8: Ancient Wisdom: Modern Science with Michelle Hammond and guest Anna Davies, Psychoeducation Manager at Self Space8: Ancient Wisdom: Modern Science with Michelle Hammond and guest Anna Davies, Psychoeducation Manager at Self Space
UK Health Radio Podcast
Host Michelle Hammond speaks with therapist and psychoeducation manager Anna Davies about anxiety, resilience, emotional literacy and making mental health support more human and accessible. Their conversation covers group work, workplace culture, therapy access and the importance of self-reflection in everyday life.
48:31•21 May 2026
Making Mental Health More Human with Anna Davies
Episode Overview
- Resilience is often misunderstood as pushing through at all costs, but real resilience includes softness, honesty and asking for help.
- Emotional literacy is poorly taught, leaving many young people ashamed or fearful of their feelings instead of seeing them as normal human responses.
- Psychoeducation gives people language and understanding for their inner world, making self-reflection and conscious choice more possible.
- Workplace mental health support depends heavily on leadership, policy and genuine permission for rest, not just one-off awareness events.
- Therapy and group spaces can normalise being “weird and bonkers and messy”, helping people feel less alone and more accepting of themselves.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And if change feels necessary, then self‑reflection is your golden starting point.”
Curious about how others manage their mental health in a high-pressure, always-on world? This conversation between host Michelle Hammond and psychoeducation manager and therapist Anna Davies brings that question right into focus. Anna traces her path from youth work with “the most hard to engage kind of children and young people” through to therapy, education and now leading group workshops at Self Space.
She talks about the “bonkers variety” of settings she’s worked in, and how those experiences showed her that, underneath the job titles and life stories, “everyone’s the same. We’re all weird and wonderful.” A big thread here is resilience and how society has got it a bit twisted.
Anna points out that most people define resilience as powering through and “smiling in the face of adversity”, yet we’d never say that to someone we truly love who says “I’m not okay.” Her take? We’re plugged into a harsh version of resilience for ourselves, fuelled by stigma and a lack of emotional literacy, which keeps many people waiting until crisis before they reach out.
Anna breaks down psychoeducation as “helping you understand yourself”, from the difference between stress and burnout to what anxiety actually is, and why self-reflection matters. She quotes Jung: “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate,” using it to explain why people find themselves repeating the same patterns. Workplace culture, leadership, therapy access, social media, young people’s emotional struggles and the power of group spaces all get honest attention.
Anna is clear that “self-reflection is king or queen” and that permission to be messy, human and imperfect is vital. If you’re wondering how to be kinder to your own mind – and maybe less alone in your “weird and bonkers and messy” humanity – this conversation might be the nudge you’ve been waiting for.
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