Welcome to my Blog!
I hope you find this information useful and reflective.
If you have questions or comments, don’t hesitate to engage!
Centering the Client through Transparency
It takes time and effort to feel comfortable to do this work with someone you don’t know. The relationship we establish as Client and Counsellor is called the Therapeutic Alliance and builds over time. With every session we spend together, our familiarity, trust, rapport and comfort strengthens and grows, allowing you to explore more personal and sometimes uncomfortable or difficult topics.
Trust Issues
So how do we re-establish the ability to trust when it has been lost and damaged repeatedly over a long period of time, from as far back as infancy, for example? If having a sense of danger and lack all the time is all a person has ever known, if they have never experienced a sense of safety and ease, how do they rebuild that inability from the inside out?
…being able to trust is not something that stays constant and strong throughout your life. It is something that needs to be reflected on, reassessed, developed and maintained.
Past, Present and Future - The Self and the Brain
The evolutionary aspect of our brain is something that when understood, even on a very basic level, can reveal why we sometimes think, feel and behave the way we do.
One aspect of this is how we relate to and process time. It can seem very complicated and existential, taking us down a rabbit hole of wondering that can feel overwhelming and confusing, but it doesn’t have to be that complex.
Mental Illness and Stigma
It is an interesting time to be a Counsellor. My goal with clients is to find the balance between empathy and accountability, to help remove the stigma of mental illness, and to provide a space where you can come to a realisation about patterns of behaviour, emotions and thought processes (your own or someone else’s) that may be harmful to the self or others. I firmly believe that everyone is entitled to agency and self-determination, and that freedom comes with responsibility. There is a time and a place for outrage and disgust, and there is a time and place for empathy too. All can occur simultaneously and most importantly, safely.