When trust is shattered, the emotional impact can be devastating. But despite the pain it can bring, it is still possible to rebuild and heal

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

Betrayal trauma can be an overwhelming experience that can leave deep emotional scars for years, if not a lifetime. Whether it occurs in romantic relationships, friendships or family dynamics, betrayal breaks the foundation of trust that holds relationships together. Repairing trust is the essential first step to healing and overcoming betrayal trauma. This journey requires time, effort, patience, and – most importantly – a commitment to rebuilding what was lost.

Sue* was on the brink of retirement when she first discovered that her husband had been unfaithful. “We had planned to do a big trip to Europe for four months when I turned 65, but that came crashing down when I found emails from another woman,” she told me during our first session.

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• Hamilton struggled with pressure of racing as a teen
• Would like to find a therapist to help him

Lewis Hamilton revealed he has struggled with mental health issues for most of his life due to being bullied at school and the pressure of racing.

The seven-time Formula One world champion said he has from suffered depression since his teenage years. Hamilton, who has mixed race parents, experienced racism as a child growing up in Stevenage.

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Move to tackle long hours and support staff wellbeing comes months after deaths of two Bank of America workers

• Business live – latest updates

JP Morgan has created an international role to oversee the “wellbeing and success” of junior bankers after the deaths of two Bank of America employees this year renewed concerns over the health and safety of overworked staff across the industry.

Ryland McClendon, its head of diversity and inclusion, has been appointed as the bank’s first “global investment banking associate and analyst leader”, referring to its most junior ranking staff.

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It’s heartbreaking and there’s no blueprint, but here’s what I say when parents ask what to do when something seems wrong

• Sharing the Load is a column about parenting children of all ages
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Four out of five adolescents that I saw in my clinic over the past week had experienced bullying. The figure is shocking, but not surprising. Bullying is a common experience in childhood and adolescence. Depending on severity and frequency, the rate of bullying in children varies.

Enacted in myriad ways, the common factor is sustained, repeated behaviours to cause hurt, intimidation, exert power and/or exploit. It is often insidious, hidden and undisclosed by the victim. Out of fear of escalation, retaliation and retribution, leading to even greater harm, victims often stay silent.

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Ahead of her new Virago book examining women’s friendships – through fiction and authors, in diaries and letters, from school days to last goodbyes – our writer reflects on two pivotal friendships of her own, as well as some notable literary ones

My oldest friend has the same name as me: Rachel. But I call her Kitty, a variation on her surname. We have been close for more than 40 years. She and I will, I believe, know each other now until one of us finds ourself at the other’s funeral, where she will, perhaps, be required to tell funny stories to a crowd of unfamiliar people. Kitty, if you’re reading this, please don’t bring up that school trip to Normandy during which I famously disgraced myself.

We were 14 when we met at our Sheffield comprehensive; I wonder now that we found each other, because the school was unimaginably vast. But then I remember that it was the 1980s. Our teachers were often on strike: lessons began with a long wait for substitute staff to turn up, and in those minutes the gossip, like the bad behaviour, was frantic, everyone squeezing in as much as they could before the door opened and some slightly desperate figure tried to bring us to attention. Stuck in the same stream for maths, we spoke in those snatched moments about makeup and music – and, of course, about boys: about who we liked, and who we thought liked us, and which of these creatures we might nonchalantly pass in the corridor when the bell rang, or stand next to in the lunch queue.

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More than 170,000 people are on waiting lists to join the Scouts and Girlguiding

Youth groups are clamouring for more volunteers amid a rise in the number of parents seeking affordable and sociable outdoor activities for their children away from screens.

Groups including Girlguiding and the Woodcraft Folk are facing substantial unmet demand for their sessions as the Scouts this week said their waiting list has hit a historic high.

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Shorter playtimes and shrinking outside space in England have serious implications for children’s wellbeing and mental health

• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils
• Indoors at breaktime: the school in a London office block
• Private schools in England should be made to share their green space, say campaigners

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

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Faced with ‘bad’ emotions, it’s natural to want to lock them up. As a therapist and a patient, I’ve learned to let them run

Not so long ago, one of my best friends was sitting at my kitchen table, crying. He and his partner had just broken up, and I could feel his desperate sadness and the crushing weight of grief at losing someone he loved so much. I stood by the counter feeling so helpless. Confronted with his suffering, I was desperate to lift him out of his misery, to tell him that they would get back together, that things would be OK. It felt like an emotional emergency, and I wanted to call in the feelings police to lock his bad feelings up.

One of the hardest things for me to do, when I was training to be a psychotherapist, was to stop trying to make my patients feel better. It is of course a very natural response, if someone we are with is feeling bad, to want to make them feel good. We feel it in our bones – feeling bad is bad, feeling good is good, and we want only good things for those we care for. Emergency! Shut this thing down!

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I used to remove myself from experiences in favour of chasing matches. Now I’m fulfilled by the company of real people

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. For a while I was swiping so much I was barely thinking. Dating apps had hijacked my fingers, brain and evenings. I’d swipe left, mindlessly and without even looking, under the table at group dinners or during TV ad breaks. I’d fanatically check my new matches at the end of each day. “This is modern dating,” I’d tell myself. “It’s a job. I have to keep on going. This is the key to my happy ending.”

For months, this was my normality. But unsurprisingly, the lifelong romance I was looking for never materialised. As I sat on my sofa on yet another Sunday night ready to swipe until I ran out of steam, I decided I’d finally had enough. Even if my screen was flooded with likes or messages, my forays into dating app culture had rarely ended with in-person dates. I’d spend hours agonising over a single response – I needed to be funny, cool and captivating but not give too much away. But why was I so desperate to impress a distant stranger trapped behind a screen? What was I doing all the monotonous swiping for? I decided I needed to go cold turkey and figure out why I had been sucked in so completely.

Anya Ryan is a freelance journalist

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