Unstuck

2 Together

Ever said yes when every part of you meant no? Had the same argument for the fourth time this month and thought, how on earth are we here again?

That's what we talk about on Unstuck.

We're Dr Tanya Petersen and Dr Lisa Corbett, two psychologists who met at 18, lived next door to each other in halls, and have been in each other's lives ever since. Twenty-odd years and two doctorates later we're still talking late into the night. There's just a microphone now.

Each week we take one of the things that quietly wears people down — going grey, feeling invisible in midlife, friendships that have run out of road, saying yes when you mean no — and unpick the psychology underneath it. Our lens is schema therapy: the idea that we all build emotional blueprints early in life, then spend decades living by them without ever noticing.

Expect real conversation rather than clinical distance. We disagree with each other. We share things we probably shouldn't. And somewhere in every episode there's something you can actually take away and use.

Think of it as a glimpse behind the therapy door, without the waiting list or the fee.

Dr Tanya Petersen, DClinPsy, is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and ISST Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist and Supervisor. Dr Lisa Corbett, PsychD, is a Counselling Psychologist. Both are HCPC registered.

Unstuck is the podcast from 2 Together. New episodes weekly.

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11 episodes
Avg 29 min
English

Episodes 11

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S1 · E10
Monday · 35 min
10. Burnout: When Is Enough, Enough?
The lens that says keep going, do it properly, you should be able to manage this.
S1 · E9
October 13 · 35 min
9. The Burnout Loop: Am I The Problem
There's a moment when being overwhelmed stops feeling like too much to carry and starts feeling like proof there's something wrong with you.
S1 · E8
October 7 · 42 min
Episode 8 — Burnout: The "I'll Do It" Trap
The Self-Sacrifice Pattern and How to Break It
S1 · E7
September 29 · 32 min
Episode 7 — Burnout: Are We Burnt Out, or Are We Being Told We Are?
Burnout is everywhere, which is part of the problem. Is it a real psychological experience, or have we started using the word for every kind of exhaustion? This week we look at what the research actually says, and start a miniseries on burnout. In this episode: The World Health Organisation definition, and why burnout is classed as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition The argument that burnout doesn't exist, and why it's part fair and part invalidating Reward, purpose and achievement, and whether hard work alone burns anyone out Why "resilience training" often locates a systemic problem inside the individual Christina Maslach's six areas of working life: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values The job demands-resources model, and the simplest version of it: burnout becomes more likely when demands keep outrunning resources The five core emotional needs, and what each one looks like in a workplace rather than a childhood How lenses develop, how they get activated at work, and where SOS comes in Why burnout isn't only about work, and what we mean by life burnout An important note: Maslach and the job demands-resources researchers are not writing about schema therapy. Placing their findings alongside the core emotional needs is our own formulation, not a claim that the models are the same. Over the next three episodes, we're taking one lens each: self-sacrifice, defectiveness and shame, and unrelenting standards.
S1 · E6
September 22 · 28 min
Episode 6 — I'm Happy For You. So Why Am I Jealous?
Storming in is the last of our SOS coping styles, and the hardest to spot in yourself. Sometimes it looks like control: the friend who organises everything. Sometimes it looks like being needy, moody or hard to predict. And sometimes it's a perfectly pleasant conversation where you rubbish someone you secretly envy. We look at shame, envy and jealousy, why storming in feels powerful, what it costs, and how envy can stop being something to hide and start telling you what you want.
S1 · E5
September 15 · 34 min
Episode 5 — The Friendship Fade Out
Opting out is the O in SOS. Going quiet. Letting things drift. Cancelling. Or sitting right there at dinner with your head somewhere else entirely. In this episode we look at avoidance in friendships: what it protects you from, why the relief lasts about an hour, and what it quietly costs over years. We get into the two kinds of opting out, physical and emotional, and why the second one is far harder to spot in yourself.
S1 · E4
August 23 · 24 min
Episode 4 — The Good Friend
Submitting is the S in SOS. People-pleasing. Saying yes when you mean no. Quietly putting yourself last and calling it being a good friend. We get specific about what that looks like: moulding yourself into the funny one at school because it was reliably likeable, and pulling over to apologise by text while lost in a car with the petrol light on. Then we look at why we do it — the needs for connection, belonging and acceptance sitting underneath — and why it never quite delivers the closeness it's reaching for. The question we land on: can you be a good enough friend without losing yourself in it?
S1 · E3
August 14 · 23 min
Episode 3 — Midlife Friendships
Friendships change in your forties and nobody warns you. We start with a fallout of our own — the time one of us abruptly announced she was moving to Gibraltar because she was lonely — and use it to look at what happens when circles shrink, time runs out and priorities quietly shift. We talk quality versus quantity, the childhood experiences that shape how comfortable you are on your own, and the coping styles that surface when a friendship wobbles: storming in and taking charge, or submitting and tolerating far less than you deserve. And the question underneath all of it: what is it that keeps loneliness in place?
S1 · E2
August 13 · 26 min
Episode 2 — The Invisible Woman
Do women become invisible in midlife? We disagree on this one, fairly openly. One of us reckons older women are more visible now than they have ever been. The other, having left a senior NHS role to start again from scratch, feels distinctly less so. Somewhere between those two positions we get into middle-agism, perimenopause, and the shift from being valued for how you look to finding meaning in what you contribute. We introduce our SOS coping model — submit, opt out, storm in — and what it looks like to respond as a Lifeguard instead. Also: celebrity examples, marketing pressure, and how money changes the whole experience.
S1 · E1
July 2 · 28 min
Episode 1 — Grey Matters
In our very first episode, we introduce ourselves, explain a little bit about what schema therapy actually is, and discuss why we decided to turn our years of friendship and professional partnership into this podcast.
June 29 · 8 min
Episode 0 — Introduction
In our very first episode, we introduce ourselves, explain a little bit about what schema therapy actually is, and discuss why we decided to turn our years of friendship and professional partnership into this podcast.

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