society Archives - Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

January 23, 2023 by BHP 1 Comment

The Psychological Impact of the Recession

So we are officially in a recession in the UK. And not just any recession, but ‘the longest ever recession’ is predicted ‘since records began’. The word ‘recession’ is one that fills most working-age adults with a sense of dread, only further exacerbated not only by the suggestion that it will be ‘longer’ than ever before, but that it comes off the back of a couple of extremely anxiety provoking years thanks to the global pandemic. Will there be any respite for us all?

Our nervous systems have evolved to protect us from threat and very good they are at it too! We experience increased levels of anxiety and vigilance when our nervous system locates anything in our surroundings that may be threatening to our existence. For centuries, this would involve the literal threat to life resulting from the risk of becoming food for a wild animal or the victim of an attack by a neighbouring tribe. However, the world that most of us now live in is, fortunately, not punctuated by wild animals prowling around us or a neighbouring tribe mounting an attack. This is not to say that there are not dangers around us, but the risk of imminent death has unequivocally reduced as a result of multiple factors such as the rule of law, healthcare and our dominance over nature. Our nervous systems just don’t seem to have gotten the news.

Anxiety, which is the predominant emotion we feel when initially under threat is unlike other emotions in that it seeks to attach to an external event (rather than always being triggered by an external event). Thus, our ancestors would have an underlying level of anxiety they would navigate the world with and invariably when they felt a threat their anxiety levels would shoot up and they could appropriately respond to the threat. The same process happens with modern humans, however, the anxiety we feel is now often unhelpful when facing ‘modern threats’ as these, whilst real, are not imminently life threatening and even if they do represent a sort of existential threat – like a recession may – they are not something we can run from, fight, freeze up against or fawn; these are the four options our nervous system presents us with when we feel under extreme threat.

The psychological impact of the news of a recession can be similar to that of the psychological impact our ancient cousins would face when confronted with a sabre tooth tiger. And this stops us being able to think things through calmly. We then become reactive rather than able to take action.

What can you do?

I am no financial adviser and it is important to remember that each and every one of us will be impacted differently by economic events such as a recession, just as we are all impacted differently by all other events happening around us. But what I do understand is the human nervous system and anxiety.

Firstly, remember that ‘The News’ irrespective of the outlet, is designed to grab your attention – much like that sabre tooth tiger sticking its head out of a bush and into our face. News headlines are designed to sell newspapers, or in the modern world, to get ‘clicks’. This does not mean that it is ‘fake news’ but the devil is in the detail, not the headline. Take time to read the whole article and digest what it means. Think about whether you will actually be directly impacted and if so in which ways. Then you can take the time to take action methodically.

Remember that recessions are a part of the ordinary cycle of an economy and that each time one has arrived, it has once again passed and followed by a period of growth. People are affected but again, like the headlines, the news will report these effects from a ‘newsworthy’ perspective, rather than as a balanced view or perspective on society as a whole.

Limit your exposure to too much ‘news’ even though you will likely be drawn to ‘consume’ more.

This is human nature – your nervous system has signalled that this is a threat and so you are inclined to gather as much information as you possibly can. However, a recession, unlike a marauding tribe, is something that is approaching slowly and will also unfold slowly in relative terms – you do not need to get into a panic.

Focus on helpful ways of managing your anxiety such as taking time in nature, sharing your feelings with friends, practicing mindfulness, doing exercise or anything else that both brings you into your body, into the ‘here and now’, and calms your nervous system. Why is this important? It’s not about denying reality – on the contrary, it is about calming you enough so that you can once again think and if you can think you can make plans, rather than simply react to the news.

It is also worth bearing in mind that at present, what you are reading about the recession is a prediction. In other words, not may not be as bad as predicted or pan out quite as predicted.

We have all, collectively, got through the pandemic and coped with the anxiety of the unknown – the virus – that we all faced. This is likely to be the same.

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 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?

January 9, 2023 by BHP Leave a Comment

Why do People Watch Horror Movies?

Horror as a genre of ‘entertainment’ has, I would suggest, always been a part of the human experience, as it is through this collective narrative that we give shape and form to a world in which we have very little control. Long before movies existed and extending back to before the written word, our early ancestors would ‘invent’ super-natural beings with whom they would do battle in story and ritual. Why?

Anxiety

Human beings are inherently anxious beings. One can argue that this anxiety has come about as a result of two facts: the first being that until very recently we had good reason to be anxious as much of nature and the animals and plants in it posed an existential threat to us – only the anxious survived.

Secondly, and perhaps more psychologically relevant, is the suggestion that humans are the only animal who is conscious, self conscious, hyper conscious. What fundamentally makes us stand out from other animals is our ability to project our minds into the future which renders us capable of planning and achieving great feats, however, also brings us into brutal contact with the knowledge that we are destined to die. We are therefore in the impossible position of being able to largely shape our destiny (providing we don’t get eaten by a wild animal) only to face a certain death at the end of life (if we are lucky), or potentially at any moment. This renders us anxious in nature.

Humans use all sorts of methods and means as individuals and in groups to manage their underlying anxiety such as having children and building a career, through to subscribing to a culture (being British), that provides constituents with shared answers to cosmological questions – where have I come from, what happens after I die? So how may this apply to horror?

It has been noted that more than half the population enjoys watching horror as a genre. What is specific to this group is that they tend to score high on neuroticism which, amongst other characteristics, is denoted by high levels of anxiety.

When we think of anxiety as being the price we pay for our consciousness, and we consider that humans are always trying to somehow manage their anxiety, the draw to horror movies becomes a little clearer, particularly when considered in conjunction with the events of the past couple of years.

Why are we collectively watching more horror movies?

As a collective global society, any notions of safety and security were suddenly taken from us in early 2020 by the emergence of a virus that swept the world. We were all required to remain at home, stay away from work and consider friends and loved ones as ‘high risk’ and potentially contagious. For our nervous systems this represents a horror movie in itself! The problem is that it unfolded far too slowly for us to ‘attach’ our anxiety to it and then let it play out over 90 minutes.

Watching horror as a locus of control

I would suggest that one of the prime reasons that horror has become so popular over the last couple of years is that it represents a vehicle onto which those who already have a disposition to using horror as a means of evacuating their anxiety through projection, to do so by ‘projecting’ the anxiety of the unknowns generated by the fallout of the pandemic, into something tangible – a movie.

Psychologically horror movies may also function in a pseudo-ritualistic manner, in the way a dance or group ritual may have worked for our ancestors to gain mastery over their world – even if only in fantasy. The themes in horror movies are primal and archetypal in nature – they represent what lurks in the deepest recesses of our minds – and what we once imagined lived behind every tree out in darkness as we cowered by our campfires with mere sticks and stones to protect us.

Horror movies represent the ultimate battle of good versus evil and as it is a battle that plays out on screen we feel activated in the way our ancestors did when facing real and imagined dangers, however, it provides a locus of control to the viewer in that they are choosing to feel anxious and embark on the quest they experience playing out in front of them.

I therefore do not believe that horror films represent a conscious desire on the viewers part to confront their fears about the real world ‘head on’ but rather that it is a displacement activity whereby anxiety can be expelled in a socially sanctioned and safe manner. It is a method and means of gaining mastery over unbearable feelings through experiencing them safely.

Life imitates art, as the expression goes, however art is first and foremost an expression of the collective experience (the collective unconscious), and so as long as our collective experience is dominated by the horror of the pandemic and war and other existential threats, then I think it likely that horror, as a genre of art, will continue to be made and consumed at a higher rate as a way of us coping with our anxiety.

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 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?

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

October 24, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

Collective Grief

Recent Events: The Death of Queen Elizabeth and COVID

The recent death of Queen Elizabeth has drawn people together in grief in a ways both individual and shared. Having been Queen and a globally public figure for 70 years, her death felt like the loss of what had been a constant and stable presence in our lives.

The COVID pandemic forced us to engage with mortality in a way that many people hadn’t ever had to. We found ourselves experiencing emotions and feelings in ways that were unexpected and unsettling. We had to find a way to feel safe, in the face on what could feel like an invisible threat. Sharing the vulnerability of COVID became a way of coping with our feelings when so much felt unknown and uncertain.

Both of these events gave rise to feelings of loss and grief that were public and shared, yet they felt very different.

Contrasting experiences of grief

The experience of loss is something that no one can assume to avoid in life. It is part of human existence and can be the most obvious way in which we experience grief. The experience of grief is subjective and effects people in ways as individual as we are. Whilst some people appear unmoved and stoic, others can feel intense and uncontrollable emotions. Grief can be present in life in ways that can be hard to explain, either at the time, or at points in the future.

The death of a public figure and our sense of grief gives us an understanding of how we related to that person. Do we feel the loss of someone that we felt a closeness to, or do we find ourselves having ambivalent feelings? How does the loss affect our lives and what does it mean for us? Answers to these questions show us how unique our grief can be.

Sharing our grief over the death of Queen Elizabeth can feel as if it gives us permission to mourn and experience our own grief. We can attribute our emotions to an event that is shared and understood. We find comfort in sharing grief with others with a similar lived experience.

Looking back at the pandemic it could be hard to find ways in which to express feelings of grief, when everyone was trying to make sense of what was going on. Why we felt the way that we did wasn’t always easy to understand.

The pandemic also challenged us to experience death in ways that were far from what anyone would want. The absence of the ability to share grief at collective events like funerals and memorials left a sense of something unfinished and denied us the opportunity to find ways to understand our grief.

Comparable experiences of grief

Comparing the experience of loss and grief between the COVID pandemic and the death of Queen Elizabeth might seem rather obtuse. Both are joined by the collective nature of the events and how there felt like something inescapable about being aware of a collective sense of grief.

There is some comfort in the shared nature of what has happened and the sense that ‘we’re all in this together’ offers some reassurance, yet grief is still an individual experience

Grief and Psychotherapy

Loss and grief are parts of our existence, yet they can affect us in ways that can be unpredictable and unsettling. Being able to think with a therapist about how one is experiencing loss and grief can help to give understanding and a sense that what can at times can feel overwhelming can become less acute.

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

July 18, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

Why do people get the birthday blues?

Birthdays are generally depicted in the media as happy events that should be celebrated. However, for no small number of people birthdays can be complicated and evoke difficult feelings such as sadness, listlessness and even feelings of depression. Why is this?

The ‘birthday blues’ is a term used to capture the range of difficult emotions that some people experience around birthdays. They often come on in the lead up to a birthday, peaking on the actual day and then quickly dissipating, at times with a sense of relief.

There is no single clinical reason why people may feel down or depressed on their birthday and nor is it a pathology but rather a combination of association and arguably somatic memory. Let me explain.

Whilst we all have seen images heard stories or seen films depicting ‘the perfect birthday’ for children, for most of us this was not the case, but overall we enjoyed the day because we were allowed to celebrate it with those we love. However in many cases this simply is not so. For example, for children of divorced parents birthdays can be difficult as the loss of one of the parents may be highlighted on that ‘special day’. As a clinician this is something I encounter often with clients whose parents divorced acrimoniously – they wanted nothing more than to spend the day with both parents but can’t. Worse still I have encountered stories whereby my clients as children had to choose between their parents as to with whom they were going to spend their birthday. The outcome was that birthdays become something to dread rather than eagerly anticipate.

So, birthdays can represent a marker date (not dissimilar to Christmas) – a reminder – of a painful event which is compounded by the societal expectation of how a person should feel. This creates an internal conflict between the felt reality and how that person actually feels, which exacerbates the problem and can lead to symptoms of depression.

Why are birthdays so important to so many people?

Human beings are defined by time. We did not invent it as it passes whether we are aware of it or not, however, we structure our lives around time and use it not only as an important guide in terms of the passing of the seasons but also in measuring our time on this earth.

Birthdays are seen as something to celebrate as an achievement which may seem somewhat arbitrary in the modern world, however in a world in which infant mortality was rampant and few people lived beyond their forties – which constituted much of human existence – there was arguably much to celebrate in living another year.

However, I believe that there is something else that sits beneath this explanation that operates on an unconscious level and that is how birthdays represent an overcoming of death. It could be argued that becoming yet another year older is nothing to have a party about – especially once we have passed our youth. Birthdays mark the passage of time and bring us ever closer to death – something us humans have a hard time dealing with. So by marking birthdays and celebrating them, we are perhaps avoiding contemplating our mortality. They function in part as a form of
death denial.

Like the actual new year, birthdays are psychologically and thus symbolically representative of an opportunity for renewal – we can put the bad or mediocre of the past year behind us and start another year with good intentions. Sadly, like new year’s resolutions, little generally changes following birthdays as we take our old selves with us into the ‘new year’.

Is there any physical reason why people would feel differently on their birthday?

From a medical perspective, there is no reason why anyone would feel differently on their birthday, however, as noted earlier, birthdays can evoke powerful memories that may be pleasant, difficult, or a combination of both.

We know from neuroscientist and Professor of Psychiatry Steven Porges’ work on Polyvagal Theory that our neural network extends to our gut and that we receive significantly more ‘data’ from our gut to our brain via the vagal nerve than the other way around. It therefore stands to reason that where we have powerful memories associated with a significant date, that we will feel and possibly experience those memories in our body too. How may these manifest?

Some people may feel lethargic or achy and others may have headaches or migraines in lieu of experiencing the actual feelings – and this is particularly likely in cases where there is a conflict between how the person feels, and how they believe they should feel based on social or family expectations.

How can people start to think differently about their birthday?

When I was a trainee psychotherapist, one of my tutors would say ‘if you feel stuck with a client, find the feeling’. Ultimately psychotherapy is about grieving – what clients grieve will vary, but they are coming to grieve whether they know it or not.

If birthdays have in the past been difficult and remain so in the present then there is something that has not been grieved. For example, where a client began to dislike their birthday or even dread it due to a family event such as parental divorce, and that feeling repeats in their adult life, then I would suggest that there are feelings relating to that loss of the parental unit that remain unresolved. Once these have been worked through, birthdays will be ‘freed up’ so a different meaning and set of memories can be ascribed to them.

So, the first step is in grieving whatever needs to be grieved and then the second step is in recognising that a birthday is largely symbolic and that as an adult we can take control of them and take responsibility for creating of them what we wish. The latter is critically important as it may be that one person’s idea of a ‘good’ birthday is a full-on bash with friends whilst another is a quiet walk in the woods. Both are equally valid.

Are birthdays as important as people think?

Human beings are symbolic and are unique (as far as we know) in world of mammals in that we are the only creatures that inhabit a symbolic world. The majority of what we do, create and celebrate has no pragmatic purpose, however that does not mean that it is not important.

The symbolic is the basic fabric of culture and we all subscribe to a culture, as it is through culture that we gain our sense of belonging and self esteem. Culture (whichever one you happen to belong to) gives us three fundamental stories which enable us to cope with death anxiety according to psychoanalyst Otto Rank, who was one of Freud’s acolytes – culture tells us where we came from, how to behave whilst we are alive and lastly, it tells us what happens to us when we die. Without culture, we have very little.

Birthdays are symbolic and embedded in culture thus they are important in us being a part of the world in which we live. However, particularly in Western Culture where we subscribe to individualism, we are free to create of our birthday whatever we wish.

I would therefore suggest that birthdays are important as all cultural markers are important, however, that does not mean that we should be indentured to them.

Are the birthday blues real?

Anything that a person feels is real, as it is their felt experience. This does not mean, however, that that feeling or set of feelings belong in the present. Nor does it mean that the ‘birthday blues’ are a pathology but rather a term that helps us makes sense of what someone may be experiencing.

If people are habitually getting the ‘birthday blues’ which is a set of difficult feelings akin to depression, then something from the past has got ‘stuck’ and is repeating as an experience each year.

A psychotherapist would work with you to uncover what it is that brings on these ‘blues’ around the time of your birthday and to work with you to resolve the underlying grief or address what it is in your appetite for life that is being suppressed.

Can birthday blues ever be a good thing?

Whilst it may seem counter-intuitive, it can be helpful to be curious about how we really feel around our birthday and to work out whether those feelings are perhaps telling us something important.

It’s no secret that in my profession the peak time for couple’s therapy enquiries is in early January (the same is true of a family solicitor friend of mine). This I believe is in no small part to the pressures of family Christmas being combined with a new year and a desire for new beginnings.

Birthday blues can also be a sign that something in a person’s life needs addressing and perhaps changing. Birthdays are a reminder of the passage of time and can increase feelings of anxiety when deep down a person knows they are not really living the life they want to.

If we can be curious about them, birthday blues can tell us important information about what we may want or what is missing from our life. And if you can’t make sense of it, it can be really helpful to talk to a psychotherapist who can help you unpick what the blues might mean – whether that is a loss that needs to be grieved or an appetite that needs to be expressed.

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

Are people with mental health problems violent?

Mental health problems in Brighton

The limitations of online therapy

Pornography and the Online Safety Bill

Does the sex of my counsellor or psychotherapist matter?

April 25, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

“I’m interested in therapy but isn’t it a bit self-indulgent?”

Many people believe that they don’t have a justified reason to go to therapy. They may feel they haven’t had anything ‘bad enough’ happen to them, or feel it is too self-indulgent. They may not think they are worthy of the attention they will receive. The truth is everyone is worthy of therapy. Therapy can help us look at our painful experiences and use them to adopt a different approach to living and engaging with ourselves and others.

Mental Health Imposter Syndrome Is Real

We’ve heard time and time again how clients feel they aren’t suffering enough to deserve mental health support. Following the pandemic, it’s more important than ever before to ensure you’re taking care of yourself.

Melanie Klein, an Austrian-British psychoanalyst, theorised a key early and ongoing development task is the realisation that others and different from us with their own needs rather than as extensions of our own. This forces us to realise the loss of what we want other people to be. However, this loss enables us to move on to a more realistic life.

Many feel that they don’t feel ‘that bad’ right now, however, it’s a common misconception that you much be going through some sort of crisis to be a good candidate for therapy. It’s easy for people to compare themselves to others or brush off their pain because it’s ‘a stressful time of year’.

Why We Need Therapy

Everyone’s experiences are valid, and many of us will benefit from therapy. A lot is going on in the world, especially following the pandemic. So, we must take time out for ourselves and work on what makes us feel good to be able to function to the best of our abilities.

The French philosopher and writer, Voltaire, tells the story of travellers who have suffered various trials and tribulations. These travellers hear of a murder at the Ottoman court. They pass an old man calmly tending to his garden and ask him if he’s heard about the murder. The old man doesn’t know anything about it and explains how he doesn’t concern himself with the affairs there. Voltaire uses this example for the idea that to live a good life, we should put more effort into the tasks that make us feel good and less about other worldly affairs.

Many of our therapists relate to this in the sense that many clients like to express their feelings and opinions on politics or activism, which, don’t get us wrong, is very important. However, we find that hidden within these opinions are parts of the client’s self that they are unable to face such as feelings of hopelessness, insecurities, despair, rejection and more.

Therapy Is Not Self-Indulgent

Rather than being self-indulgent, therapy is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and the world. By trying to understand ourselves, we don’t project our own pain onto the world. Through therapy, we can explore what is happening inside ourselves and utilise this new self-awareness to accept and understand ourselves better.

Voltaire argues in his book that cannot escape suffering, since the world is a brutal place. But rather than getting lost in these feelings of despair, we can accept them as part of the human condition. We must do our best to be honest about our feelings and cultivate what we can. Like tending a garden, the work is never complete.

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.

February 28, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

Out of sight, out of mind

Available entertainment over the recent end of year break included the chance to laugh at the prospect of us all being killed. The climate crisis satire, ‘Don’t Look Up’ presented a mirror of our times, with scientists struggling to communicate imminent planetary annihilation by comet to a disbelieving public.

This new year sees the 60th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s landmark environmental work, Silent Spring. Her ‘fable for tomorrow’ begins with a stark picture of a rural American town that has died, its people taken ill, its farm animals barren, its insect life no more and all birdsong silenced. Recognizing the widespread harm caused by indiscriminate use of highly toxic insecticides, her book inspired an emerging environmental protest movement, leading to stricter regulation and a new awareness of how human activity was damaging the natural world.

Separated by sixty years of change, what strikes me most about both these works of warning is they seek to call attention to signals in the environment others have missed – or simply cannot see – and each insists these signals have meanings, with implications for the need to take action for purposeful change.

Not seeing the bigger things

In the same decade that Carson was warning of environmental collapse, a pioneering psychiatrist turned her attention to another neglected area of human experience. Conducting over two hundred interviews with dying hospital patients, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross gave moving shape to their stories with a new theory of how we cope with loss.

In her equally ground breaking publication, On Death And Dying, she proposed five separate stages of coping: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Although later critiqued for proposing a linear ‘stage’ process to change, her assertion that our primary response to loss is ‘denial’ holds truest for me.

Although now commonplace to hear talk of someone being ‘in denial’, this can often sound critical, as though there were something dysfunctional about this deeply human response.

For Kübler-Ross the denial she encountered in her patient interviews struck her as a ‘healthy way of dealing with the uncomfortable and painful’.

I think our human propensity for denial is testament to our powerful capacity to use our brilliant imaginations for self-protection. When faced with the intolerable, we unconsciously block out what threatens our fundamental sense of security.

Not seeing the smaller things

Because denial has acquired this shade of critical meaning, I find a more psychotherapeutic term, the process of ‘discounting’, much more helpful to use.

This theory emerged from a school of thinking in Transactional Analysis in the 1970s, when it was recognised that patients struggling to manage their lives and relationships had one big thing in common: they each engaged in ‘discounting’, whereby their thoughts and behaviours were often based on being plainly unaware of significant aspects of themselves, other people or wider reality.

Just as we can deny our larger reality in a life crisis I believe that an unconscious unawareness of smaller things is part of our day to day human experience. We all regularly discount some aspect of ourselves, of others and the world, simply in order to live in the best way we can. And as our denial must eventually give way to our awareness for change and growth to happen, so must our discounting.

The uses of psychotherapy

Psychotherapy often involves the paradoxical question, ‘What is it, that at some level, I am unconsciously choosing not to notice, and why?’ I see the process of psychotherapy as a sustained collaborative inquiry between therapist and client, so that clients can move at their own pace from self-protective discounting to self-expanding awareness.

In Carson’s fictional doomed American town, her explanation for the crisis is, ‘The people had done it themselves’. And just as her work helped many people to become aware of what they were not seeing and begin to account for healthier ways of relating to nature, so the business of psychotherapy can liberate individuals.

It can do this through carefully exploring their beliefs, feelings and behaviours in order to increase awareness of other ways of being and discover new options for change. In this way, psychotherapy at its most effective helps people, in the only way possible, to do it for themselves.

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

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. He works with individuals (young people/adults) in private practice. He is available at our Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practice.

Other reading:
Carson, R. (1962) Silent Spring Houghton Mifflin Co. Inc
Kübler-Ross E. (1969) On Death and Dying Routledge

December 6, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Save? Edit? Delete?

In 2002 an Australian journalist coined the term ‘selfie’. June 2007 saw the launch of iPhone and by 2013 the word ‘selfie’ was chosen by the Oxford English Dictionary as the ‘Word Of The Year’. Never as individuals have we been more likely to have a picture taken as we are now. An awareness of how we look, other than what we see in the mirror, is part of our lived experience.

Technology allows us to edit, manipulate or delete images, as we choose. What we don’t like can be edited out, what we can’t bear can simply be deleted. We can edit our selves to a degree that subverts reality.

The selfie could be seen as an expression of a narcissistic, self absorbed, society in which the individual and their image becomes overly important. The selfie could also be a reaction against societal expectations and ideals and a means of expressing individuality. Through a picture one can imagine themselves to be all the things that they might feel that they are, or aren’t.

Which side of the debate you find yourself on we can’t avoid this idea that there is a good, idealized image of ourselves which is sought, and a bad, devalued, version which can end up deleted.

When we speak of idealization and devaluation we’re looking at ways of coping with unbearable feelings. Taking, editing and sharing the perfect picture projects our idealized sense of who we are to the world. It helps us to defend against those feelings which come when confronted by an image that shows a version of ourselves that we find hard to see.

This ‘split’ into either good or bad, idealized and devalued as seen through the relationship to pictures may be revealing unconscious feelings around our sense of who we are. Can we bear to hold onto the images of oneself as ‘less than perfect’?

Thinking about this spilt therapeutically it invites an exploration as to what the client makes of their rejection of some and celebration of other images. Can we help them to recognise these splits and to consider what they might be an expression of? The aim of this is to help the individual to integrate both the idealized and the devalued parts of themselves into a coherent sense of self.

The selfie as a metaphor for how we feel about ourselves could feel like a simplistic idea, but if we can’t hold on to the images that aren’t ideal, are we showing more than we think?

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

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 –

Football, psychotherapy and engaging with male clients

When Home and Work merge

November 29, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

What is ‘othering’ and why is it important?

What is othering?

Othering describes a phenomenon whereby groups of people with a certain identity are marginalised and seen as outside the mainstream or norm. Those likely to be othered are often done so on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, caste, culture, disability, religion and age.

Othering as a concept, alludes to the constructed nature of identity and how these constructs are created to maintain power dynamics as well as an illusion of stability through naturalising difference. So, thinking about othering takes us into the realm of power and how power and identity are interconnected and constructed.

Othering is also bound to issues of inclusion and belonging. Those othered are positioned to ‘hold’ experiences of exclusion and outsider-ness by those who are positioned on the inside and the ‘norm’.

Othering operates in all societies. It has its roots in colonialism, racism, patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia. Othering can have extremely destructive and damaging consequences and at it’s most extreme can be seen in the genocide of one group by another.

On a more interpersonal level othering is hard to see as it is often an unconscious process, invisible, often to those doing the othering although generally less so to those who are othered.

Who has experienced Othering?

Most people I work with as a therapist have at some point or another in their lives experienced themselves as othered. While strictly speaking othering is a social-phenomena based on social identities as described above, many can have experiences particularly in childhood that place them into a position and experience of being othered.

As children and adolescents, many people have found themselves in what feels an outsider and inferior position. This can be for all kinds of reasons beyond larger social dynamics. Bullying is an obvious experience which some people have as children whereby they may find themselves inexplicably seen as different in an othered way. Some children can feel and be othered in their families.

Those who come from socially othered groups may well find these childhood traumas around othering compounded by and enmeshed with their social identity.

Why do I think othering is an important concept in my role as a therapist?

In my mind, therapy fundamentally works from a basic assumption that we have more in common than we have differences. All talking therapies at their heart strive for human understanding and empathy of the ‘other’. Therapy is about searching for connection and inclusion.

Othering is an illusion that exaggerates our differences, creates power dynamics and tells us these are natural. While othering naturalises power constructs between people it also disguises these very constructs. In therapy we strive, I believe, to expose illusions. In my work as a therapist, I try and help people authentically engage with their inner and external worlds.

Othering is also an experience that is likely to become internalised especially when it is bound up with childhood trauma. The othered part of the individual can be split off, denigrated and despised. This, usually unconscious, internal othering process may only start to emerge in therapy. I have seen these kinds of internalised power dynamics in many of my psychotherapy patients. In my experience, they become particularly complicated in those who have internalised a broader social message that who they are or what social group they belong to is outside and inferior to what is deemed the majority and the norm.

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

Claire Barnes is an experienced UKCP registered psychotherapist and group analyst offering psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy to individuals and groups at our Hove practice.

Further reading by Claire Barnes

Is a Therapy Group Right for Me? Am I Right for a Therapy Group?

What happens in Therapy Groups? The role of the Therapist

What happens in Group Therapy: Mirroring

The Problem with Change

What is it like being in a Psychotherapy Group? Case study – Joe

November 22, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

Builders

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

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

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

Gardeners

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

The neuroscience of nurture and independence

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

Difficult Feelings

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

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

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

Further reading by Kevin Collins –

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Why is it hard to make decisions?

Communication, communication, communication

November 15, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Reflections on getting back to normal

In living with Coronavirus we have shared (to greater and lesser degrees) in a collective experience of trauma. We have had to learn to be separate from friends and family. We have had to live, die and give birth in isolation. We have had to grieve in isolation too. The Covid virus has brought many changes to our lives, on an individual, collective and global scale. It is likely that its shock waves will be felt for generations to come. We have had to adapt and learn to live differently in many ways. Uncertainty and an increasing exposure to our own vulnerability and the reality of our mortality have been forced into the conscious foreground. We have been newly confronted with questions surrounding values and what really matters to us now. These are important questions. As restrictions ease and we embrace the desire to “get back to normal” we might well pause for thought, to consider what normal really means, or perhaps what normality has involved us in up to this point?

Individualism as isolation

Whatever the lessons of Covid may be, it has shown us how irrevocably bound and interdependent we truly are. Caring about others is what makes us fully human. We depend upon these bonds not just for our survival but for our very being. Modern Western society has resisted this fundamental truth, valuing independence above all things. Autonomy is King in the modern world. Small children, the sick and aged are permitted exceptions, but we are all dependent creatures, right to our core. Individualism and its pursuit is a relatively new phenomenon. My space, my desire, my identity, my need….we are increasingly siloed in our own progress myths, side tracked by the ever increasing burdens of self.

Kindness and its shadow

The world of work has changed beyond recognition in recent years (pre and post Covid). Stable careers (“jobs for life”) have been replaced by freelance or contract work, many demanding long hours, enforced mobility and chronic insecurity. The shape and nature of communities built around stable home and work relationships have crumbled under such changes. A competitive society that divides people into winners and losers also breeds unkindness. Kindness and caring may be natural human capacities, but so too are cruelty and aggression. When people are subject to unremitting pressure they become estranged from each other. When we feel coerced by circumstance we fight back or collapse. When communal bonds weaken tribal loyalties ascend, kindness and caring become a mugs game in a dog eat dog world.

Kindness as vulnerability

There are many accounts, philosophical, biological, psychological and evolutionary of mankind’s innate instinct for self interest, we are it seems unfailingly ruthless and selfish creatures.

History is riven with accounts of mans’ inhumanity to man. We cannot and must not deny our darkest nature, but neither must we believe our selfishness to be the whole story, for this too would be a dangerous state of affairs. The feelings of connection and reciprocity that we can know…deep in our bones, are amongst the greatest pleasures available to human kind. Let us approach kindness and care not as acts of sacrifice or indeed (albeit unconscious) of vanity, for these are surely self serving. Let us approach kindness instead as an act of including ourselves with others, as an intimate act that reminds us in the clearest way that we are vulnerable and dependent creatures who have no better resource than each other.

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

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

Further reading by Gerry Gilmartin –

The Passage of Time and the Discipline of Attention

Intimacy: pillars and obstacles

Love and Family

Understanding sexual fantasy

Fear and hope in the time of Covid

April 5, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Why is Love Island so Popular? And why it’s not for the reasons we think

For those of you that don’t know, Love Island is a British ‘reality television’ concept that has become a global phenomenon. Arguably deriving from the first global reality programme, Big Brother, which launched in 1997 it is the latest incarnation of this genre.

The premise is one whereby a group of (young, physically attractive) singletons are isolated from the rest of the world in a luxury villa dotted with cameras throughout. The singletons then must avoid elimination (eviction) from the villa through coupling up with another contestant. And like Big Brother the public ‘votes’ to eliminate contestants who do not please them. The ultimate price? Love? Eternal happiness? No, a pot of money.

What is the appeal of watching reality television?
To answer this question we first have to define how reality TV differs from regular TV. Clearly, reality TV is (to a greater or lesser extent) unscripted. And a cynic may argue that it is cheap to produce as the ‘talent’ is free, however I am more interested in the viewers drive rather than the profit margins of the production company.

For the viewer, they are aware it is unscripted – anything could happen. And with offering the audience a piece of the action – the control to vote out contestants, the experience becomes seemingly interactive, almost relational in that viewers feel a form of connection to the contestants.

Reality TV is reminiscent of the Romans and their staged ‘fights’ between gladiators and prisoners, or between imprisoned wild animals and unfortunate humans. And whilst the humble Roman had no direct power over who survived, they could look to their Emperor who would decide with a simple thumb’s-up or -down whether to spare the life of the barely alive prisoner. In turn the Emperor would be guided by the furore of the crowd, hence the illusion of control and investment in the outcome. Fundamentally though, it was entertainment at the expense of an
other(s).

Now let’s consider how reality TV and regular drama such as soaps – Eastenders and the like – differ. Watching a soap opera is a narcissistic endeavour where the lives of fictitious characters are watched according to a script. All are aware of the ‘pretend’ quality. A performance is being given and the boundaries between real people and characters are clear.

Reality television invites the participants to ‘star’ in a version of life judged by the viewer. And the viewer rewards the contestant through sparing them or eliminating them dependent on how ‘entertained’ they feel. It is a game of exhibitionism and voyeurism. One can argue that unlike prisoners of the Romans who were ‘thrown to the lions’, reality TV stars enter into the ‘game’ with their eyes fully open and can be handsomely rewarded. On the face of it this is true, however, taking ‘Love Island’ alone, there has been significant media coverage of three suicides of people
connected to the show. Whether the latter is causation or correlation, my argument is that both the contestants and viewers of reality TV are being driven by something unconscious.

So what’s the appeal?
I believe that this genre of television has become so extraordinarily popular because it appeals to out innate need to feel part of a community. Unlike soap operas, we know that what happens is real – and even if it is not; both contestant and viewer believe it is so the fantasy is complete.

In reality TV we are invited into the intimate lives of a group of people and can exert influence over them – it creates a kind of pseudo-connection. Exactly the kind of pseudo-connection present in a collusive exhibitionistic/voyeuristic encounter. By definition therefore, it is a form of perverse relationship in that it is rigid and without emotional contact. It is a relationship based on power and control rather than real intimacy.

And like any pseudo-connection, whilst it may feel exciting and glamorous, it has the nasty habit of leaving us feeling less connected and thus more prone to feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness when it all ends. And it always does. For the viewer, they can move onto the next reality TV series thereby keeping their need for authentic connection and vulnerability at bay; for the contestant, they can perpetuate the fantasy through building a career (brand) build on image, or they fall spectacularly from grace or fade away (both are equally devastating for the narcissist).

A loss of belonging
I therefore suggest that ultimately the rise of reality TV correlates with the erosion of community and a sense of belonging. It correlates with an increasingly individualistic world where narcissistic interactions are the norm.

Ultimately though, it speaks of our desire for contact and real relationship, something that can never be fulfilled through reality television or any other kind of perverse relationship where the premise is power and control.

Connection and belonging come from community and from real relationships where two people can take up space and each have their ‘real’ experience validated and understood by the other, rather than one having to be a performing (glamorous) monkey in order to manage to survive (elimination). The latter is pure and simply the definition of a deeply narcissistic and perverse relationship.

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

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

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer

What is the purpose of intimate relationships?

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

The Phenomenon of ‘Manifesting – The Law of Attraction’ and the inability to tolerate reality

Why does the difference between counselling and psychotherapy matter?

Love in the time of Covid

July 6, 2020 by Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Cultural Identity and Integration – Feeling at Home in your own skin

I feel lucky to live and work in a place where I am in contact with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. Many seek me out as a therapist to talk about their personal struggles with cultural identity and belonging. Difference is something which is deeply felt in one’s skin and bones and living in a different culture to one’s own can feel like being a fish out of water – permanently. Everyone goes through their own unique set of issues depending on circumstances linked to upbringing, race, gender, immigration status, class, age, sexuality, and disability.

Sense of Belonging

Cultural and psychological integration go hand in hand, given culture is an intrinsic part of one’s identity which is linked to a sense of belonging, safety, and mirroring. All of these are associated to early childhood experiences; for instance, hearing our parents or carers speak in a certain language or with a particular accent, and sensory experiences – smell, taste, sound, and touch. Most of us can recognise the familiarity which transports us ‘home’ through hearing a piece of music, eating certain foods, or hearing our language. Other familiar experiences can include literature and art, nature and wildlife, and weather.

The True Meaning of ‘Cultural Integration’

Migration, whether through choice or not, can result in the loss of everything that has once felt familiar. These losses need to be felt and mourned, so we can better accept and embrace the new culture we are living in. I have come across individuals from other cultures who had on the surface integrated very well in the UK, but on the other hand carried a deep melancholia about their cultural past, preventing them from ever fully ‘arriving’ here. Leaving one’s country and culture for another means reinventing oneself to a certain degree. Whilst this may sound appealing to some, the other side of it is that it can feel that you must constantly explain yourself. The lack of familiar cultural references, working harder to understand and be understood, and the constant feeling of being different are aspects of a migrant’s daily experience which remains invisible to others. We understand cultural integration more superficially as whether one can speak the language fluently, settle and adapt to a new environment. This is only the beginning.

The Role of Psychotherapy

We can think of Psychotherapy as integration of the different parts of the self which conflict with one another. This usually involves mourning losses, accepting reality, and learning to live with (or even embrace) paradox and uncertainty. This is not about leaving your culture behind – quite the opposite. The more we process and integrate experiences, the more we learn to accept who we truly are. As you can imagine, this will not happen in just a few sessions. Preferably seek a culturally aware psychotherapist who has been through this process themselves or is at least far enough along the journey to take you through it.

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

Blogs by Sam Jahara

How Psychotherapy can Help Shape a Better World

Getting the most of your online therapy sessions

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

Leaving the Family

Psychotherapy and the climate crisis

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

Addiction

Addictions are strongly related to the level of enjoyment, pleasure or relaxation someone is capable of experiencing through their associated activity. Serious cases of addiction are possible if someone has an intense desire to repeat an activity over and over again. On the other hand, many people engage in potentially addictive activities regularly, such as sex, gambling and alcohol, without a significant problem.

While you may begin to experience these activities with a measured amount of awareness and stability, many people are oblivious to the fact that they are addicted to a particular thing. In most cases, an addiction becomes much more apparent when it leads to uncontrollable behavioural problems that affect your home, work or school life.

You may start to rely on your addiction to get you through the day, or perhaps inherit an aggressive, uncharacteristic nature that fails to subside without your addiction taking hold. Persistent drug and alcohol takers may find that they start to experience severe withdrawal symptoms that get worse as the addiction starts to develop.

Withdrawal symptoms occur when someone is deprived of their addiction and they can cause anything from slight discomfort to intense cravings. They vary depending on the specific type of addiction and on factors that may have lead to addiction in the first place, such as relationship problems, unemployment, stress, mental health and financial concerns.

There are many different types of therapy that focus on relieving withdrawal symptoms and helping someone to overcome their addiction. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an excellent method of treatment that has proven to be very effective in the past. Here at Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy we will help you overcome your addiction through helpful talking therapies and counselling services, including a treatment programme and plan for change.

You should never be afraid to tell someone you are concerned or afraid that you might have an addiction. Support is essential when looking to tackle an addiction and we offer our expertise alongside family and friends to help you believe that you have what it takes to change your life for the better.

You can read our blog on how psychotherapy can help with addiction.

To learn more about therapy for addiction including pornography, gambling or alcohol in Brighton or Lewes, contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an addiction? Read more

How do I know if I am addicted to something? Read moreIf your behaviour feels compulsive, out of control, is damaging to you either outwardly or inwardly, initially reduces stress but then leads to more, it is likely that you have an addiction. Addictions are frequently linked to anxiety and depression issues.

What is the addiction-shame cycle? Read moreThe addiction-shame cycle is one of the cornerstones of addiction. It is a way of describing how a person feels activated by stress, ‘acts out’ (engages with their addiction of choice) in order to dispel the unpleasant feelings, initially feels better and then feels shame and remorse at their behaviour. A commitment is made to ‘do better’ and then the cycle repeats.

How can psychotherapy help with addiction? Read moreAddiction is like a relationally closed loop. The addicted client often feels alone and ashamed. The goal of psychotherapy is to bring an awareness to the addicts process, identify triggers, engage in helpful behaviour to manage triggers, learn to regulate emotion better and last but certainly not least, to help the addicted client to find safety in a relationship and to use the therapeutic relationship as a foundation to learning to get something from other relationships in the world.

What happens in a first session? Read moreThe first session with one of our practitioners is an opportunity for you both to work out whether you feel able to work together. Your psychotherapist or psychologist will likely ask you various questions relating to what has brought you and explain the process of therapy to you. The first session is a two-way process where you have toe opportunity to ask questions and to decide whether you feel ‘safe enough’ working with your therapist.

How do I find a psychotherapist of psychologist I want to work with? Read moreAt Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, we have two physical practices, one in Hove and one in Lewes, where we offer a full range of psychological therapies. On our website you can view each profile of our associates and contact them directly using the form on their profile page. You can also use our handy search function to find the right practitioner for your needs.

How long will it take for me to see a psychologist or psychotherapist Read more

How can I get in touch with you? Read moreYou can contact our practitioners directly via the contact forms on their profile pages. They will then reply to you directly.

What age groups of clients do you work with? Read moreWe have psychotherapists and psychologists trained to work with every age group from infants through to adults.

Do you offer evening and/or weekend sessions? Read moreWe offer sessions every day of the week including on Saturdays and sessions are available into the evening.

What are your fees? Read moreOur fees are set by each practitioner depending on the type of therapy. For individual psychotherapy or clinical psychology our fees range from £60 – £100 per session. For couple therapy our fees range from £70 – £100 per session.

Is there parking near your Hove and Lewes practices? Read moreBoth our Hove and Lewes practices are centrally located close to train stations, bus routes and with on-street parking or car parks nearby.

Contact us

At Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, we have two physical practices, one in Hove and one in Lewes, where we offer a full range of psychological therapies. On our website, you can view each profile of our associates and contact them directly using the form on their profile page. You can also use our handy search function to find the right practitioner for your needs.

If you are considering online therapy, take a look at our online therapy services.

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

Anger Management Counselling in Brighton

Anger is a normal, healthy emotion which every person feels at some point in their life. It’s part of what makes us human. However, anger becomes a problem when we find it causes destructive behaviour or impacts your overall mental and physical health.

Anger management is about learning how to feel anger without becoming overwhelmed by it and finding constructive ways of expressing this emotion to others. Anger can also be a habitual way of expression, which masks other feelings such as sadness and/or pain.

What is Anger Management?

Anger management is a term used to describe psychological work around helping a person to understand their anger better. It is not about eliminating the anger; if anything, it is about getting closer to the anger and forming a relationship with it to understand what the anger is really about and how to express it safely.

Sometimes anger can also be a substitute feeling – particularly with men – whereby it is seen as safer to express anger than other emotions that make us feel more vulnerable, such as sadness. For example, it is not uncommon that after a bereavement close relative(s) feel angry and whilst this is a normal part of grieving, it can also become a way of displacing profound grief.

Understanding Anger in Men & Women

Statistically, it is generally men who seek out anger management. Does this imply men feel more anger than women? Perhaps. However, there are other factors to consider such as how men and women were taught to express their emotions in their families of origin and society.

For years, society has taught men that sadness, pain, or grief isn’t an acceptable emotion. This has caused many men to resort to displaying anger as their first emotion, even though it may not be the true first emotion that they feel. Because of this, men are more likely than women to have issues expressing themselves in a way that isn’t anger.

On the contrary, cultural messages that a woman’s rage is toxic can negatively affect mental health. Women being told that anger is an unacceptable emotion can cause repressed anger which can prevent them from expressing this healthy emotion.

Processing Your Anger

In working with anger, it is important to learn to distinguish between a feeling and an action. To use an example: If I am driving along in my car and another driver makes a dangerous manoeuvre causing me to brake suddenly narrowly avoiding an accident, I am likely to experience a range of emotions from shock through to relief and then possibly anger. Anger is an appropriate emotion in this situation, however, if I then resort to forcing the other driver off the road to ‘give them a piece of my mind’ my emotion has become an action or behaviour. We are not responsible for our emotions, but the mark of an adult is that we are responsible for our actions.

Processing anger in a safe and judgement-free setting, whilst practising the difference between emotions and behaviour, can be extremely useful in learning to accept that all our feelings are acceptable and that we have choices in how we express them.

When Do I Need Anger Management Therapy?

Anger becomes a problem when you can’t control it and it harms people around you. By tracking the intensity and frequency of your anger experiences, you can determine whether it is time to take the next step in understanding and controlling your anger.

Signs You May Need Anger Therapy

You feel angry very often
You frequently get into heated arguments that get out of control
Your family and friends have told you they think you have anger issues
You regularly express anger through destructive or unhelpful behaviours
Anger is your go-to emotion which blocks out the ability to feel any others

What to Expect with Anger Therapy in Brighton

During your first session with one of our practitioners, you have the opportunity to work out if you feel safe and comfortable with your therapist. They will most likely ask you various questions regarding what has brought you to anger management therapy and you will also have the chance to ask any questions.

Throughout your sessions, you will work with your anger therapist to process your anger in a healthy way. Going a little deeper, once you have some control over your anger, we can start to consider why we may be getting triggered the way we are. Often anger is a mask for more painful emotions such as shame, low self-esteem, grief and feeling out of control. Talking therapy can help you become more familiar with your emotional world and find strength in owning and expressing your emotions appropriately.

Take the First Step

Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy has practices in Lewes and Hove with our client base spanning across Sussex, London and even further afield. We are qualified to work with anger management issues in men, women and children and we will work to find a date and time that works best for you. We are committed to making sure you feel completely safe, comfortable and listened to throughout the whole process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is anger? Read more

Anger is a powerful emotion and one that is often seen as negative. However, anger is one of the most important feelings that we can experience and one of the five main emotions (the others being joy, sadness, fear and disgust). Anger tells us when something is not OK for us. If the feeling of anger were to be expressed as a word, it would be ‘No!’.

Problems occur with anger where we are unable to healthily express our anger thereby communicating our ‘no’ effectively and proportionately to the situation. Anger problems also occur where anger is displaced – in other words, we express anger at someone or something rather than acknowledging to ourselves what or whom we are truly angry with.

How can psychotherapy help with anger? Read more

Psychotherapy is a relational process and so much of the work will be on building an authentic relationship between therapist and client wherein anger is welcome. Many people have learnt that expressing anger is not permitted in a relationship and that it may threaten the whole basis of the relationship. This should not be the case. Psychotherapy can also help through the relationship to assist the client in reaching more difficult feelings that may exist beneath the anger.

How do I find a psychotherapist of psychologist I want to work with? Read moreAt Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, we have two practices, one in Hove and one in Lewes, where we offer a full range of psychological therapies. On our website you can view each profile of our associates and contact them directly using the form on their profile page. You can also use our handy search function to find the right practitioner for your needs.

How long will it take for me to see a psychologist or psychotherapist Read more

How can I get in touch with you? Read moreYou can contact our practitioners directly via the contact forms on their profile pages. They will then reply to you directly.

What age groups of clients do you work with? Read moreWe have psychotherapists and psychologists trained to work with every age group from infants through to adults.

Do you offer evening and/or weekend sessions? Read moreWe offer sessions every day of the week including on Saturdays and sessions are available into the evening.

What are your fees? Read moreOur fees are set by each practitioner depending on the type of therapy. For individual psychotherapy or clinical psychology our fees range from £60 – £100 per session. For couple therapy our fees range from £70 – £100 per session.

Is there parking near your Hove and Lewes practices? Read moreBoth our Hove and Lewes practices are centrally located close to train stations, bus routes and with on-street parking.

Contact us

Get in touch with Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy today and find out more about how we can help with anger management issues. At Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, we have two physical practices, one in Hove and one in Lewes, where we offer a full range of psychological therapies. On our website, you can view each profile of our associates and contact them directly using the form on their profile page. You can also use our handy search function to find the right practitioner for your needs.

Read our blog on anger management here.

We also offer online anger management therapy.

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

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