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A journey into understanding Non-Violent Resistance

Non-violent resistance (NVR) is a hugely effective, forward-looking and relational approach which helps parents to un pick what is happening in the family, to begin to recognise and disrupt entrenched patterns of interaction and to break down the barriers which stand in the way of change. In so doing, parents, who might start the work feeling lost and depleted, powerless and helpless against destructive dynamics which threaten the stability of their family, are able to regain their parental strength. The approach focuses on supporting parents to develop narratives and impactful methods of resistance, and to align themselves alongside their child while encouraging them to get back in touch with their own boundaries, wants, needs and wishes – alongside recognising those of their children.

Fundamental principles within the approach of ‘presence’, ‘resistance’ and ‘community support’, provide an over-arching structure, which enables the exploration of the complexities of behaviours such as violence, aggression, control and coercion which challenge family systems.

Below is an extract of a reflective summary provided by a mother to a fifteen-year-old son, J, who frequently displayed significant violence towards his parents and siblings. J was diagnosed with ADHD at age twelve. The parents completed a short-term intervention of NVR support. Her summary highlights some of the reticence experienced by parents in considering starting to work with NVR, and of the challenges encountered along the way:

“As you know I was sceptical to say the least when a friend recommended my husband and I start a program of NVR. In fact, I was actually pretty annoyed, as if silently and subtly they were suggesting that our parenting wasn’t somehow good enough. Despite this though I did reach out, maybe because things were feeling so unbelievably broken and I felt like I had tried so much that just wasn’t working. I felt really anxious about coming to the first session and even started typing an email to cancel but my husband was determined we had to give it a go. I tried to read up a bit about the approach before we came in. In my mind though I think really I was getting ready to defend myself and to assure myself, my husband, my friend (and you) that we really didn’t need to do this work, that it was J who needed to see someone, not us, whilst at the same time also feeling desperate that my friend was right and that this could actually help.

What I liked instantly about the work was that you challenged us to look forwards. We’d been stuck as a family for a very long time, and I was feeling exhausted, angry, devastated, hopeless, helpless – completely lost. I think we look back on that time as very dark days and so it feels great to be writing this from a place which honestly feels so much lighter, brighter and optimistic – all things actually that I think we agreed when we first started talking about what we were striving for.

I remember feeling from that initial consultation ‘wow someone actually gets this’ because the way you summarised things from your experiences with other families really resonated with me. You asked in the first session what I was striving for, and I liked that some of this focus was framed about me – as just me – as well as around me as Mum to J, me as part of a couple with my husband, me as Mum to my other children and for us as a family, and likewise for my husband. In just that first session we began to recognise that because of all the awful behaviour that J was showing at home we were living in a state of chaos and panic. We had neglected our care of ourselves and lost each other as a couple – and I could see that its hardly a surprise that it was so hard to resist the violence when we were feeling so lost and so broken ourselves. I liked the way we explored what we want things to be like.

Just allowing ourselves to imagine a different future helped to begin to move us out of the hopelessness. We reflected on what family life had become for us and we considered some of the things that stopped things moving forwards. It’s lucky we always had a box of tissues in the room because I remember doing a lot of crying in some of those first weeks – and I remember joking with you mid-way through the work that the fact I wasn’t in tears was a good sign of the progress we were making! There seemed somehow a real simplicity in breaking down our experiences and exploring the NVR themes within the sessions. We had a structure around us, that we were able to take away and begin to test out at home. As we began to move deeper into the work together and explore all the different principles within NVR, I could feel it really starting to bed into my thinking and it started to come more naturally to me at home. At first, I remember it feeling quite clunky, and some of it even jarring as it turned some of what we’d been doing on its head, as part of what you described as disrupting the status quo. I liked that we could lean back on the idea that those elements were where we could get our power back as parents and to really begin to get things back on track for our family.

We reflected a lot on the community around our family and I can definitely say at this point I am so thankful to my friend for suggesting this approach. She has been absolutely alongside us, and J, and because she didn’t stay as a quiet bystander to our struggles we are now in an unrecognisable place as a family. Finding the courage to open up our world and let other people in was by far one of the hardest elements of the approach – we had worked so hard to batten down the hatches, to stay compliant to the secrecy and to shield ourselves, J and others from people knowing how bad things were, that the idea of reaching out to others for help felt really scary for lots of different reasons – but this was impactful in so many different ways.

It has definitely been a journey – and we are very aware we have to keep working at the relationship, but it feels easier, and J gives back in so many different ways now that it all just feels very different from where we started. J is now back in college and smokes a lot less weed. We were belly-laughing together last week about something silly, and he even told me about his new girlfriend yesterday. It feels so special to be allowed in… and as you know the violence has stopped. We see J working really hard to control his behaviour – obviously he still gets very cross at times, but it feels like we’re all invested in doing what we can to resolve conflict in new ways together.”

NVR is an approach which can lead to transformation and enduring change within families.

With its focus on relational balance and principles of resistance it is a suitable approach for supporting families with children of all ages. In my practice I have worked with parents of toddlers, young children, teens and adolescents right through to parents of adult children who may not even live in the same home any longer. It is an individualised approach, centred around the needs of all the individuals within the family, recognising it cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. As such the approach is effective for supporting children and/or parents with neurodivergence.

 

Georgie Leake is an NVR UK accredited advanced level NVR practitioner and holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, a Master of Education (Special Needs and Inclusive Education), a Master of Arts in Social Sciences and QTLS. Georgie is available at our Brighton & Hove Practice, Lewes Practice and Online.

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The dynamic maturation model: a new way of understanding how to cope with mental distress and create happier relationships

Psychotherapy was revolutionised in the second half of the last century by the development of attachment theory, the science of human bonding and needs. I wrote about this in my BHP blog ‘Why we need a secure base’. It describes how infants who do not have their primary needs met – for comfort, warmth and love – as they grow up often face emotional discomfort and turmoil when they become adults.

Those in a stable, loving and caring framework as children can enjoy life and deal with its many challenges with equanimity and resilience. The development of attachment science was a huge leap forward in the understanding of human psychology.

Over the past thirty years, Dr Pat Crittenden, a US child psychologist, has added a new and very important dimension to this core framework. It is called the dynamic maturation model (DMM). It shows how our behaviour in adult life is shaped through adaptive responses to early experiences. If the care we are given is deficient by being avoidant of emotions, or conversely, is based on exaggerated emotional responses, then in adult life we have difficulty in coping with perceived danger and stress.

Understanding the DMM can play an important role in creating self-awareness, personal growth, and emotional wellbeing. It is a fruitful way of explaining how we can best process information, manage our emotions and form relationships.

The DMM divides our survival strategies into three broad categories:

  • Type B: balanced/secure. Those who have experienced ‘good enough’ parenting – thus establishing a secure base – are able to integrate emotional and cognitive information in a balanced way. They experience the full array of emotions but can self-regulate and offer empathy to others. As a result, they form stable, caring relationships, and respond flexibly to stress.
  • Type A (avoidant/cognitively biased): As a result of their upbringing, these individuals learn to inhibit the expression of their emotions and place a disproportionate weight on logic to manage their environment. This strategy usually develops in response to caregivers who discourage emotional expression, leading to self-reliance and emotional suppression. They often come across as cold and unfeeling, even though their coping strategy is based on vulnerability.
  • Type C (preoccupied/emotionally exaggerated): These individuals are dominated by their emotions and persistently exaggerate their sense of fear, anger, sadness or disgust (the four primary emotions) to gain attention and reassurance. This makes them appear volatile, difficult to deal with, and unboundaried. Their strategy develops through childhood experiences where caregivers were inconsistent or unpredictable, triggering heightened emotional responses.

By identifying our own dominant strategy, we can begin to understand why we react to stress, relationships and challenges in particular ways.

Understanding relationships through the DMM

The attachment strategies outlined above play a crucial role in how we form and maintain relationships. The DMM explains why some individuals struggle with intimacy, trust, or conflict resolution:

  • Avoidant individuals (type A) may struggle with vulnerability and prefer independence over deep emotional connection.
  • Individuals who are preoccupied and express exaggerated emotional responses (type C) experience anxiety in relationships, fearing abandonment or rejection. This is because the volatility generated by a frequent resort to anger causes heightened friction.
  • Balanced individuals (type B) are more likely to navigate relationships with confidence and adaptability.

By understanding these patterns, individuals can make conscious choices to improve their interpersonal interactions, foster healthier relationships, and address attachment-related insecurities.

The DMM and personal growth

An empowering aspect of the DMM is that it views attachment strategies as dynamic and plastic rather than fixed. Unlike traditional attachment models, which often label people as permanently secure or insecure, the DMM acknowledges that strategies evolve based on life experiences and the exercise of personal agency. This means that personal growth is always possible. For example:

Individuals who recognise their avoidant tendencies (type A) can work on embracing emotions and allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Those with preoccupied/emotionally exaggerated strategies (type B) can practice balancing emotions with logical thinking, reducing emotional tension. Anyone can develop greater flexibility in responding to stress, thereby improving their emotional resilience.

Therapeutic approaches based on the DMM can help individuals adapt their strategies to become more balanced and effective in navigating relationships and challenges.

The DMM in everyday life

Understanding one’s attachment strategy through the DMM has practical benefits in daily life. It can improve:

  • Communication: Recognising one’s own biases in processing information leads to clearer and more effective communication.
  • Emotional regulation: Developing awareness of how emotions influence behaviour facilitates better self-control and stress management.
  • Decision-making: By balancing emotional and logical processing, individuals can make more rational and informed decisions.
  • Conflict resolution: Recognising attachment-driven reactions in conflicts helps people respond rather than react, leading to healthier outcomes.

Overall, the DMM is a powerful tool for generating self-understanding and personal development. By explaining how attachment strategies shape behaviour, emotional processing, and relationships, it provides a framework for individuals to recognise their behavioural patterns and make conscious changes. Unlike traditional attachment theory, the DMM offers a growth-oriented perspective, emphasising that attachment behaviours are adaptive and can evolve over time. By applying the insights of the DMM, individuals can
develop healthier relationships, regulate emotions more effectively, and navigate life with greater resilience and self-awareness.

Further reading: The DMM is described in more detail on Dr Crittenden’s main website The Family Relations Institute 

 

David Keighley is a BACP Accredited counsellor/psychotherapist offering short and long term therapy to individuals and couples using a variety of techniques such as EMDR, CBT and Schema Therapy. He is also a trained clinical supervisor.  He is available at our Brighton & Hove Practice.

 

Further reading by David Keighley –

The empty chair in therapy

How therapy can help with anger issues

Do you have unrelenting standards?

Why we need a ‘secure base’

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Twixtmas – surviving that dreaded time between Christmas and New Year

Twixtmas, that time between Christmas and New Year seems to be a particularly difficult time for many. Why is this?

The build up to Christmas and the accompanying excitement for some, and anxiety for many, can leave us feeling depleted and down in the immediate aftermath of the big day.

Perhaps a lot of why we collectively struggle with this period of time, is that we are failing to use it in a way that is in keeping with nature and our biology. There has been a celebration around this time for much longer than the word ‘Christmas’ has existed.

Christmas falls, not coincidentally, very close to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. This would have been marked by people pre-dating Christianity as being the shortest day of the year and the celebration of the return of the light.

It is a time when nature goes fully into hibernation and it seems like nothing is happening in the natural world. What is actually happening is a renewal – a time of deep rest, before the return of growth and activity – the latter would have been celebrated as a fertility festival at a time we now refer to as Easter.

Therefore, rather than approaching this period of time as empty and boring, much can be gained from seeing it as a period to rest, reconnect with loved ones and recuperate before the start of the new year. It is a time when we can legitimately do very little.

After any period of excitement comes a lull and this is no different at Christmas. One cannot be experienced without the other. We can probably all relate to this with the feeling we get after a fabulous sunny holiday, only to return home and get back into the drudgery of washing, shopping, school runs and work.

Equally, we would not appreciate the exciting times – the highs – if life was permanently like that. Therefore, the first step in coming to terms with the change in energy and mood is to embrace it and accept it as part of the experience.

Once we have accepted that the energy of the world around us, as well as our own, will feel different to Christmas, we can plan activities that correspond to this energy. Walks in nature, snoozing on the couch, watching a film in the afternoon, or connecting with family in a less heady and fun-filled way than at Christmas are some examples.

I suggest that Twixtmas is an opportunity for reflection on both the year that has passed and the year that is about to arrive. It offers an opportunity to slow down and converse with our inner world as to what we may want, not only from the new year, but also from our lives. Some people find it uncomfortable to be confronted by their inner world, and the excitement of Christmas – whether you love it or hate it – is a perfect distraction from our desires, wants and needs.

I suggest that if someone feels disappointed or glum during this period, that either it is an ordinary response to the change in rhythm from festivities to calm, and/or the feelings are telling them something about their life, and may be an indication of something that is missing or needs attention.

Surviving Twixtmas with kids

Getting through Christmas can feel like an uphill struggle for many, and once the day has passed it may feel like there is little left in the tank to give to demanding children.

As suggested, getting out and about with the family can be a good way to both blow away the cobwebs as well as tire out the little ones. However, despite the promises of winter wonderlands on the Christmas cards, we all know that in the UK, late December is more likely to be a wash out!

This is where planning the children’s gifts comes into its own. Thinking about what gifts will occupy your children for hours and building your gift list around this objective can be a good way of ensuring that they remain engaged and stimulated in the immediate lull after the big day. Starting a new book, learning to play a new board game or creating art with paper and paint can all engage children for many hours.

Final thoughts

A leaf can be taken out of the book that tells us that good Christmases are rarely about what gifts we are given and more about a sense of connection and family. There is opportunity for this during Twixtmas, but with a different flavour.

Where people have a sense of meaning, they generally find their own purpose in the context of that meaning. If Twixtmas is simply a dead week punctuated by the start of the sales, it can feel pretty barren and empty. If, however, it can be embraced as a time for calm, rest, reflection and connection – with oneself as well as friends and loved ones – then there is significant meaning to be found during this period.

 

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 –

How to minimise Christmas stress if you are hosting

How do you get self esteem?

Why is psychotherapy generally weekly?

Why we should be disappointed

What is a growth mindset?

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Surviving family festivities: a psychoanalytic journey through the twelve days of Christmas

As the holiday season descends upon us like a glittering, tinsel-laden avalanche, many find themselves navigating the tricky or sometimes treacherous emotional landscape of family gatherings. Fear not, dear reader, for psychoanalytic psychotherapy could offer a guiding star, a beacon of hope to lead you through the holiday chaos to that peaceful Nativity scene, stable and all.

On the first day of Christmas: recognising your inner child

Imagine the family Christmas as a complex psychological drama where every interaction is laden with unconscious meaning. Your mother’s passive-aggressive comment about your table decorations, cooking, Christmas jumper choice – a manifestation of unresolved childhood dynamics? Your father’s awkward attempt at connection and endless ‘dad jokes’ – a deep-seated need for validation?

Psychoanalytic therapy teaches us to unwrap these emotional presents, glimpsing beyond the shiny exterior to try to read or understand the deeper psychological mechanisms at play. Each family member arrives with a lifetime of unprocessed experiences, creating a psychological minefield more intricate than the most complicated Christmas light display.

On the second day of Christmas: projection and family dynamics

Watch as Uncle Bob projects his professional disappointments onto you, criticism masquerading as concern. Your sister’s seemingly innocent comments carry the weight of childhood rivalries. Psychoanalysis aims to help you recognize these projections, transforming you from a passive recipient of family narratives to an active interpreter of emotional scripts.

On the third day of Christmas: the unconscious holiday script

Your family gathering is not just a meal; it’s a carefully choreographed psychological performance. Each member plays a role established decades ago – the peacemaker, the black sheep, the golden child, the wise men, the angels and the shepherds. Psychoanalytic therapy can provide script analysis, helping you identify and grasp the inference in these deeply ingrained patterns.

On the fourth day of Christmas: transference and family interactions

Every interaction becomes a window into your unconscious processes. That tension with your mother… It’s rarely about the overcooked turkey. Is it perhaps related to those early attachment experiences, unresolved conflicts, and deep-seated emotional patterns that have been simmering in the realm of the unconscious since childhood, with a hint of the aroma of boiled sprouts?

On the fifth day of Christmas: breaking defensive mechanisms

Family gatherings trigger our most sophisticated psychological defence mechanisms. Humour becomes a shield, sarcasm a weapon, silence a fortress. Psychoanalysis can help you to recognise these hidden defences, encouraging an authentic emotional engagement beneath the festive veneer.

On the sixth day of Christmas: the unconscious holiday narrative

Your family’s holiday story is more complex than any Netflix drama. Unspoken traumas, generational patterns, and collective family myths create a narrative far more compelling than any Christmas special. Psychoanalytic therapy offers you the opportunity to re-write the director’s cut, helping you illuminate the deeper subtext of the storyline.

On the seventh day of Christmas: emotional archaeology

Each family interaction is an archaeological dig into your psychological landscape. Old wounds, repressed memories, unacknowledged traumas – they all resurface during the holidays. Psychoanalysis can provide the tools to gently excavate these emotional artefacts with as much care and compassion as you employ to slice and serve that extra special Christmas pavlova.

On the eighth day of Christmas: navigating emotional boundaries

Learn to establish psychological boundaries more robust than a gingerbread iced fortress. Psychoanalytic therapy empowers you to differentiate between your emotions and those projected onto you, creating a healthy emotional ecosystem amidst family chaos. A breadcrumb trail through the forest of the unconscious.

On the ninth day of Christmas: understanding repetition compulsion

Why do we find ourselves repeating the same family dynamics year after year? Psychoanalysis can reveal the unconscious drives which compel us to recreate familiar emotional landscapes, even when they’re painful and seemingly unavoidable. An Alka-Seltzer for those undigested issues.

On the tenth day of Christmas: the gift of self-awareness

Your greatest present this Christmas is self-understanding. Addressing and processing the unconscious elements we bury like a tangerine in the toe of our Christmas stocking, Psychoanalytic therapy can transform family gatherings from potential emotional minefields into opportunities for growth, insight and hopefully a family game of Uno that doesn’t descend into World War III.

On the eleventh day of Christmas: integrating the shadow

Embrace the parts of yourself and your family history you’d prefer to keep wrapped up. True healing comes from acknowledgment, not denial. Set a place at the table for all the ghosts of your Christmas’ past.

On the twelfth day of Christmas: transformation

As the holiday dust settles, you may emerge not just surviving, but psychologically transformed. Armed with insights from the psychoanalytic journey, you’ve navigated the complex emotional terrain of family dynamics, Prancer and Dancer would be most impressed!

Remember, dear reader: this Christmas, your most valuable gift is the journey of self-discovery.

 

Shiraz El Showk is a Training Member of the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy (AGIP) and a registered Training member of the UKCP, She is experienced in Psychodynamic counselling and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy work with individuals, on both long and short term basis. Shiraz works from our Brighton and Hove practice, Lewes practice and online.

 

Further reading by Shiraz El Showk –

Parents – the ghosts and angels of our past

Is an AI therapist as good as a human one?

What is the unconscious? (part one)

Why is three the magic number? Third spaces, secure bases and creative living (part two)

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Parents – the ghosts and angels of our past

     They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
     They may not mean to, but they do.
     They fill you with the faults they had
     And add some extra, just for you.

These lines open Philip Larkin’s best-known poem, ‘This Be The Verse’. I still remember our English teacher reading it aloud to us, a class of giggling adolescent school children, many moons ago.

But now as a therapist, daughter, mother and hopefully a wiser individual than when I was aged thirteen years and seven months, I believe it needs some gentle revision. We have advanced our understanding of epigenetics and intergenerational trauma; these concepts are in common parlance with my children’s generation. But from a psychoanalytic perspective perhaps we can add a more helpful view.

In 1975 Selma Fraiberg (et al), a clinical psychologist and social worker wrote a seminal paper with the title, ‘Ghosts in the Nursery’. In it they create the metaphor of ‘ghosts’ to highlight the connection between a parent’s past unremembered negative experiences and their future parenting styles, communicated via the unconscious processes of which we are all, by their very nature, unaware.

In 2005 Lieberman (et al), wrote a paper countering or ameliorating the conclusions presented by Fraiberg entitled ‘Angels in the Nursery’. In this paper they illustrate how positive experiences are also transmitted unconsciously, even if unremembered, and can serve as protective factors for even the most troubled of the clients they worked with: ‘We argue that uncovering angels as growth-promoting forces in the lives of traumatized parents is as vital to the work of psychotherapy as is the interpretation and exorcizing of ghosts.’

Christopher Bollas, another renowned psychoanalyst, suggested that when we experience intense, overwhelming negative experiences or feelings as a child or young adult our unconscious serves to protect us by packaging them up and posting them forward to our adult self. In this way we are offered the opportunity to deal with them when we have the strength and resources to manage them without the fear of collapse. Carl Jung believed our unconscious has a teleological nature, which means it has a purpose or use towards a goal or end result. So perhaps when we receive this package to unwrap it’s because we’re ready, however unwelcome or difficult it may feel. Receiving this package from the past often prompts many of us to seek help from a professional psychotherapist, someone to unwrap the past with, a safe space, a guide or a guardian of the process.

This psychoanalytic process is an exploration of our past and how it relates to our present. It aims to weave an understanding of our unconscious processes using the threads that connect the experiences of our past and present selves.

And what of our parents? What do we know about their life stories, their childhood experiences? How do we ask? Should we ask?

Have we lost something in the lack of oral traditions that pass the experiences of our elders onto future generations? How much of your family’s relational history is available to you? How much of your childhood do you remember? If we don’t remember and we can’t ask, perhaps we can wonder or imagine together with a guide or a guardian in a therapeutic alliance.

And then perhaps we can ask… What if our parents managed to give us something they had never experienced themselves? What made it possible for them to do that? What if we somehow found the compassion, understanding and sensitivity to return to them something wonderful that they had never received, but found it in themselves to give to us?

There are ghosts in all our pasts, but there are also angels to find and perhaps thank, for ourselves, our parents and the generations to follow.

 

Shiraz El Showk is a Training Member of the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy (AGIP) and a registered Training member of the UKCP, She is experienced in Psychodynamic counselling and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy work with individuals, on both long and short term basis. Shiraz works from our Brighton and Hove practice, Lewes practice and online

 

Further reading by Shiraz El Showk –

Is an AI therapist as good as a human one?

What is the unconscious? (part one)

Why is three the magic number? Third spaces, secure bases and creative living (part two)

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What is transference and why is it important?

Transference is a complicated process and concept. This article attempts to describe it in simple terms, focussing on a basic understanding and highlighting why it is felt to be so important in analytic psychotherapies. I will end by thinking about how it can emerge and be used in both individual and group therapy.

What are the origins of transference?

The idea of ‘transference’ arose through Freud’s discovery that his patients projected early feelings about their parents onto him in the therapeutic work. Since Freud’s time, there have been developments in the field, furthering our understanding and recognising the complexity of the concept of transference, counter-transference and other similar processes. For the purposes of this article, I will not be exploring these later developments.

What is transference?

The fundamental meaning of transference can be found in the word. We ‘transfer’ feelings from an early relationship or experience onto someone or something in the present.

One way of thinking about transference is that it is one of the levels on which we all communicate with each other. Transference goes on all the time and between everyone.

Why is transference important in therapy?

It is thought that our transferences date back to childhood and adolescence. These early experiences are internalised and unconsciously become repeated in adulthood.

These unconscious ways of relating and communicating drive our more problematic life patterns. Our relationships (and therefore relationship problems) are thought to be shaped by our transferences. So, in psychotherapy, particularly in analytic approaches, working with the transference is a key part of the therapeutic process. The therapist will be very curious from the outset about what transference or transferences the patient/client is experiencing towards them.

Part of the therapist’s task is to think beyond which figure from the past is being transferred onto them, but also the dynamic and feeling associated with this past relationship. For example, perhaps they are experienced as an angry father, or a depressed mother, or a disapproving mother, or a withdrawn father.

In individual therapy, where there are only two people in the relationship, the focus is on the patient/client’s transference towards the therapist. The nature of the therapeutic process (the therapist offering care and attention, and holding more power) means the transference feelings elicited often originate with one or both parents. However, the therapist can also stand-in for sibling relationships, early friendships and other important relationships from the past (for example teachers or grandparents).

In individual therapy the transference can be explored in detail and depth. If the relationship with the therapist feels safe enough, the patient/client can allow early feelings to emerge powerfully in the therapy, exposing past experiences that might be buried and so elucidating unconscious ways that past relationships continue to be repeated.

In group therapy, the therapist, who is also called the conductor, is likely to be experienced as an important ‘transference figure’ in the group. Like individual therapists, they will tend to receive transference feelings drawn from parental experiences though, again, not necessarily so. Group members will also have transference feelings towards each other. These often seem to be drawn from sibling relationships or other early peer relationships but can also be from past parental experiences.

Group members can also experience transferences to what is called the total group situation. This means the group as a whole, including structural aspects such as the setting, boundaries etc. The group can be experienced as powerfully reminiscent of the family or classroom or other early groups. These transferences to the total group situation at times can be shared by the whole group.

Groups offer a multitude of transference feelings that are likely to be aroused in a simultaneous and complex way. Transferences to the therapist/conductor, the group and other group members can reveal the complexity of roles in the person’s early life. This means not just their individual relationship to early figures but what was also experienced as relationships and communications between others such as parents, siblings etc. In other words, re-experiencing the original family and other early group relationships. In this way, groups provide rich multi- dimensionality for understanding the complex network of internalised relationships and dynamics that can become unconsciously re-enacted in adulthood.

Conclusion

Unlike many other ways of relating, transference is usually unconscious at the point it is being experienced. However, being able to experience and reflect, such as in therapy, can allow us to become aware of our transferences. Through this work we can become increasingly familiar with them and how they shape our patterns and difficulties. This can have a therapeutic and potentially transformative effect on our lives and our relationships.

 

Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.  She also offers couples therapy at BHP.

 

Further reading by Claire Barnes

What happens in groups: free-floating discussion

It’s not me… it’s us!

What are the benefits of a twice weekly therapy group?

Understanding feelings of guilt

A new psychotherapy group

The process of joining a therapy group

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The adult survivor of neglect and abuse – lifelong considerations

Children who have been neglected and/or abused live to one degree or another with a lifelong legacy which can impact every aspect of their lives. Depending on the severity of abuse and neglect, the impact on the relationship with self and others will be significant and show up in many ways. I have written previously about the psychological impact on children who grow up in cults, and the kinds of abuse and neglect that takes place in such high-control groups. However, families can act like mini-cultic systems with their own ways of keeping secrets, coercing, and manipulating, and being socially presentable whilst hiding a darker truth.

What does a ’healthy’ family environment look like?

No family is perfect or entirely psychologically and emotionally healthy. However, there are families where ‘good enough care’ takes place. By ‘good enough’ I mean providing children with consistent emotional, psychological, and physical safety. For example: showing genuine interest and curiosity in the child, supporting their learning and developmental needs, protecting them from harm, expressing sincere love and care, respecting the child’s natural dependency needs whilst also encouraging their growing independence, to name a few. For a child to grow up with a relatively robust sense of self, they need to have grown up with adults who learnt to attune to them. This means respecting their individuality and uniqueness, whilst modelling and maintaining boundaries, acknowledging that children need to know their limitations and respect who is in charge, and ultimately, building and maintaining a good and healthy relationship with your children throughout their lives.

What does an unhealthy family environment look like?

There can be varying degrees of dysfunction, which will impact children in several ways. In such an environment parents will generally lack the capacity to emotionally attune to their children. In these families the needs of the child are not thought about, let alone understood. In an environment where there is ongoing stress or threat, as is seen in cases of abuse and neglect, the child will grow up lacking in psychological and emotional safety and typically learn to self-soothe rather than look for soothing from the parents or carers. Some children are forced to take excessive responsibility from an early age, for instance taking care of their family members in a role reversal situation. Children who suffer neglect usually withdraw into themselves and develop an acceptable false self to interact with the world. This is because showing distress or any genuine emotion was not an option in their family home. Children who suffer sexual and/or physical abuse learn to cope with intrusive behaviour by either becoming invisible or aggressive.

The adult survivor of neglect and abuse

Both neglectful and abusive behaviour in families tells the child that they do not matter to the very people to whom they should matter most. This type of emotional betrayal is very difficult for a child to process and overcome later in life. Once the relationship between primary carers and their children is severed in such a profound way, repair can be long and painful if it happens at all. Parents or carers who abuse and/or neglect their children are most likely psychologically damaged themselves and usually unwilling to learn from their mistakes. This is why repair is very rare.

The child will grow into an adult having missed out on some fundamental developmental steps and having developed psychological defences to cope with their upbringing. These defences, once vital for psychological survival, usually remain into adulthood until they begin to fail, which is when people usually come to therapy. Survival strategies learnt in childhood to cope with a hostile or neglectful environment are not conducive to healthy relationships in adult life. For instance, hypervigilance or emotional withdrawal can make relating to others problematic. For a relationship to grow it must be built on safety and trust. If this was absent or sparse in a person’s life, they can grow to either settle for very little or develop unrealistic expectations of themselves and other people.

The adult survivor and the search for love

The psychological legacy of childhood abuse and/or neglect has lifelong implications for adult attachments, especially relevant to significant relationships with romantic partners. Falling in love comes with the idealisation of a longed-for relationship and the type of love and emotional attunement that the person never had. The emotional hole left by their upbringing leaves them with an open wound which is usually well disguised. This painful emotional injury cuts deep into the soul. The longing for soothing from another can be a lifelong quest that is never fulfilled, because they either look in the wrong places for it, or it never feels enough despite their partner’s best efforts. It is also common for the adult survivor to seek partners who will display similar traits to their parents, and continue to tragically perpetuate this cycle in their lives and with their children.

Lack of repair

The lack of repair or acknowledgement by the people who inflicted harm is a tragic and painful legacy that many people who suffered neglect and abuse must live with. The ongoing lack of validation or acknowledgement, and dismissal of these lifechanging childhood experiences can feel cruel, confusing and keep the adult survivor in a constant loop of self-blame and self-hate. Often children who are abused and/or neglected are scapegoated by their family and therefore become the recipient of unwanted feelings. This often continues into adulthood where the person feels not only damaged by their childhood experience but as an adult continues to be ostracised, excluded, and blamed for the family issues. The child grows into an adult having never understood why they were and continue to be treated this way, even though they have done nothing wrong.

The therapeutic task

When someone grows up feeling unsafe and mistrustful of those around them, the primary task of any therapy is to rebuild trust and safety through the therapeutic relationship and in the person’s life. When trust has been broken at such a fundamental level, ordinary disappointment can feel at times devastating. The aim is to get the adult survivor to a place where they can learn to trust whilst also looking after themselves, and build relationships with people with whom they feel emotionally, psychologically, and physically safe whilst also having realistic expectations. Holding onto both good and disappointing aspects of relationships (including the one with the therapist) is work which takes a long time. Rebuilding trust also means trusting oneself. Learning to trust one’s thoughts and feelings again, or even for the first time.

Working with shame is another important part of therapeutic work, as the abused and/or neglected child carries a high degree of shame for the experiences they have been through. Depending on the level of abuse and neglect, and therefore the level of dissociation, trauma work is a vital part of the adult survivor’s recovery. Being able to feel a lifetime of hidden and suppressed emotions is painful but also brings back to life certain aspects of oneself that were deadened.

Finally, therapy is a place to hold witness to unthinkable, unspeakable, and unbearable experiences. These experiences must in time be articulated and understood within the limitations of language and the individual’s capacity to comprehend and process emotional pain.

 

On our website you can find more information about our counselling and psychotherapy services and how to contact our team.

 

Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Superviser and Executive Coach. She works with individuals, couples and groups in Hove and Lewes.

 

Further reading by Sam Jahara – 

There are no shortcuts to growth

5 good reasons to be in therapy

The psychological impact on children who grow up in cults

What psychological processes make us ‘choke under pressure’?

Having healthy conversations with men about the menopause

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Is there something wrong with me for hating Christmas?

Everybody loves Christmas. That’s a fact. At least if you watch how it is portrayed by the media and subscribe to the collective mania of ‘preparing for the big day’……….

Of course, the reality is that many of us find Christmas difficult and for some it can feel unbearable. We have the statistics for this – the Samaritans charity experiences its highest call volume over the so-called festive period, suicide rates increase and mental health professionals such as myself experience an uptick in enquiries.

Why is this?

I have written blogs and contributed to articles in the press on the reality of Christmas for many people and yet despite my small efforts and those of many others in my field, there remains a taboo around acknowledging how hard this time of year can be for many people, and an expectation that we will all somehow collude with the manic hysteria of turning the day into some sort of magical experience that eradicates both the memory and the reality of complex family dynamics.

In my view, Christmas should really only be magical for one group of people and that is children. It is a developmental experience to believe in the unbelievable and children are not only susceptible to this but also have an interesting way of denying reality even when it is staring them in the face. I think this is part of the ordinary process of slowly coming to terms with both the reality of the world and our lack of control over it. However, aside from children, there is no benefit to adults in believing there is anything magical about Christmas or any other day.

Having spent many years working with the bereaved, I am acutely aware that after a bereavement, it is the anniversary dates in the first year following the death of a loved one that can be most difficult – the first birthday, the first wedding anniversary and the first Christmas. And it is often these anniversary dates that continue to bring forth the loss for many years to come.

All Families are Psychotic

All Families are Psychotic is the title of a book by acclaimed Canadian novelist, Douglas Coupland, and whilst I do not take it literally, the human condition and the meaninglessness of life is most certainly a theme in Coupland’s work.

And whilst I am not seeking to minimise psychosis, there is something somewhat delusional about how the collective (society) colludes and invites merger around the fantasy that all is well in the family and ‘there’s nothing to see here’. This, for me, is akin to the child’s magical approach to Christmas and it’s unhelpful.

For the member(s) of such a family who feel frustrated and lonely with the lack of true connection, which I define as the ability of each member of the family to bring their needs into the mix and negotiate together, this invitation or expectation to collude can feel especially alienating and, combined with external pressures, can make them feel wrong.

Now of course there are plenty of families where the relationships are based on mutuality and love and they may also enjoy Christmas. However, the paradox here is that because the relationships are real, there is no need to whip everyone up into a manic state of hysteria around just how perfect the day is – the day can be good enough and each member of the family can have their own experience.

Christmas is not magical but it is powerful

Of all the anniversary dates that can bring forth unresolved or simply painful grief, Christmas is especially powerful for two reasons: firstly, there is a collective expectation placed upon the day that somehow it has the power to heal rifts and paper over grievances – which it does not have; and secondly, for many adults of conflictual families, historically much of the conflict would have come to the surface at Christmas.

Children growing up in homes where there is not enough money to create the ‘fairy-tale’ Christmas, where there is only one parent, where extended family do not feature, or where their parents are in conflict, all have the propensity to carry these feelings forward with them, only to find themselves revisiting them as a Ghost of Christmas Past each year.

What can you do if you find the day tough?

Even if those around you – and the collective is absolute on this – don’t or can’t acknowledge that the day is tough for you, or that you are having feelings other than ‘joy’, it does not mean that you are wrong.

  • Acknowledge in advance to yourself that it is a difficult day.
  • Consider whether you have someone you can trust with your feelings who will be able to accept them without attacking you or abandoning you.
  • Accept that you have your reasons for disliking Christmas.
  • Consider in advance of the day what you want from Christmas – even if this in an ideal world. Begin there and then work with what you are choosing or have to do.
  • Remember that it is only a day and that it will pass.

 

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

Why do some of us feel a constant sense of dread?

Is there a good way to break up with someone?

Can self care become an identity?

Can psychotherapy help narcissists?

Are we becoming more narcissistic?

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What is belonging and why does it matter?

I was recently invited onto the Podcast ‘Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri’ to talk about the topic of ‘Belonging’.

The discussion centred around our mutual experience of growing up in cultures that were not of our families of origin. Annalisa is technically a ‘second culture kid’, and I am a ‘third culture kid’ – the latter meaning I spent my formative years in a country other that that of my parents or where I was born.

The focus of our conversation was on belonging and whilst a rich discussion, we were limited by time and the need to keep the discussion relevant to a broad audience.

In this blog I am going to (briefly) explain why I believe how ‘belonging’ is absolutely essential to not only our emotional and psychological health, but beyond that, critical to our very existence. And how it is under threat.

I have in previous blogs written about primary belonging which we refer to as attachment, and so I am now primarily approaching the topic from a more anthropological perspective.

My premise is that if we do not have a strong sense of belonging then there is an inverse correlation with the amount of (death) anxiety we are exposed to. At the extreme, this anxiety is unbearable and is the primary source of neurosis (and psychosis).

What is belonging?

Our first sense of belonging is derived from our family of origin. Belonging and attachment are inextricably linked for children and the main role of belonging in our family is, beyond immediate safety, as a means of deriving self-esteem.

As children we want to please our parents. We learn ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ and bit-by-bit form an understanding of the culture of the family – the rules and ways of being in that family. Through satisfying those rules, we derive self-esteem. So what is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is a combination of feelings whereby we feel valued and appreciated alongside feeling a sense of belonging. It is linked to meaning in that if we are embedded in a culture (a family) and are able to fulfil the expectations of that family – the cultural expectations – then we derive a sense of meaning from the process.

However, self esteem does not only come from ‘fitting in’. Healthy and psychologically robust children grow up in environments where the culture both supports them to derive self esteem from meeting expectations but also from forging their own path – expressing who they are.

As humans we are all somehow trying to find our personal balance between ‘standing out’ and ‘fitting in’, whether that be in the culture of our family of origin or later, in society.

What is Culture?

When I use the term Culture, I am referring to it on a macro level – in the context of society. If society is made up of the people with whom we share commonality, then culture is an expression of the values of that society.

Culture has two functions – it enables people to find mechanisms for generating self esteem (work, social groups, interests etc.) and secondly, and this part is entirely unconscious, it has an enormous symbolic function in assuaging death anxiety. Every culture on the planet provides its constituents with answers to cosmological questions, the four primary being:

Where do we come from (the story of our origin);
How to behave whilst we are alive (and derive self esteem);
What happens when we die (funeral rites etc.);
A myth of some sort of afterlife.

Culture is therefore in essence religious, and so are all human beings. However, as powerful as culture is, it remains symbolic and therefore cannot compete with the realities of death and so there remains residual death anxiety that we contend with. This in part gets expressed by an intolerance towards others who have a different culture as when we encounter difference it unconsciously increases our own anxiety as our cultural values are undermined and thus death anxiety encroaches upon us.

A currently example of the above is the war in Ukraine. The West thinks it can win on firepower – which it can technically – but what they fail to realise is that Putin is fighting a religious war – a war to restore the ‘myth’ – the culture – of Russia. Ergo, the war is unwinnable.

The role of myth

When we hear the word ‘myth’ many of us think of stories of old, perhaps extending back to the Ancient Greeks who had many a myth to tell. The truth, however, is that all cultures are comprised of myths. The answers to the aforementioned cosmological questions that each and every culture answers for its constituents are in essence myths. They are myths because they are stories rather than empirically provable.

Myths are stories that are held by the collective – by all, or at least most, constituents of a culture.

They may just be stories, but they are stories that hold great power in anchoring us to an identity and providing us with a sense of belonging.

Technology and the loss of myth

Joseph Campbell, the American writer and mythologist suggested that the world is changing too fast for us to cultivate and sustain myth. This matters significantly as, if myth forms the basis of culture, and culture functions as both a vehicle of deriving self esteem and in assuaging death anxiety, then the loss of myth renders us more anxious and less able to derive self esteem from our culture.

The deconstruction of Western Culture

We are living through a period of mass social change, much of which has been brought on my technology and some brought on by unexpected, but seismic events, such as The Pandemic.

In The West we are seeing long-standing cultural institutions and social structures being torn down at an alarming rate. The issue is not a moral one – some of these institutions and structures represent oppression and inequality and need to be challenged. However, we are at the stage of challenging virtually every construct that defines us right down to sex and gender. And yet have nothing collectively held to replace it with. There is nothing left to collectively believe in.

If all systemic meaning is removed and annihilated we will be left with nothing from which to derive our identity, sense of meaning and self-esteem. Perhaps this is already afoot as traditional ‘pillars’ of meaning collapse and people have little to replace them with, and certainly little of symbolic (religious) value, death anxiety comes rushing forward and manifests as both intolerance towards others (increasing culture wars), tribalism and ‘mental health problems’.

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

Can chatbot companions relieve our loneliness?

What are feelings anyway?

Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?

The psychological impact of the recession

Why do people watch horror movies?

by Leave a Comment

Can chatbot companions relieve our loneliness?

In recent weeks I have seen various articles espousing the virtues of having an ‘AI companion’ or chatbot friend.  Apparently these are particularly popular with the younger demographic. One of these is ‘Replika’ – a prophetic name if there ever was one.

Chatbot ‘friends’ are touted as being helpful in alleviating loneliness through to functioning as some sort of antidote to mild mental health problems. Reading through the ‘testimonial’s’ on Replika’s website the interaction is linguistically framed as a relationship, with reference to the duration the AI avatar and human have ‘been together’ and, based on the published testimonials alone (which are undoubtably biased), some people seem to get something from this encounter.

As a psychotherapist it is not my role dismantle another person’s way of being in the world. This would be arrogant at best and dangerous at worst. However, psychotherapy, at least in the way I practice it, is all about relationship and one of the foundational belies is that what has gone wrong in relationship can only be healed through relationship. This is because human beings, like all mammals, are relational but we are the most relational of all if relational refers to our psychological, emotional and cognitive development being contingent on the consistency of a caregiver. Other mammals, once weaned, can fend for themselves. Humans remain dependent for longer than any other mammal.

We are shaped and defined by the relationship with our primary caregivers and, with the risk of providing an opening for the historical and clichéd attacks on psychoanalysis, we are most shaped by the relationship with our primary carer, who is our mother. 

These early relationships are what help us to understand our emotions and grow a mind. If satisfactory enough, we learn that whilst others can and will disappoint us, we need relationships with others throughout our lives. It is true that some people have more need for contact with others, but contact is needed nonetheless.

In my clinical practice I am always thinking about whom my patient is having a relationship with – even if they are single and isolated, in fact especially so in such cases. As children we internalise important relationships with others, starting with our mothers and then broadening out as we grow older. In the British school of psychoanalysis we refer to such internalised relationships as ‘object relations’. Therefore, when I am thinking about whom someone is having a relationship with, I am referring to their object relations – whom have they internalised and therefore whom are they projecting onto other relationships?

If we have ‘good enough’ parenting, we are likely to feel fairly secure in relationships and are able to operate in a world populated by others. These others have minds that are different to our own and by extension are having different experiences moment to moment. We have internalised a ‘good object’ (good parent) and can tolerate frustrations and difference in others without becoming unduly affected.

An indication of someone who has healthy relational dynamics is someone who is able to tolerate difference in others and hold onto the good of what the relationship offers. One of the (many) frustrations about being a grown up, or rather having a psychologically mature mind, is that we learn that relationships with others are inherently frustrating alongside being rewarding. 

Returning to Replika and systems like it, I can well see why, by applying enough denial to the encounter, it can, on the surface, seem satisfying as despite the illusion, we are not having to content with thew mind of another and thus the difference of another. The system ‘pretends’ to be different but in fact mirrors back to us what we want to see and hear. 

Narcissism by another name

In the myth of Narcissus and Echo, Narcissus is a young man who finds relationships with others confronting. Through happenstance, or what we might call fate, Narcissus finds himself isolated in the woods and discovers the most beautiful ‘Other’ he has ever seen in a still pool of water. This is of course his own reflection and yet Narcissus falls hopelessly in love and even when part of him knows that he is deluding himself, he cannot bear to tear himself away from this ‘perfect Other’. The story of Narcissus is ultimately a tragic one as he wastes his life away yearning for something he cannot have – the perfect relationship.

A character whom is rarely referenced in relation to Narcissus is Echo, the river nymph who loves Narcissus and has been condemned by a Goddess to only be able to repeat the last words anyone says. In other words, she is an echo. She too sacrifices her life waiting for Narcissus to notice her but, of course, as she is ‘different’ he cannot allow himself to notice her other than to drive her away.

I see the rise of these artificial ‘friends’ and the ‘relationships’ that ensue to be modern versions of the myth of Narcissus and Echo. ‘Replika’, or replica, when spelled correctly, quite literally means ‘clone’ or ‘copy’ but one can just as easily translate this to ‘reflection’. Chatbots reflect back to the user what they want to see and hear – from literally dictating how the AI avatar looks, through to receiving the expected responses. The user is turned into Narcissus and an echo is all they receive in return. Of course since Echo in this modern myth is but a machine, ‘she’ will never die.

We all secretly, or not so secretly, hold fantasies of the perfect Other. This fantasy forms the basis of all modern romcoms all the way back through our collective history. It is epitomised in the idea of a ‘soulmate’ and fuels our drive for the perfect partner – something that in itself is driven through technology in the shape of dating apps; we have the illusion of infinite choice but choose nobody as once we do, they become real and thus disappoint.

Growing up psychologically, maturing and individuating, means letting go of fantasies. It means recognising that relationships are essential to us and that in order to have something real and fulfilling, we must tolerate the frustration and sense of difference. 

Rather than difference needing to be threatening, as it increasingly seems to have become in modern society, difference between people is evidence of reality – the very fact that we are encountering a different mind.

Real relationships are about expressing our thoughts and feelings – our experience of the world – and knowing that someone is there to receive them and us, irrespective of whether they ‘mirror’ those exact thoughts and feelings. It is through and via this process that we get a sense of ourselves in the world and with others.

Narcissus was in a clinical sense deluded and descended into psychosis, withering away on the bank of that fateful pool. Chatbot friends encourage this same delusion. I am not suggesting it will lead to psychosis, but reality it is not. There is no relationship to be had and there is no thinking mind alongside you. You are just as alone as Narcissus and cannot grow from a reflection – for that a real relationship is required. 

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 –

What are feelings anyway?

Client or patient; patient or client – does it matter?

The psychological impact of the recession

Why do people watch horror movies?

How to minimise Christmas stress if you are hosting

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You’re not watching me, Mummy!

Is it ever too late in life to change? Despite many decades of accomplished professional practice and conspicuous recognition for his achievements, the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was stunned to discover he still had personal work to do.

In his memoir, Becoming Myself , he recalls attending an academic event where he realises (1) he is to be the target of gentle but sustained mockery from his Stanford University colleagues. That night he has a powerful dream from which he wakes to conclude, ‘I am still looking for validation, but not from my wife, my children, my friends, colleagues, students or patients, but from my mother!’

Although Yalom’s real mother was long dead at the time of his unsettling dream, his self-discovery revealed that her frequent harshly critical judgements of him as a child had become part of his lifelong personality, rising suddenly within him at times of stress, such as when he became the particular focus of others’ attention. In his dream, isolated and scared, he plaintively cries out, ‘How did I do, Momma? How did I do?’.

We might pause to consider how it could possibly be that a richly experienced practitioner, one expert in helping others to understand themselves better, could be so suddenly blindsided by such a self-revelation. On the other hand, what Yalom is disclosing about his experience here might be seen as one of the most fundamental of human realities.

In psychotherapy we speak of the developmental process of ‘introjection’, whereby we unconsciously adopt the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of significant others, particularly the most powerful others in our early lives. In the modality of Transactional Analysis we call this part of us our Parent ‘ego state’. This proposes that during the
development of our ‘self’ we naturally take into our own way of being key aspects of the others we depend on, how they think, feel and behave: we thereby install their potency into our developing personality.

This is a natural survival strategy and serves us well when it provides us with valuable parental impulses that guide us to operate safely in the world and help us to nurture ourselves when under stress. The downside of this strategy is that, depending on the quality of the care we received and how we responded to it, the Parent ego state we carry
forward can contain persecutory impulses, parental fears and smothering tendencies combining in us to create significant inner conflict in our adult life.

Engaging in psychotherapy can be effective in helping us to explore those aspects of ourselves that seem to echo the powerful personalities of our past lives. Careful exploration with a curious and empathic therapist can help us to surface parental messages we may be carrying that contribute to previously unexamined self beliefs. In uncovering these ‘introjects’ we can more clearly see how what we chose to take on from others in the days when we first learnt to be ourselves might be limiting us now in living more freely and spontaneously in the world.

Yalom’s insight, late into his own life, was to see that the way he had incorporated his mother’s harshness into his own process was preventing him from being able to truly recognise and celebrate his own worth.

His particular way of dealing with this was to look for the compassion in himself for ‘that mother that I disliked so thoroughly.’ He writes of achieving a different perspective on her through his later realisation she had a deeply conflictual relationship with her own mother, always remaining desperate for a recognition from her that never came.

Coming to understand the possible motivations behind his mother’s persecutory behaviour, Yalom found a way in which he could simultaneously diminish the power of the fierce inner critic that he had made of her. Like many of his patients, he discovered it was never too late to become himself.

 

Chris Horton is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and a psychotherapeutic counsellor with experience in a diverse range of occupational settings.

 

Further reading by Chris Horton –

I’m the problem – It’s me!

Making sense of our multiple selves

Let’s not go round again – how we repeat ourselves!

How are you?

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

 

Resources –

(1) Yalom, I (2017). Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir. Piatkus 1

 

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Defining happiness

Happiness is linked to a sense of joy, ease, and gratitude. It is also linked with a general positive evaluation of one’s life, past and present, which usually contributes to positive expectations or and looking forward to the future.

An ability to sustain a state of happiness depends on many factors, including how a person deals with stress and adversity. There is strong evidence that early attachments are a crucial determining factor in a child’s brain development, and consequently the formation of their world view and perspective in life. For example, a child who grows up with ongoing exposure to stress and trauma, and few or no positive early relationships is likely to feel preoccupied, anxious, and even depressed rather than happy and at ease. In turn, a child who grows up feeling emotionally and physically safe, though positive early relationships with others and therefore themselves, will very likely continue to cultivate these qualities throughout life.

Happiness can also be seen as a temporary emotional state, which comes and goes. Life satisfaction and mental wellness are qualities which can be cultivated and even created through conscious life choices in areas such as relationships, nutrition, exercise, work and spirituality.

What is the link between social connections and happiness? What aspects of having strong family ties and good friendships promote happiness?

Good relationships are a vital component in living a satisfying and fulfilling life. Human beings are relational beings. From day one we depend on our carers to survive and thrive in life. A sense of belonging, meaning, purpose and acceptance comes from relationships that are healthy, dependable, and enduring. Through others we feel seen, heard, and validated.

In turn, giving to others brings us a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, and makes us happy as well. We don’t choose the families we are born into; therefore, good family ties aren’t a given for everyone. Those who are fortunate enough to have strong family ties and good relationships with their families are lucky. However, building strong friendships and relationships are also a way of creating a ‘family of choice’ with those we value and with whom we have things in common. Without good relationships we invariably feel lonely and isolated, which leads to poor mental health.

What is the link between happiness and self-compassion and gratitude?

Self-compassion and gratitude are ways of cultivating a positive view of self, others and the world around us. The way we think has a direct impact on how we feel about ourselves and others. This differs from positive thinking or being out of touch with reality. Our negative bias can lead us to developing self-defeating thoughts and a bleak view of the world. This then becomes our reality as we constantly search for things to confirm this view. Things are mostly neither always good nor always bad. The ability to hold a balanced perspective on life and hold both positions at the same time is what defines a healthy mind. Therefore, cultivating a positive thinking loop, rather than a negative one will impact our ability to feel happy.

Is happiness a choice? 

Increasing our capacity to feel a full range of emotions such as sadness, anger, love, etc will also increase the likelihood of experiencing happiness. To feel happy, we need to get better at feeling in general. This means appropriate emotional responses to different situations. There are different ways of developing emotional literacy, psychotherapy being just one example. Therefore, we could say that there is a choice in improving one’s ability to feel happiness, as well as others feelings too.

 

On our website you can find more information about our counselling and psychotherapy services and how to contact our team.

Sam Jahara is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Superviser and Executive Coach. She works with individuals and couples in Hove and Lewes.

 

Further reading –

What are the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy?

Why is mental health important?

What makes us choose our career paths?

Antidotes to coercive, controlling and narcissistic behaviour

An in-depth approach to leadership coaching

by Leave a Comment

Five Top Tips for Surviving Christmas Day

Christmas can be an emotionally challenging and difficult time for many of us. There is such expectation on how Christmas ‘should’ be. Yet like the weather fails to deliver on the ‘winter wonderland’ scenes on the TV adverts, for many of us, our family experience often falls far short of the loving idyllic family reunions depicted in those same snowy adverts.

What makes Christmas particularly difficult?

Aside from the expectations we put upon ourselves, it has all the classic ingredients of being either an explosive disappointment or a damp squib.

Family of choice versus family of origin

Christmas is often a time when we get together with family members we would only ever see on other festive days or, as the saying goes, weddings and funerals. Often, we have little close relationship with these family members. Yet somehow we expect to feel a close bond with them on this day in particular.

Many families are now what is referred to as blended families.  Nowadays, it is normal to grow up with step-parents, step-siblings and half-brothers and sisters. While this does not necessarily lead to conflict, it can make the delicate balance of Christmas Day complicated and fractious. Compromise is often the order of the day.

Christmas is often a difficult time thanks to the ghost of Christmas past. Many relationships break down over Christmas and can leave us with tainted childhood memories of parental feuds and the accompanying grief.  This then plays out in the present, potentially contributing to conflict with family members – the trauma repeats.

And then there is the one extra ingredient that can make things seem so much worse than they are; the explosive charge in many Christmases – alcohol. Consuming alcohol in and around Christmas is normalised and we can often feel under pressure to ‘join in’. Many of us also use alcohol as a way of coping with the day, the family members who descend upon us, the expectations, unhealed rifts and so on. However, when it comes to managing emotions and conflict, alcohol has never been a solution.

Five top tips to surviving Christmas Day

  • Support through relationship

If you are in a relationship, talk to your partner.  Explain to them that you may find the day hard and agree how you will ask for support when needed, or how you will support each other. Examples may be anything from starting the day together and connecting through to holding each other in mind. You can demonstrate this through small reassuring gestures such as visually checking in with one another.

  • Reality Testing

Christmas is only a day. The expectations we feel in relation to it are largely in our own head.  By pausing and accepting that there is no such thing as a ‘fairy-tale Christmas’ (except perhaps for some fortunate children) we can gain a little space to see it for what it is.

  • The past is not the present

Memories of past Christmases, while present, need not dominate our experience in the here and now. Accept that it is a difficult time for you, know that it is for many others, be compassionate with the feelings that the season evokes and remember it is only a day.  Sometimes we feel strong emotions on particular days that are simply reminders of the past – echoes – and we have the power to create something different.

  • Alcohol makes things worse

Nobody is telling you not to drink on Christmas Day. However, if it is a day that evokes sadness or anxiety, alcohol will not improve these feelings for long. Once it wears off, they will be back with a vengeance and accompanied by a hangover. The opposite of using alcohol to self-soothe is to soothe through relationship. Even if you are not in a relationship with another, you are in a relationship with yourself and can hold yourself in mind.

  • Hold Yourself in Mind

One of the traps people often fall into is that they imagine that they have no choices on the day; they simply have to do what is expected. Doing what is expected is a choice in itself!  Even if you do feel that there is little on offer for you during the day, a change of perspective and holding in mind why you are choosing to make these choices can be helpful. For example, rather than framing it as “I have to go see X person, or Y will be disappointed”, you can rethink it as “I choose to see X person as I want to give that as a gift to Y’.

Even if the day feels full and focused on others, it is always possible to take a few minutes out to calm yourself. You can breathe, come back to the here and now and remind yourself –  Christmas is only a day. See my blog on avoiding panic attacks for a simple but effective practice to calm yourself and return to the here and now.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in private practice in Hove and Lewes, East Sussex. He is trained in relational psychotherapy and uses an integrative approach of psychodynamic, attachment and body psychotherapy to facilitate change with clients.

 

Further reading

Can couples counselling fix a relationship?

How to get a mental health diagnosis

What is psychotherapy?

How to improve mental health

How do I find the right psychotherapist?

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When do you need Couples Counselling?

It is not so long ago that couples would have needed to be on the point of permanent separation before they would consider any type of counselling for themselves. If they did decide to embark on such a course, it might well be done as a last-ditch attempt to save things, often within the context of one or other of the couple having already made up their mind as to the outcome they wanted.

A dearth of couples counsellors working in private practice was another issue, with couples often turning to church members and leaders to find help. Although, much excellent and wise counsel could be found through this route, it was not always perceived as a non-judgemental space, particularly when one of the pair was not committed to the church in the same way as the other.

This picture, a common one until relatively recently, might help to explain the reluctance of people to seek help with matters they feel (and those around them feel) they should be able manage themselves. It also reflects the general stigma associated with any thought of ‘not be able to cope.’

These social, systemic difficulties, which can prevent people seeking help, are often exacerbated by other less-conscious forces within the people themselves. People may be carrying feelings of shame, guilt or anger. Perhaps they have hurt each other; perhaps they feel their (or their partner’s) behaviour has let them or their family down. Whatever the difficulties, it would seem at times that they would lose the whole relationship rather than face the pain of working through whatever their issue might be.

Changing Attitudes

Over the last ten years, there has been a steady change in attitudes to mental health generally. This has been led by the young – often millennials – who have grown up in a society where it is becoming easier to discuss their inner world as a matter of course.

Schools are becoming much more mental-health savvy, with many staff trained in mental-health support.  Consequently, the stigma associated with seeking help is beginning to dissipate. It is no longer necessary to put a brave face on what is troubling us – either in our individual lives or in our relationships.

Learning from our children

I am not sure Wordsworth had matters of our mental wellbeing in mind when he wrote that ‘the child is father of the man’, but his sentiment, that we could learn much more from our young than we might first think, is a wise one. In the matters of relationship support, it is surprising how many middle-aged couples are seeking therapy prompted by their children.

Not only do those children suggest support, but they also model a non-judgemental approach to difficulties within the scope of wellbeing.

Changing patterns

What is noticeable in the therapy room is that there is a growing number of younger couples seeking counselling. Many of them are not seeking help with a relationship that is on the brink of catastrophe, but instead are looking for a space to better understand each other and, crucially, to learn how to communicate effectively. As one of my clients put it to me, they wanted to ‘future-proof’ their relationship, hoping to head off difficulties long before any crisis is reached, or defensive behaviours become so established that clear and effective communication becomes difficult.

Back to the question

When do you need couples counselling? It could be any time and it could be at different times for different purposes. If you feel there is a problem preventing you from communicating effectively, why not address it? If there is something driving angry or resentful feelings, why not talk it through with someone who will not judge but may well
help you to understand what is the root of the difficulty that feels so overwhelming. It may take a few sessions, or it may need longer. Of course, for some couples, the visit may be one of last resort – but it does not have to be.

 

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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The First 5 Years

One of the most profound experiences we can have is to become a parent. If you had a good experience of growing up in a happy home where your needs were considered important, you felt secure, this is the best preparation for becoming a parent yourself.  

However, life is not quite as easy as that and many of us will encounter disruptions to our wellbeing because of parental illness, a lack of resources, social isolation, or neglect.  Trauma is used here to describe not necessarily an event but the often small every day psychological injuries inflicted on us whilst growing up in a dysfunctional family.  When we enter therapy, we are often unaware of the events and hidden daily routine attacks on our ego that happen in families.  How do we find a way of developing a mentally healthy approach to our role as parents, during the first 5 years of our children’s lives?

What is it about these first five years that are so important?

Both parents and caregivers need to recognize the importance of creating a safe and happy space for children to grow up in.  There is an equal need for parental closeness and nurturing of the infant regardless whether a male or a female partner.  Both parents in the household are equally important in the maturing process. Fathers can feel they have little to offer during the early weeks, months and years of a child’s life, however, it is clear fathers have an essential role during this period. 

  1. Neurobiological development – the development of the brain depends on a secure and safe space where the child can explore the environment for development and learning to take place. This lays down the neurological potential for later life and mental health.  If the family is dysfunctional whereby the parents are unable to regulate their emotional state or act out with physical or emotional abuse towards the child or partner, then the child will internalize these experiences, which come to the fore later in life.  Or if parents are not emotionally present and sibling rivalry is not contained, a child is bullied or goaded by other children. 
  2. Attachment and separation – from the moment of our birth we begin the process of separation from our mother learning and adjusting to the world around us.  We enter a world that will influence us on a personal, social and cultural level that will take us a lifetime to understand.  As a newborn we are completely dependent on those around us to keep us safe and secure. This is a demanding period for parents who have to sacrifice time and energy to looking after our needs.  It can be a difficult period of adjustment for parents as their role as parents will be unfamiliar.
  3. Language acquisition – language is not something we learn in a “book learning way” but we acquire it through interaction with our families and those around us.  Children in families where more than one language is spoken have increased number of neurons in the brain.  

 

How do you prepare for becoming parents?

If we are not to pass on to our children unwanted patterns or similar patterns of relating to our own children that we experienced; particularly if we have been exposed to trauma during our childhood, then we need to firstly look inwards at our experience of family life.

  1. Make a connection to your experience as a child.  What was the atmosphere like at home was it a calm happy place or full of energy and busy. What was your role in the family? What was the general atmosphere like at home? Did you feel recognized? Where do you come in the family are you the eldest child, the middle child or the youngest.
  2. Connect to your family history: Was it a safe and stable environment or were there lots of moves during your first 5 years. 
  3. What do you know of your parent’s childhood?
  4. Were there any problems of addictions in the family?
  5.  Were there any major events, loss of family members, new siblings in the family, catastrophic events, which put the family at risk?
  6. How did people respond to feelings? Was anger suppressed or expressed and understood? 

If at the end of reading this you realize there were family matters that need to be explored, thought about and processed, before the new baby arrives. Find a counsellor, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst who can help you and your partner understand how you might mitigate the impact of your dysfunctional family experience.  This might break a cycle of suffering, for you and allow you to improve your mental health whilst become a good parent to your children.

 

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

Hove clinic
49 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2BE

Lewes clinic
Star Brewery, Studio 22, 1 Castle Ditch Lane, Lewes, BN7 1YJ

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