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What to expect from couples counselling

Starting couple counselling can feel both daunting and anxiety provoking, especially if it something you have not previously undertaken.  Knowing up-front what to expect can reduce some of the anxiety and enable you to focus on what you actually want to get from your sessions.

Your counsellor or psychotherapist should be suitably qualified

You are taking an emotional risk inviting a third party into your relationship and thus it is imperative that they are well trained in working with couples as well as suitably supervised and have membership of either the BACP (in the case of counsellors) or the UKCP (in the case of psychotherapists).

You have the right to enquire about a clinician’s training and experience and you also have the right to make the decision that you do not wish to work with a particular person if you do not feel comfortable enough in their presence.

Your counsellor is not invested in the outcome of your work

Whilst it may sound counter-intuitive, couple counselling or psychotherapy is not about ensuring that a couple stay together. A good therapist will work with you to establish what it is that you as individuals wish to get from the process and then how best to support you and work with you as a couple.

A successful piece of work from the perspective of a couple counsellor or psychotherapist is where a couple are able to, with support, navigate difficult conversations together and reach an outcome where both parties can consider the other’s feelings and experience.

Where children are involved and a couple make the decision to end their relationship (whether driven by one or both member of the couple), the therapist will be considering the needs of the children throughout the process and working with the couple to ensure that the separation is as kind as possible to all concerned.

Impartiality

You can expect your couple counsellor or psychotherapist to be impartial – indeed, this is essential to the work. Your therapist is not there to take sides and their role is to ‘hold’ the couple as an entity, rather than focus on one individual’s needs at the expense of the others.

Session regularity

If you and your counsellor contract to work together then it is likely that this will be weekly initially, possibly moving to fortnightly over time. The process can take time.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch. Online therapy is available.

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How do I know if I am ready to become a parent?

No, I am not addressing this to women caught in the age old story of young women fearing the passing of time and the urgency of finding a partner to start a family, although this is an important fact of life.  I am thinking of what questions we might need to ask ourselves before we even begin our search for the right partner. 

Questions such as:

  • Am I sure that I am psychologically ready to take on the task?
  • Are there aspects of my psychological self that I am unsure of that need attention before I make such a life changing commitment? 
  • Have I discussed this fully with my partner or am I happy to be a single parent?
  • What was my own childhood like and how would I like to be a different parent to my own? 

Understanding what being a parent means

For us to make these choices we need to be conscious of the demands on us as new parents. The need to understand, to discover for ourselves, our childhood experiences and the patterns we have inherited along the way that will support us or hinder us in our role as parents.  Some will be good, others need working through before entering into this new phase of life. 

A lot of what we bring to our parental role will be hidden deep in our unconscious mind only emerging once we are faced with the situation of being a parent. What is unknown before having a baby is now ‘out of the blue’ post birth, confronting us with what can be difficult emotional feelings.  

For example, I may feel jealous of the baby taking my partner away from me by demanding a lot of him or her time.  These may not be the feelings we were prepared for, would it not be better to have spent sometime reflecting on this before entering into parenthood?

Parental choices

We live in an open and free society where we have choices in the matter of whether to be parents or not. And we have the choice of when to have children.  The LGBT community has influenced the narrative towards a child-centered and mindful approach to becoming a parent; the process by its very nature has to be a conscious act on the part of the couple.

Too often parents enter into parenthood without thinking about whether it is what they really want and in failing to consider how equipped they are to parent – especially where they have been failed by their own parents.

I am suggesting that approaching life with an open and inquisitive mind is preferable to allow events to overtake you and this is where psychotherapy and your psychotherapist as an ally can be extremely helpful.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech – 

Our emotions are shaped by our relationships?

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late to start therapy

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

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When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

What a job it is to raise a child! So full of difficulty, so many moving parts in the process, so much resourcefulness and energy required. Then, just when the parent takes breath to admire their creation, off goes the young adult – at times with barely a backward glance. The parents are left behind wondering where those years have gone and trying desperately to remember what life was like before children.

But what about the process of raising a child? The very fact that there are piles of self-help books on an entirely natural process – after all, our species have been doing it for millennia – is enough in itself to make us pause and reflect. How has parenting just got so complicated and how can thinking about builders and gardeners make us reflect on our parenting style?

One of the factors that makes parenting so difficult is the way parents see themselves in the role. As society puts increasing value on the care and wellbeing of children, so the pressure is on parents to do a better job in raising them – to be accountable. Of course, much of this will be driven by the interests of the child – but there is also self interest involved. After all, that child will be a part of the parent, representing what the parent represents. Homer Simpson captured this idea of children replicating the values system of their parents in his usual comic fashion when he said that what he really liked about having children is ‘you can make them grow up to hate all the things you hate!’ Homer saw his children as extensions of himself, carrying within him some model of what he thought his grown-up child should look like – and seeing his job as making sure the way they see the world corresponds with the way he sees it. We might class his parenting style as project based – like a builder, following a set of plans to some fixed outcome.

Others might be comfortable in their role as parent without such a plan, perhaps allowing the child more freedom to find their own way. Rather than building, they might see their job as nurturing and hence we might class their parenting style as gardening. Whilst most of us will fall somewhere on a continuum between the extremes of these two approaches, thinking about them offers us the chance to re-assess what is going on for us, and for our children, in the process.

Builders

Parents who think in ‘building’ terms, might also be seen as project-focussed parents. They will often carry in their heads some template or plan as to what their child is to become. Self-help guides might be more like manuals in their minds. They will busy themselves with gathering the resources to realise that project. Ballet lessons, music lessons, sports sessions – all might be part of that plan. Of course, education will be crucial: the right school, the right approach and right attitude to progress. The aim will be to achieve the right outcome.

It can be extremely frustrating for these project-focussed parents when things do not go according to the plan. It is not unusual for there to be an amount of conflict, either with the child or with the support around them. Talk to any school head and they will have countless stories of this sort of difficulty.

The intention is a good one: to give the child the very best chance to achieve a particular – often aspirational – goal. The difficulty is that the model of the child-as-adult that is carried in the head of the parent may not be the one that the child carries for themself. It is a situation that can lead to anxiety in both camps. For the parents, they have to come to terms with the reality that they may not be able to determine outcome, and they may have to deal with disappointment and a sense of loss, as their children follow a path that was never in their (the parents’) plan. For the child, whom at some stage at least will have wanted to please their parents, they, too, will have to deal with difficult emotions that may involve a sense of having failed in some way. Not surprisingly, low mood and anxiety can be the result.

Gardeners

It would be unfair to say that gardener-parents have no plans for their children, but it is not quite as prescribed as it is in the case of builder-parents. Rather than a fixed plan and a fixed route to a clear end goal, gardeners look to provide the right context or culture for the child to develop – just as a literal gardener would provide the right soil for their plants. The parent sees their role as nurturer – providing the care that is required for their offspring to grow. There may still be ballet lessons, music lessons and extra sports classes, but these are not so much to build towards a pre-conceived plan – more to encourage and find the ‘soil’ that is going to best suit the child, whom, the parents hope, will learn to put down their own roots and gradually begin to nourish themselves.

The neuroscience of nurture and independence

If we consider our species, we will understand the need for parents to want the best for their child – if they did not, there would be many more neglected children and infant mortality would put at risk the propagation of the species. Likewise, it makes considerable evolutionary sense for children to want to please their parents – the people who are going to nourish them through to the point where they can provide for themselves and, once again, continue to propagate the species. These two neurobiological drives can often work in harmony for the infant years of the child, but the onset of adolescence is likely to cause some disruption. The child now is looking to become independent, whereas the parents might still be wanting (or needing) to follow the plan.

Difficult Feelings

Wherever we sit on this spectrum of parental styles, we are unlikely to escape having to deal with difficult moments in the raising of our children. What can sometimes help us is to recognise and separate what belongs to us and what belongs to the child. When we feel disappointed because our child does not seem to be matching the plans for them that we have in our own mind as parents, then the difficult feelings that arise within us will constitute a real challenge. Our own fantasies – ideas we carry about what might and might not be – can sometimes leave us bereft and never more so than in dealings with our children. We need to keep those feelings with us and avoid any temptation to visit them on our children. It is hardly their fault that they do not always carry the same fantasies as we do. We want our children to be independent, but sometimes that can be a very difficult place to get to unless we let go, not just of the child, but of all the plans we carry for them. Then, despite the very difficult feelings of loss, our children’s leaving us with barely a backward glance might just be a mark of a job well done.

 

Kevin Collins is a UKCP registered Psychotherapeutic Counsellor with an academic background in the field of literature and linguistics. He worked for many years in education – in schools and university. Kevin is available at our Lewes Practice.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Kevin, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Further reading by Kevin Collins –

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

Why is it hard to make decisions?

Communication, communication, communication

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Parental Alienation and the impact on children

Separation or divorce are painful, difficult and time consuming processes and more so where children are involved. Few couples manage to amicably separate and sadly, this applies to couples who have a child or children together too.

Although it may seem obvious, my experience is that couples who are separating and have children often fail to recognise that they in fact will always have a relationship with each other as parents of the same children. Whether this is openly and maturely acknowledged as in the case of couples who co-parent, or not, as in the extreme case of parental alienation, there remains, nonetheless a relationship.

What is Parental Alienation?

Broadly, parental alienation occurs when a child becomes hostile, fearful and generally unwilling to engage with one parent as a result of the either the psychological manipulation of one parent or, more often, the toxic relationship between both parents. It is extremely damaging to children and can lead to mental health issues including self harm and suicidal ideation.

Parental alienation is on a scale from a parent making negative remarks about the other parent, or one parent ‘forgetting’ their responsibilities on relation to their child (an agreement to pick them up etc.) through to psychological manipulation and control.

The child as centre stage

Whilst the process of separating can be extremely painful and difficult, it is critical that parents find a way to establish a working relationship in co-parenting their child. This starts from the point of agreeing together the narrative they are going to tell their child about the separation through to long-term parenting commitments. The role of psychotherapy. Experienced couple’s psychotherapists are able to work with a couple to move beyond their
grievances and establish a framework within which they will work together to fulfil the same job: raise their child and create emotional stability for them.

The impact of divorce on children

Society and parents tend to enormously underestimate the impact that separation and divorce can have on a child. For children, their entire stability is predicated on the stability of the parental unit and when this gets rocked or shaken to its foundations, the impact on a child can be enormous.

Studies have been undertaken measuring the impact of divorce on children and in many cases the psychological impact can be greater than losing a parent through death. The reason is because, generally, when a child is bereaved, the other parent (along with the broader family and society) enables the child to grieve a very tangible loss. With divorce, and especially where the split is contentious, children often feel they need to ‘pick a side’ and are unable to grieve the loss of the parental unit.

Top tips to focus on when separating and a child or children are involved –

  • Separate out grievances towards each other about the end of the relationship and your job as parents;
  • Agree a narrative that is age appropriate to tell your child about what is happening;
  • Reassure your child that you continue to both be there for them;
  • Avoid displays of conflict in front of your child;
  • Recognise that you NEED to put your child first and that all children want two parents and would prefer their parents to stay together;
  • Allow and facilitate the grieving process for your child.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Mark Vahrmeyer, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

Space: The Final Frontier of Manic Defence

Do Psychotherapists Need to Love Their Clients?

Unexpressed emotions will never die

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

Why ‘Cancel Culture’ is about the inability to tolerate difference

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Using empathy to re-build connection with children and young people

This last year of global pandemic has been a time of massive disruption to almost everyone. With it has come disconnection in various forms and the challenge of reconnecting at points when restrictions have lifted. Children and young people have faced their own particular challenges with school closures preventing contact with peers and friends, in addition to the stress of uncertainty about exams and other limitations related to online learning. At a time when many teens would normally be exploring social freedoms to the full, those who have kept to the rules have made do with scraps of interaction and often relied heavily on digital forums. Sadly, a considerable number have struggled to hold onto what fragile self-esteem and social confidence they formally knew. Even some of those used to thriving have found their resilience quashed and required additional support to pull through.

We are still in the early days of reconnecting with the world and all the structures of human engagement that we once took for granted and, with time, we will no doubt start to see the fuller picture of how people’s lives have been impacted by COVID and all that has come in its wake. For some, reconnecting is proving to be a battle. There are those for whom the protection of a smaller, quieter world felt safer and some are simply feeling rusty about conversing and interfacing with real live people.

Hardships faced by those whose lives COVID has touched in very tangible ways, have brought forth numerous stories of lived empathy in response to people encountering terrible pain and the loss of health and loved ones, empathy perhaps evoked by the realisation that these losses could become reality for any of us. Likewise, there has been widespread, heartfelt support for the thousands of frontline workers who have sacrificed their own safety for the wellbeing of others and for those who have lost jobs, income and businesses. Many have felt for children deprived of opportunities to learn and play as they usually would and this continues to be a time when the younger generation needs us to recognise and engage with what they are going through.

Children and young people with social and emotional difficulties always require our empathy as part of recovery and perhaps even more so in these times. Empathy is what helps them feel understood, paving the way for self-acceptance, which in turn makes it more possible to seek support from others. Daniel A. Hughes (pioneer of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) places Empathy at the core of the PACE approach, along with Acceptance and Curiosity (see my other blogs on these two subjects). In his book, co-written with John Baylin (The Neurobiology of Attachment-Focused Therapy: Enhancing Connection and Trust) he talks about embracing “the child’s defensiveness, putting connection before correction” and offering “radical acceptance” of the child’s mistrust.

In this context, Hughes and Baylin were referring to the particular struggles faced by traumatised children with attachment difficulties but we could apply the same principle to supporting children and young people who are emotionally and socially adjusting to each “new normal” they are faced with, whether or not they have experienced additional childhood trauma pre-COVID.

Hughes and Baylin recognise that this is no easy task, likening it to “hugging a porcupine”. Social and emotional defences, by their nature, are often difficult to permeate and can repel. A child or young person who repeatedly gives off a vibe of wanting to be left alone can leave the person reaching out feeling confused, rejected, useless and resentful and can lead, understandably, to withdrawal. This makes it even harder for the child or young person to reconnect, risking further disconnection, isolation and all the ill-effects that these states can bring.

If we can catch ourselves withdrawing and find empathy within ourselves for how the child or young person may be feeling in that very moment when they are unable to allow us in, we provide a bridge back into connection. This is so powerful as it communicates that we have not given up and that we see the child or young person as worth sticking with – we still see that part of them which has the potential to be in relationship with others and the world.
Brene Brown, in a Youtube clip based on part of her Tedtalk on Empathy, beautifully describes how “empathy fuels connection”. She refers to Teresa Wiseman’s 4 qualities of empathy: recognising another person’s perspective is their truth, staying out of judgement, recognising emotion in others and then communicating this. This is about “feeling with people” she says. Being with others is so much more effective than trying to fix the situation by saying the right thing: “Rarely can a response make something better, what makes something better is connection.”

In taking an empathic stance, we make an active choice to suspend our own anxiety and impatience about the pace at which a child or young person is re-engaging with life post-lockdown. We accept where things are at and we take time to understand as best we can. We then make what Brene Brown calls a “vulnerable choice”, that is choosing to connect with something in ourselves which knows the feeling we have encountered in another. This vulnerable choice is a risk well worth taking if we are serious about wanting to mitigate against the secondary effects of COVID on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people today.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

References – 

See more from Brene Brown at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz1g1SpD9Zo

Read more from Baylin and Hughes.

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Are our emotions shaped by our relationships?

This particularly influences us during infancy, childhood and adolescence.  These early experiences can be activated if they have led to the development of unhelpful defenses.  The lack of attunement in parental relationships can result in an infant developing an unhealthy attachment style, divorced from reality in the form of fantasy or withdrawal and detachment.  This initially protects the infant from the pain, emotion and feelings.  Later due to the blocking of the ability to connect emotionally the protector becomes the persecutor.

A chaotic attachment experience can impact on vital neurological developmental pathways leading to permanent damage to later functional performance. Hence the recent research on childhood services from pregnancy to five years of age. 

If a “good enough” environment is NOT available for one reason or another during a person’s childhood there will be aspects of this early experience that appear to act at an unconscious level, a shadow of the early object relationship. This can be brought into consciousness and worked with in the therapeutic process.   Forming a trusting relationship with a therapist or a stable relationship within a group to hold and contain feelings and emotions to be internalized, made sense of in order to be restored. However, we must not conflate this process by apportioning blame on the parent but as a means of unfolding the neurological pathways that block the capacity for integration.  This is re-experienced in the therapeutic alliance as an imago of the infant / child with an immature mind as the “unthought known”     

Our brain and therefore our mind can remain adaptable throughout our lives and given the right support can  make a conscious decision with a mature mind not that of the infant /child.  A similar process occurs in trauma.  It can respond making the shifts necessary to live a valued and happy life.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

It is never too late!

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

Group Psychotherapy in a post ‘Pandemic World’

 

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Is it ever too late to start psychotherapy?

Is it too late to consider going into therapy once we reach a certain age? As I walked through the gardens on an early spring morning, this was the question going through my mind. I intended to get down to writing this blog, an unfamiliar task, when I got back to my office.

We seem to have heard all year about mental and physical decline as we age so it was refreshing to read Levitin (see below) that the brain retains plasticity or the capacity to learn and change through out life. And if we are not taken down by dementia, brain injury or stroke, we can in fact retain a lively and flexible mind throughout life. We have to do the obvious things like follow a balanced diet, exercise, not give up purposeful activity (work) and maintain a good and diverse social network.

Throughout life, our close friends and family are important to our wellbeing. These relationships take enormous strain in a world where change is the only hope for survival. And they need looking after even if this means we might end a relationship, if we have children developing and sustaining a healthy connection can help our children to adjust to the world with a healthy out look.

Transitional periods, retirement, divorce, bereavement, empty-nest syndrome, can benefit from psychotherapy for one or both partners providing the space for increased awareness of ourselves, an opportunity for gaining insight and change.

Considering the later years are often filled with opportunities for reflection on a life lived there is always plenty material to explore in the therapy room. David Levitin, an American Neuroscientist, sees this period of life as an opportunity to see life afresh. His premise is the brain retains its capacity to change through out life, at its greatest in childhood and old age.

 

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Dorothea Beech is a Group Analyst with many years experience working in the UK and overseas.  She worked as A Group Analyst in South Africa as a Lecturer at Cape Town UCT and at Kwa Zulu Natal University in Durban, lecturing on a Masters Program in Group Work.  Her MA in Applied research was on Eating disorders. Her interests are in cultural diversity and trans-generational influences on the individual.  Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by Thea Beech

The Unconscious Mind

Groups for Mental Health

Group Psychotherapy in a post ‘Pandemic World’

Termination and endings in Psychotherapy

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Executive Function (part 2): Ideas for Supporting Thinking Skills Development in Children

Referring back to my previous blog – Children and young people with Executive Functioning Difficulties need us to:

Accept that they have gaps and delays in these skills.

Learn, by spending time with them and observing, which Executive Function Skills need scaffolding and practice.

Support by being the air-traffic controller when a child can’t do this alone, building in steps like:

  • modify the environment – reduce noise/ remove other distractions, create comfort, provide easy access to resources, use visual aids/ prompts, movement/ sensory breaks.
  • simplify tasks – reduce language and instructions, keep tasks short and achievable.
  • support completion of tasks – help child get started and ensure he/ she understands and can access materials required – check in regularly; if needed, be alongside throughout a short task before child tries a similar one with less support.
  • Use memory cards – if child needs to wait for your support, write it down on a card for each of you – and if possible the approximate time you will return to the task with them.
  • build EF skills development through practice – carefully chosen activities/ games/ projects.

The best way to develop executive function skills is to do meaningful activities which require Executive Function (thinking) skills to be used. To be able to engage in these kinds of activities and draw on thinking skills, children need first to feel safe, regulated and connected – for this they need a regulated, consistent adult to support them. Children also need activities which interest them and which are achievable, matched to their emotional age and ability level or the level they could manage with support. The following ideas for activities and games are just a few of many which might help.

HOME-BASED ACTIVITIES
Many of these activities involve the use of working memory in order to plan, prioritize, and get organised. They may also require self-control to stay focused and flexibility to solve problems:

  • Build a bird box or bug hotel/ grow things/ make a wormery/ catch falling leaves/ watch birds
  • Bake/ plan and cook a meal/ make a rug/ make a puppet/ do a mosaic/ make fimo beads
  • upcycle furniture/ decorate a room/ mend a bike puncture/ junk modelling
  • start a collection/ invent games/ create hunts and trails for each other
  • do a jigsaw/ make lego models – either from the box or made up
  • make music or playlists/ make up dance routines/ do puppet shows/ role-play/ tell stories

MEMORY GAMES

  • Matching pairs (working memory, flexibility, self-control). Adapt this to suit attention span and memory skills by reducing the number of cards. Can be cooperative if you work as a team to see how many turns it takes you to find all the pairs.
  • I went to the shops (working memory). Take turns in a pair or group to add to a shopping list, repeating the full list each time – invent various (I went for a walk and I saw a …… ; I went exploring and I found a ……) – be as flexible as you need to be to keep child engaged – eg. give clues if they struggle to remember a word.

WORD GAMES

  • Word tennis (working memory, task initiation, attention, flexibility). Play cooperatively in pairs or a group. Take turns to pick a topic and see how many things you can name from that topic – pass a ball/ soft toy as you do it. Continue for as long as you can without repeating a word. If you wish, time how long you can all keep going for or count the number of words.
  • Cooperative Bananagrams (planning, prioritising, flexibility). For children not ready for the competitive version of this game, work altogether as a team to use all the letters to make lots of mini crosswords or one giant one. Adapt this for your child’s attention span by choosing how many letters you play with.

PICTURE / MOVEMENT GAMES

  • Jenga (self-control, flexibility, planning) – Adapt this game in any way that suits your child, eg. leave out the requirement to pile bricks on top, use a smaller stack, create a rule that when a brick is taken there are other actions to follow, which might be drawn from a pile of cards. Or, just use the bricks to create mini collaborative challenges. Eg. Let’s see how high we can make a staircase, What’s the tallest tower we can make? Can we make a domino rally in the shape of an S? Are there enough bricks to make an outline of both my arms?
  • Home-made Pictionary/ charades (flexibility, self-control) – Create your own bank of words/ pictures/ phrases to be drawn or acted out for others to guess – or use cards from published games. Avoid time limits if this creates stress. Play in pairs if this helps a child to participate – whisper together about how you’re going to draw or act out the word.
  • Freeze (focus, self control). Play music while everyone dances or moves in any way they want. Freeze when the music stops. Or everyone moves about and one person just shouts “Freeze!” Try holding your poses for a count of 5/10/ longer.
  • Dobble (focus, initiation, self-control) – a matching game done at speed – the twist is that matching pairs of images may be different in size and surprisingly hard to spot! There are different ways to play the game and various themed versions available.

STRATEGY GAMES

  • Forbidden Desert (planning, prioritising). This is designed as a cooperative game where participants work together to escape from a desert by finding pieces of a sun-powered flying-machine, whilst avoiding sandstorms and keeping water supplies topped up.
  • Quirkle (Planning, organisation, flexible thinking). A simple but original game based on matching colours and shapes on wooden painted blocks. Players need to think about where best to place their pieces for the maximum score. Work in teams if this suits your child best. And you could try using the blocks to make patterns – see what your child comes up with.
  • Rush Hour (Focus, flexible thinking, working memory, perseverance). This is the original version of a game which has been replicated on many apps. The real thing is a fun way of moving vehicles to enable an ice-cream van to leave a car park. There are 4 levels so it’s easily adapted.
  • Genius Square (Focus, flexible thinking, perseverance). This game can be played solo or against a partner/ other team. The task is to fit the blocks into the grid around where the dots are placed. There are always lots of possible solutions.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

Further resources and ideas are available at:

HARVARD Centre for the Developing Child website for activity ideas by age group –https://developingchild.harvard.edu/guide/a-guide-to-executive-function/

UNDERSTOOD website for ideas on supporting different areas of executive function.
https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/executive-functioning-issues-strategies-you-can-try-at-home?_ul=1*2sfyod*domain_userid*YW1wLVppUDNOQ3JWZXUwSTIzekQyall5N3c.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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Executive Function Skills (part 1) – What They Are And Why Some Children Struggle With Them.

Executive functions are the cognitive skills we use to control and regulate our thoughts, emotions and actions to achieve goals. These three main areas of executive function work together:

  • Self-control/ inhibition – the ability to resist doing something distracting/ tempting in order to do what’s needed to complete a given task, helping us to pay attention, act less impulsively and stay focused.
  • Working memory – the ability to hold information in mind and use it to make connections between ideas, make mental calculations and prioritize action.
  • Cognitive flexibility – the ability to think creatively, switch gears and be flexible to changing requests and situations, allowing us to use imagination and creativity to solve problems.

For example, all three areas are needed in social pretend play:

  • Child needs to hold their own role and those of others in mind (working memory)
  • Child needs to inhibit acting out of character (employ self-control), and
  • Child needs to flexibly adjust to twists and turns in the evolving plot (cognitive flexibility)

The joint forces of our executive function skills can be thought about as . . .

  • the conductor of an orchestra, organising multiple instruments to make one unified sound or
  • an air-traffic controller managing safe take-off and landing for hundreds of air-craft

Executive functions are controlled by the frontal lobes of the brain which are connected with and control the activities in many other regions of the brain.

Hot and Cool Executive Functions
Hot executive functions are the self-management skills we use in the heat of the moment when emotions run high – they require concerted conscious effort and help us give up short term gain for the sake of a more important goal. Examples include: resisting temptation; focusing on a boring task; breaking an old habit; and biting our lip when angry. Cool executive functions are the skills we use when emotions aren’t really a factor. Examples include: remembering a list of numbers and repeating them back in reverse order and following a simple recipe.

Executive function skills are a vital part of learning. They help children to be in the right place at the right time with the right equipment, listen to the teacher, wait for a turn and not call out. They are also pivotal in managing frustration, getting started on a task, staying focused, accepting constructive criticism and asking for appropriate help. They enable children to notice and correct mistakes, prioritise, persevere and complete challenging activities, resist the urge to retaliate and feel more confident about managing in school.

Children with under-developed executive function skills may act without thinking, overreact to small problems, be upset by changes in plans, forget to hand in homework, delay starting effortful tasks, switch between tasks without finishing any, lose or misplace things, struggle to meet deadlines and set goals, and lack insight into their behaviour.

Factors which can make it harder to access our executive function include tiredness and sleep deprivation, dyslexia and more complex learning difficulties, neuro-developmental conditions like Autism and ADHD, environments which overwhelm our senses and create stress, one-off traumatic incidents and complex trauma as a result of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Given their significance, difficulties with Executive Function can contribute to social, emotional and mental health difficulties if they are unsupported and children who are already vulnerable for any of the above reasons may experience a compounding of the challenges they face. It is therefore essential that we take time to understand what these issues look like for each individual and adjust parenting, schooling and community interventions accordingly.

Look out for my forthcoming blog –  Executive Function Skills (Part 2) for ideas on how to support children with these difficulties.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

Additional resources –

  • UNDERSTOOD website: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/what-is-executive-function
  • The book  Why Can’t I Do That? A Book About Switches by Fi and Gail Newood is designed to help children understand what Executive Function skills are and how they link to everyday challenges.

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The Pandemic and the Emerging Mental Health Epidemic

There is a lot of talk about how Covid-19 and the resulting lockdown cycles are causing a mental health crisis in the UK. This blog aims to unpack and list some of the reasons why the response to the pandemic is also causing a mental health epidemic amongst us.

This year has been very hard on most of us, personally and professionally. I don’t think I have come across anyone who has not been negatively impacted by the pandemic and resulting lockdown cycles since last March. The pandemic and deaths resulting from Covid-19 are only one aspect of this crisis. The efforts to avoid death and transmission, not overwhelm the health service, and its resulting policies, in conjunction with how the Covid narrative is portrayed in the media, is what is driving the mental health crisis.

Before the pandemic hit, we were already living and dealing with normal day to day challenges linked with work, relationships, raising children, making decisions, caring for relatives, ageing and death, etc, etc. As psychotherapists, we listen to and work with these challenges everyday. The pandemic has added another layer to pre-existing issues in society, exacerbating them for everyone through the fear of death, loss, survival and health anxieties, to name a few issues which are both specifically linked to the pandemic but also issues to do with being human.

It has even become difficult to distinguish whether some of the difficulties experienced are linked to Covid or not. For instance, relationship issues which were pre-existing became exacerbated during lockdown and having to work together to home school children. Or someone with an already high level of health anxiety becomes even more anxious about becoming infected with Covid and isolates themselves even further from others.

There was a big drive to bring more awareness to mental health issues in UK society before any of us even heard of Covid-19. A large number of people were already experiencing pressures on their mental health through a variety of factors, which have now become more exacerbated through the fear of death and transmission, confinement at home, business closures, lack of outlet with entertainment venues, cafes, leisure and restaurants closed.

We have lost a large proportion of our social connections due to not being able to meet socially and professionally as we used to. Even small daily exchanges which used to make us feel more socially connected have been taken away, such as a visit to a local shop or the hairdresser.

The list is endless: Professionals who derive their identity and social contacts through work and running their businesses and had to close them, the elderly who were already lonely and have now become even more isolated, workers in the gig economy who were already struggling to survive and are now out of work, parents who were already under pressure and now have to home school as well. The list goes on…

It is vital that enough mental health support is available. In my work as a therapist, I acknowledge the collective impact in society yet focus on how it affects people on an individual level. We are all fighting our own battles at the moment, each one is dealing with a separate set of challenges pertinent to their life circumstances. It is vital for us to acknowledge and talk about what is troubling us and not just “get through”.

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Sam Jahara, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Transactional Analyst and Supervisor with a special interest in working with issues linked to cultural identity and a sense of belonging. She works with individuals and couples in Hove and Lewes.

 

Further reading by Sam Jahara

How Psychotherapy can Help Shape a Better World

Getting the most of your online therapy sessions

How Psychotherapy will be vital in helping people through the Covid-19 crisis

Leaving the Family

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Love and family

The family is our first social group. It is the crucible in which our passions are born and our capacities to love and to live are shaped – and misshaped. The family imbues its members with its own specific culture, habits and attitudes.

As an organism, it too is shaped by the cultural moment and the social environment, the hopes, fears and attitudes of the day. It is the bedrock of our most durable and intense emotions and the fertile soil of our satisfactions and discontents. The family reconfigures with each new life that enters and exits. Constantly changing, constantly staying the same it is both dynamic and flexible, coded and predictable. We are all indelibly touched, one way or another by its authority. We learn to love in the context of ‘family’, each in our own idiosyncratic way. Every family has its own cast of characters ((step)parents, grandparents, (step) siblings, aunts, uncles etc). All players in a unique drama. Family is a stage where universal themes are navigated, power, sex and money, hierarchy and democracy, passion and ambivalence, in all their dark, tumultuous, devastating and innocuous glory.

Universal themes

From Greek myth to Shakespearean tragedy, the depths and breadth of family relations provide a turbulent, brooding backdrop to moral, ethical and philosophical considerations of a universal scale. So often in these epic tales, we are reminded what an unruly emotion love is, indeed how uncomfortably close it resides to its shadowy counterpoint hate. Disowning his most beloved youngest daughter Cordelia, King Lear in a fit of vanity and rage is consumed by vengeful hate, abdicating love and reason in its wake he casts her out. Her failure to satisfy his insatiable need for flattery and primacy, to go against her own nature, disrupts their bond, unleashes chaos and eventual tragedy. This is an epic tale of family conflicts, of power, love and greed. Most family dramas do not play out on such a grand scale, but remain hidden in the shadows of secrecy, shame and trauma, creating a legacy that can trickle (or cascade) down through generations to come.

Changing Families

Whilst the major human themes endure in families across generations, the architecture of family life and living is continually changing with the socio-political and economic tides. Every generation spawns its own raft of experts on the family and its constituent members, from the institutions of religion, state, medical and social science and philosophy. The current moment, in particular, is one in which the couple is the central organising pillar upon which the success of the family depends. Bred in ever smaller numbers, the modern child is also a major focus of scrutiny and opinion. As the birth rate has decreased so children’s value has increased. Parents invest heavily in their offspring financially, emotionally, educationally etc. We dedicate ourselves to their health and happiness, often discounting our own in the process. As an antidote to our high tech fast-moving, demanding lives we create a utopia of childhood and perhaps (without knowing) locate many of our own unmet hopes and passions in our beloved and precious innocents.

Love them or hate them (and indeed it is within our families that we learn about both) idealise or reject them it is within the context of the family that we learn about the social world and our place in it. It is in this original grouping that we have our first experience of grief and loss, it is where we learn to trust (or not) and to express (or inhibit) our desires. Family life is fraught with misunderstandings and pain and is the vessel in which our virtues are forged, kindness, loyalty generosity and fortitude. Interestingly, even when we grow up and leave them we will most often seek out another with whom we wish to form a family. At this very particular COVID moment, we are all forced to reconsider what family means to us.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Gerry Gilmartin, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

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

 

Further reading by Gerry Gilmartin

Understanding sexual fantasy

Fear and hope in the time of Covid

Relationships, networks and connections

Paying attention to stress

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What shapes us?

We all have key figures in our lives, people who either held or hold great importance because of their positive impact on our professional and personal lives. They may have been people who we are either personally or professionally connected to, such as parents, siblings, friends, family members, or teachers, bosses, coaches, therapists and work colleagues, to name a few.

These people become so important to us because we internalise their qualities and also their positive messages to us, whether they were implicit or explicit, verbal or non-verbal.

Therapists are keenly aware that some key elements need to be present in our work in order for a positive relationship to form. We know that many who come to therapy do so because of breakdown or absence of relationship early on, which we can also understand as a scarcity or total absence of some key elements listed below:

Interest and Curiosity

To feel seen, heard and to perceive sense of curiosity towards oneself from another, which is engaged, honest and encourages mutual trust. Delight, enjoyment and even surprise in the exchanges that take place.

Attunement

Usually used in the context of a parent-child relationship, but the word is also used in other contexts. Attunement is a quality where the other person ‘tunes in’ to another, almost as if trying to absorb and understand what the other is communicating on a deeper level. Attuning entails putting oneself aside to hear how the other views and experiences the world.

Consistency

Consistent love and care is something children need in order to feel emotionally and psychologically safe. This continues to be the case for adults, albeit in a different way. The consistency in the care of others is what gives us a sense of belonging and therefore a sense of safety in the world.

Commitment

To feel the commitment of another to a relationship is another form of consistency, but also one that affirms that “I am here for you” or “You can count on me”. This doesn’t not mean that the other won’t disappoint at times or will always be available. But they let you know that you can rely on their commitment to you as a friend, partner or in an ongoing professional relationship, such as the regular long-term commitment of psychotherapy, for instance.

Time

Related to the two above in that there needs to be a consistent time commitment in order for any relationship to work. The gift of time cannot be underestimated, especially in today’s world. With time, important conversations take place, people get to know one another and things are allowed to unfold. We feel valued and important when others make time to be with us.

Connection

Of course this can’t be forced. We either feel connected or we don’t. However, all of the qualities above are conducive to developing a connection with another. Some people are better than others at connecting, both to themselves and therefore to other people. But there are times when the chemistry between individuals exists in a way in which can’t be explained. Some of these formed connections stay with us for a very long time, if not forever.

What are other qualities that you see as essential to forming a positive bond with someone? I look forward to your thoughts.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Sam Jahara, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist with a special interest in working with issues linked to cultural identity and a sense of belonging. She works with individuals and couples in Hove and Lewes.

 

Further reading by Sam Jahara

How Psychotherapy can Help Shape a Better World

Getting the most of your online therapy sessions

How Psychotherapy will be vital in helping people through the Covid-19 crisis

Leaving the Family

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

Online Therapy for Bereavement

Grieving is an emotional, psychological and physical response to losing someone we’re close to. It can be an unsettling experience and many people feel as though something is wrong or missing from their life. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief outline the core emotions as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But there are countless other emotions you may feel as a result of losing someone, which can make it confusing to comprehend. Online bereavement therapy is a popular way to help you deal with loss.

What is Online Bereavement Therapy?

Online bereavement therapy can be beneficial in helping you cope with your loss and come to accept what has happened. You’ll speak with a trained counsellor who has experience in helping people grieve and the issues that surround bereavement.

Since grief is often accompanied by feelings that are similar to depression, it can be all too easy to rely on anti-depressants to heal you. But this can often mask the impact of grief and delay the grieving process, causing more harm than good.

Online therapy will enable you to work through what has happened and come to terms with it. A counsellor can also help you understand that grieving is not a neat process and even after you’ve accepted your loss, you may still have difficult periods occur in the future. Your therapy may last several months or even longer – it all depends on the individual and how they process such events.

How Can Bereavement Therapy Help Me?

Some people find comfort in talking about how they feel, while others may find it difficult to talk about their emotions and withdraw from those around them. Grieving is incredibly tough, but you don’t need to feel as though you’re on your own. Offloading your worries and feelings onto someone else can be beneficial and help you work through the stages of grief.

Online bereavement therapy can help you during this mourning process – you’ll have the support of a trained professional and everything you discuss with them will remain completely confidential. It can help to discuss your loss and identify the emotions you’re feeling, whether it’s sadness, anger, guilt or helplessness.

Your counsellor can also help you in learning to live without the person you’ve lost, something that can be daunting. With the support of a counsellor, you’ll soon realise just how common and natural your responses to grief are which can make these emotions easier to deal with.

If you want to talk to our team, contact us today or take a look at our practitioners.

All the content on this page has been reviewed and vetted by Mark Vahrmeyer UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Co-Founder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy. For any questions or more information about the subjects discussed on this page please contact us.


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Helping children to ride the waves of big emotions

Quite a few people this week have asked me about tips for supporting children at times of high emotional stress (e.g. anger, rage or anxiety). For this reason, I thought I would share with you some generic pointers for parents that I use in clinic, but which could apply to most children. These are predominantly drawn from the principles of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), which you may have heard of.

1. When a child is calm, help them to understand that emotions (of any kind) are a bit like waves… they rise, they peak and they fall. They come and they go, but they DO eventually end.

2. When a child (or their parent) notices that they are starting to become distressed (or to ‘fall out of their window of optimum arousal’), they can be supported to try the TIPP approach:

T = TEMPERATURE
Helping a child to change their body temperature (e.g. by splashing the face with cold water or eating or drinking something cold) can help them calm, as the body naturally gets hotter when distressed or aroused.

I = INTENSE EXERCISE
Engaging in intense exercise to match the level of emotional arousal (e.g. star jumps or running) provides a healthy outlet for anxious tension. – Ideally this should be a rhythmic exercise as it is more likely to activate a child’s earliest neural pathways of feeling soothed from when they were rocked as babies.

P = PACED BREATHING
Slow breathing, concentrating on their breath and (importantly) breathing out for longer than they breathe in, helps children to regulate the bodies. This is because longer exhalation naturally slows their heart rate and activates the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), which in turn helps the body to calm.

PAIRED MUSCLE RELAXATION
Supporting a child to tense and then relax parts of their body, supports muscles to release tension. Relaxed muscles require less oxygen, so heart rate and breathing naturally start to slow down.

3. Having a calm box – Supporting a child to develop a pre-prepared box of all their favourite textures, smells, photos, games, sensory toys, etc., can be a lovely way to start to talk about emotions with a child and help them to feel a sense of self-efficacy in managing their own emotions. As time goes on, a child might start to ask for their box before becoming overly distressed.

4. Parental matching of the affect – When a child’s brain is distressed, it regresses to a much earlier developmental form of itself, whereby it does not register language or logic in the same ways. For this reason, a parent needs to ‘match’ the emotional intensity of the child in their non-verbal behaviours (e.g. when a child is shouting: using a loud (but not angry) voice, using BIG physical gestures, maintaining intense eye contact, etc.). The very act of ‘mirroring’ a child to themselves helps them to feel held and contained. The parent can then gradually lower their voice and soften their gestures, which the child will match in turn. I think of this as ’emotional hand holding’.

5. Having a cuddle – Following an emotional outburst, close physical connection instigated by a safe adult, is one of the most soothing and regulatory activities to do with a child to bring them back into a state of optimum arousal. It also enables them to learn that no matter what they have done or said, they are still loved, which is so important for developing a secure and healthy attachment. Once they are physically and emotionally calm, you might then want to talk about the actual behaviour if this needs to be addressed, however, the key is…’Connection before Correction!’!

I hope that you find some of these tools helpful. It is of course important to note, however, that what causes (and maintains) emotional distress in children can vary hugely from child to child. It is also important to note that for some children, what causes and maintains their distress can be very hard to determine. In such cases, parents should feel empowered to seek professional advice regarding a targeted assessment of their children’s specific needs.

Happy surfing everyone…!

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

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Helping Children With Loss Through Story Books

Children, like all of us, encounter loss in their lives, temporary and permanent. They may lose a treasured possession, a loved one who dies, a parent who leaves or is imprisoned, a friend who moves away, or a valued teacher in the transition between year groups or schools. Some are unlucky enough to lose their health or abilities they once took for granted. Others lose their home or their country and there are those who lose their innocence through exploitation and with it perhaps their sense of self and any respect and trust they had for the world.

With loss comes associated feelings, held in the conscious or unconscious mind or both. Support in processing losses may or may not be available and the degree to which children show lasting difficulties will vary accordingly. Stories are just one tool which can help children connect with and work through internal emotional conflicts associated with experience of loss.

Like art, stories help us to take new perspectives and understand ourselves, others and the world differently. They can offer comfort or challenge, enliven or unsettle us. By engaging the imagination, not only can stories transport us to another time and place but they can also open up a rich emotional landscape which might otherwise be off limits to the defended conscious mind.

Most children speak and understand the language of play and they live stories, in their everyday playful interactions with food, sounds, textures, objects, animals and people. And, of course most are introduced to and love books, from a young age. Well-told children’s stories tap into a child’s thirst for make-believe, for adventure and for powerful emotive themes such as love and hate, despair and hope, failure and redemption.

For this blog, I have selected 6 story picture books which I will briefly summarise:

Amos And Boris by William Steig (1971)
This beautifully written tale of enduring friendship focuses on the unlikely alliance of a mouse (Amos) and a whale (Boris), who become acquainted when Amos falls off the boat he has made (which is sadly lost forever) and Boris rescues him. The two travel together, learn about their differences, survive a falling-out, share ideas and develop “a deep admiration for one another”, becoming “the closest possible friends”. Coming one from land, one from sea, the time comes for them to separate: “. . . we can’t be together . . . I’ll never forget you though.” Years later, Boris is beached by a hurricane and Amos, aided by elephants, is then able to save his life. The wrench of what may be
their final parting is sad and tender yet secure in the knowledge that each will continue to be remembered in the other’s heart and mind.

Badgers Parting Gifts by Susan Varley (1984)
This story opens with the inevitability of the ageing Badger’s death and his awareness of the loss his friends will feel after he’s gone. When he dies, Badger is sorely missed by all the animals but especially Mole, who feels “lost, alone and desperately unhappy.” The friends’ sadness is intensified by Badger’s absence, as it was he who had always been there for them in times of trouble. And in missing him, they start to come together and share memories. This, in turn, highlights to them the gifts which Badger has left behind, skills he taught each of them when he was alive which they can now remember him by and use to support each other. Gradually, sadness gives way to a comforting and emboldening remembrance and gratitude.

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan (2001)
This story tells of a girl who loses her sense of purpose and place in the world, and with it any sense of hope. Through unique, extraordinary, incredibly crafted images, and condensed, graphic text, we travel into the girl’s mind, inhabited by surreal, exaggerated and often frightening forms and scenes which overwhelm her. She is not seen, heard or understood and oscillates between these worlds of chaos and a relentless nothingness. A happy, colourful life is out of reach and all seems doomed and irresolvable. She has lost everything and become lost herself. And then, suddenly, life returns (thankfully!) and with it hope and joy. This speaks to the immense value there is in sitting alongside and fully taking in the realities of another person’s bleak experience. As the reader, we witness the
girl’s pain, perhaps helping her to mourn her losses and then re-discover herself.

The Day The Sea Went Out And Never Came Back by Margot Sunderland (2006)
Eric the sand dragon lives on a beach and adores the beautiful sea beyond, which in its daily rhythm comes and goes predictably, with the tides. One day the sea goes out and does not return. This is devastating for Eric who waits and longs for the sea to come back and is then overwhelmed with the pain of his loss. He becomes trapped and isolated inside himself. Eventually, attracted to the vulnerability of a dying wild flower, which he then saves, Eric is drawn back into life himself. He saves more flowers and a rock pool garden is created. Eric starts to feel safe enough to fully mourn his loss and in so doing discovers that remembering his beloved sea builds a treasure store in his mind which
he can keep forever.

The Lonely Tree by Nicholas Halliday (2006)
Set in the New Forest, this original book uses the seasons to chart the forest life-cycle through the friendship between an old, story-telling oak tree and a young, curious evergreen. As the oaks sleep for the winter, the evergreen becomes acutely lonely and, when spring finally comes, all hope is cruelly crushed when his oak-tree friend fails to wake up, his long life ended. The evergreen cannot comprehend what has happened but holds onto his cherished memories, through the sadness. Hope returns as a fallen acorn germinates and a new oak is born, destined to form a new friendship with the evergreen. Stories of the forest are retold and, as they are, the trees’ roots go “deeper and
deeper into the ground”, reminding us that with companionship we can endure and process the pain of loss and live a more enriched life.

The Heart And The Bottle by Oliver Jeffries (2010)
Beautiful illustrations alongside a concise narrative makes for great dramatic effect, telling the story of a delightfully curious and creative little girl who experiences the apparently abrupt and unexplained loss of an adored grandparent, with whom she had discovered and shared many wonders. She puts her heart into a bottle for safe keeping but as she grows up becomes limited and encumbered by its seclusion, which she finds she is unable to reverse. It is only through connecting with her own daughter’s zest for life that she allows her heart to be freed and re-discovers treasured memories of her beloved grandparent who she can now enjoy remembering. Her inner-child, in league with her actual child become the unwitting healers.

These books, like many others, model that feelings are okay, they are a normal response to loss and are to be expected. This is an important message to our children, particularly given that many of us are still filtering cultural and familial influences in our own lives which would have us discount feelings in order not to rock the boat or blow other people’s stiff-upper-lip cover. Children are expert at tuning into our sensitive pressure points and while they may push our anger buttons quite readily, they may avoid talking about sadness if they sense we may be uncomfortable and find it hard to hear and hold them. In turn, to avoid burdening others or being alone with pain, their own natural defences against connecting with sadness can become strengthened and entrenched.

A story book can serve as a helpful third party, a neutral but enriching messenger, able to venture into forbidden territory within the safety of metaphor. Connection with characters breeds understanding and empathy for one’s own pain. We can read the story exactly as it is or go off piste, filling in blanks with a child, co-creating a personalised narrative, re-writing the ending and reflecting all the while. Repetition can work wonders, enabling a child to use pictures as prompts and retell the story from memory. Each retelling can add meaning and a layer of digestion for the child, outside of his/her awareness, whether or not any overt life parallels are drawn.

All 5 of these books also convey a sense of hope, always integrated into the experience of loss. Again, this is a powerful lesson in a world which all too often splits artificially the good from the bad. We might not long for loss or wish it upon anyone else, but when it comes we, alongside our children, can do what we can to to feel it, to know it, to share it and to find new life somewhere within it.

 

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is a collective of experienced psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors working with a range of client groups, including fellow therapists and health professionals. If you would like more information, or an informal discussion please get in touch with us. Online therapy is available.

 

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