When we are feeling vulnerable, a bit wobbly and everything seems to be going wrong at once a good dose of kindness can go a long way to help calm us down. Once we’re feeling less anxious, it becomes much easier to think straight and actually tackle what it is that…
Ever find yourself thinking ‘I have no choice’ or ‘I couldn’t say no’? These are phrases I hear very frequently when people talk to me about what is going wrong in their lives. It is common to feel manoeuvred into a corner by a situation and that there is only one, or at best perhaps…
Authenticity is a term that is often bandied around by counsellors and psychotherapists as something worth having. But just what does it mean in the context of counselling and psychotherapy and what are the implications of trying to get it? For me, authenticity involves being true to one’s own beliefs,…
Metaphors often prove to be a very useful tool when trying to find out what is going on in someone’s life and how best to help. People who come to me for therapy might describe a tangled mess of emotions or a feeling of carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders. But what…
You’ve signed up for some sessions with a psychotherapist or counsellor. You’re committing your time, energy and hard-earned cash. You’ve even been warned that the road ahead often gets tricky here and there. How can you be sure that this slippery-sounding process is going to work?
People coming for counselling at my practice in Brighton often ask me for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Perhaps they have read about CBT in the press or it has been mentioned to them by their GP. CBT is one of many approaches to counselling, rather than a separate form. I adopt…
When choosing a therapist in the UK, how do you know if that person is properly qualified? I realised the other day that no-one coming to see me for counselling or psychotherapy has ever asked to see proof of my qualifications.
For individuals, working with a counsellor or psychotherapist for the longer term – 12 months or more – can feel very different to a short burst of counselling sessions that help us get through a crisis of some sort. When we have had the time to tell our story (what…
Any therapist worth their salt will have gone through or be going through many months of their own therapy. Personally, as a client, I wouldn’t want to go to see any practitioner who hadn’t been through this experience and come out the other side – more or less still standing.
I have written about metaphors on this blog before (see my post of 30th August 2012) and I will no doubt write about them again. Describing our lives and how we feel through the use of metaphor is, I believe, a powerful means of exploring and making sense of our world.
