Articles

“Have you lost somebody you care about? Are you overwhelmed by your feelings? Perhaps you feel as if you can’t talk about your loss anymore with friends and family and feel alone with your grief”.

The Grief Cycle

There isn’t a right or wrong way to grieve and there isn’t a fixed order in which we move through the stages of grief. Grief is not linear and how an individual responds to their loss is unique to that person.

Continue reading “Bereavement – There is No Right or Wrong Way to Grieve”

What is Trauma?

Trauma is an individual’s response and experience of an event and the meaning that they make of it.  We are all unique and so one person’s response to the same traumatic event will be different from another’s.  When we experience an event that overwhelms us, takes us by surprise and is outside of our control this can have a profound effect on our psychological and physical wellbeing.  Trauma can be caused by an isolated event or can be a repetition of events endured over a period of time.

The symptoms of Trauma can make it difficult for an individual to function on a day to day basis and these can emerge soon after the event or sometime later. These can include:

Continue reading “Trauma and Therapy – How Can I Move On?”

‘The development of shame is lodged in early attachment experiences with the primary caregiver.  It is these early experiences that create internal working models of relational worth and ways of relating to others which create a template for future relationships’ (Bowlby 1969)

We all experience shame in our lives to a greater or lesser degree, but how we respond to our shame and process it will determine whether our shame becomes damaging to our intrinsic worth and sense of self.  Loss of contact in relationship is the root cause of most shame experiences.  Shame is an individual’s core belief that there is something wrong with them.  Our early shame experiences become internalised and can cause a ripple effect in how they impact our relationships and our ability to be in relationship in the present.  Being in relationship with an empathic, non-judgemental, listening therapist can be a reparative and affirming experience for the client.

Continue reading “Shame – How Are You Impacted and How Therapy Can Help”