Our Counselling and Psychotherapy Blog | Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

December 10, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

On Embracing the Changing Seasons as a Metaphor for our own Change

So here we find ourselves again, verge of the end of another season and the start of winter; the long hot summer and seems a distant memory. The leaves still looked beautiful on the trees only a couple of weeks ago, replaced with bare branches.

Autumn is traditionally a time of transitions in this country – back to school after a long summer holiday, or university or work. A sort of extended Sunday evening before the onset of the long winter’s night.

And this can be difficult for some. Those unsettled feelings and a longing to go back to the seemingly carefree time of the summer. So why is this so? What is going on during a transition such as the changing of the season? Some people might say “well its simple – I just would prefer to be on holiday and so when I have to go back to work I feel miserable.”.

And that might well be the case. However, I do wonder about the function of the holiday if these feelings might just creep into another aspect of life anyway?

My supposition is that these unsettling experiences could be described as a kind of grief of one sort of another. This could be the ongoing existential grief of things constantly changing and the human struggle to make sense of that. Or it could be a more tangible grief like a death of a loved one that gets stirred up at these times of transition.

In my experience grief can often be behind difficult psychological experiences – the grief felt when someone dies, the grief of not having had a good enough experience of being parented, the grief of moving from childhood to adulthood, the complicated feelings around the realisation of mortality. It is all there in the human experience.

Not easy but important I think. I am reminded of a story I read about an oak tree that didn’t want to let go of his beautiful leaves in autumn. Eventually he was burdened and cramped by the old leaves which prevented any new growth. I think this is a very apt if painful metaphor for the idea that working through and letting go of difficult experiences or losses can allow new experiences and psychological growth to occur.

Julia Wright is a Gestalt psychotherapist with more than 15 years experience in psychotherapy and mental health and works with a diverse client group. She sees clients in Hove and Lewes.

December 3, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Can We Really Feel Someone Else’s Pain?

Has a friend ever winced in sympathy when you’ve hurt yourself? Or have you had a physical reaction when witnessing someone else’s pain? Is this just an empathic response, or can we really feel each other’s pain? According to recent research[i], the answer is yes.

Researchers asked 44 participants to watch 16 movies depicting people experiencing injections or sports injuries. After each movie participants were asked if it triggered pain in their own body. Those who said yes were further asked to rate the intensity, the physical and emotional qualities of the pain, and whether the pain was localised or more general. In addition, while the participants were watching the movies, the researchers used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to scan their brains. It was found that consciously experiencing the pain of others was surprisingly prevalent – about a quarter of all participants!

Mirror pain

Following on from this initial study, the researchers went on to explore in more depth the possible neurological underpinnings of this ‘mirror’ pain.

The original 44 participants were divided into their previous categories of Sensory/Localiser respondents, Affective/General responders and a control group comprised of the of Non-Responders. This time, participants were asked to look at 256 images depicting hands and feet going through different kinds of pain that one might experience in the real world (i.e. fingers being caught in a car door), paired with no-pain images (i.e. a hand closing a car door). After each image participants were asked to judge whether or not they experienced pain whilst viewing the image. Again, fMRI data was collected.

The researches had expected that the fMRI scans would show different brain activity in the two responder groups. Sensory/Localiser types were expected to demonstrate more activity in the somatosensory cortices (brain areas involved in processing touch). Affective/General types were expected to show more activity in brain areas such as the anterior insula, an area in the brain associated with emotions and motivation. However, this was not the case. Compared to the Non-Responders, all the participants who experienced either type of ‘mirror’ pain showed greater brain activity in all these areas. In spite of this, there were other differences that did emerge, particularly for the Sensory/Localiser sub-types. This was related to how different parts of the brain communicated with each other.

Confusing: what’s yours and what’s mine?

When the Sensory/Localiser types observed painful events, there was greater activity (compared to the Affective/General group) between the parts of their brain associated with interpersonal experience (anterior insula), and another part of their brain that is associated with the way individuals observe and process information (the right temporalparietal junction). What is understood from this unusual neural activity is that some people find it hard to distinguish other people’s experiences of pain from their own. Further studies are needed before the before the brain activity of Affective/General respondents is better understood. The researchers of this study conclude that increased activity within the pain matrix regions is a necessary and sufficient condition for the experience of vicarious pain. This is based on the notion that upon seeing pain, all individuals activate – to different degrees – the pain matrix.[ii]However only those that do so above a threshold of awareness have reportable pain-like sensations.

Feeling other’s pain

This piece has been a brief summary of what is a very complex area of research. We are only beginning to understand how the brain is involved in our experience of other people’s pain. However, even in these early days, it does appear to be the case that some of us really do feel the pain of others.

Jane Craig is an experienced chartered clinical psychologist working in the NHS and in private practice, using a variety of approaches depending on the problems you are facing. Jane sees clients from our Lewes practice.

[i]Grice-Jackson, Critchley, Banissy, Ward (2017) Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, ‘Consciously Feeling the Pain of Others Reflects Atypical Functional Connectivity between the Pain Matrix and Frontal-Parietal Regions’

[ii]The Pain Matrix consists of all parts of the brain whose activity fluctuates when an individual is experiencing pain

November 26, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

‘Where Should I Start?’ – On the flow of a psychotherapy session

Starting psychotherapy can be a daunting prospect. Researching the right psychotherapist; making contact; booking the appointment; finding the practice; waiting in the waiting room; and then…. you are invited in.

You enter and sit down. Water is on the table. Perhaps you help yourself as you are suddenly unexpectedly thirsty. Or perhaps, unconsciously, the thirst delays the awkwardness of starting the session. Eventually that moment arrives and you are unsure where to begin and so ask ‘ where should I start?’.

In fact, my experience is that this is a question that, for some clients, will repeat over and over again in the relationship and it becomes a significant part fo the work: how to work out where to begin each week.

On taking space

Whilst it is conceivable that someone with a perfectly good childhood should choose to enter into psychotherapy, it is in practice highly unlikely. Especially if we differentiate between short-term counselling or psychology, and open-ended psychotherapy.

All of us can fall victim to the uncertainties of life and can find ourselves struggling to make sense of a difficult event – perhaps a divorce or an accident. These would be perfect examples of events that may require a period of focused counselling. However, as troubling as these experiences can be, it is only if they throw our whole existence into doubt or bring down the edifices of our defences, that psychotherapy would be required.

Therefore whilst it is possible that someone with a good childhood would come into psychotherapy, most of those who do are coming (unconsciously or not) to work-through and repair attachment damage, neglect and trauma in their early relationship(s).

And for children who have been neglected, and thus not held in mind, it can then be hard to suddenly find themselves in an environment where the Other (the psychotherapist) is fully holding them in mind and is interested in everything they have to think and say. Where in the world should they start and how can they learn to feel comfortable taking up the space for themselves? Being truly seen when one has not been seen can feel very exposing.

Knowing where to start, is all about desire

When a client asks me where they should start a session I will mostly hand this back to them in a gentle manner. I invite them to be curious about how they might work out where they want to start.

I then quite often get a relaying of the week’s events, if the client is one I have seen before. Once again I will hand this back and ask them what it is that they want me to know about how they are feeling about their week. Often this is then met with a blank stare and then we can perhaps address the issue at hand: how can they work out what they want to share with me as someone they are in relationship with?

Knowing where to start is all about desire. It is about having a relationship with ourselves and working out what we would like to think about in the therapeutic relationship. It is akin to choosing what to eat off a menu – in order to know what we want to eat, we need to get in touch with what we ‘feel like eating’. We try the different dishes on in our mind and then choose which we will focus on – which becomes the dish we will order and eat. Therefore desire tells us about what matters to us – what is important to us.

And yet choosing were to start has a further complexity – we must choose what we want to talk about and then bring this onto the relationship which means acknowledging that our psychotherapist will have thoughts, feeling and perhaps judgements about what we tell them. That can bet very confronting!

From a duet for one to a dance of two

Psychotherapy is a relationship and as in all relationships, they are not static. They follow a trajectory of, if the relationship is positive, deepening over time. It shifts and moves, develops and cements as a relationship, where two people are in dialogue with each other and who matter to each other.

Where we start a session then is about allowing ourselves to accept that we are in a relationship with someone who not only holds us in mind and to whom we matter, but crucially, letting our psychotherapist matter to us. The question of where to start then simply becomes, ‘what do I want Mark to know about me?’.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and co-founder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy. He works with couples and individuals using an psychoanalytically informed integrative approach and sees clients in Hove and Lewes.

November 12, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

We want you – join our team!

Thank to ever increasing demand for our services, we are now looking to expand our in-house team of associates as well as set up a wider network of trusted psychotherapists we can refer to.

Established in 2008 and re-branded in 2014, Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a practice offering high-quality psychology and psychotherapy to residents in the Brighton & Hove and Lewes area.

We are comprised of 14 associates offering a range of psychological specialities and seeing individuals, couples, families and groups from children through to adults.

We are currently looking for skilled and experienced associates to join our team in either Hove or Lewes, or potentially both.

We are offering you the opportunity to take your private practice to the next level through our service and brand. With a full page profile on our website, referrals made trough our administrative team, high-quality consulting rooms with online bookings as well as the benefits of being a part of a clinical team with regular practice and reflective meetings, and cross-referrals, we are interested in hearing from clinicians who have been practising for at least 5 years post-qualification and can work with a variety of client groups.

In addition, we are also seeking to establish a wider network of trusted practitioners who will feature on our website and be able to see clients across a wider area of East and West Sussex in their own consulting rooms.

With an average of over 100 enquiries per month for our services, we can offer you an opportunity to take your practice to the next level.

For further information or an informal chat, please contact us at admin@brightonandhovepsychotherapy.com.

November 5, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Are criticism and anger good or bad for a happy relationship?

Studies of happy marriages find that anger and criticism are expressed rather than repressed. However the way that they are expressed matters.

Most of us are uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generate rejection and everyone hates rejection. More often than not criticizing and complaining create a climate of negative energy before they create positive energy.

Why does criticism feel like attack?

Historically criticism could lead to ostracism that may in turn lead to death. To ostracise someone meant to not speak with them, trade, or engage with them in any way. Being the subject of criticism therefore could threaten one’s livelihood and reputation as well as that of one’s family. Our genetic heritage made it functional to kill the criticiser before the criticiser killed us.

Female vs Male anger

In a study on sex differences, when observers were told that the infant they were observing was a boy they were more likely to interpret “his” emotional expression as anger; observers told the identical infant was a girl were more likely to interpret “her” emotional expression as fear.

When we interpret a woman’s emotion as fear the instinct is to protect, when the same emotion expressed in a man is interpreted as anger the instinct is to fight or flee.

It may be that a double standard has lodged itself in our mindset and translates into our feelings about how to criticize a man vs. a woman. It is more often the case that a man’s criticism of a woman is met with disapproval whilst a woman’s criticism of a man is approved of and approximated with empowerment.

Most men have learnt to express anger and criticism toward other men, but have been socialised to protect women, to argue outside the home (with men) not inside the home (with women). Withdrawal is not the way men do battle with men. It is the way they do battle with women.

Genetic heritage

For millions of years, women have biologically selected men who were heroes. The word “hero” derives from the Greek “serow” from which we get our words for “servant” “slave” and “protector.” Servants and slaves were not expected to express feelings but to repress them, just like heroes.

Our genetic heritage, the socialisation process that led women to marrying killer/provider men and men marrying beautiful women, thus selecting genes from which the next generation of children were born is still with us.

With all this genetic and social baggage in tow, is it possible to create a safe environment in which to both give and receive criticism without fear of annihilation? Couples are often afraid to understand their partner’s point of view for fear it will diminish or discount their own and demand too much by way of compromise. This is understandable in an evolutionary context where survival was more dependant on combat than compassion.

Moving forward

Perhaps it is useful to understand relational dynamics as an art, to be engaged with and navigated without blame or shame. Especially so at a time when our relationships have become the organising principle of our lives and the couple the chief organising unit.

This is easy to say, but if communicating effectively were easy, we’d already be doing it! In my next blog I shall be considering what relationship tools, language and intelligence might look and sound like, such that anger and criticism may be expressed and received in ways that promotes relational growth.

Gerry Gilmartin is an accredited, registered and experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor. She currently works with individuals (young people/adults) and couples in private practice from Hove.