Lauruna Counselling & Wellbeing

16/10/2026

🌙Can a counsellor truly understand someone’s difficulties without having an adequate understanding of mental illness?

It’s something I’ve been reflecting on recently.

We rightly place importance on seeing the person beyond their diagnosis. But I also wonder whether, in trying not to make assumptions, we sometimes overlook the importance of having enough knowledge to recognise when something may be significant.

Clients’ needs can change throughout counselling, and difficulties may emerge that weren’t apparent at the beginning.

I’ve explored the balance between knowledge, curiosity and professional responsibility in my latest Lauruna article.🌙

xploring the relationship between therapeutic understanding, professional knowledge and the responsibility to recognise what we may not know.

14/10/2026

13/10/2026

🌙 What exactly are we expecting autism to look like?

Perhaps someone makes eye contact, communicates confidently, has a successful career or appears comfortable in social situations.

Does that make them any less autistic?

Our understanding of autism is often influenced by stereotypes, media portrayals and the particular experiences we’ve encountered.

But autism isn’t something we can reliably identify by looking at someone.

Autistic people have different personalities, strengths, challenges, communication styles and support needs. Some differences may be noticeable to others, while others may not be apparent at all.

And when someone doesn’t fit our expectations, their experiences can be questioned, their difficulties minimised or their need for support overlooked.

Being articulate doesn’t mean someone doesn’t struggle. Being independent in one area doesn’t mean they don’t need support in another. And appearing comfortable doesn’t necessarily tell us how much effort something requires.

When we tell someone they don’t look autistic, are we really describing them, or revealing our own expectations of what autism should look like?

Understanding begins when we stop expecting everyone to fit the same picture. 🌙

11/10/2026

Autistic burnout: What it looks like. What it might feel like.

When someone begins struggling with things they previously managed, it can be easy to misunderstand what we’re seeing.

They might become quieter, withdraw from social situations or find everyday tasks increasingly difficult.

From the outside, these changes can be interpreted as avoidance, disinterest or a lack of effort.

But autistic burnout can involve profound exhaustion, reduced capacity to manage everyday demands and increased sensitivity to sensory experiences.

It can develop when someone spends a prolonged period trying to meet demands that exceed their available resources, particularly without sufficient support or opportunities to recover.

And it doesn’t look or feel the same for everyone.

Rather than assuming we know why someone’s behaviour has changed, perhaps we need to look beyond the behaviour itself.

What has changed in their environment? What demands are being placed on them? And what support might make a difference?

Because understanding someone means considering not only what we can see, but what we might not be seeing.

10/10/2026

🌙 World Mental Health Day🌙

We can ask someone what they need and still decide that we know better.

We can listen to someone's experience and still interpret it through our own assumptions.

We can invite someone into a conversation after the important decisions have already been made.

Lived experience isn't simply another piece of information to collect.

The person living that experience knows things about it that can't always be understood from the outside.

That doesn't mean one person's experience represents everyone else's.

It means their experience should be allowed to belong to them.

Perhaps being heard isn't simply having the opportunity to speak.

Perhaps it's knowing that what you said was allowed to matter. 🌙

09/10/2026

🌙Why are people sometimes so quick to put others down?

We often hear that it’s because they’re insecure or jealous. Sometimes that might be true.

But criticism can serve other purposes.

A joke at someone’s expense might gain approval from a group.

Making someone appear incompetent might strengthen another person’s position.

And dismissing somebody as dramatic, difficult or oversensitive can shift attention away from what they were actually saying.

Suddenly, the person raising the concern is defending their character rather than having their concern addressed.

Not every unkind remark is calculated or deliberate.

But behaviour can have consequences that reinforce it, whether someone recognises them or not.

Understanding what someone might gain doesn’t excuse the harm caused.

It does invite us to consider something we don’t always ask:

What did putting that person down make possible? 🌙

09/10/2026

🌙 When someone struggles to cope, engage or fit in, we often focus on what they need to change.

But how often do we question the environments, expectations and systems they’re being asked to adapt to? And what happens when someone repeatedly receives the message that they are the problem?

My latest Lauruna article explores the psychological impact of being misunderstood, the responsibility we place on individuals and what happens when the systems intended to offer support become another barrier. 🌙

On psychological distress, individual responsibility and the systems we rarely question.

07/10/2026

🌙 We're often told that we need to find closure, let go or move on.

But some things don't have a clear ending.

There may never be the conversation we needed.

The explanation may never come.

The harm may never be acknowledged.

The apology may never be given.

Perhaps some experiences are less like something we close and more like grief.

They remain part of our story, but our lives gradually grow around them.

We can stop waiting for an apology without deciding we never deserved one.

Something can hurt less without becoming acceptable.

We can move forward without pretending that what happened no longer matters.

Maybe some things aren't resolved.

Maybe we learn to live around what remains unfinished. 🌙

07/10/2026

🌙 We’re often told to find closure, let go and move on.

But what if some experiences never really “close”?
Maybe, like grief, we gradually adapt around what remains unfinished.

We can stop waiting for an apology without deciding we never deserved one.

Something can hurt less without becoming acceptable.
And moving forward doesn’t have to mean pretending it no longer matters.🌙

30/09/2026

🌙We don’t always know why something bothered us, what we’re feeling or what we need.

Sometimes understanding comes later. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“I don’t know” doesn’t always need to be something we get past. Sometimes it might simply be the answer. 🌙