contact: alexandra (at) youarenotyourbehaviour (dot) com

I am Alexandra McCauley. I studied Cognitive Psychology at Edinburgh University and I now run a Nursing Home for older people.

The bio I had previously written here, now makes me squirm.  I’m not a fan of the “I found a technique and it changed my life” or “it worked for me so it will work for you!” stories any more. Not without caveats at least.

I’ve been through the “journey” of illness, trying “conventional” approaches that didn’t help, discovering self-help, working with Practitioners, being “cured”, becoming a Practitioner in new “cutting edge” approaches, being at the heart of a “therapeutic / self-help community” (or ‘family’ as it was known),  gaining a wee following (I live in Scotland where all things are wee), building a YouTube channel, writing on this Blog, 15 clients a week … people starting to recognise me from my videos and coming up to me at conferences to thank me for helping them and giving them hope… making some money, briefly … and then realising this was highly dubious and dismantling it all.

In 2015 I stopped seeing clients, took myself offline, and my “Self-Help-Practitioner” persona disappeared. Thankfully.

This somewhat negative summary is not to say I didn’t learn anything useful. I’m sure a lot of what I learned then could and did help people … however, one of the most important things I’ve learned is how and when NOT to apply it. I spent most of my time in those years, trying to troubleshoot techniques and guidance that just didn’t ‘sit right’ with me. I now understand why. I’ve trained in some really intelligent approaches to mental health and personal development more recently, however it isn’t going to surprise many to say there is a lot to be concerned about in the world of Therapy and Self-Help.

I love learning about and observing how people think and behave… including myself. Sometimes it’s entertaining, sometimes enchanting, quite often disturbing. I enjoy writing about it, in one form or another…. with a bit of poetic licence. Becoming more aware of how we and others are thinking, interacting with the world and behaving is a beneficial thing.

We are not our behaviour, but we do one hell of a lot of it….

I live in the Scottish Borders with my husband, 2 badly behaved Labradors…. and after 20 years of living at opposite ends of the UK, my parents now live next door.