The Need to Control Everything: Where It Comes From, How to Let Go
Where the need to control everything comes from, how it sabotages your life, and 5 concrete CBT exercises to gradually learn to let go.
Read the article →Blog — Psychology and CBT
Articles on relationship psychology, CBT, well-being and personal development.
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Historical PersonalitiesMichael Jackson: How Abandonment Shaped His LifeRead →PsychologyThe Complete List of Human Emotions (Plutchik's Wheel)Read →BreakupDoes No Contact Really Work? What Science Says (2026)Read →Historical PersonalitiesMarilyn Monroe: Unpacking Her Hidden Trauma & LegacyRead →Historical FiguresPablo Escobar: The Psychology of a Megalomaniac Between Terror and CharityRead →PsychologyMonster Romance: Why We're Drawn to Non-Human LoveRead →
Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress and Beginning to Heal
Post-traumatic stress is not a weakness but a normal brain response to an abnormal event. Understand the mechanism and the paths to recovery.
Read the article →I forgive you
Forgiving is not forgetting, excusing, or staying. What forgiveness actually does, who benefits from it, and why premature forgiveness makes things worse.
Read the article →Freeing yourself from the fear of other people's judgement
The fear of being judged paralyses us, makes us say yes when we mean no, and costs us our authenticity. Five CBT strategies to break free from it.
Read the article →A Bad Performance Review: The Next 48 Hours
What is at stake in the two days after a negative performance review: what not to do in the heat of it, how to sort the criticisms, the written reply that counts, and the attribution mechanism that decides what follows.
Read the article →A Coworker You Clash With and Cannot Avoid: Where to Start
A peer relationship carries no authority and no hierarchical protection. How to describe what is happening in behaviours rather than in a character sketch, and the five levers actually available between equals.
Read the article →A Workplace Conflict That Drags On: Who to Turn to, and What Mediation Really Does
When the direct conversation has failed: which people you can turn to, in what order, what mediation can and cannot produce, and how to prepare a record of facts.
Read the article →Am I Really Not Good Enough, or Am I Over-Reading It?
The one question nobody can settle alone: the measuring instrument and the thing measured are the same person. The mechanisms that manufacture a reading of illegitimacy, and what an outside source changes.
Read the article →Asking for a Raise: When to Do It, and When Not To
The right moment to ask for a raise isn't a month on a calendar. It's the meeting point of a dated record of facts, a budget cycle still open, and a manager who actually holds the margin.
Read the article →Avoiding Conflict at Work: the Costliest Strategy of All
Avoidance is the most used and least evaluated way of handling conflict at work. What it genuinely saves, what it costs six months later, and the four situations where it remains the right choice.
Read the article →Brain Fog After Burnout: Memory, Concentration, and the Words That Go Missing
Reading the same paragraph three times, losing an everyday word, no longer being able to sit through an hour-long meeting: what research has measured about cognitive functions in work-related burnout, and what it does not allow anyone to conclude.
Read the article →Care and Social Work: Why Burnout There Is Structural
Permanent emotional labour, resources below need, guilt at stopping: what makes exhaustion structural in healthcare, social work and early years — and what that changes for leave and for the return.
Read the article →Burnout in the Public Sector: A Different Administrative Route
Sick-leave categories, service-attributable illness, medical boards, occupational health, phased return: why a public servant's leave and return do not follow the private-sector route.
Read the article →Burnout Relapse: Why It So Often Happens in the Third Month Back
The most exposed moment is not the return to work but the third month that follows: adjustments fade, colleagues consider the episode closed, and the load rebuilds itself without any decision. The early signals, and what precedes them.
Read the article →Burnout When Stopping Is Not an Option: Freelancers, Founders, Self-Employed Professionals
No occupational health service, no work collective, different sick-pay rules and a business that stops when you do: what is genuinely missing when you work for yourself, and what can be rebuilt another way.
Read the article →Burnout: Who to Consult, and in What Order
Family doctor, occupational health doctor, psychologist, employee representatives, labour inspectorate, lawyer: what each can actually do, what they cannot, and the order that saves months.
Read the article →Defusing a Conflict at Work Without Backing Down: A Five-Step Sequence
Defusing is not conceding. Identify the escalation stage you have reached, choose the register of your response, and run the conversation in five steps — with what can be dated and verified.
Read the article →The Empty Day: How the Weeks of Long-Term Sick Leave Actually Go
Nobody warns you that long-term leave first produces a problem of empty time. The three phases people concerned describe, the trap of total rest, and the guilt that arrives around the third week.
Read the article →When It Isn't the Syndrome: Environments That Manufacture Illegitimacy
Sometimes feeling illegitimate isn't a distortion: it is an accurate reading of a real environment. Five configurations that produce it, and why working on yourself changes nothing there.
Read the article →Expressing Anger in Your Relationship Without Hurting
Anger is natural, legitimate and, for CBT therapists, an important signal. In a relationship it can turn destructive when it is left unregulated.
Read the article →Over 2300 applied psychology articles
The Psychologie et Sérénité blog offers over 2300 articles written by Gildas Garrec, CBT Psychopractitioner. Each article is based on validated psychological models (Gottman, Young, attachment theory, CBT) to provide concrete keys to understanding.
Couple communication — Gottman's 4 horsemen, the 5:1 ratio, stonewalling, NVC
Attachment — Anxious, avoidant, disorganized styles, path to secure attachment
Emotional dependency — The 10 signs, self-assessment tests, CBT strategies
Ghosting & dating — Ghosting, breadcrumbing, curving, orbiting, zombieing
Manipulation — Gaslighting, control, narcissistic pervert, psychological violence
Infidelity — Understanding, forgiving, trauma bonding, reconstruction
Anxiety & stress — Relationship anxiety, burnout, rumination, insomnia
Jealousy — Pathological jealousy, retrospective, social media
Breakup & grief — The 7 stages, no contact, relationship PTSD
Couple & cohabitation — Moving in, arguments, libido, mental load
Parenting — Parental alienation, co-parenting, blended family
Young's schemas — 18 early schemas, cognitive distortions
Dating apps — Mental health impact, paradox of choice, dating fatigue
Mental health — When to consult, online therapy, CBT vs EMDR