‘The importance of prioritising psychologically informed relationships in 2023…’
13.01.2023: Happy New Year to all the readers of this week’s PIE blog! As I take a few moments to write this in a very busy week returning to my role as lead for Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE), at the national youth homeless charity; Centrepoint, it already feels like the Christmas break was so long ago! It was lovely to have a couple of weeks off over the festivities, a privilege that I am aware that many of my frontline colleagues did not have as they worked to keep our supported accommodation services open over this period and provide the best possible Christmas for the homeless young people we support in Centrepoint. Therefore, I wanted to start this blog by saying a BIG thank you to all of my frontline colleagues (and to those donors that provided the resources), who I know enabled some of the most vulnerable young people in the UK to have the best Christmas they could in the circumstances, providing them with meals, gifts and activities over the past couple of weeks.
As a result, returning back to our supported accommodation services this past week in order to offer support to frontline staff in reflective practice sessions, it has been lovely to reconnect with my valued colleagues and hear about all the different festive activities in our services. Christmas can be a very difficult time for many people in many different ways, particularly for those that are separated from family and friends, as many of the homeless young people we support are. However, being able to acknowledge this and do the best we can to make things the best that they can be can go a little way to making things a little better. Even within my own household this year with our Ukrainian guests separated from their family and friends due to the ongoing war in their home country, we tried to not just share our own English traditions of Christmas but also to give them space to share their Ukrainian traditions in order to help them feel more at ‘home’ with us. This has not only strengthened our relationships, but has had other positives such as learning about the Orthodox Christian traditions of Christmas (celebrated on 12th night or the 6th January), and for my children, having not one but two Christmases (complete with gifts) this year!
Reflecting back on older PIE blogs from January, I have previously discussed the importance of viewing the start of the year as a time to set achievable positive goals (c.f. see 2022 PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/a-psychologically-informed-new-year-time-to-aim-high-and-sparkle-79b89e49c6be) and psychologically informed ‘New Year Resolutions’ (c.f. see 2021 PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/making-psychologically-informed-new-years-resolutions-1fb2fb7f66ae). Do therefore take a look at these previous PIE blogs for ideas and reflections on these topics, that remain as relevant as ever as we move into 2023. However, for this year’s first PIE blog of the year, I am taking a slightly different psychologically informed angle on New Year. Specifically, exploring further a theme that has come up over the past week in reflective practice sessions, about how we can continue to strengthen our relationships with others in the year ahead and why these continue to be so important in continuing our Centrepoint journey in 2023 towards creating a psychologically informed environment or PIE.
The past couple of years have been challenging for many people, not least if you are a young person in the UK who is homeless or at risk of homelessness. For example, there have been significant political shifts worldwide as well as the global experience of the COVID-19 global pandemic. With regard to the latter, whilst we have seen a remarkable return to many aspects of our pre-pandemic lives in terms of travel and removal of restrictions, COVID-19 still remains a shadow or collective societal ‘trauma’ that is likely to continue to impact us for many years to come. However, one of my main reflections on this period is just how much resilience so many people have shown, even if they aren’t necessarily consciously aware of this. Even if we have sadly experienced loss over this period, for many of us we have in the main got through these difficulties because of the support of those around us (i.e. ‘relationships’). Perhaps we have also learnt things about ourselves, what our priorities actually are in life, and when our lives are ‘stripped back’ to the core essentials as they were in lockdown, what or whom is important to us and how the latter in particular helped us cope with the daily challenges that we faced.
I have therefore been wondering whether we can take this learning about the importance of our relationships with others forward into 2023 as we deal with the future personal or professional challenges we are facing? It is likely that this year will continue to stretch our psychological resources, for example with the ongoing cost of living crises (c.f. see previous PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/the-psychological-impact-of-the-cost-of-living-crises-and-how-we-can-mitigate-this-in-a-365d4bc83ae2). This financial challenge is not just effecting many of us personally as we see our daily living costs rising but also our organisation as we consider how these financial challenges can be mitigated to ensure we can not only continue to provide the best possible psychologically informed support to the homeless young people we support but also continue to work towards our 2037 strategy to #EndYouthHomelessness. I hope, and see my role in the wider organisation, to ensure that whilst we may have to ‘tighten our belts’ somewhat over the coming year, we continue to maintain our ‘psychologically informed’ ethos (i.e. the importance of ‘relationships’ with others) in all the work we do, wherever we work within the organisation.
However, when we experience too much pressure or stress, psychologists know that relationships with those closest to us can be the first thing to be ‘strained’, whether that be our personal or professional relationships (Gordon, 2017). If we are stressed, then we can become withdrawn and distracted and this can bring out our ‘worst behaviours’ towards others. Stress can deplete our cognitive resources, and heighten our focus on ‘threat’. Therefore, we can also be more likely to notice negative behaviours in others, or be more likely to be triggered by even relatively neutral behaviours in those around us. We are more irritable and hostile, and less empathic or compassionate towards others. Stress can also make us more likely to ‘blow smaller issues out of proportion’, be less generally satisfied in our relationships (Neff & Karney, 2004; Randall & Bodenmann, 2017) and be less likely to deal with daily issues or problems effectively. Moreover, stress has a negative impact on our general physical health and psychological well-being.
Therefore, it will be particularly important over the coming year that we continue to ensure we have time for our well-being (i.e. self-care) as well as continuing to work collaboratively and supportively with each other (i.e. collective-care). The latter is particularly important because as social creatures, humans need positive psychologically informed relationships to flourish and grow. What makes a ‘psychologically informed relationship’ has been previously discussed in a recent PIE blog — see here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/psychologically-informed-relationships-make-the-world-go-around-ca51decf2c31. However, one of the wonderful things about humans, albeit a challenge for the science of psychology that aims to study the human mind and behaviour(!), is that we are all unique. Whilst there are similarities between us, there are also differences. Therefore, we can’t easily assume we know what another person actually needs or wants within a relationship with us. Core trauma or psychologically informed principles of trust, safety, empowerment, choice and collaboration (and cultural consideration) might be important constants in all psychologically informed human relationships (c.f. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-definition-of-trauma-informed-practice/working-definition-of-trauma-informed-practice#:~:text=There%20are%206%20principles%20of,collaboration%2C%20empowerment%20and%20cultural%20consideration) but how these manifest in actual actions or behaviours vary within our individual relationships.
Perhaps therefore it might be helpful as we begin 2023 to consider both by ourselves and together with our teams, whether in a reflective practice session or a team meeting, what worked well last year to manage stress and build psychologically informed relationships with other people (personally and professionally). What perhaps didn’t work so well, and thus we need to try and avoid over the coming year? Most importantly, what do we need from others and what can we offer others that meet their needs? How do we take the above noted psychologically informed principles and actually operationalise these in our relationships with others? What actions do we need to take, whether that be doing something new, stopping something we have been doing or doing more of something else? Moreover, how do we ensure that we prioritise actually doing these actions, thereby prioritising building and maintaining psychologically informed relationships with those around us?
Arguably, a little bit of thought and reflection at this point (i.e. at the start of a New Year), might actually pay dividends later in the year as we set strong foundations upon which to build in the future. Who knows what challenges this year might bring but one thing that psychologists do know is that these will be easier to face if we have a psychologically informed network of supportive relationships around us. Psychological research has shown us that even in the case of mental health disorders such as Major Depression, the impact of these can be lessened by the impact of good quality psychologically informed relationships or social support (e.g. Brown & Harris, 1978). Let’s therefore start 2023 with a commitment to reflect on our relationships with others (whether with the homeless young people we support, our colleagues at work or friends and family at home). In addition, let’s also aim to prioritise making these as ‘psychologically informed’ as possible in order to weather any storm we face and improve the outcomes in 2023 for ourselves and others…
