Welcome to The Grey Notes

I wasn't expecting this. Hundreds of you have signed up. Many of you wrote to me privately - to share doubts, questions, even relief. And just as many disagreed.

That feels important to name. Because disagreement, uncertainty, and curiosity - that is the work. It's the atmosphere The Grey Practice was born from.

In the UK, most publicly funded therapy now runs through IAPT - soon to be NHS Talking Therapies. Success is measured by symptom scores and session counts. Around 70-80% of sessions are CBT-based, following strict manuals and outcome targets.

Even in private practice, we feel the same pull - toward forms, formulations, and frameworks that promise safety through control. We end up treating clients - and ourselves - as systems to be managed rather than people to be met.

When I first started becoming aware of therapy's obsession with certainty - with getting it right, being the expert, staying composed - I wasn't trying to start a movement. I was just trying to name something I'd been feeling: that the profession had become too clean, too sure of itself, too allergic to being human.

The Grey Practice began as a quiet rebellion against that. It asks: what if therapy isn't about resolving uncertainty, but learning to live inside it?

The Grey Notes are where I'll try to explore that question with you - slowly, honestly, imperfectly. Each week, I'll share a short reflection about the moments where therapy slips out of certainty: the silence that feels awkward, the disagreement that opens something real, the session that goes off-script and becomes more alive because of it.

You'll also hear about the live sessions, practice groups, and early forms of The Grey Method as it unfolds.

There's no manual here. No formula, no fix. Just an ongoing conversation between people who want to stay human in the fog.

If you take anything from this first note, let it be this:

The tension, the doubt, the mess - it isn't in the way of the work.
It is the work.

I'd love to hear from you all. This is an encounter between all of us - so hit reply and tell me what comes up, who you are, where you are, or anything you'd like to share. Silence is good too.

Thank you for being here, and for staying with me in the grey.

- Matt