Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

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How to find a Therapist

I’m in agreement with Brett Kharr who argues that unfortunately we have a strange situation in therapy where there are an almost innumerable different types of therapies to choose from.  I think this reflects the consumerist, swipe right, swipe left age we live in and actually makes starting therapy more confusing for clients.

Richard Chessick, a Psychoanalyst, writes that;

“It is the experience of the therapists personality and the encounter with the therapist as a human who is truly present, rather than any verbal exchange, that makes the fundamental difference in therapy. It forms a link, that brings the patient in consistently over years of treatment, even at times when the patient is very angry or upset. (85).”

If, as a client, you are serious about wanting to change things and about wanting to engage in therapy then it does pay to think a bit about which therapist and therapy may be a good match for you. Sometimes you may feel comfortable with the first therapist you meet after perhaps doing some online research or obtaining a personal recommendation. Sometimes you may want to have a few initial consultations with different therapists. As a therapist I would always be more than happy for you to do this. As a client I would advise on being as honest as possible with the therapists you meet about this, as it’s a good chance to gage their reaction. A therapist where you feel you might have to worry about hurting their feelings, may not be the best choice.

When I began my training the course leader, in one of our first seminars, talked about the therapists needing to have personal therapy and how to choose and get the most out of therapy, said one thing that has stuck with me –

“Make sure to give your therapist hell”.

I have often thought about that statement and have come to appreciate, that I think at essence, its saying how important it is to be as honest as possible in therapy, especially about the things you don’t want to say and especially about the things you don’t want to say to your therapist.

This may feel strange. You may feel your therapist is annoying, a disappointment, etc.  What’s useful about this and I believe unique to therapy is that the therapist who has had a thorough therapy themselves won’t take it personally, they will be able to reflect on the bits that may be true, but also may be able to help you think about the bits you may be bringing that you may also bring to other areas of your life. Is the experience of finding your therapist annoying/boring/uncaring or whatever, something you experience in other areas of your life in relation to other people? If so the special circumstances of the therapeutic relationship can be a unique chance gain insight into these recurring patterns as they are happening, not just in an intellectual way but also at a deeper more affective level. It is at that level that I believe change can really occur.

Paul Salvage is a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist trained to work with adolescents from 16-25 and adults across a wide range of specialisms including depression, anxiety, family issues, self awareness and relationship difficulties. He currently works with individuals in our private practice in Hove.

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Emotional Well-being

When most people hear the words ‘mental health’ perhaps what they are most likely to think of is mental difficulties, or mental ill-health.  I always think it’s such a shame that ‘mental health’ has these negative connotations, whereas just the word ‘health’ doesn’t seem to. 

I am a big believer in being proactive about mental health and wellbeing, and in the importance of doing things to stay mentally and emotionally well – just as you might keep active, eat a healthy diet and clean your teeth to keep your body well and healthy.  There is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a huge overlap between a person’s emotional and physical wellbeing. The negative impact of stress on health and wellbeing has been well researched. 

Positive Psychology is a branch of psychology founded by Martin Seligman, which is concerned with the positive aspects of life; it focuses on potential and thriving, or as one book puts it ‘positive psychology is concerned not with how to transform, for example, -8 to -2 but with how to bring +2 to +8’.[1]

So, what might be the emotional equivalents of cleaning your teeth or keeping active be?  There are lots of ideas that can be helpful, and some will suit certain people more than others.  It is worth trying out a few different ideas to see what works well for you.  Using a planner can help, to ensure that you are regularly and frequently doing something specifically to have a positive impact on your emotional wellbeing.  It’s good to have a mixture of things across a week, including things that bring you pleasure and things that bring a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment. 

The list below includes different ideas and strategies drawn from Positive Psychology, and other areas of psychology:

  • Engaging in physical activity
  • Noticing your strengths
  • Actively relaxing – this could be using imagery, or a progressive muscle relaxation
  • Random acts of kindness
  • Spending time engaging in hobbies
  • Spending time with, and investing in close relationships
  • Completing the ‘Three good things’ exercise; every night for a week spend some time to identify and write down three things that were good about the day and notice your role in them
  • Thinking about someone you are grateful to or for, and telling them about it
  • Spending some time paying attention to the present moment (Mindfulness)

Later this year I will be running a series of workshops along with a physiotherapist, looking at tips for having a healthy body and healthy mind which will go further into the topics discussed in this blog.

Dr Emma Stevens, HCPC Registered, is an experienced Clinical Psychologist. She has an integrative approach drawing on Cognitive Behavioural, Systemic and Psychodynamic models, as well as Attachment Theory. Emma sees individuals primarily for sort-term work. Emma is available at our Lewes Practice.

[1] Positive Psychology in a Nutshell, 2nd edition.  Boniwell, I. (2008).

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Psychotherapy can change your life – but you may not want it to

Anyone who is or has been in “psychotherapy proper” will tell you that it can be really hard work.

First, you begin by telling a total stranger about the most intimate things in your life. Things you never even said out loud because it was all too difficult to admit to yourself, let alone to another human being.

Then, you find out that most things you were taught about yourself growing up turn out to not be true. Well, that’s a relief in most cases, especially since many of us are taught to believe pretty horrible and untrue things about ourselves like: “you’re stupid”, or “you’ll amount to nothing”, or something a bit subtler like “your sister is the good one”.

Next, you are encouraged to feel things you haven’t or couldn’t feel before because no one cared or knew how to deal with it. So, once you start learning that the stuff you swallowed in your childhood was more about your parent’s inadequacy rather than anything to do with you, you begin to feel pretty angry about this, or sad, or disappointed, etc

All of this inevitably leads to the painful realisation that your early life wasn’t as rosy as you thought it was, and therefore you are now feeling very anxious or depressed about seemingly unrelated things like work or your relationship.  This then leads to more mourning of the loss of good experiences that you never had. And because you can’t go back in time and no one else can make up for these experiences, you then have to gradually come to terms with it.

Of course, this is all very uncomfortable and plus it turns your world completely upside down, which you weren’t expecting at all cause you just came here to talk to a lady (or man) with a nice face and (hopefully) a soothing voice.

But then, because you are feeling all this sad and angry stuff that you never felt before, you realize that you are also feeling other things, like relieved and happy. And that over time, you feel more and more alive and happy than sad and miserable.

This leads to you being more attractive to other people and them wanting to spend more time with you because you are a nicer and more interesting person.

You also get more secure in yourself and find better work, which in turn leads you to feeling even better about things and, oh gosh – a positive loop begins!

But of course, being sad and miserable has its advantages. People feel sorry for you and they try to rescue you. Plus, you don’t have to make any fundamental changes or feel very uncomfortable feelings and make some difficult realizations. It’s the devil you know, right?

Well, being in psychotherapy might change your life for good – it’s up to you whether you want to.

(P.S. The process of psychotherapy can take many different avenues, depending on what you are bringing and where you want to go. The above is only one general example).

Sam Jahara is UKCP Registered, CTA, PTSTA and is one of the Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Co-founders.  She is a Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist with experience of working with individuals and couples in short and long-term therapy. Sam is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

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A few questions to ask if you are having relationship difficulties

When do you think these difficulties started?

It is important to recognise when things began to change. On the other hand you might realise that to some extent it has always been like this but it is only now that you recognise that.

Think back to the time when things began to change what else was happening around that time?

Life events make different demands on different people and individuals respond differently to the same events, often we don’t realise the impact this can have on how we feel as a couple. These events might include a new baby especially a first baby; changes at work, losing a job or being promoted; a house move to an unfamiliar area; children leaving home; serious illness, caring for elderly or sick relatives or the death of a parent.

How have these events changed how you and your partner spend time together and/or communicate with each other?

Most couples, consciously or not, have regular ways that they show their care for and communicate with each other. These may part of daily life, a cup of tea in bed in the morning, a lift to the station, a chat in the bathroom. These small rituals are important in keeping the relationship ‘oiled’ and for both partners to feel reassured and affirmed.

How did you meet and get together and what was it that first attracted you to each other?

Look back to what was happening for each of you when you met and think about your expectations of each other. You might have imagined each other would bring new opportunities or offer something that was missing in the other. Maybe one of you seemed warm, expressive and sociable when the other was feeling low or lonely or maybe one of you helped the other sort out practical problems or manage a difficulty at work; perhaps you saw each other as very funny, clever or sexy. One of you might have recently been left or left a relationship and have had high hopes that this one would be very different.

 

These questions begin to reveal the underlying hopes, dreams and expectations in a relationship. These may have been unrealistic at the start or they can become fixed and out of date. Thinking about disappointment is painful and it is easy to blame the other person for failing to live up to expectations or for changing, “You used to be thoughtful and sensitive!” “You used to care about me!” Life events make an impact and the picture keeps changing. Things that seemed important have drifted into the background, something new is brightly lit in the foreground and you can sense things emerging at the edges.

As a couple it is important to be responsive to life and what it brings for each of you, to give yourselves opportunities to reimagine what you want to create together as a couple.

 

Angela Rogers is an Integrative Psychotherapeutic counsellor working with individuals and couples in Hove.

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The Contemporary Consulting Room

Following on from the post featuring Andrew Robinson’s photographs of the rooms at Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, I want to think about the objects in the room in which therapy takes place.

“Both room and house are psychological diagrams that guide writers and poets in their analysis of intimacy.” (Bachelard, 1958/1994:38). This implies we have a tacit (a felt but not easy to express in words) understanding of the psychology of physical space. I suggest that the surroundings in which therapy happens are part of the therapy.

In contemporary psychotherapy there is a concern about the blurring of the boundary between the personal and professional. In the psychodynamic model if the therapist’s life comes too much into focus the client’s therapeutic potential can be compromised. It is a commonly held belief that therapy should ideally happen in a neutrally private room. However we would want to avoid any resemblance to anything cold, clinical or cell like. Freud is well known for his iconic rug covered couch and his large collection of figures that stood like a group of silent watchers in his consulting room.

A positive approach to the objects and disclosure can provide opportunities for working things through. Let’s think about books on display in the consulting room. A collection of psychotherapy books could be reassuring, showing that the therapist is well informed and takes their professional development seriously. If a client shows an interest in a particular book it can open up an area for exploration.

The impact of objects in the room can become important when a counsellor moves or there is a change in the room. Lapworth describes how when he introduced a sculpture into his consulting room, a client re-saw the room and noticed the books that had been in the room all along. When her attention was drawn to the books by the arrival of a new object, they resonated with her father and she talked about him for the first time (Lapworth, 2012:8).

Field notes the need for counsellors to take transitional objects with them, for example a rug on the floor. When she moved her consulting room a client was relieved to see the rug reappear in the new room. “We came to understand that it was symbolic of my perception of him: that I accepted him as he was; in his words ‘scruffy, imperfect, colourful and well travelled!’ ” (Field, 2007:174).

Therapists can use objects and images to support themselves in their work. A small sculpture or photograph with personal associations or special memories can help a therapist keep an open mind and feel connected with their own resources. Clients can sooth themselves through difficult times by finding reassurance when looking at familiar elements in the room.

 

Angela Rogers is an Integrative Psychotherapeutic counsellor working with individuals and couples in Hove.

References

Bachelard, G. (1958/1994) The Poetics of Space.

Field, R. (2007) Working from home in independent practice.

Lapworth, P. (2011) Tales from the Therapy Room.Facebooktwitter

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