self-worth Archives - Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

July 22, 2024 by BHP Leave a Comment

Why we should be disappointed

Life is disappointing. That sounds terribly negative, however, being able to tolerate and work with this reality can make the difference between success and failure. Relationships are also disappointing, but, like life, they are many other things too. Let’s delve into it.

Being able to tolerate and work with disappointment is one of the hallmarks of psychological maturity. It is a developmental step that most of us succeed in achieving to varying degrees, but this is not true of us all.

The process of learning to tolerate disappointment starts with the painful but necessary experience of feeling disappointed in our caregiver who, for the purpose of this piece, I shall refer to as the mother. Young infants are entirely dependent on their mothers for everything that ensures their survival. This includes the emotional as well as the physical.

Infants soon learn that their mothers sometimes seem to be fully available – magically so even – and other times can take time to meet the infant’s needs, or in some cases fail to do so entirely, such as in the case of soothing an aching tummy for example.

This ambivalence is intolerable to the infant, and psychologically the infant creates two mothers in her head; one who is good and one who is bad. The good mother, who takes on a fairy godmother-like status, is perfect, whilst the bad mother is akin to the evil witch in the woods. This is the basis of children’s fairy tales by the way. Us psychologists refer to this defence as ‘splitting’.

Splitting the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is a primitive way of remaining in control and either idealising or dismissing parts of it, including people. The problem is that the real world is neither purely ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ and neither are the vast majority of people. Splitting in this way seems to be on the rise, and evidence for this can be seen in how politics is conducted across the Western world, with parties adopting more extreme positions in relation to each other and cross-party collaboration now virtually non-existent.

Returning to our infant, over time with enough positive and attuned parenting, she learns that she does not have two mothers but simply one. Whilst this is disappointing, it is tolerable, because, on balance, her mother is ‘good enough’.

Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud’s daughter and esteemed child psychoanalyst, once said ‘in our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can’t eat them’. I find this a powerful quote that relates to the concept of disappointment in that what Anna is really hinting at is that we can have all sorts of fantasies about our wants and desires, in this case how we may wish to cook our eggs, but that a fantasy does not lead to substance.

If we move on from having a fantasy or dream about cooking eggs, we need to go and cook them and invariably they will turn out differently to how we imagined. They may taste and look better in some ways but it is equally likely that they will disappoint in others. And when it comes to appetite and desire, disappointment is always built in, as once we have something, we no longer desire it and therefore are contending with a degree of loss in this context.

Some people go through their lives living either in the fantasy world of their heads, or increasingly in the modern world, in a simulated online world where they can simply ‘start again’ if their eggs go wrong. This is how social media functions: even if it takes twenty goes to make those eggs which are then photographed using a filter and ‘air-brushed’, we are sold this fantasy as a reality to which we then aspire, and which can cause us to feel more disappointed in our own lives.

The argument I am making therefore is that being able to tolerate disappointment in life, ourselves and others, is part of being a mature human being who is able to navigate the world and build something – relationships and a life of substance. It will not be perfect, but it will be real.

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 is a growth mindset?

Don’t tear down psychological fences until you understand their purpose

How do I become more assertive?

I worked as a psychotherapist with death. Here’s what I learnt

What is love?

May 6, 2024 by BHP Leave a Comment

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

In my last blog ‘What is the unconscious?’, I attempted a very brief explanation of what we might mean and understand when we refer to the unconscious and how exploring this unknown territory is an integral aspect of the therapeutic alliance. This alliance can be described as an intersubjective (between two people) process, in which Thomas Ogden identified a phenomenon which he named ‘the analytic third’ – ‘ the jointly created unconscious life of the analytic pair’ (2004).

The old adage tells us: two heads are better than one. When two systems, substances or minds meet, they can mingle, merge or meld and experience a transformative process, so that when they separate again, each is changed by the experience. I referred to the concept of neural synchronisation or coupling in my previous blog, which can show, using fMRI readings, the coordinated mapping of brain regions reflected across two subjects when they are engaged in joint storytelling. Perhaps what we can see in the images produced in these studies is ‘the jointly created unconscious life of the analytic pair’ made visible? This process of combination and creation is the third space or analytic third where new thoughts, forms and ways of being are created.

The theory of third space also emerges in a sociocultural tradition which describes the individual mind as a hybrid emerging from a triad of individual, community and cultural artefacts shared over generations similar to Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious. Physical locations can be contextualised as existing across a trio of spaces: the domestic (home and family), the civic or professional (schools, libraries, community hubs, workspaces) and the individual (bars, restaurants, night clubs, shopping centres, leisure centres).

How do we use these spaces, physically and psychologically?

I suppose I am asking which one of these or combinations gives us a sense of safety or security. Does our individual hybridisation of these spaces create a composite third or base that we depend on or live from? Perhaps the answer is a fluid, interchangeable one, sometimes the workspace is where we retreat to feel a sense of purpose that the unrecognised efforts involved in domestic or family life can sadly fail to provide. Or perhaps, home is where we feel completed, accepted and at ease in contrast to the sometimes unreasonable expectations of our professional environments. Can we most relax in a social environment where we ‘let our hair down’ and give over to behaviours that would be deemed unacceptable in our family home or workplace, or is this an anxiety producing space where comparisons of our social standing are accentuated? Or do we enjoy the anonymity of a public library, sports or shopping centre where we can exist alongside but unconnected to other members of the public similarly engaged in commonplace everyday individual pursuits?

A safe space of our own…

I quoted Winnicott in my last blog, his hope that his work would enable, “the patient [to] find his or her own self, and will be able to exist and feel real. Feeling real is more than existing, it is finding a way to exist as oneself, and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation. Winnicott (1971).

Attachment theorists speak of a ‘secure base’ from which the infant can explore their worlds, the physical and psychological. They conceive of this as a primary relationship, an attachment to a caring individual who helps the infant develop that sense of self:

The sense of self comes on the basis of an unintegrated state which, however, by definition, is not observed and remembered by the individual, and which is lost unless observed and mirrored back by someone who is trusted and who justifies the trust and meets the dependence. Winnicott (1971).

We can think of the analytic third as an unconscious space in the therapeutic alliance, co-created, that can provide a psychological secure base to develop and live from creatively. Perhaps the room where the analytic pair meet, virtual or real could also be considered a third space? One that combines the experiences of the domestic, individual, professional and civic lives. And if we explore this space with curiosity we can, perhaps, use the opportunities it provides to approach a sense of being that is mediated through the unconscious alliance of two individuals, putting their minds together to create a potential space for the individual’s most creative expression of themselves.

I have tried to draw attention to the importance … of a third area, that of play, which expands into creative living and into the whole cultural life of man … [this] intermediate area of experiencing is an area that exists as a resting place for the individual engaged in the perpetual human task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated … it can be looked upon as sacred to the individual in that it is here that the individual experiences creative living. Winnicott (1971)

The magic ingredient

In ‘A General Theory of Love’ authors Lewis et al describe how our human emotions, relationships and psychotherapy work: ‘Loving is mutuality; loving is synchronous attunement and modulation. As such, adult love depends critically upon knowing the other … Loving derives from intimacy, the prolonged and detailed surveillance of a foreign soul.’

It might be useful to think about the work done in a therapeutic alliance in these terms, as Freud said, ‘Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love’.

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. She is available at our Brighton & Hove Practice, Lewes Practice and Online.

Further reading by Shiaz –

What is the unconscious? (part one)

April 29, 2024 by BHP Leave a Comment

On acting our age

Has anyone ever told you to act your age? You might have a memory of an irritable parent, partner or friend telling you so. I certainly remember being scolded this way on occasion. It’s a setting where one person urges another to be more ‘grown up’ than they appear.

It’s always seemed an interesting expression to me, as it begs the question of what it means to be a ‘grown up’. But is there a commonly understood way in which we progress from infancy to old age, and is there a ‘right’ way for us to grow up?

Life and stages of personal growth

One way of approaching these questions is to think about our lives from birth to death as a series of developmental stages, each with a central challenge or crisis as to how we can truly be ourselves in the world and in relationship with others. The influential psychoanalyst Eric Erikson, in his seminal work Childhood and Society, proposed there were eight such stages of human life.

Growing up to ten years old

Erikson saw the first stage of our infancy up to one year old as a crisis between trust versus mistrust in our environment. Infants experiencing good enough consistently predictable caregiving were likely to have higher trust in the world than those experiencing the opposite. In that sense our first challenge of growing up is shaped by the existential question: ‘Can I trust the world?’.

His second toddlerhood stage up to two years is characterised by a crisis between autonomy versus shame and the question: ‘Is it OK to be me?’. The third stage of early childhood is framed as the crisis between initiative versus guilt, posing: ‘Is it OK for me to behave?’. Fourthly, middle childhood is seen as a stage of negotiating the tension between our capacity for industry and feelings of inferiority, exploring the question: ‘Can I make it in the world?’.

Growing up to late adulthood

Adolescence, the fifth stage, pitches us in to a crisis of identity versus role confusion. As we reach puberty and acquire more independence in the world, we must answer the question: ‘Who am I and what can I be?’. Then as we move into early adulthood in our twenties and thirties, we can be seen as managing the tension between achieving intimacy with significant others versus isolation from others, as we ask: ‘Can I love?’.

Erikson’s seventh stage of middle adulthood from our mid-forties to mid-sixties is concerned with our being productive and creative, and establishing and guiding the next generation, leading to a crisis of our capacity for generativity versus our falling into isolation through a sense of personal stagnation, posing the question: ‘Can I make my life count?’.

Finally, we reach the eighth stage of our late adulthood from sixty-five onwards in which we face a crisis of evaluating our ego integrity versus a sense of personal despair. Erikson describes what he means by this integrity as ‘the acceptance of one’s one and only life … as something that had to be’, as opposed to experiencing despair, defined as our actively On Acting Our Age fearing death and feeling our time is ‘too short for the attempt to start another life’. Thus, the final question of our lives becomes: ‘Is it OK to have been me?’

Crises and growth, and the uses of therapy

Whatever we think of Erikson’s model as an explanation of human growth and development, each of us can evaluate our own experiences in terms of its stages. We can certainly make a link between his first stage of trust versus mistrust with his contemporary, psychoanalyst John Bowlby, and his theory that the way we experience our earliest caregiving leads us to develop dominant styles of attachment in relationships that are either secure or variously insecure.

A striking feature of this developmental model of the personality is that Erikson situates most psychological growth crises as taking place in our childhood, a time when we have the least power over our environment alongside maximum vulnerability to neglect or harm.

Many people seek therapy at a time of crisis in their lives, and holding a sense of ‘stuckness’ in themselves. Erikson offers us a model for thinking about this stuckness in relation to our earlier developmental experiences. Whatever life challenges we are now facing as ‘grown ups’, working in therapy by focusing on our earliest experiences can uncover the possibility of unlocking an earlier developmental stage that has left us stuck with aspects of mistrust, shame or inferiority in our personalities.

And in terms of the model’s crisis stages of adulthood we can use therapy to consider how the existential questions of our being able to love, to create, to contribute and to make meaning of our lives can help us resolve our stuckness and even move us towards a deeper acceptance of our ‘one and only life’.

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

The Christmas-couples clash

When it comes to change, is it better to stop or to start?

Where shall we start?

The end

You’re not watching me, Mummy!

March 11, 2024 by BHP Leave a Comment

Radical self-care as an antidote to overwhelm

‘It’s all too much’

There are times in life when things get to a point where it is all too much. Usually, as a result of an accumulation of emotional, mental and physical demands without much respite. For instance, ongoing personal or professional conflict, a pervasive sense of stuckness, challenges with no imminent resolution, etc. These situations tend to be complex and multi-layered, adding to the sense of entanglement and therefore lack of clarity on a way forward.

Here are some typical ones: contentious and lengthy separation, ongoing conflict at work, complex family relationship dynamics, chronic health issues, responsibility for long-term care, fertility treatment, affairs and financial difficulties.

Things tend to get worse before they improve

It is often the case that change starts to happen once things reach their limit. This will of course depend on where each person’s limit is. Reaching the decision that things need to change is the catalyst for major shifts. There is nothing like the need to do something to propel someone forward into action. Sometimes it will be a small thing, like an exchange with someone. At other times it might be a painful realisation which leads to a feeling of ‘enough is enough’.

Patience versus paralysis

Some people stay in unhealthy situations for much longer than they should. Drawing a line comes with implications and losses which are sometimes hard to bear. Other times situations just need time to unfold and there isn’t much to be done about it. When we are right in the middle of something, it is difficult to know a way forward or out. In situations of threat, we might want to flee or feel paralysed (freeze), resulting in anxious or numb states.

In more severe cases, mania, depression, self-destructiveness and, ultimately, breakdown.

The antidote

Radical self-care involves uncompromising resolve to care for and resource oneself. Only when we are resourced again can we deal with challenges that require distance and perspective. It is a way of going inward to find answers, to sit with uncomfortable and painful feelings and reflect rather than react. We can’t do this when firefighting. It may also involve changing unhealthy habits and looking after ourselves physically as well as emotionally and psychologically. Then, removing ourselves from the situation or finding a way to gain distance and find space. Some of us struggle with self-care more than others.

Being in a toxic cycle can feel like the familiar thing to do.

To summarise, here are some of the steps you can take if you are feeling overwhelmed and can’t see a way out:

– Take a step back and away from the situation.

– Resource yourself in whichever way you can.

– Do not go back into it until you feel that you are resourced enough and in touch with yourself again.

– Use both thought and emotion to find a way forward which is most constructive to your wellbeing.

– Implement these through actions which will serve you long-term.

This blog post was written by Sam Jahara, UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Superviser and Co-founder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

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

October 23, 2023 by BHP Leave a Comment

How does CBT help with low self esteem?

What is Low Self Esteem?

This is when we think negatively about ourselves, we don’t feel good enough. We are likely to get into self-critical thinking, think others are better than us and blame ourselves when things go wrong. We are likely to focus on our negatives and not on our achievements, struggle to accept compliments and avoid challenges for fear of failure. We may become overly upset when receiving criticism or disapproval. Our internal dialogue tends to be negative, particularly towards the self. It’s not uncommon to feel worthless, depressed, sad, anxious or undeserving.

What causes Low Self Esteem?

Low self-esteem often stems from our early experiences. We may have been bullied at school, struggled with education, told we could do better, had difficulty living up to our parent’s expectations, come from a poor background, felt that we didn’t fit in with our peers, been neglected or abused.

These experiences can lead to the self-belief ‘I’m not good enough’.

Low self esteem may also come from stressful life events such as significant loss, serious illness or relationship difficulties.

What is the impact of low self-esteem?

We may have difficulties at work, for example: feeling that you can’t say no, that you have to work as hard as possible all the time, go the extra mile, or the opposite you may avoid situations in which you may feel judged and go for jobs in which you know you won’t be challenged. We may have difficulties in relationships such as always having to put the other first or thinking they are better than us. We may have a negative body image and always be comparing ourselves to others. We may set unrealistic high expectations for ourselves. We may avoid social situations, lack assertiveness or do anything to avoid confrontation. Generally, we tend to experience a negative bias in life.

Living with low self-esteem can impact on our mental wellbeing. Our mood can be affected, we can feel sad, low, ashamed or anxious.

We may also develop unhelpful habits as a way of coping such as drinking too much alcohol, comfort eating, smoking or taking drugs.

What can we do to improve our self-esteem and how can CBT help?

We can start to notice the things that go well in our life, record our achievements however small. We can think about, and write down, what we are good at (our strengths), write down the positives about ourselves (our qualities) and the good things that others say about us. All of us are good at something, this can often be things that we enjoy.

We can stop striving for perfection as there is no such thing and remind ourselves that it is OK to make mistakes, this is how we learn.

CBT can help us to shift our focus away from the negative bias. In CBT we lookout for those negative/unhelpful thoughts and learn to challenge them and look for alternative perspectives. We can learn to be self-compassionate, being kinder to ourselves when we would usually be self-critical. What would you say to someone else in a similar situation? Would you ever talk to others how you talk to yourself?

CBT teaches us to be aware of our unhelpful behaviours and helps us to make changes and start to value ourselves. For example, we may set ourselves small goals to do something differently, such as practising ‘saying no’ and prioritising yourself, allowing yourself ‘me time’ to do something enjoyable, joining an exercise class or accepting a social invitation. Achieving goals for ourselves helps us to build self-esteem.

Any change in behaviour is going to be a challenge therefore likely to feel uncomfortable. It’s normal to feel nervous or afraid of doing things sometimes. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. It simply means we are out of our comfort zone and the more we do something the easier it becomes.

CBT can be very helpful in improving self-esteem. Whilst the primary focus is on the present and learning CBT strategies to make changes in the way we think and our behaviours, we do also look at past, to provide context of why we might be experiencing the difficulties that we are. This helps us to make sense of our experience. With increased understanding and awareness, we are more able to make changes and improve our self-esteem. CBT aims to provide us with a ‘toolkit’ of strategies to establish and maintain those changes.

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.

September 11, 2023 by BHP Leave a Comment

Do you have unrelenting standards?

Put another way, is getting anything less than 100% not acceptable to you, and a trigger for uncomfortable feelings of failure, of not being good enough, of self-criticism, self-doubt and shame?

In my experience as a psychotherapist, a personal drive for perfection is often the root cause of distress in many of those seeking therapy. It can be a hard issue to resolve. After all, why would we not try our best?

An illustration of how much pressure unrelenting standards (US) can generate is a client I saw who, for ‘relaxation’ – as she saw it – became a triathlete. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but for this thirty-something woman, who for this blog I will call Caroline, her hobby required a series of log books and electronic aids to record every jog, every swim and every bike ride with painstaking notes about her heart rate, timings and much more (1).

It emerged in therapy that Caroline took any sign that her performance was not improving as a trigger of dismay. Was it because she was getting old? That she was physically too weak? Or that she was simply not good enough? She spoke about her ‘hobby’ almost as if it was a military exercise. The physical benefits were clearly being offset by that the effort involved was itself yet another source of worry. Worry about worry!

So how do unrelenting standards develop as a pattern of behaviour that can have maladaptive and counter-productive overtones? In a previous blog, I wrote about basic human needs, and pointed out that, according to US psychology researcher Caroline Dweck (2), in order to feel safe we need to come to feel that we exist within a secure base. How is this generated? Key elements are that we need to grow up feeling that the world is reasonably predictable, that we are accepted and loved (by those around us) and that we are sufficiently competent.

If that happens and we believe we are indeed broadly secure, the Dweck paper also says that we come to believe we can trust other people, we feel that we have a reasonable degree of agency and control over what happens to us in the world, and we develop a healthy and balanced sense of self-esteem.

Against that background, how do unrelenting standards develop? The current theory is that if we feel we have been abandoned in any way during our lives (for example by bereavement or as a result of divorce), and/or if we have been badly mistreated or abused, and/or if we come to believe we are basically defective, feelings that we are fundamentally unsafe develop. Our secure base is seriously compromised.

Those feelings are triggered in a part of the brain called the limbic system, which exists to monitor danger and to provide the tools for dealing with perceived threats. It is an extremely powerful and fast-acting structural network and if was not, we would soon be dead. Our fight-flight-freeze responses – all there to protect us – originate in the limbic system and they are activated by the five basic emotions: fear (through which we become aware of danger); anger (with which we can deal explosively and rapidly with threats); disgust (which, when triggered, prevents us ingesting poisons); sadness (loss of a loved one is perceived as a threat because we evolved as pack animals); and joy – the one positive emotion, which is an expression of the pleasure and sense of safety we feel when connected with the world and others.

The upshot of this is that if we feel we are in danger, the limbic system goes into overdrive.

We cannot relax. Any signal, however small, of abandonment, or abuse, or of defectiveness has to be countered by effort and that involves making sure that every aspect of what we do is ‘safe’.

How can this be treated? A vital step is to obtain an understanding of the root causes. In Caroline’s case, it gradually emerged that a significant factor was that her father – though otherwise very loving – never seemed satisfied with what she achieved. He regarded a ‘B’ grade in an exam as a failure and even an ‘A’ was not good enough unless she was also top of the class. Caroline often turned to her mum for reassurance, but instead, she sided with dad. The result was that Caroline first came to dread exams and then went into constant
overdrive to make sure she got the highest possible grades and left nothing to chance. She became locked in what felt like a desperate battle to prove she was not defective. A relentless drive towards perfection felt like the only way she could get love and affection from her parents.

Once Caroline became aware of the nature of the pressure involved, she could begin to see that as an adult, she could make her own choices about the amount of effort she wanted to expend on tasks, and could begin to experiment with dealing with day-to-day demands in a less stressful way, including that sometimes- and maybe even often – 70% is not failure.

Further information about unrelenting standards is contained in this You Tube video.

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.

Resources –

(1) Details changed to ensure client cannot be identified.
(2) https://moodle2.units.it/pluginfile.php/358466/mod_resource/content/1/2017%20Dweck%20PR.pdf

April 3, 2023 by BHP Leave a Comment

Some existential musings on love, generosity, and the relation between self and other (part two)

(Adapted from a presentation given at the SEA conference November 2022) – (Part two)

Speaking of life itself as a movement of becoming. Have we forgotten the isness and replaced it with beingness, an allegedly unified subject of self-consciousness, contained and stuck within a name or a label? Must knowledge be part of it, must we always think our way in?

Does that remind you of anything? The masculine economy of desire tells us I think therefore I am (Descartes, 1998). It invites us to believe in the binary. But Nietzsche (1886/1978) tells us differently. He gifted us multiplicity, and music to dance to. He invited us to affirm life beyond the narrow confines of self-preservation: to play with all the dynamic forces and tensions.

Perhaps generosity is a type of life force? Bazzano (2019) says, in Nietzsche there is no individual will to power but “power understood as a generous expenditure” (p.95). But generosity is often suppressed in favour of rigid identities. In current culture it seems the human animal is seen as depending upon an idea of self, perhaps influenced by patriarchal forces. Discourses of subjectivity rely on notions of individuality, autonomy, and self-preservation. The different other often becomes a threat as does the potential for an unstable, non-unified experience of self.

And what about suffering? Are we allowed to suffer anymore? Is that not sometimes where the gift of transformation lives? Yes there is a paradox here, as Nietzsche (1974) writes, suffering is markedly personal because it is an aspect of self-expression, in time. In which the very process calls us forth to reshape and become; reinterpreting the past through healing and releasing what was and opening to the new. However, don’t we all rely on each other for that too?

Helene Cixous (1991) tells us “only when you are lost can love find itself in you without losing its way” (p. 39). This feels important to me. In Renshaw’s interpretation, Cixous seems to refer to “the very structure of desire that is made
possible in a non-possessive, feminine relation to difference. She goes on to say:

“Only when we are lost to ourselves, to the extent that being a self means being one and unified, are we opened to the possibility of a becoming that is expansive, abundant, and opened to the indeterminable difference of the other. Only then can love descend upon us the way it wants, in one of its bewitching, magical and divine forms” (p.183)

In her essay, The newly born woman, Cixous (1986) writes of the feminine economy of desire as a notion able to grasp the abundant and often incongruent aspects of desire, refusing to “exclude the contradictory, and the ability to
embrace a cycle of relations that are constituted in movement …never static …marked by movements, towards, away and elsewhere” (p.125).

There is much to consider here. In her book, ‘The Subject of love’ (2009, p.6), the academic Sal Renshaw offers us some questions to ask ourselves.

Perhaps we can explore them together.

“Can we love as a gift that does not return?
What would it take to love the other as other, neither to refuse nor to embrace the
other but to create a space in which the other is met, is brushed against, is
perhaps felt as well as seen”
Can we live our subjectivities in a way in which love emerges in the in-between,
not as something the ‘I’ does or has, but rather as something that happens to us,
that emerges, in the very space of meeting?
What kind of being or becoming, does it take to love the other in their otherness
and not to sacrifice oneself in doing so?
What kind of relations to and between subjectivities make possible a generous
meeting in difference?”

Part one of this blog can be found here.

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

Susanna Petitpierre, UKCP accredited, is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor, providing long and short term counselling. Her approach is primarily grounded in existential therapy and she works with individuals. Susanna is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Susanna Petitpierre –

Some Existential Musings on Love, Generosity, and the Relation Between Self and Other? (part one)

On living as becoming (part two)

On living as becoming (part one)

Some thoughts on becoming (part two)

Some thoughts on becoming (part one)

References –
Bazzano, M. (2019). Nietzsche and Psychotherapy. Oxon: Routledge.
Carson, A. (1998). Eros: The Bittersweet. Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press.
Cixous, H. (1986 [1975]). ‘Sorties’. Trans. Betsy Wing. In Helene Cixous and Catherine Clement. The Newly Born
Woman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Descartes, R. (1998). Discourse on Method. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Merleau-Ponty, M., (2012) Phenomenology of Perception. Oxon: Routledge

Nietzsche, F. (1886/1978). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London:
Penguin.
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House.
Renshaw, S., (2009). The subject of love. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

December 26, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

On Living as Becoming (Part One)

Who would have known a recent visit to Alexandria Park in Hastings and a guided tree walk would inspire this work in progress. The Park happens to have a very diverse and nationally significant tree collection planted by Robert Manock in 1882, and subsequent others.

Much of what was conveyed was fascinating but left my memory swiftly. What struck a chord was information about the nature of the Eucalyptus tree: apparently they happen to be self-sacrificing so that their native youngsters can grow in well fertilised soil. In essence, they make themselves as flammable as possible so that when they inevitably burn, in the wild fires of their typical homelands, they burn bright and leave lots of fertilising ash.

This in turn allows and nourishes the younger generations (not yet born) to flourish.

It reminded me once more of the ambiguity of life forces, and the significance of that which is greater than perhaps our own insistence and sense of volition. Something the sea often teaches me and touches in me: the understanding that we are both significantly connected yet open and vulnerable, we are in movement, incongruent and impermanent. Yet far from inconsequential. We all have the potential to be far-reaching and changed in every encounter, even if we don’t see, feel or act on it. In fact, understanding our potential and capacity to act, even in the face of great limitations, could be the very thing that liberates and transforms suffering.

Understanding and identifying the vitality of often ambiguous intensities and affects within existence, when encountering both our freedom and limitations, may support us to act. Perhaps there is great importance in feeling into and investigating our suffering, anxiety and despair. To sometimes move beyond self preservation and safety into discomfort and uncertainty. To perhaps question the idea the self is an identity, an image or an object that needs to be fixed or made safe and certain and move into courage, generosity and open curiosity, with less need for any exchange. Perhaps, when we can face it, to surrender to life’s limitations, crises and drawbacks and let them move us. Transformation is perhaps in the very falling.

Returning, again and again, to the writings of Frederick Nietzsche and Soren Kierkegaard (the latter discussed in more depth in later blogs), and those subsequent great minds who have tackled their ideas, we find discussions and real experiences that highlight commitment to facing and investigating the passions, the intense (affects) forces within experience, and their commitment to act without the need for eminence and self preservation. Nietzsche said,

“Physiologists should think before postulating the drive of self-preservation as the cardinal drive in an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to vent its strength – life as such is will to power; self preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent consequences of it”. (Nietzsche, F. 1886/1978, Beyond Good and Evil. p. 26)

Within the quote we find Nietzsche referring to ‘strength – life as such is will to power’. The interpretation here is not that strength is the opposite of weakness but strength as potential, potency, vitality, a force/forces of energy.

Nietzsche inspires us to look again, across a multiplicity of forces. To widen our stance and help us see there is so much more to the forces of life than self preservation. More will be discussed in part two.

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

Susanna Petitpierre, UKCP accredited, is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor, providing long and short term counselling. Her approach is primarily grounded in existential therapy and she works with individuals. Susanna is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Susanna Petitpierre –

Some thoughts on becoming (part two)

Some thoughts on becoming (part one)

What is the Menopause? (part one)

Some existential musings from the sea

Nietzsche and the body

November 21, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

In Support of Being Average

Ask yourself if you would like to be described as being ‘average’ and it might not be your first choice. Average might feel like a vague insult, a reflection on yourself that you’d rather not have. When we use the term ‘average’ we don’t see much that is positive about it.

What is ‘average’?

By definition ‘average’ speaks of a central or typical value across a data set. Average comes with connotations of mediocrity, not setting a very high standard, lacking motivation or even having given up. Average has little to make it feel desirable, but that doesn’t mean that we should write it off.

Perfection: The opposite of average?

Modern society, especially in the world of social media, seems to have no time for average. We are encouraged to seek perfection, to rise above what is seen as average and to strive and compete for a perfect existence. Flaws and defects wont do, only achieving a level that cannot be exceeded is acceptable.

In writing this we are presented with the thought that perfection is very subjective and is also very hard to achieve. We all carry a sense of who we are and the pursuit of perfection is something that we mostly define for ourselves.

Our sense of what is perfect is tied to our sense of self. Early messaging that one isn’t good enough and the associated feelings of inadequacy can make perfection feel appealing. By being perfect we compensate for our inadequacies and are beyond reproach. One becomes insulated from the feelings of judgement from oneself and others. Perfection and the pursuit of it become the solution to challenging feelings.

To always want to be perfect means that we never have to consider what failure feels like. Part of being human is that we are sentient beings and not merely machines carrying out limited functions in a repetitive fashion. To be simplistic we aren’t and can’t be all-knowing and therefore we are flawed and failure is possible.

The pursuit of perfection can impact our personal relationships and deny us the opportunity to explore and be curious. If perfection becomes a motivating factor how can be relate to others when we are managing our own anxiety around feelings of being judged. If it feels unbearable to think of failure how do we learn and develop?

Thoughts of being ‘average’ and psychotherapy

Considering how thoughts of being perfect can impact our life and relationships we might think of how we can move away from this high standard. To be less than perfect, we have to consider how we tolerate what has previously felt unbearable. The thought that it’s ok not to be perfect is a challenge and can expose one to questions of self critical, judgemental feelings that have been defended against. Psychotherapy offers the opportunity to think with a therapist and explore what is behind such feelings. Can we challenge this unconscious sense that anything other than perfection is bearable? Can we be ‘average’ and be happy with that?

Being an advocate for ‘average’ is not about promoting mediocrity, it’s a reaction to the rigour of perfection and a way of finding a more compassionate sense of self that can be at ease with and maybe even enjoy.

David Work is a BACP registered psychotherapist working with adults, offering long term individual psychotherapy. He works with individuals in Hove .

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

Further reading by David Work –

The challenge of change

Thinking about origins

Bridging Political divides

Save? Edit? Delete?

Football, psychotherapy and engaging with male clients

April 6, 2020 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Back to ‘BACE’ics

Achieving a work – life balance is an important aspect of mental wellbeing and can easily become out of sync without us even realising it, particularly when we are feeling under significant pressure from one of these two areas – in other words, stressed. This imbalance can lead to feelings of depression and anxiety . One useful tool you can use to get some perspective and move back into a position of feeling like you have some control is by keeping an activity diary for a a week (and ideally longer) which can provide us with useful information on where the loss of balance in our life lies. It can be helpful to separate out the different needs we have into four distinct areas:

1/ Bodily Self Care – this includes how we look after our physical body, i.e. exercise, nutrition, rest and sleep, self-grooming, medication, etc.

2/ Achievement – this includes work, study, housework, any tasks / activities that give us a sense of having achieved something concrete.

3/ Connecting with others – this can be family, friends, work colleagues – in person, over the telephone or social media. It can simply be being in an environment where there are others as long as we feel connected. It can also include connecting with animals. Our pets can be very therapeutic in helping us to feel calmer.

4/ Enjoyment – hobbies, interests, fun activities, relaxing activities – anything that gives us a sense of pleasure and joy.

Categorise how you are spending your time each day into the four areas. Sometimes one activity may fulfil more than one category, e.g. walking the dog can be exercise so would meet bodily self care, it could also be an achievement if you really didn’t feel like going, it could be connecting with others as you may have met other dog walkers, and you may have enjoyed it.

By monitoring your activity according to these categories it will give you a useful overview of how you are spending your time and gain a sense of where there are gaps – where it might be necessary to make some changes to re-balance your life.

In my work as a CBT therapist one of the areas that I frequently see my clients neglecting is under the category of enjoyment, and specifically, in having fun. We can get so caught up with work and what we think we should be doing we can lose sight of enjoyment and connecting with others. Or we may have crammed so much into our day that we have no time to stop and just be.

Activity monitoring can be a useful tool for anyone who wants to take stock of their life and see whether they are tending to all the different areas in their life which, when combined, create a sense of positive mental well-being. If you would like a structure in undertaking this activity then you can use a form called BACE (https://www.get.gg/docs/BACEdiary-weekly.pdf) which is a daily activity monitoring form. You will notice that the word BACE is the acronym for the four areas.

Once you have gathered the information and highlighted the areas that need to be addressed you can use the same form as a daily planner to set manageable and achievable goals to shift the balance and address the gaps.

Sometimes the simplest strategies are the most helpful.

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