Relationships

The issues that people bring to counselling with me often have to do with changes in personal relationships, either at home or work. All of which can be the cause of stress and can often mean life changes having to be addressed.
When relationships become strained and sometimes end, the therapeutic process is largely about finding one’s individuality and being comfortable with aloneness in a relationship or outside. Creating a therapeutic relationship is quite different to other relationships in life but is often the key discovering one’s personal values.

Redundancy
There are some common responses to redundancy when the emotional investment in the job has been strong. The process can be about coming to terms with the bleakness and discovering hope and finding new opportunities. The future can look really bleak, for some with many financial commitments. Even significant long-term relationships can be challenged. Having an outsider listen can help the person facing redundancy discover a new way-of-being that is not identified with their career. The process is one of discovering one’s inner values and qualities.

Depression
The causes of depression can be varied and it may be difficult to identify the primary one. However whatever the cause(s) there seems to be a feature in common and that is a feeling of isolation for the person feeling depressed. Whilst prescribed drugs can and do assist, especially alongside therapy. CBT, in its varied forms has become recognised as being very useful for depression. However, there is no one particular approach to therapy that has a guaranteed success rate. A more holistic therapeutic approach works in a broader way with the person who is depressed. Exploring and addressing the existential life crises from a person-focused perspective offers the opportunity for re-creating meaning for the person experiencing depression.

Loss
A significant number of issues that people bring to counselling have an element of loss that the person is finding hard to come to terms with. Counselling offers the opportunity to explore the loss and associated grief and move on towards coming to terms with what has been lost.

I have considerable experience of developing therapeutic relationships with people who have been faced with having to come to terms significant losses, such as the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, redundancy or terminal illness.