Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

Online Therapy
01273 921 355
  • Home
  • Therapy Services
    • Fees
    • How Psychotherapy Works
    • Who is it for?
    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Child Therapy
    • Couples Counselling and Therapy
    • Marriage Counselling
    • Family Therapy and Counselling
    • Group Psychotherapy
    • Corporate Services
    • Leadership Coaching and Consultancy
    • Clinical Supervision for Therapists and Trainees
    • FAQs
  • Types of Therapy
    • Acceptance Commitment Therapy
    • Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Body Orientated Psychotherapy
    • Private Clinical Psychology
    • CBT – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
    • CFT – Compassion Focused Therapy
    • Coronavirus (Covid-19) Counselling
    • DBT – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
    • Divorce & Separation Therapy
    • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
    • Existential Therapy
    • Group Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Integrative Therapy
    • IPT – Interpersonal Psychotherapy
    • Non-Violent Resistance (NVR)
    • Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
    • TA – Transactional Analysis
    • Trauma Psychotherapy
  • Types of Issues
    • Abuse
    • Addiction
      • Gambling Addiction Therapy
      • Porn Addiction Help
    • Affairs
    • Anger Management
    • Anxiety
    • Bereavement Counselling
    • Coronavirus Induced Mental Health Issues
    • Cross Cultural Issues
    • Depression
    • Family Issues
    • LGBT+ Issues and Therapy
    • Low Self-Esteem
    • Relationship Issues
    • Sexual Issues
    • Stress
  • Online Therapy
    • Therapy for Anger Management
    • Online Anxiety Therapy
    • Online Therapy for Bereavement
    • Online Therapy for Depression
    • Online Relationship Counselling
  • Practitioner Search
    • Our Practitioners
  • Blog
    • Ageing
    • Attachment
    • Child Development
    • Families
    • Gender
    • Groups
    • Loss
    • Mental Health
    • Neuroscience
    • Parenting
    • Psychotherapy
    • Relationships
    • Sexuality
    • Sleep
    • Society
    • Spirituality
    • Work
  • About us
    • Sustainability
    • Work with us
  • Contact Us
    • Contact Us – Brighton & Hove Practice
    • Contact Us – Lewes Practice
    • Contact Us – Online Therapy
    • Contact Us – Press
    • Privacy Policy

February 18, 2019 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy 1 Comment

A Nation divided

There has been much talk of how Brexit has divided our country, and indeed, in my own extended family I have members on both sides of the debate.

In this blog I want to write a little bit about how we as humans are divided and how Psychotherapy can ease some of the conflict contained in that. This divide, or split, can happen when we think or do things that don’t accord with what we believe to be our own beliefs. Beliefs about ourselves as doers of good, thinkers of pure thoughts etc. 

Freud describes how these splits can be repressed, by quoting Nietzsche’s phrase: –

“’I did that’ says my memory; ‘I cannot have done that’, says my pride and refuses to yield. Finally – memory gives way.’”

Splitting is not necessarily a bad thing, it is often a way to manage something that cannot be managed at the time, so, cleverly, the psyche represses it. However, this repression is never total so the thing that wasn’t able to be managed, perhaps due to it being too overwhelming at that time, seeks to come out in some other way. 

The outpouring of grief at Princess Diana’s funeral, for instance, was not only about the sad and untimely death of Diana but also presented a triggering of an outpouring repressed and split off grief in so many people and perhaps goes to show how much grief so many of us carry around. 

Another way splits can occur is when we have, as we almost always do, conflicting feelings of love and hate to those we are close to. This can sometimes create a terrible conflict, where the anger or disappointment or hurt, feels like it can’t be expressed for fear of hurting the one that is also loved and therefore potentially causing us to lose that person. 

However, the feelings are still there, so find other ways to come out; – road rage, shouting at the TV, getting into arguments at work, etc.  Most of us want to be good and can find these parts of ourselves distasteful and best not thought about. However, that has side effects, sometimes serious ones and that is when a person will sometimes seek psychotherapy. 

The psychotherapist will work to facilitate the unearthing of these conflicts in a way that is sensitive, non-shaming and understanding, in order to allow their expression and lessen their negative effects on the client’s life. 

To start with this can seem strange and almost feel like the therapist is only interested in their ‘bad bits’.  However, it is not that the therapist wants to humiliate the client, but rather to do the opposite of colluding with the sometimes-long history and input of well-meaning friends and family who have tried to make them feel better by joining in the game of pretending to look the other way. 

As Carl Jung said :-

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” 

Paul Salvage is 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.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

Filed Under: Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, Loss, Mental Health, Paul Salvage, Relationships Tagged With: family therapy, Relationship Counselling, therapy rooms Brighton and Hove

Comments

  1. Dorothea Catherine Beech says

    March 7, 2019 at 11:12 am

    Hi Paul, I really liked the way you broke down the importance and need to split in order to contain the unbearable feelings of shame, envy and rage. In Brexit, it represents a collective response to spilt off anger in the society where feelings have been repressed that is now projected into the other. It seems to be an attack on thinking manifest in the muddle and confusion in finding a solution.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Find your practitioner

loader
Wordpress Meta Data and Taxonomies Filter

Locations -

  • Brighton
  • Lewes
  • Online
loader
loader
loader
loader
loader

Search for your practitioner by location

Brighton
Lewes

Therapy services +

Therapy services: 

Therapy types

Therapy types: 

Our Practitioners

  • Mark Vahrmeyer
  • Sam Jahara
  • Gerry Gilmartin
  • Dr Simon Cassar
  • Claire Barnes
  • David Work
  • Angela Rogers
  • Dorothea Beech
  • Paul Salvage
  • Susanna Petitpierre
  • Sharon Spindler
  • Kevin Collins
  • Rebecca Mead
  • Georgie Leake
  • Fiona Downie
  • Chris Horton

Search our blog

Work with us

Find out more….

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Charities we support

Hove Clinic
6 The Drive, Hove , East Sussex, BN3 3JA.

Copyright © 2022
Press Enquiries
Privacy Policy
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptReject Privacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT