A man holding a fire on a beach.

Dreams and Associations

Dreams are both wild and fascinating. When explored in psychotherapy it can lead to a better understanding of internal conflicts, unprocessed material and offer insight on a profound level. Anything is possible in a dream; conflicting aspects and feelings can co-exist. The sense of time and boundaries is free-flowing and completely subjective. Our conscious minds…

A teenager sitting on the floor with his legs drawn up and his head resting on his knee.

Love and Anxiety

In the latest issue of ‘The Psychotherapist’ Dr Geoff Warburton interviews Dr Harville Hendrix, co-founder of Imago relationship therapy and author of “Getting the Love you Want”. In the interview, Warburton asks Hendrix about his definition of love. Interestingly, the topic turns to anxiety. According to Hendrix, love is a sense of safety and connection,…

A man's head from the rear.

Real Contact

According to Carl Rogers’s theory of personality, the self-actualizing tendency is an inner drive to experience oneself in a way that is consistent with one’s conscious view of who one is. The therapeutic process is largely about expressing oneself in life and relationships from a place of authenticity, rather than from one of conformity and…

Steps in the woods leading up into the light.

Transition

During periods of transition, life can feel like hard work on several levels – physically, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually. It can feel like walking into the depths of a forest, dense with trees and devoid of sunlight. In Jungian psychology this dense and dark place is called the shadow. In her book ‘The Expressive Body…

Distant view of a city with a shanty town in the foreground.

Sense of Belonging

External and internal displacement Identity and belonging is something many of us struggle with, through displacement, relocation, extended periods living abroad but also through social oppression and a sense of being different and not fitting in. I used to think that the therapeutic journey was partially about finding ways of nourishing and loving oneself and…