Freud once described psychotherapy as the “impossible profession.” To those who have not experienced it, psychotherapy can sound like a curious, mysterious, complex or even frightening endeavour. Using brief and simplistic explanations such as “talking to someone about your problems” to describe psychotherapy does not do it justice. At its best, psychotherapy is a process…
Like many of us, I have been emotionally moved and disturbed by recent political events. Concerns over the choice of US president, the rise of the far right in Europe and Brexit have been driving many of us towards social and political initiatives. I always believed that our work as therapists could make a real difference…
Narcissism is a Freudian term that has become perhaps more ubiquitous in the social lexicon than any other derived from psychoanalysis. It is a term that seems to define a generation in the eyes of the media – the Millennials, and one that we use disparagingly to describe celebrities before following them via social media,…
There are a number of core concepts in the Transactional Analysis model, which provide a framework and map for understanding our internal emotional landscapes and structures. The concept of “script” suggests that people will often make decisions about themselves and draw conclusions about life from a very young age. Such decisions are made out of…
People often ask me what it means to be an integrative existential therapist and how it differs from other forms of therapy. The most important thing to consider when choosing a therapist, however, is not the fancy title of the form of therapy delivered, but the relationship you can make with the therapist. Can you…
The word ‘mind’ is one that most folks use quite regularly and comfortably. Us psychotherapists use it more often than most. However, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has actually seen a mind. So, what is a mind, and why should we grow one? Those of you who follow us know that at Brighton…
While stigma around mental health issues remains an issue, there is an increasing willingness to talk about mental health issues both in the media and in society as a whole. Even if much of that talk centres around the woefully inadequate state provisions for mental health support and treatment, to some extent, the debate is…
I write a lot about how the mind and body are connected and that our emotions originate in our bodies. I also write about how change happens through learning to be aware of our emotions and being able to feel them without becoming overwhelmed or needing to suppress them. Recently I came across a blog…
Alice Ayres Sitting on the Tube with a relatively new friend, I suddenly found myself feeling awkward in the middle of an anecdote. “And on a Thursday evening, I…I…” I cast a sideways glance at him. How would he react? Could I trust him not to judge me negatively? In the heat of the moment,…
Alice Ayres reflects on her first session with her therapist. How did I feel back then? When I’m looking back at a difficult period of my life from a position of relative stability, I tend to minimise how bad things really felt for me back then. I think this is a fairly common thing. I…
An introduction Hello. I’m Alice Ayres. Up until now on this blog, it’s always been the therapists speaking. This is the first of a series of blog posts in which I will be presenting a view from the other chair, the view of the client. I hope it will be useful to those considering or…
Does psychotherapy cure addiction? The answer to this question depends very much on whether addiction is seen as a disease in the medical sense of the word, and secondly, on whether it is indeed the goal of therapy to cure. In response to these questions, I would suggest that rather than being a disease (as…