Specialties
I can help when…
At some point in our lives all of us have known distress, pain, fear, sadness, terror. That is why it matters to look for specialised help with wounds of that kind.
Some people think expressing pain is unhealthy — that if we pretend it is not there it will go away. It does not; the pain stays. Others say “I can’t afford the luxury of therapy” or “seeing a psychologist is for crazy people”, but nothing could be further from the truth: mental health matters as much as physical health.
Please do not look for quick fixes — drinking, or numbing the symptoms with medication. Those only mask what is happening, and it comes back harder later.
Helping my patients understand why they feel what they feel matters, because it eases the sense of:
- Helplessness
- Confusion
- Shame
And it gives us tools to change the patterns.
When relationships go wrong
- Do you get irritated easily with your partner, family, friends or people you know?
- Are you afraid of being abandoned?
- Do you find it hard to commit?
- Have you been unable to close a relationship?
- Are you in a relationship even though it is not good for you?
- Do you feel you are not enough?
- Are you controlling, or submissive, in your relationships?
We are programmed by the family we came from to react this way.
Fear, Anxiety, Depression
- Flying
- Speaking in public
- Coming out
- Abandonment
- Illness
- Surgery
- Loneliness
Fear does not leave unless you understand it, hold it and work it through. When the fear settles, you can begin to live in the present.
Grief and bereavement
The death of someone you love, the loss of your health or your work, can become so stressful, so painful, so traumatic that it exceeds the natural limits of what we can take in and carry.
It disturbs our ability to respond, leaving feelings of helplessness, emptiness, abandonment, fear, sadness, guilt and confusion. Intrusive images of the moment can come too.
“The healed wound is not the forgotten one — it is the one you remember without pain.” D.G.
Sexual abuse
Some people who were abused as children do not remember it happened. The very defences that protected them at the time lock the whole painful, shaming experience away somewhere “safe”, and keep a memory that carries so much feeling from being remembered at all.
I read somewhere that “when a child’s innocence is stolen by sexual abuse, it affects self-esteem, the development of personality, socialising and achievement.” Later it can affect their intimate relationships.