418. How to repair a friendship
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
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Summary
Endless studies show that the strength of our relationships is the biggest indicator for our happiness and wellbeing. So when we fall out with a friend, it can feel absolutely devastating, and leave us wondering how to repair and reconnect. In this episode, we explore why friendship break-ups can be more painful than romantic ones, how our ego gets in the way of reconnecting, and ways that we can rebuild a fractured friendship.
We explore:
• The different types of friendship fallouts
• Why avoiding conflict can actually be a form of control
• How to reach out after a conflict
• The importance of recognising when you do - and don’t - want to be friends again
• Why listening is often the best way to be heard
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Our favourite sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11894851/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/tech-happy-life/202101/why-is-it-so-hard-admit-when-we-are-wrong
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8573342/
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. |
| 0:08.6 | Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast |
| 0:14.6 | where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they |
| 0:20.8 | mean for our psychology. |
| 0:28.3 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you |
| 0:33.9 | here. Back for another episode. back for a very important episode of the |
| 0:40.0 | psychology of your 20s you know what I always find so weird about being alive in this day and |
| 0:47.3 | age we have so much information and so much knowledge about literally everything we know |
| 0:53.5 | what stars are made of. |
| 0:54.7 | We know how old trees are. |
| 0:56.8 | We understand complex maths. |
| 0:59.6 | We just sent like, what was it, like eight people to the moon? |
| 1:04.1 | Schools will teach you all these things. |
| 1:05.8 | They will literally spend 15 years teaching you what essentially ends up amounting to fun facts. |
| 1:12.6 | And no one will ever talk about like the crucial foundational things to do with friendships, to do with relationships, |
| 1:19.3 | to do with maintaining connections. Like despite them being the most important parts of being |
| 1:24.4 | alive, I was never taught how to tell if like somebody is just using you. |
| 1:29.1 | I was never taught how to deal with conflict in the family. And I was definitely never given any |
| 1:36.7 | formal or even informal instruction on how to repair and mend a friendship. And I would bet a lot of money that neither were you. So I wanted |
| 1:47.5 | to talk about it today and just see what was out there in terms of the best and worst ways to go |
| 1:54.3 | about tricky situations with your friends. There's so much emphasis these days as well on |
| 2:00.5 | building community and being |
... |
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