We tend to think of grief and bereavement as something we experience only when someone close to us has died, but the bereavement process can happen with any deep and significant loss: the death of a person, the end of a relationship, significant loss of health, the loss of a limb, the end of a career, etc.
This article outlines what to expect in any grieving process. My aim is to show that difficult experiences are normal processes of adjustment to a new situation involving loss.
A question I am sometimes asked by clients, usually in the first few sessions, is “Is there any hope for me?” It is a fundamental question which goes to the heart of therapy. A way of understanding the question is ‘Will I be able to grow beyond my present state? Is change really possible?’ The answer is an emphatic ‘Yes’.
Since memories and emotions function thematically, the pain of difficulties in a relationship, or of unresolved loss, can be magnified by the time of year – Christmas, new year, anniversaries, birthdays. This article looks at the theme of endings and beginnings that makes those times of year difficult.
Those unresolved emotions can bring heartache, but the time of year can also be an opportunity for growth and increased self-awareness in psychotherapy. Read more
For many people, the first question when reading this website will be, ‘Is counselling or psychotherapy for me? Will it help?’
The aim of this article is to address the types of questions a person brings to therapy, the issues a person brings, why seeing a psychotherapist is different to talking to anyone else, what therapy is like and what it can offer.
‘Psychosomatic illness’ and ‘psychosomatic symptoms’ are commonly-used terms. In everyday language, they are typically used to dismiss both the symptoms and the person, with phrases such as ‘It’s all in the mind’, often meaning, ‘It isn’t real: this person is imagining it’.
This article outlines why such ideas are mistaken, the importance of understanding the unity of mind and body, how trauma splits mind and body, and the role of psychotherapy in reuniting them safely.
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