Best Friend Therapy

Emma Reed Turrell

Hello! We’re Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed-Turrell. And for over 20 years, we’ve been best friends. Elizabeth is a broadcaster and author. Emma is a psychotherapist. Best Friend Therapy is where we chat about what’s on our minds to get deeper in our minds.
Every week, we talk about how to tackle the challenges we face in daily life with honesty, compassion and practical wisdom. This is a podcast that holds your hand through the tough times and offers reassurance on the days you might need it. Feed your soul with nourishing conversations from two best friends, one therapist - and zero filter. read less
Society & CultureSociety & Culture

Episodes

S7, Ep 7 Best Friend Therapy: Goodbye - Join us for a look back over the last two years of BFT and what makes this community so special...
18-03-2024
S7, Ep 7 Best Friend Therapy: Goodbye - Join us for a look back over the last two years of BFT and what makes this community so special...
Well, here we are. Emma is firmly in denial and Elizabeth is busy looking for silver linings because this week's episode of Best Friend Therapy is our LAST ONE EVER. Probably. We have loved every minute of these last two years, as we've curated this collection of conversations to share with you, our wonderful listeners.Thank you so much for having us and we hope you'll join us for one last look back, at the journey we've been on together... We talk about our favourite episodes and look back on some of the memorable moments that made us laugh and cry. We'd love to hear from you about your favourite episodes and what you'll take away from this series and, remember, the back catalogue is there for you whenever you want to dip in and hear some words of comfort and support, or just enjoy hearing us lose it over that pesky rustle in the bush. Elizabeth shares her heartfelt thanks for the space you've given to her feelings on fertility and Emma will forever be grateful for the confidence she's gained to speak her truth more widely. Finally, know that we see you. We hear you. We understand you.And you are not alone. You will always be welcome here.Oh, and watch this space for what comes next...Love Elizabeth and Emma xx---We are so looking forward to seeing some of you IRL at our live finale show on Thursday 4th April, at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London! And if you couldn't get a ticket, or you just fancy watching from the comfort of your own sofa, you can now join us via livestream. Book a ticket to watch live, or on demand for a week after the event, here: https://www.fane.co.uk/best-friend-therapy ---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.  --- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell  Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy Email: contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk
S7, Ep 6 Best Friend Therapy: Blind Spots - How does unconscious bias affect us? Why do we need perspective? What's your blind spot profile?
11-03-2024
S7, Ep 6 Best Friend Therapy: Blind Spots - How does unconscious bias affect us? Why do we need perspective? What's your blind spot profile?
We begin this episode with the announcement that this... sniff... will be... sniff... our last season of Best Friend Therapy but DON'T PANIC because there are good reasons which we'll go into and plenty of exciting new projects in the pipeline!Which also means there's no time to lose and so this week we take a deep dive into the work Emma has been developing around her unique model of "blind spot therapy", and which she's sharing with us all in her upcoming book, What Am I Missing?If you have ever wondered why you end up repeating patterns of unhealthly behaviour, in the wrong relationships, caught up in conflict in your family or held back at work, you might be acting out of a blind spot - an area of low or no awareness that means you can't see things clearly and end up tripping over the same obstacles in life. Emma has developed a brand new psychological theory to translate ideas of unconscious bias, learned behaviours and cultural conditioning into four clear and relatable blind spot profiles:Listen along this week and find out whether you might be:THE GLADIATOR, determined but missing trustTHE BRIDGE, easy-going but missing authenticityTHE HUSTLER, charming but missing self-worthOr THE ROCK, resilient but missing boundariesElizabeth explores how being a Bridge/Hustler, or a "Bristle" as we affectionately like to call her, has affected her in the past and Emma explains how her inner Rock led her to become a therapist. Published by Penguin on 4th April, What Am I Missing? will teach you how to overcome the blind spots that are holding you back and explain why, when they said "what you don't know won't hurt you", they couldn't have been more wrong!---EXCLUSIVE PRE-ORDER OFFER: You can get £5 off your copy of What Am I Missing? if you pre-order online at Waterstones and use the code WHATAMIMISSING before the 4th April. https://www.waterstones.com/book/what-am-i-missing/emma-reed-turrell/9780241624982And if you do pre-order a hardback, audiobook or e-book edition from any UK retailer, you can also enter a competition to win an online 1:1 Blind Spot Therapy Session with Emma! Just visit https://penguinrandomhouse.eu.research.net/r/WhatAmIMissingComp to enter your details.Malcolm Gladwell talks about the "10,000-Hour Rule", in his book Outliers, it's an excellent take on what makes us successful: https://amzn.eu/d/2Or36uE ---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy Email: contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk
S7, Ep 5 Best Friend Therapy: Drama Triangle - Do you end up having the same old arguments? Listen and learn how to handle conflict better.
04-03-2024
S7, Ep 5 Best Friend Therapy: Drama Triangle - Do you end up having the same old arguments? Listen and learn how to handle conflict better.
Welcome back to Best Friend Therapy and this season’s opportunity for Emma to therapise our beloved guinea pig, Elizabeth Day, whilst offering some psycho-education for us all about the Transactional Analysis concept of the “Drama Triangle” - why and how we end up repeating conflict in relationships (be they personal or professional) and what we can do to change it.The Drama Triangle was developed by Stephen Karpman in the 1960’s and tells us about three unhealthy roles we take on in drama - the Rescuer, the Persecutor, the Victim.Elizabeth talks about a time she adopted the role of Rescuer as a way of defending her Victim and she recognises the futile task of trying to solve someone’s problems when they are not yet ready to change. She also tells us about the guilt she feels when she fails the other person and we uncover the unconscious motivations that are keeping her stuck. Listen along with an example of your own and ask yourself:If you’re the Rescuer, what are your feelings and needs? If you’re the Persecutor, what can’t you tolerate really? If you’re the Victim, what are your options to take back control? Emma explains and gives examples of how to channel more productive, constructive Adult communication using Acey Choy’s “Winners Triangle”, to remove the conflict and get closer to the results you want.---The original reference for the Drama Triangle is: Karpman MD, Stephen (1968). "Fairy tales and script drama analysis". Transactional Analysis Bulletin. 26 (7): 39–43. https://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/pdf/DramaTriangle.pdf Choy, Acey (1990). The Winner's Triangle Transactional Analysis Journal 20(1):40 https://www.scribd.com/document/577707612/Winner-s-Triangle And this brilliant book by Ian Stewart and Vann Joines is a great introduction to all things TA, including Eric Berne’s work on Games: https://amzn.eu/d/eZEkUmD ---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy Email: contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk
S7 Ep 2 Best Friend Therapy: Emotional Detachment - When should we take a step back? What stops us? Can it make for healthier relationships?
12-02-2024
S7 Ep 2 Best Friend Therapy: Emotional Detachment - When should we take a step back? What stops us? Can it make for healthier relationships?
Welcome to this week's episode of Best Friend Therapy - the one where we ask the tough questions...* What's the difference between emotional detachment and emotional unavailability?* Why can needs get confused with neediness?* How do sympathy and empathy serve different purposes? We explore how emotional detachment can actually help us to develop greater empathy and deepen authentic relationships, with others and ourselves. And we explain what happens when we don’t detach - how we can lose objectivity and fall foul of merging with others, enmeshing our experiences, projecting our beliefs and outsourcing our authentic needs... Emma explains why she used to work for brownie points and Elizabeth gets interested in the inner psyche of the teenage girl. ---Not for the first time we reference the Love Languages work of Gary Chapman: https://amzn.eu/d/68aAaOc---🚨 BIG NEWS 🚨 Not only are we back for a seventh season, but Elizabeth and Emma will be hosting a LIVE SHOW for the very first time! Book your tickets and join us live at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Thursday 4th April. We can’t wait to see your gorgeous faces IRL! 🎟️ fane.co.uk/best-friend-therapy --- Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapyEmail: contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk
S6, Ep 8 Best Friend Therapy: Rejection - Why does it hurt so much? How can we overcome it? What is self-rejection?
27-11-2023
S6, Ep 8 Best Friend Therapy: Rejection - Why does it hurt so much? How can we overcome it? What is self-rejection?
TW: Discussion on miscarriage.Welcome to this week's episode of Best Friend Therapy - the fourth instalment of our miniseries on break-ups and the final episode of Season 6!As we have been exploring different break-ups, whether it be a romantic relationship, the ending of a friendship, family estrangement or career change, we realised there is one feeling that connects them all - the feeling of rejection. So we are dedicating this final episode to unpacking this feeling - to better understand why it hurts and what we can do to help ourselves.It may be the season finale but it's most definitely not a rejection, merely a time for reflection, and we look to the work of Alain de Botton to teach us about constructive pessimism and remind ourselves of Eckhart Tolle's wise words in "The Power of Now." We also look to the great philosopher, Elizabeth Day, and hear what the glockenspiel had to teach her about rejection and why she took up the trumpet instead. Emma introduces the Transactional Anaylysis theory of the "hot potato" and walks Elizabeth down her Staircase of Beliefs, to find the fear behind the rejection, and explains why the antidote to rejection is self-acceptance and a Joy List.See you very soon for Season 7 and thanks, as always, for listening xx---Alain de Botton talks about "constructive pessimism": https://youtu.be/Aw1oLtuJOXQ?si=6BswjGNwxPWlxc6GEckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now": https://amzn.eu/d/g0Oh6moOn the Hot Potato Theory and Episcript, p.124: https://www.fanita-english.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Berne,%20phobia,%20episcripts%20and%20racketeering.pdf--- Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapyEmail: contact@bestfriendtherapy.co.uk
S6, Ep 5 Best Friend Therapy: The Break-Ups MINISERIES - Romantic Heartbreak, Why it Hurts and How to Heal
06-11-2023
S6, Ep 5 Best Friend Therapy: The Break-Ups MINISERIES - Romantic Heartbreak, Why it Hurts and How to Heal
In a first for Best Friend Therapy, we bring you a four-part MINISERIES, all about break-ups.We'd be lying if we said it was intentional but we quickly realised there was far too much to say about romatic break-ups, let along friendship break-ups, family break-ups and work break-ups, to get through in a single episode.So this week's episode is dedicated to heartbreak of the romantic variety... When we break-up with a partner, we often feel a form of grief - not only for the relationship, but also the future we may have planned, and for a past version of ourself. It's a triple whammy. We talk about the difference between being dumped and doing the dumping, how to break up well (if there is such a thing) and why break-up through divorce is hard, but break-up after divorce can be even harder.Emma explains why romantic break-ups can reinforce core beliefs and re-enact past attachment trauma and Elizabeth directs us to the ever-guiding light that is Taylor Swift.Join us again next week when we'll be turning our attention to friendship break-ups.---If you want to hear us talk more about grief, you can tune into our previous episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/best-friend-therapy/id1614793299?i=1000601683198Emma talks about the grief cycle, developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and made famous in her book, "On Death and Dying", in 1969.--- Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy
S6, Ep 2 Best Friend Therapy: Responsibility - Do we want it? Can we balance accountability and freedom? Who are we really responsible for?
16-10-2023
S6, Ep 2 Best Friend Therapy: Responsibility - Do we want it? Can we balance accountability and freedom? Who are we really responsible for?
This week we’re looking at the theme of Responsibility, how we feel about it, and how its meaning might change for us over time. Whether it begins with a badge on our blazers or a ticket to teenage independence, being given responsibility might not always be such a gift, when it later brings with it the added pressures of work, or the task of emotionally regulating the people we live alongside. We suggest that it might be wiser to take responsibility in our lives, rather than be given it, and for our sense of duty to deliver on the values that lie within ourselves, rather than be employed to meet the needs of others. We talk about the dangers of outsourcing responsibility to others and how gaslighting and toxic relationships can get set up, and we discuss the impact of an outdated and patriarchal sense of responsibility for others, when all we can ever usefully offer is a sense of responsibility to the people we care about.---Elizabeth references the Changes podcast, hosted by Annie Macmanus, in which she interviews Zadie Smith: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/zadie-smith/id1465937091?i=1000626637952 And she generously crowbars in a reference to Emma’s new book, called “What Am I Missing: The Four Blind Spots that are Holding You Back, and How to Overcome Them” - out in April 2024 and available to pre-order now: https://amzn.eu/d/6yuHeXV Oh, and she also takes us back to Aristotle, because she’s a historian at heart.Emma shares her most wholesome of weekends and, should you find yourself in Hampshire and keen to become more “manipulate”, you too can check out the wonderful workshops hosted by @alicecrowe_ceramics, @nicepearceramics and @rushmerefarm. ---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. --- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy
S6, Ep 1 Best Friend Therapy: Toxic Positivity - What are good vibes? Is there always a bright side? How can positivity help and hinder us?
09-10-2023
S6, Ep 1 Best Friend Therapy: Toxic Positivity - What are good vibes? Is there always a bright side? How can positivity help and hinder us?
We’re back with Season 6 of Best Friend Therapy and we are overjoyed to be in your ears again!In fact we're feeling so damn positive about life right now, we thought we'd kick off with a conversation about whether positivity can ever be negative... or even toxic?There’s nothing wrong with looking on the bright side of life, or tackling challenges with optimism and a positive mental attitude. But we wonder whether there is a role for taking our time to get there in certain situations, to feel heard first (by ourselves and others) and to feel validated in the truth of what is, even when it’s not as we would wish. And whether we can trip ourselves up with the pressures to be positive and feel like we’re failing, when really what we’re acknowledging is the complicated, nuanced, conflicted reality of life. To quote our very own Elizabeth Day, “life is texture” and striving to be overly positive, at the cost of authenticity, can make us more fearful of the darker feelings that are an inevitable part of the human condition.Elizabeth introduces us to the view of Zadie Smith that tells us our pain can run in parallel to others’ experiences and Emma questions whether this season of Married at First Sight sees its participants setting themselves up to fail with their "good vibes only". Never let it be said that we don’t draw on a diverse range of sources in our research for BFT.We hope our conversation puts a smile on your face but, if it doesn't, cheer up, it might never happen!---Elizabeth quotes Zadie Smith's "Intimations": https://www.waterstones.com/book/intimations/zadie-smith/9780241492383---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy
S5, Ep 8 Best Friend Therapy: Uncertain Times - How can we cope with uncertainty? Why can it make us anxious? Can it also offer opportunity?
07-08-2023
S5, Ep 8 Best Friend Therapy: Uncertain Times - How can we cope with uncertainty? Why can it make us anxious? Can it also offer opportunity?
It's that time again, it's our season finale!And this week on Best Friend Therapy, we thought it fitting to send you into the break with an episode all about uncertain times.We explore how cultural events such as the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and economic uncertainty can manifest in anxiety, and we also examine the potential for growth and change therein. We suggest that certainty might not be the only antidote to uncertainty, if we can find other ways to settle and soothe our nervous systems. Emma helps us recognise the difference between dread and excitement and Elizabeth explains why she's always nice to Siri. ---Elizabeth talks about ClearScore and you can find out more about how they can help at: https://www.clearscore.comEmma references the research of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and you can read more about her life and work at: https://www.ekrfoundation.org/elisabeth-kubler-ross/If you're struggling with uncertainty, below are some services that might be able to help:Mind: https://www.mind.org.uk/need-urgent-help/using-this-tool/Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.orgCitizens Advice Bureau: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy