t a book about narcissism, but because it played a key role in the development of this book, I want to briefly address it here.

Narcissism as a concept often gets a bad rap, and perhaps that’s understandable. As a diagnosis, it has become very pop psychology, while, in my opinion, also being one of the most misunderstood and misused psychiatric labels. What many people do not appreciate is that in addition to their tricky/prickly parts, they are one of the most insecure and challenging (risky) to therapeutically treat populations. Working with this patient group, I’ve learned a great deal about what helps – and what doesn’t – in processing and managing vulnerability. Much of this knowledge applies broadly, which is why this book exists.

A quick note about the language used in this book. First, I have written this primarily for a lay audience, and so, I have added a glossary for the more clinical words (cf. Appendix 1). Second, I call the people that attend my clinic ‘patients’. Others call them ‘clients’, ‘service-users’,