# Dr Charlie Tyack

> Chartered Clinical Psychologist & Accredited EMDR Therapist


## Posts

- [By popular demand - a clear introduction to EMDR!](https://charlietyack.com/by-popular-demand-a-clear-introduction-to-emdr/): I receive repeated requests for a clear introduction to EMDR (eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing) - what it is, who it can help, and what sessions look like. On that basis, I made this video.
- [Nurture -  fusing art and psychology](https://charlietyack.com/nurture-a-new-collaboration-fusing-art-and-psychology/): I have recently collaborated with my partner Mel to co-create a project that brings our passions together – Nurture. Mel does the heavy lifting, and I produced a series of bite-size Chats With Charlie looking at various ways that techniques from therapy might help artists struggling with the creative process. They might also be useful for struggles in different areas. They are all about five minutes long and also showcase a range of hairstyles that betray the timeframe over which they were filmed! The first gives an overview of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT): The second looks at using Values to […]
- [FND: How Psychological Therapy Can Empower You](https://charlietyack.com/fnd-how-psychological-therapy-can-empower-you/): Hope for FND: How Psychological Therapies Can Empower You is a blog post created for UK FND Awareness Day 2025. In it, I share a new video exploring therapies, practical tools, and resources that can help people living with Functional Neurological Disorder. If you’re navigating FND or supporting someone who is, this post — and the video — is here to remind you that you’re not alone and that there is always hope.
- [Why Sleep Hygiene Alone Isn’t Fixing Your Sleep – And What to Do Instead](https://charlietyack.com/why-sleep-hygiene-alone-isnt-fixing-your-sleep-and-what-to-do-instead/): If you’ve ever struggled with sleep, you’ve probably been offered the usual advice: avoid screens before bed, keep your room dark, and stick to a bedtime routine. While these sleep hygiene tips sound great in theory, they don’t always work—especially for those dealing with insomnia. Here’s the problem: Sleep hygiene is about creating a good sleep environment, but it doesn’t address the real issue behind chronic sleep struggles—your relationship with sleep itself. If you’ve tried everything and still find yourself tossing and turning, you’re not alone. In fact, rigidly following sleep hygiene rules can sometimes increase sleep anxiety, making it even […]
- [Healing Grief with EMDR and ACT Therapy: A Path to Recovery](https://charlietyack.com/healing-grief-with-emdr-and-act-therapy-a-path-to-recovery/): Grief is a universal experience, yet it affects each of us in deeply personal ways. Whether from the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or another life transition, grief can sometimes feel overwhelming and unending. While time can ease the pain, certain therapies can actively help us process grief in a healthier, more meaningful way.  Two powerful, evidence-based approaches—EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)—offer unique ways to navigate grief, heal from loss, and rebuild a life that honors both your pain and your growth.
- [Dropping Anchor:  Simple Grounding for Life's Storms](https://charlietyack.com/dropping-anchor-simple-grounding-for-lifes-storms/): In today’s fast-paced world, stress and anxiety can feel like uninvited companions. When life throws challenges your way, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed or untethered. That’s where the “dropping anchor” technique comes in – a powerful yet simple mindfulness and grounding exercise designed to help you regain stability and come back into the here-and-now. What Is Dropping Anchor? The dropping anchor technique is rooted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a therapeutic approach that emphasizes mindfulness and values-driven action. It was made popular by Dr Russ Harris, who brought together various existing mindfulness and grounding exercises. The metaphor of […]
- [Using EMDR to Tackle Future Anxiety: The Flashforward and Future Template Techniques](https://charlietyack.com/using-emdr-to-tackle-future-anxiety-the-flashforward-and-future-template-techniques/): When most people think of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, they often associate it with healing past traumas. While EMDR is indeed renowned for its transformative power in processing distressing memories, its applications extend far beyond the past. One of its most innovative uses is addressing anxiety and fear about future events through techniques like the Flashforward and Future Template. These approaches empower people to break free from paralysing fear of the unknown and build confidence to face what lies ahead. The Flashforward Technique: Facing the Worst-Case Scenario What is it? The Flashforward Technique in EMDR is designed to […]
- [Easy Relaxation: The 4 Elements](https://charlietyack.com/easy-relaxation-the-4-elements/): The video introduces a simple relaxation technique called the 4 elements, designed for stress reduction and grounding. It consists of four stages: EARTH (grounding), AIR (breathing), WATER (enhancing relaxation), and FIRE (visualizing a safe space). Practicing regularly improves ease of use and effectiveness in various situations.
- [I am an Accredited EMDR Practitioner](https://charlietyack.com/i-am-an-accredited-emdr-practitioner/): I am officially an EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner in EMDR. I am chuffed to now be Accredited, having practised EMDR since becoming an EMDR Practitioner in 2021. 
- [Helping your autistic child to sleep](https://charlietyack.com/helping-your-autistic-child-to-sleep/): I just received a copy of Helping Your Autistic Child by Ann Ozsivadjian. It includes chapters by various authors who specialise in working with children with neurodivergent conditions, including my chapter on sleep. My chapter includes sections on: The other chapters cover topics including: The book will be available from October 26th 2023 in all good bookshops!
- [Thinking of trying EMDR?](https://charlietyack.com/thinking-of-trying-emdr/): As an “EMDR Practitioner”, qualified to work with adults and children, EMDR is one of the therapies I offer. Whilst it was originally developed for helping people to overcome traumatic experiences, it has since been found to be effective in treating a wide range of other concerns including: The first stage of EMDR therapy involves assessment of the current problems, and what the client wants to work on. Sources of support and techniques to stay grounded and manage difficult symptoms are also explored and practiced. A plan is made collaboratively, taking into account past experiences, how their effects are manifesting in […]
- [Insomnia in children](https://charlietyack.com/insomnia-in-children/): As a psychologist with a special interest in sleep, interesting projects sometimes come my way. One of these recently came to fruition in the form of a chapter in the newly published Oxford Handbook of Sleep Medicine, edited by Guy Leschziner. I am very grateful to Guy for the invitation to contribute. My chapter covers presentations of insomnia across the childhood age range, and ways to treat them. At present the synopsis is incorrect and the correct one is as follows: Various behavioural approaches have been shown to ameliorate sleep in children who have difficulties with initiating sleep and getting back […]
- [Published - ACT for non-epileptic seizures](https://charlietyack.com/published-act-for-non-epileptic-seizures/): The article Dr Naomi Boycott and I wrote about using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the treatment of non-epileptic seizures was recently published in the British Psychological Society's Clinical Psychology Forum (Issue 347). It focuses on a service we developed for people who experience non-epileptic seizures, seeing people individually and in groups.
- [FND Awareness Day Thread](https://charlietyack.com/fnd-awareness-day-thread/): I have been working in Functional Seizures Clinical Psychology since 2019. Even in that relatively short time, we have effectively set up our service twice owing to the rapid adaptation that the COVID-19 epidemic necessitated. We offer one-to-one and group interventions as well as providing information and training to wider services. Our service’s main therapeutic approach is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). COVID-19 has meant that we have moved to a much more online model of delivery, with its benefits and drawbacks. March 25th was functional neurological condition awareness day, and I decided to post a Twitter thread to mark the […]
- [Psychological First Aid during COVID-19](https://charlietyack.com/pfa-covid-19/): “Extraordinary”, “weird” and “unprecedented” seem to be watchwords of the times we are living through. I keep hearing people describe the present, and situations that arise using these and similar expressions, perhaps to remind ourselves that it is okay not to know exactly how we should be responding. We encourage each other to “stay safe”, although I can’t help but notice a little spike of anxiety whenever I hear it. Battling a foe as nebulous as COVID-19 is anxiety provoking, as we naturally seek certainty, which is scarce at this stage.
- [Sleep in the time of coronavirus](https://charlietyack.com/sleep-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/): I taught a session on sleep for trainees at UCL last week. This was originally intended to take place in person, but here in the United Kingdom, we have been under a form of COVID-19 related lockdown for some time, which has confined a lot of people to their own homes. I was therefore forced to deliver the teaching via narrated slides. The trainees had some great questions, and there might be scope for me to produce a short video of sleep tips for all during the COVID-19 crisis. A lot of us are spending more time at home, which has […]
- [World Sleep Day Podcast](https://charlietyack.com/world-sleep-day-podcast/): It’s World Sleep Day, and the podcast that Dr Mike Farquhar and I made with Jenny Fox and Sam Harvey from the PSHE Association goes live today. It’s about the Sleep Factor lesson plans that we made in collaboration, and sleep more widely. We hope you enjoy it.
- [UCLH CFS/ME Course](https://charlietyack.com/uclh-cfs-me-course/): The UCLH Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) in Young People course on November 1st 2018 was a fascinating day, with opportunities to learn more about the condition from the perspectives of alumni of the service, as well as members of the medical and psychological teams. Dr Lee Hudson gave an overview of the CFS/ME from the perspective of a consultant paediatrician. It was interesting to hear how there is no consistent, specific medical diagnostic test or treatment for CFS/ME. Rather, it is a diagnosis of exclusion, as other possible causes for the condition need to be ruled-out, meaning that […]
- [Medicine & Me - Living With Narcolepsy](https://charlietyack.com/medicine-me-living-with-narcolepsy/): I took part in the Living With Narcolepsy event jointly organised by the Royal Society of Medicine and Narcolepsy UK in London. Medicine and Me days are a great opportunity for people with a given condition and clinicians in that field to meet and share their knowledge. This is my brief overview of a fascinating day with a range of speakers talking about diverse aspects of narcolepsy, a frequently misunderstood condition.
- [Seasonal Affective Disorder - Beating the Winter Blues](https://charlietyack.com/seasonal-affective-disorder-beating-the-winter-blues/): Fortunately, there are lots of things that can be done to fight the winter blues. The NICE Guidelines are based on the ones for depression, but it is important to take the seasonal variability of the condition into consideration. Some improvement in our sleep quality can be achieved with a few straightforward measures. 
- [Published](https://charlietyack.com/published/): My doctoral thesis research into tablet-computer based art interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers has been published. You can find the paper here, or here if you are on ResearchGate. I conducted the research with Paul Camic, Sabina Hulbert and Michael Heron. The research explored the impact of art-viewing on wellbeing, both quantitatively (with measures of happiness, wellness and interestedness built into the app) and qualitatively (through interviews I conducted with all the people who took part). As it was an exploratory study, we focussed on detailed evaluation of people’s experiences and as such the sample size was relatively small […]
- [Lost in transition](https://charlietyack.com/lost-in-transition/): I recently attended the BPS joint CPD event between the Faculties of Intellectual Disabilities and for Children and Young People entitled Making the Transition. The focus was on what happens when young people with intellectual disabilities reach the transition cliff from child and young people’s services to adult services, usually at the age of eighteen. This event was especially pertinent for me, as I worked in a service for people with intellectual disabilities that transitioned from seeing people of all ages to an adults-only service when I was a trainee, which involved actually handing clients over to the new provider.
- [Killing (your demons) with kindness](https://charlietyack.com/killing-your-demons-with-kindness/): A recent study has found evidence to suggest that performing acts of kindness can reduce the degree to which people with social anxiety avoid situations they might find anxiety-provoking.
- [On practicing what you preach](https://charlietyack.com/on-practicing-what-you-preach/): Sometimes in practice, I have found I feel somewhat hypocritical. An example of this was when I was a primary care mental health worker, helping people to work on their blood / needle / injury phobias.
- [Screens - worthy addition or wasteful addiction?](https://charlietyack.com/screens-worthy-addition-or-wasteful-addiction/): I recently attended a seminar about screen addiction led by Dr Aric Sigman. I was intrigued by the information about how excessive recreational screen-use has a detrimental impact on people, and how each new generation seems to be increasingly glued to screens. I weighed this up against the research I have looked at which aims to develop touch-screen based interventions, some of which act as cognitive prostheses for people with dementia. I wondered where we can draw a line, however arbitrary, between the benefits and the costs of the screens we surround ourselves with.
- [What about now?](https://charlietyack.com/what-about-now/): It is customary, at least in the culture I grew up in, to look back over the past year, and think about the coming year on the last day of a given year. It is also customary to make resolutions, which in my experience can be summed up as “idealistic, knee-jerk plans founded on guilt about recent, primarily health related, shortcomings, which are almost certainly doomed to failure as one realises the financial impact of end-of-year related festivities”. Examples of resolutions might include giving up a certain kind of food, or health-damaging habit, or resolving to do something impressive, like doing […]
- [Talking about 'the gap'](https://charlietyack.com/talking-about-the-gap/): In a previous post, I described the thoughts Clinical Psychology Forum 261 – a special about the gap between clinical psychology and psychiatry.  A letter summarising those thoughts was published along with other responses to CPF 261 in this month’s Forum, which is somewhat poignantly a special about ‘Remembering the bio in biopsychosocial’.
- [Look into my eyes...](https://charlietyack.com/look-into-my-eyes/): Therapeutic use of hypnosis is perhaps most commonly associated with the archetypal psychoanalyst, using it to unlock memories and associations that might be inaccessible when people are fully conscious. This is one possible therapeutic use, but there are other areas where hypnosis is being trialled.
- [Which came first, the sleepiness or the culture? Is there more narcolepsy in Japan?](https://charlietyack.com/japanese_narcolepsy/): I’ve been reacquainting myself with sleep-related issues of late, as half of my current placement is in a sleep disorders team. When looking into narcolepsy, I was intrigued to note that rates of narcolepsy are about four times higher in Japan according to self report than they tend to be elsewhere. This got me thinking about my sleep-related observations from the two years I spent there, and I wondered about differences in the way that sleep seems to be conceptualised in Japanese culture.
- [Internal conflicts - on treating distress with electrodes](https://charlietyack.com/internal-conflicts/): Part of my current placement involves working with children experiencing dystonia who are candidates for or who have had deep brain stimulation (DBS). Since I was relatively naive to the concepts, I have read up. DBS seems to be helpful to clients experiencing a range of motor-related physical problems, and is most commonly used with people experiencing Parkinson’s Disease, and more recently people experiencing various forms of dystonia. There are two main subtypes of dystonia: primary (a discrete condition) and secondary (resulting from other conditions such as brain injury). DBS seems to be more effective for people diagnosed with primary dystonia. This might be related to […]
- [On being uncertain in certain places](https://charlietyack.com/on-being-uncertain-in-certain-places/): I recently started my specialist placement: children’s neurosciences incorporating paediatric sleep and a complex motor disorders service. It has been fascinating so far, working with new client groups and in a hospital setting, which is novel to me. It has also been a culture shock, hence the title of this post.
- [Thoughts on the CPF Social Materialist Manifesto Special](https://charlietyack.com/thoughts-on-the-social-materialist-manifesto/): A group of course-mates and I recently wrote a letter to the Clinical Psychology Forum in response to issue 256, which was itself a response to the Draft Manifesto for a Social Materialist Psychology of Distress, written by the Midlands Psychology Group. The letter was published in CPF 262. Continue reading for the letter.
- [Bridging which gap? Reflections on Clinical Psychology Forum 261](https://charlietyack.com/bridging-which-gap-reflections-on-clinical-psychology-forum-261/): This month’s CP forum special (PDF version at this link) has been quite evocative for me. It looks at the ongoing discussions about differences between clinical psychology and psychiatry.  I shall outline my thoughts about the special issue below.
- [Back to the blogosphere](https://charlietyack.com/hello-world/): Okay, so I’m back online. After a break of about 8 years, I have returned to the blogosphere. My last incarnation was as an assistant language teacher on the JET programme. Since then, a lot has changed. I am now a trainee clinical psychologist, training at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, UK and due to start my next placement in London. As you might imagine, I have a lot to write about, so I’ll keep this post brief.

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- [Hi, I'm Charlie](https://charlietyack.com/):  have worked therapeutically with people for over a decade across a wide range of settings, helping individuals, couples and groups across the full age range address their concerns with anxiety and mood, sleep, chronic health and other issues.

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