Episodes
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Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what we did there?!) You share your dilemma, any dilemma, and Emma shares her reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to navigate it.
This week, Emma hears from a listener who is navigating the loss of a beloved companion and friend: her cat, Minnie. In her voicenote, this caller describes how she has struggled to do life without Minnie and is now considering getting a new cat, but continues to grapple with feelings of guilt at the prospect of moving on while still grieving for her furry friend.
In this episode, Emma explores the unique experience of loving and grieving a pet, and shares how the long-lasting, consistent bonds that we build with our animals allow us to access and nurture the parts of ourselves that we often ignore.
What advice would you give this listener?
If you have a dilemma for Emma, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod.
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
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Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens. To kick off season three, Emma chats to Poppy, who is struggling with a friendship dilemma that many of us can relate to.
We've all been on the receiving end of a friend who has ditched us temporarily for a new relationship; perhaps we've been that friend who has, for a period of time, chosen to spend more time with a new partner than with our friendship group. But what happens when history seems to repeat itself over and over again?
This week, Emma and Poppy talk about a particular friend who continuously chooses to drop her when the offer of a new relationship is on the horizon, and how that feels for Poppy. Using a Gestalt therapy technique, Emma takes Poppy through a therapy exercise live on the podcast to help her make sense of how a conversation with her friend might play out, and what the resolution might look like.
Together, Emma and Poppy discover what Poppy's motivations in this friendship are, and why it might be more about feelings of fear, than feelings of frustration between the two of them.
Find out more about Gestalt Therapy techniques: https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/gestalt-therapy-the-empty-chair-technique#:~:text=The%20Empty%20Chair%20Technique%20is,internal%20conflicts%20or%20unfinished%20business.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
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Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Missing episodes?
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Hello, and welcome to season three of Friendship Therapy! This is the podcast in which author and podcaster Emma Reed Turrell talks to real people about real friendships and looks at these pivotal relationships through a therapeutic lens.
This week, a special bonus episode to kick off a new season: Emma chats to Michelle Elman, bestselling author, speaker and life coach whose fifth book, Bad Friend: Why Friendship Breakups Hurt and How to Heal, is due to be published in May 2025.
Michelle joins Emma to talk about tolerance in friendship and explore why we can find it challenging to tolerate the decisions our friends make. When is it time to bite your tongue in friendship, and when does our silence make us complicit? Are we trying to save our friend, or is it really about saving a younger part of ourselves?
Pre-order Michelle's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Friend-Friendship-Breakups-Hurt/dp/1408749459/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season 4, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
Voicenote Emma with your dilemma in the @friendshiptherapypod DMs.
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy, and the season 2 finale! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, our Dial Emma caller wants to talk about accountability in friendship. Should we adjust our expectations when friends let us down, or should we hold them to higher standards? Why is there often less accountability in friendship compared to romantic relationships?
In this episode, and in the absence of a friendship HR department, jury or ombudsman, Emma encourages this listener to ask a simple question that might open up a much more honest conversation: is it me that’s not okay, or is it this situation that is not okay?
Emma also explores why accountability and deep connection are not always a given in friendship, and why we need to get curious about what we are willing to offer as a friend and, crucially, what we need from friendship.
What advice would you give this listener?
We'll be back with season 3 very soon, so please keep sending in your dilemmas for Emma to respond to! Drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod.
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens.
So many of our wonderful guests talk about childhood friendships and how those early experiences shape the friendships that we'll make as adults - so who better to help us talk about the way those friendships form than someone who's in the middle of making them right now?
This week, Emma chats to Elsa. She's 10 years old. She's an expert on childhood friendship. And she also happens to be Emma's daughter.
Emma and Elsa talk about what makes a good friend, those times when 'magpying' is actually copying, how to deal with it when a friend hurts our feelings, and Emma's personal friendship nemesis, the group of three.
Please do bear with us if the sound quality is slightly affected this week. Many sweets were consumed in the making of this episode.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season 3, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, we meet a listener who is grappling with feelings of guilt after moving away from their hometown - especially when the friends they left behind make comments about how little they get to see each other, and how they wish things could be different.
We can all recognise that the feeling of guilt is only appropriate when we have done something objectively wrong, but how can we put this into practice in our relationships? How can we repair, when there was no wrong to begin with? How can we understand the difference between what we're choosing to hear, and what is actually being said?
In this episode, Emma encourages this listener to get curious about their metric of friendship in order to find a way forward that meets their needs and that of their friends. Emma also explores some of the deeper emotions that might be hidden beneath the feeling of guilt, and reminds us all that we are not responsible for remedying how other people feel about the decisions we make for ourselves.
What advice would you give this listener?
If you’ve got a friendship dilemma, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens.
This week, Emma is joined by Scott, a man who, now in his 40s, has experienced a sudden turnover in the friends he made in his 20s.
A repeating pattern of rupture and loss has made him more defensive in the friendships he has left and wary of making new friends, and friendship has gone from being something he felt he could count on in the past to being something that feels much more risky in the present.
So far, he's looked to his own behaviour for explanation. In this conversation, Emma guides Scott to look further back at the role he played within his family to help understand the expectations he has of himself in friendships now. This is a conversation about boundaries, and why it's OK to aim for doing what is appropriate in your friendships, rather than whatever is physically possible.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, we hear from a listener who recognises that they have a tendency to initiate very intense friendships, only to end them abruptly after a short time. This listener travels frequently for work and struggles to hold on to friendships long-term, but is that because they are not around in a purely geographical sense, or because there's something deeper there to explore?
In this episode, Emma explores the idea of bingeing and purging in friendship, and how we can both crave connection and be overwhelmed by it beyond a certain point. We also discover the role that attachment styles can play in our friendships, and why sometimes, it's better to lean into our fears and allow them to motivate us to make a change, rather than sticking with what we've always known.
What advice would you give this listener?
If you’ve got a friendship dilemma, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
This week, Emma is joined by Annie to talk about her friendship with Katie, one that was born out of tragic circumstances and one that others have struggled to accept.
Katie had been engaged to Annie's brother and a cherished member of their family since she'd first arrived on the scene at 15, but some years later, they decided to take a break from their relationship. When Pete was tragically killed in a road traffic collision, Annie and Katie continued to be an active presence in each other's lives as they both navigated grief, loss, new relationships and parenthood.
In this episode, we hear about how Annie and Katie's friendship has sustained them through life's ups and downs, and why the last conversation Annie ever had with Pete would prove to be so important to the friendship they would go on to build.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, we hear from a listener who is struggling to navigate an imbalance in communication styles in a friendship, especially when it comes to making plans and responding to messages within a perceived timeframe that, currently, neither of them are sticking to.
How can these friends update their friendship contract into the present so that both parties can show up wholly as themselves? Can people who have very different communication styles be in a successful friendship where their individual needs are met?
In this episode, Emma comes back to attachment styles to try and understand what the dissonance could be between these friends, and why they have two very different reactions to a lack of ‘regular’ communication, whatever that looks like for them. Are they simply singing from different hymn sheets, or is it about giving themselves permission individually to behave in the ways that work for them within the friendship?
What advice would you give this listener?
If you’ve got a friendship dilemma, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens.
This week, Emma is joined by Holly to talk about friendship heartbreak and how it feels to be dumped by a friend.
When Holly’s two closest friends got engaged, she found herself waiting for an invitation to be a part of the bridal party that never came. What happened next was a slow and painful reevaluation of the terms of a friendship that had formed such a significant and meaningful part of her life for more than a decade.
In this conversation, Emma and Holly discover how a text message about wedding planning would unravel a whole decade's worth of friendship and, ultimately, reveal a much more conditional connection built on conflict avoidance and adaptation.
Through the Transactional Analysis theory of games, we look back to the beginning of Holly's friendship game to help her understand what went wrong and learn how to avoid the same heartbreak in future.
To learn more about transactional analysis and the games people play, visit: https://www.mindtools.com/ayjtd4p/transactional-analysis
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, we hear from a listener who has experienced a rupture in a friendship and is struggling to set boundaries with the friend who has hurt them, within the larger friendship group that they are both an active part of.
How do we remove ourselves from relationships that are no longer serving us, without becoming estranged from the entire group? When there isn’t an emergency exit, how can we navigate situations of conflict or rupture?
In this episode, Emma talks about family systems, the responsibilities we take on for others in group dynamics vs what is actually appropriate and reasonable, and learning to radically accept other people’s choices as theirs, and not our own, in order to co-exist more peacefully.
What advice would you give this listener?
If you’ve got a friendship dilemma and you'd like Emma's help, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy! This is the podcast in which author and psychotherapist Emma Reed Turrell talks to real people about real friendships and looks at these pivotal relationships through a therapy lens.
This week, Emma is joined by Emily to explore why a long-term friendship with someone who was maid of honour at her wedding would become someone who now gives her, in Emily's words, the 'ick.'
Emma and Emily talk about the function of the ick, a primal human response that we feel in any relationship that doesn't quite add up, and how the ick might be protecting Emily from feeling sad feelings; because after a lifetime of stifling her voice, motherhood and miscarriage saw her finally risk taking some space and needing some attention for herself.
When this friendship let Emily down, it wasn't just the loss of her friendship that she had to process, but the loss of her unconscious hope that one day someone might finally put her first. This is an episode all about the unsaids and why the end of a relationship is less often the result of what we say and more often the result of what we don't.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome to the first episode of Dial Emma from Friendship Therapy! This is where you get to Dial Emma, with your dilemma (see what I did there?!) You share your friendship concerns, and I share my reflections as a therapist to give you the tips and tools you need to build better bonds.
This week, we hear from a listener who wants to make new friends post-university, but as an introvert, they find the prospect of trying to meet new people very daunting. This listener also struggles with fears of rejection and feeling like they are not enough.
In her reflections, Emma talks about endings, change, growth, and the importance of allowing ourselves to take the pressure off and get curious about who we are, what we’re actually looking for in friendships and what we can offer as a friend.
What advice would you give this listener?
If you’ve got a friendship dilemma and you'd like Emma's help, drop us a voicenote on Instagram @friendshiptherapypod!
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome to season two of Friendship Therapy! This is the podcast in which author and psychotherapist Emma Reed Turrell talks to real people about real friendships and looks at these pivotal relationships through a therapy lens.
In our first episode of season two, Emma looks at overthinking in friendship with her guest, primary school teacher and mother of three, Rose. It's a conversation that takes us to an unexpected place, but one that ultimately helps Rose to unpack her overthinking in friendship, and understand why it may come down to a fear of loss.
When she was just nine years old, Rose left Australia for a trip to England with her mother and brother, expecting her father to join them a fortnight later. Tragically, Rose's dad never made it to England. He died suddenly during their first week away, and life would never be the same again.
During this conversation, Emma and Rose explore the idea that her tendency to worry about her friendships might have something to do with the loss of her father when she was a child, and whether teaching a group of nine year olds for the first time this year might have emerged some big feelings for the nine year old she once was.
In her reflections on the episode, Emma also reminds us that it's hard to feel, but sometimes, it's harder not to.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Hello, lovely listeners! We're back for season two of Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which psychotherapist and author Emma Reed Turrell talks to real people about real friendships and looks at these pivotal relationships through a therapy lens.
Subscribe now and don't miss the first episode when it drops on Monday 26th August. -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, and our last episode of season one! This is the bitesize episode, where Emma discusses her therapeutic takeaways from her conversation with this week's guests, Victoria and Helen.
Having met (and bonded over their shared love of musical theatre) at a time when many of their peers were meeting 'the one,' Victoria and Helen joined Emma on the podcast to talk about finding a life partner in a friend, the lack of representation of platonic relationships in the media, and the challenges that they have faced as two heterosexual women who have found a soulmate in each other.
In this bitesize episode, Emma reflects on the blind spots that she often sees in romantic relationships and explores some of the themes that came up in her conversation with Victoria and Helen, drawing on her 15 years of experience as a psychotherapist to answer some of the bigger questions when it comes to modern partnerships. Why is society still failing to recognise the significance and value of friendships? Does longevity equal success when it comes to relationships? And how can we create space in our relationships to allow each other to grow, develop, evolve and change?
Find out what you might be missing: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454959/what-am-i-missing-by-turrell-emma-reed/9780241624982
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season two, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast where psychotherapist, author and podcaster Emma Reed Turrell looks at your friendship experiences through a therapy lens.
In the final full episode of season one (don't worry, there's still Friday's bitesize episode to come!), Emma chats to Helen, 29, and Victoria, 32, about the value of friendships compared to romantic relationships, finding your life partner within a platonic relationship, and why some partnerships simply can't be categorised - but that doesn't mean that they are any less valid or important.
Helen and Victoria, both working as teachers, met at a musical theatre society when they were in their late twenties and early thirties - a crucial time during which many of their peers were meeting 'the one' and building a life with a romantic partner. Meanwhile, Helen and Victoria found in each other a platonic soulmate, a life partner with whom they could share all the domesticities of daily life, and connect with deeply on an emotional level too. By society's standards, Helen and Victoria's relationship is very much outside of the norm, and they simply can't and won't fit neatly into a box that is recognisable, or even acceptable, to the people around them.
In this episode, Helen and Victoria share their experience of finding a soulmate in a friend, the radical acceptance and permission to be themselves that they bring to each other's lives, and their frustration at the way society has failed to recognise the significance and value of platonic relationships. Emma also reflects on a deeply meaningful platonic relationship in her own life, and identifies a potential blind spot that we could all overcome.
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season two, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy! This is the bitesize episode, where Emma discusses her therapeutic takeaways from her conversation with this week's guest, Rachel.
On Monday's episode, Rachel bravely opened up about the loss of her father two years ago. It was a bereavement that, in her words, 'shone a light' on the friends who were willing to get in the trenches with her, and those who couldn't meet her where she was.
For Rachel, the death of her dad signified the end of an incredibly difficult six months since his re-diagnosis, during which she had to contend with the inevitable arrival of her very worst fear, and the loss of the hope that she had been holding on to since she was a 12 year old girl making wishes on birthday candles. The losses that Rachel had experienced since she was a child gave her a sense of vigilance that stayed with her into adulthood, causing her to feel fearful of change, particularly within her friendship groups.
In this bitesize episode, Emma explores where Rachel's fear of loss and endings originates from and how it is showing up in her friendships now, with the help of the blind spot profiles in her latest book, What am I Missing? Emma also explains the concept of 'compound loss' in therapy and how we can begin to navigate it, and why fear, hope, love and sadness exist most productively when we allow them to co-exist.
Find out more about the blind spot profiles: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454959/what-am-i-missing-by-turrell-emma-reed/9780241624982
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season two, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
---
Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] -
Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast where psychotherapist, author and podcaster Emma Reed Turrell looks at your friendship experiences through a therapy lens. This week, Emma chats to 28-year-old Rachel about intertwining our identity with our friendships, the process of 'trimming' friends over time as we grow and age, and how the turbulence and loss of our teens and twenties can affect our friendships.
Rachel very sadly lost her dad when she was 26, and as an only child, she found the process of grieving incredibly isolating and lonely. It wasn't the first time she had gone through turbulence and change in her home life; Rachel's dad was first diagnosed with cancer when she was just 12 years old, and when she was 16, her parents separated. Without a sibling who she could share the loss with, Rachel's friends stepped in to hold her hand in the trenches of grief and help her navigate some of the most challenging moments in her life.
In this episode, Rachel speaks so honestly and candidly about grief, loss and hope, the parental role that she played in her friendship groups and how that changed and evolved over time, leaning into reciprocity in relationships, and navigating the fear of loss as our lives and friendships take on a different trajectory.
Learn more about the blind spots in Emma's new book, What am I Missing?: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454959/what-am-i-missing-by-turrell-emma-reed/9780241624982
If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast in season two, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/owsfs6DVxVdTMFo46
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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.
---
Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected] - Show more
