family issues

The Drama Triangle: reinforcing the unresolved past

Ian Pittaway anger, anxiety, co-dependence, co-dependency, counselling, Drama Triangle, ego states, emotions, family issues, family roles, fear, feeling sad, feelings, parenting, Persecutor, projection, projection and denial, projective identification, psychotherapy, racket emotions, relationship issues, Rescuer, sadness, shame, Transactional Analysis, transference, Victim

One of the roles of psychotherapy is to offer the client new ways to understand their emotional dilemma, with the aim of resolving the impasse. When someone keeps replicating the same pattern of discontent, a repeating carousel of unhappy relationships which reinforce the same fear of rejection, or sadness, or anger, it is a potential sign that the Drama Triangle is being enacted.

This article explains the origin of the Drama Triangle in childhood; its three positions – Rescuer, Victim, Persecutor; what the Drama Triangle looks like in practice; and how this can be worked through and resolved in the therapy room.

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Love, attachment and intimacy. Part 3/4: disorganised or fearful attachment

Ian Pittaway Ainsworth Mary, alienation, anxiety, attachment, Björk Hyperballad meaning, Bowlby John, counselling, disorganised attachment, dissociation, family issues, family roles, fearful attachment, hypervigilance, loneliness, love, Main Mary, parenting, psychotherapy, relationship issues, self-alienation, Transactional Analysis, transference, trauma

This is the third of four articles about the way we form relationships, known as an attachment style. This article explores disorganised or fearful attachment. Taking early experiences with parents or carers as the blueprint, disorganised attachment originates in an abiding fear due to lack of safety, resulting in negative views about life, dissociation, and emotional disregulation. In adult life, this makes relationships problematic, as the primary concern of the fearfully attached is avoiding danger and, for that reason, emotions are either heightened or blocked and hypervigilance is the norm.

Each of these four articles about attachment includes music which exemplifies the attachment style. Disorganised or fearful attachment is illustrated by Björk’s Hyperballad. Finally, the role of psychotherapy is outlined, the process of helping someone with fearful attachment reach a place of emotional security and safety.  Read more

Love, attachment and intimacy. Part 2/4: ambivalent or preoccupied attachment

Ian Pittaway Ainsworth Mary, ambivalent attachment, anxiety, attachment, Bowlby John, co-dependence, co-dependency, counselling, Creep Radiohead meaning, family issues, family roles, I Don’t Want Your Freedom Wham meaning, loneliness, love, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, parenting, preoccupied attachment, psychotherapy, relationship issues, self-esteem, trauma, Without You Nilsson Badfinger meaning

This is the second of four articles about attachment styles, the way we form relationships and view ourselves based on early experiences of nurturing. The first article briefly outlined the groundbreaking research of Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby and described the avoidant attachment style, in which emotions are either unavailable or feel dangerous to express. This article explains the origin and characteristics of ambivalent attachment, in which the infant is preoccupied with the presence of the parent whose emotional availability is unpredictable, and carries this model of relationships into adult life, passively or angrily fearing that their partner doesn’t love them.

Each article ends with an example of popular songs which encapsulate what it means to live the attachment style, and asks how counselling or psychotherapy can help change the pattern. The ambivalent attachment style is illustrated by Harry Nilsson’s Without You and Radiohead’s Creep, and the combination of avoidant and ambivalent attachments in relationship is illustrated by Wham’s Freedom.

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Couples in (mis)communication

Ian Pittaway communication, counselling, couple counselling, family issues, family roles, psychotherapy, relationship issues

For some, the scene is all too familiar. A couple are on a repetitive round of arguments, living the same events time and time again, repeating the same disputes and feeling the same powerful negative emotions. Why does this happen? And how might couple counselling, individual counselling or psychotherapy help communication?     Read more

What is this thing called love?

Ian Pittaway affairs and betrayals, counselling, couples counselling, family issues, family roles, loneliness, love, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, parenting, promiscuity, psychotherapy, relationship break-up, relationship issues

What is this thing called love,
This funny thing called love?
Just who can solve its mystery?
Why should it make a fool of me?

~ Cole Porter, What is this thing called love?

In all its various forms, love is a frequent subject in the therapy room. As in Cole Porter’s song, some people’s experience is that loving relationships inevitably end, leaving them feeling foolish. Others experience love as a restricting prison, or as something powerfully desired but unattainable. Why is this? And how can counselling and psychotherapy help?

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Hope in the therapy room

Ian Pittaway anxiety, bereavement, change key factors, depression, family issues, hope, loneliness, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, post-traumatic stress, relationship issues, trauma

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’.

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Is counselling or psychotherapy for me?

Ian Pittaway affairs and betrayals, anger management, anxiety, bereavement, counselling, depression, family issues, feeling sad, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, panic, psychotherapy, relationship issues, sadness, trauma

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 what therapy is like and what it can offer.

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Seeing what we expect to see: the magic lamp and the circle of trauma

Ian Pittaway anxiety, counselling, family issues, feeling sad, generalised anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, panic, parenting, phobias, psychotherapy, relationship issues, sadness, trauma

Recently I’ve been doing some work on my house and much of my furniture has been moved to accommodate the changes. I walked into the darkness of one room and reached out to turn on a lamp in the place it used to be. It wasn’t there. But for a split second, as if by magic, I saw it in front of me. I then turned to reach for it in the place I knew it now was, and realised the importance of what had just happened: for those in trauma, reliving expectations is a key part of experience.

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