Therapy Institute

24/09/2026

23/09/2026

It’s frightening how normalised images of destruction and murder have become on our TV screens and social media feeds. Gaza is a wasteland, choked in plumes of gun metal grey smoke, and post-apocalyptic ruins. Every day children are murdered, or die from starvation.
Women have to pick through the rubble to find shelter and food. Men are slaughtered without so much as a headline in a paper.

It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to wake up in Gaza to face another day of death and degradation. Dignity and human rights are denied in every second of life there. I think most decent people ask, how can this happen? The answer is, poverty allows us to place less value on human life. We are all equal, but some are more equal than others. Most of us agree that October 7 was a terrible act of terrorism. The violence perpetrated on innocent young adults trying to enjoy a music festival was heinous, an act of pure evil. I have tried to shake the images of that day out of my mind, young girls flung into the back of a van and abused and murdered, to celebratory chants. Their lifeless bodies dragged around the streets. It was vile, the worst of human nature.

To criticise Netanyahu is exactly that, criticism of a man that seems hell bent on pulling down the Middle East. The protests in Israel show that plenty of Jewish people are against what is happening in their name.I’m sure when Ed Sheeran weighs up the few quid he earns from being a good boy for businessman Robert Kraft and his cronies, he will understand the priceless cost of losing his reputation.

18/09/2026

We all know this, so why are we so slow to stop our children from getting one? Could it be one of the following;

Fear of mission out?
Want to be your child’s best friend?
Don’t like upsetting your child?
Everyone else has one?
Don’t see the harm?
It’s easier when they are quiet up stairs?

Love to hear your thoughts on it, the research is clear.

Simon Harris Mary Butler TD Coimisiún na Meán

17/09/2026

If you’d like a couple of free tickets to this Sundays talk in the Pavilion Dun Laoghaire tag a person or even a few people and share the post. I will announce on Saturday who wins. VIP seats await you!

17/09/2026

The psychology behind the TV programme The Traitors Ireland is fascinating to observe. I have been lucky enough to work on the programme, looking after cast screening and welfare. It’s a great show to work on, the contestants are magnificent and the format makes for dramatic TV.

Thousands of people apply each year to have a go at the castle and see if they can manage the stress of it all. They all come in with a game plan, and as Mike Tyson said: “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” The punch in this game is human nature.

The programme gives us great insights into human nature. When we meet someone for the first time, our brain goes through a complex process of trying to figure out if that person is a friend or a foe. It is called our in/out bias. The brain decides very quickly whether the person we have just met is someone we like or dislike, it makes that important decision in milliseconds.

Our brain scans their face, looking for familiarity, listening to tone of voice and body language, and if we find it familiar, then we will tend to like that person, trust them, and confide in them. Even though we are fully aware they are playing a game for money.

However, if we don’t find familiarity, we might treat that person harshly, distrust them, or avoid them.

You literally see that psychological phenomenon play out in the game when the contestants meet for the first time. They are all smiling, making small talk, endeavouring to be liked. When we meet someone we like, hormones are flying to connect us to that person. It is literally good for us, to like people.

10/09/2026

Free ticket give away! Win two tickets to see my talk in the Venue In Ratoath next Thursday 17th at 8pm.

Simply like, tag the person you’d like to go with and share in your story, and on Tuesday I’ll announce who won!

Can’t wait to meet you all!

09/09/2026

I watched the Katie Taylor fight on Saturday night surrounded by members of the girls’ St Sylvester’s 2014 GAA team in Cork City.

We were down to play in a blitz in Passage West. And to hold a disco, too. Fifty girls from the Malahide under-12s danced around the ballroom in the Radisson Blu Hotel.

The next morning, we got up early and headed off to The Lidl Ladies’ Football Blitz in Passage West. The atmosphere was magical as all the teams — 259 no less — lined up with their banners, pom poms, whistles, face paint, and flags. The sleeting Cork rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the girls.

A moment like that doesn’t just happen. It takes a community to build an event that allows 4,000 girls to play football.

The seeds of that day were sown many years earlier by the busy people who gave of their time in the depths of winter, trudging up to cold pitches and turning up for the girls, so that they felt valued and important.

To get 259 teams to attend an event like that takes organisation: Meetings, planning, funding, drills that get taught in every session; words of encouragement; team talks.

Thank you to all the wonderful coaches who support our girls and make them dream big!

06/09/2026

What a great day at the Passage West Lidl Ladies Football Blitz.

Thank you to all the coaches who organised an incredible night (the disco was a highlight) and to all the staff there, for making us all so welcome, and putting up with the noise.

Thank you to all the coaches from for all your time, effort and instilling your passion in the girls! Great memories. And as the little Cork Rappers said, “if you’re not from Corky City, what a pity”

Amazing time, great memories made.

03/09/2026

I was on my phone last week, looking at a video of The Beatles, when an ad for an AI girlfriend popped up telling me she has no limits. Her porcelain skin, voluptuous body, and brilliantly white teeth, smiling, and she will do anything I desire.

I felt like I had fallen into the future. To say I was staring incredulously at my screen would be an understatement.

My first thought was; imagine being a teenage boy, lonely and socially a little awkward, and coming across an ad like that. All of a sudden you can build the girlfriend of your dreams and they will interact and chat with you and, according to the lifeless eyes of the voluptuous girl winking at me, allow you to do whatever you want to her, no questions asked.

A recent study by Bangor University found that a third of the 1,009 13- to 18-year-olds surveyed said that the conversation they had with their AI companion was more satisfying than any real-life friend.

I have never been clearer in my mind about the recommender systems they have created on social media platforms, and how they are out of control now. I think it’s one of the biggest scandals waiting to break. They can’t control it. They won’t admit that, but it’s a Frankenstein’s monster.

And our government is watching, not knowing what to do. And now we have AI girlfriends entering the arena.

If feeding our children po*******hy wasn’t bad enough, now they are sending them AI girlfriends that they can create to their specific desires.

We are like those scientists out in the Nevada desert, mesmerised by the bright light of the mushroom cloud, not fully understanding they are already dead.

Mary Butler TD Coimisiún na Meán Simon Harris Micheál Martin

26/08/2026

The country has been in a state of shock since the news broke that five teenage boys intentionally drove a car down the wrong side of the road and ploughed into an innocent family of three sisters and a seven-year-old boy.

The five boys — Jack Kennedy, 17, from Athy, Co Kildare, Jeremy O’Brien, 18, and his cousin Alex McCarthy, 17, from Carlow; Joey Carthy, 15, from Athy, Co Kildare; and Kamil Pustkowski, 17, from Limerick — were all killed in the incident on the M9 motorway last Sunday week.

The sisters in the other car, Alma Kinsella, Niamh Kinsella, Ella Hendricken, and the boy were all hospitalised with serious injuries. They were travelling to Dublin Airport to attend a family wedding in the UK when the car driven by the boys struck them.

But children from disadvantaged backgrounds is not the full story. Social media is in this story too, and it doesn’t play a small role. They were in that car, wearing balaclavas, driving the wrong way down the road, for likes on their TikTok account. To feed the recommender system that fed them the same content.

The fact TikTok refused to attend an Oireachtas hearing on the topic tells us all we need to know about its ethics and diligence to protect children.

We are in the biggest fight of our lives, as parents, to protect our children, and the Government is supine, placing the responsibility on the steps of Coimisiún na Meán, and they do not seem up for this fight.

We need more education, and we need regulation to stop this content from ever reaching our children’s minds. Wake up, Mr Godfrey, stop the obfuscation and protect our children. Coimisiún na Meán Simon Harris