What is Psychological Safety?
And why does it matter?
Psychological safety is something I think about a lot, in the work I do, and in my own personal life experiences.
The concept was developed by researcher and Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, whose work explores what it means to feel safe enough to speak, share, and show up honestly, without fear of judgement or harm.
Psychological safety is the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up, asking questions, or sharing how you feel. It's one of the most human things we can offer each other.
When we feel psychologically safe, we can:
Be honest without fear
Ask for help without shame
Share our experiences without editing ourselves
Show up as we really are
Psychological safety shows up in the smallest things. It might be a space where questions are welcomed, or a conversation where you don't have to choose your words carefully out of fear. Perhaps it’s a piece of content that makes someone feel seen rather than exposed.
When psychological safety is missing, it's not always immediately obvious. It might feel like hesitation before speaking. A quiet sense that your experience isn't quite welcome here. Editing yourself before you share. Most of us have felt it at some point and I’m sure you can picture those moments reading this, too.
In charity communications, this matters. Particularly from my experience in the perinatal mental health and trauma space. Psychological safety isn't a nice to have, it shapes whether someone feels safe enough to share their story. Whether a campaign connects or causes harm. Whether the people you're trying to reach feel seen or re-traumatised. It sits at the heart of everything I do.
Something worth thinking about: what feels psychologically safe to us isn’t always how it’s received by someone else. A number of factors shape how safe people may feel in any given space, whether that’s race, religion, class, sexual orientation, gender identity or previous experiences.
And it’s not for us to know or question what those factors are, simply to hold space for the fact that they exist.
Creating truly safe environments means staying curious about that gap, not assuming our good intentions are enough.
