Articles

By Dr Lisa Smith The Power of Validation in Positive Parenting Validation is one of the core foundations of the Compass Psychology 6 week Positive Parenting Course.  When we ran this course in Autumn last year our parents expressed how helpful it had been to...

Stress reduction webinar: Free! Tuesday April 25 18.30 pm with psychologist Amy Lindroos This free webinar is for people who want to learn how to reduce their stress levels. What you can expect from the webinar First, we will talk about the neurophysiology of...

For the first time in Finland, The Incredible Years parenting program is available in English with Compass Psychology. The course is 10 sessions long, and it is highly encouraged that both parents attend the sessions. For that reason, childcare will be provided for...

Many parents of young children might feel stressed and overwhelmed during these days of the corona virus pandemic. It is hard to keep up normal family life when children are not able to participate in their usual social activities. In addition, it is important for...

One of the hardest things about being an expat at any time, is being away from friends and family. Now with the corona virus pandemic, this is even harder as we need to keep our physical distance and as no one knows when they will be able to visit loved ones in person...

Eat Well, Sleep Well – Tips on having a good night sleep this Winter Finding it difficult to fall asleep? Waking up at the middle of the night several times? Or do you always wake up feeling un-refreshed and find it hard to concentrate the whole day? These are all...

On May 14th, Supercell hosted an event called "Finding Your Place in Finland". It was organised by Melanie Dower, who is the person in Supercell who helps new expatriate employees settle into life in Finland. She brought together a number of useful, English language...

Culture shock is a process we all go through when adjusting to life in a new country. Initially everything seems new and exciting. Then things can seem frustrating as everything is foreign and different. Finally you become more accepting of the new culture. Everyone...

We are often asked by new mothers coming to our New Mothers' Group how to go about dressing their newborn baby in freezing cold winter temperatures. Last year it was about -18 degrees during the time we hosted our February New Mothers' Group, and the mothers were...

Jane was recently interviewed by Laura Potter, writing for the UK's Healthy Magazine (https://www.healthy-magazine.co.uk/). In the article entitled 'How to Live Happy by the happiest people in the world (that's the Finns FYI)', Jane was asked to share some tips from...

Among one of the many challenges for non-natives living in Helsinki, is the fact that Helsinki is the second-northernmost capital city in the world after Reykjavik in Iceland, meaning that Helsinki receives just less than 6 hours of sunlight per day in the middle of...

Many of the couples I see for therapy come to the first session with a huge list of complaints about their partner and think that if only their partner changed, then everything would be ok. Of course, things are never just one sided and both partners need to make...

Next month Compass Psychology and Timothy Hudd of English Therapy Helsinki will offer a new program called "Fitting Into Finland: A group for English-speaking men". This program is a six-week self-development course aimed at male, English-speaking spouses of Finnish...

A guide to Third culture life here for English speakers You arrive at the airport and find your beloved Finn waiting for you, then you are whisked off to the countryside to enjoy light filled nights, sauna, swimming in a lake in the forest – the whole package. This...

This is the second of our series of articles on intercultural relationships and this month we focus on one specific area of difference: language and communication. In last month’s blog post about intercultural relationships, we talked about some of the possible...

A couple of weeks ago I presented to the American Women's Club in Finland as a speaker for one of their monthly morning meetings. The topic was "Finnish and American Cross-Cultural Differences", and I used my back ground as a psychologist and English-speaking resident...

Across the world, intercultural relationships are on the increase as global travel becomes easier. Sadly though there is a higher prevalence of divorce in intercultural relationships which is linked to the idea of heterogamy i.e. difference values and cultures between...

In early April I was visiting Melbourne, Australia, and I had the opportunity to present for the Australian Psychological Society Study Network Group. Since 2014 I have been running workshops for psychologists about Working with Older Adults. This time around I ran...

This is the third in the series of blogs on new year’s resolutions. If you haven’t yet read parts 1 and 2, please do so and complete the exercises there before reading on. You can find them at: https://compasspsychology.fi/2018/01/12/new-years-resolutions-part-1/...

Here are a few tips on positive parenting, that will make your efforts to teach, guide and educate your child feel more empowering and less frustrating. One of my favourite positive parenting strategies is described by Noël Janis-Norton, the author of Calmer, Easier,...

The first part of this series on New Year's Resolutions in January should have helped you develop a picture of how you would like your life to be this year. If you haven’t already done this exercise please see the following link and complete the questions there before...

Many people in long-term relationships find it difficult to keep alive the passion and romance that was so abundant in the early stages of the relationship. It is common that life stresses, work and parenting cause people to become less interested in sex. Often it...

The phrase “tipaton tammikuu” literally means “drop-less January”, though is often translated in English to Dry January. But what is it, and why does it happen in Finland? Tipaton Tammikuu is the tradtion of complete abstinence from alcohol for the month of January....

Its now the middle of January and so I’m sure many of you will have made New Year’s Resolutions. The start of a new year is a great time to take stock of your life, what you have achieved over the last year and where you want to be at the end of this year. However,...

With Christmas coming up, most of us will be joining up with our family and extended family for Christmas celebrations.  Spending quality time with your children is important all year round – but Christmas can be a particularly special time to spend together and...

Christmas and the holiday season can be a stressful time for many people who are juggling multiple responsibilities, and find the extra pressures of hosting or preparing for a Christmas event stressful. Reasons for stress can include financial pressures in buying...

We started up our first New Mothers’ Group last week and it was a huge success. There were six mothers with six babies from six different countries! But all united in the common challenges of early motherhood. In the first session we introduced ourselves...

Here is some interesting trivia – did you know that of all the people in the world who live above 60 degrees north, more than a quarter of them are in Finland? That’s right, just under 20 million people live above 60 degrees latitude and 27% of them are here with us...

It is entirely normal to experience a range of feelings after having a baby. At least half of all new mums experience the ‘baby blues’, usually within a few days of giving birth. This is often linked to changes in hormones and can leave people feeling very emotional,...

Lisalotte Baeijaert, a Solution Focused change practitioner from Il Faro, based in Belgium (http://www.ilfaro.be/en) recently ran a workshop here in Helsinki focusing on Resilience in Teams. Here we talk about what resilience is, what the training involved and how you...

One of the world’s leading cognitive therapy authorities, Professor David Clark, was in Helsinki recently to give a two day workshop on using Cognitive Therapy to treat Social Anxiety and Panic Disorder. I went along to get an update on current treatment methods to...

I recently attended an interesting and lovely event in the Kallio Setlementti building in Sturenkatu about support for families in Helsinki, organised by Silvija Budaviciute of the Helsinki Meditation Group. The purpose of the event was to give information to English...