Counselling & Psychotherapy

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy – Counselling Process - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Counselling & Psychotherapy – Process Of Therapy

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Counselling & Psychotherapy As A Container

Counselling and psychotherapy can be like "a container" when our emotions seem hard to contain, where we struggle to tolerate our frustration, tension or anxiety. Sometimes sitting with strong feelings, however painful - allowing for what else may be consciously (or unconsciously) emerging - can be more effective than rushing for a quick fix. Experiencing our feelings to their fullest can paradoxically dissolve them. Something else can then happen, as if our awareness, or consciousness, changes. What we might have believed to be intolerable, we may have managed to bear. Fresh insight may emerge. Counselling & psychotherapy can also be experienced as a containing space & time different to any other (like our unconscious), where powerful intentions, feelings & thoughts, imagination, dreams can be explored.

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
The Therapeutic Relationship – How You & I Relate

Psychotherapy & counselling is a co-operative relationship in which mutual respect, shared responsibility and trust are essential. Entering counselling or psychotherapy provides the opportunity to talk & think collaboratively together about your situation and what level of help might be needed. Alongside the issues you bring, counselling & psychotherapy also provides a space for you to be heard, take stock and wonder about what your Iife means & what may be emerging for you.

Tools & techniques can be offered & are useful, yet are often insufficient on their own. Understanding ourseIf is usually not enough - we need to be willing to fully experience ourself, sit with what we are experiencing, tolerate what seems intolerable, be in touch with all of who we are, feeling solid, honest & real. As we are able to bear any suffering, fresh insight (consciousness) may emerge, freeing us up. The therapy can support you in this integration.

How the therapist experiences you in the therapy, is often a reflection of how you are experienced by others out in the world - and we can allow for this in our work.

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Relationships With Others, The Wider World & Indeed Ourselves

Counselling & psychotherapy can help us be more in tune with ourseIf & others. Therapy can offer guidance in managing & resolving conflict, solving problems & troubled relationships. Being relationally receptive can be a need. Some relationships work better than others. At one level, life is about relationships. Everyone, universally, has some ingrained ways of relating, and seek relationships for intimacy, meaning or identity, so in a sense the focus of counselling is always about relationships with:

• Our partner (see Relationship Counselling & Marriage Counselling)
• Others - parents, siblings, children, friends, peers, acquaintances, work colleagues, authority
• Things & Objects - our virtual relationships, e.g. the computer & internet, work, alcohol, etc., which, when excessive, adversely affect our time & energy in developing fulfilling relationships with real people, or indeed our seIf ...
• Yourself - your internal relationship, the relationship you have with yourself - how well you understand & manage your own needs, feeIings, emotions & Iife ... (see also Our Responsibility)
• Our spiritual realm

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy – Emotional Awareness - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Emotional Self-Awareness

Throughout the process of therapy we can slowly get to know your emotional Iife:

• Recognising & knowing your emotions (your awareness)
• Managing emotions – taking responsibility for them (your empowerment)
• Expressing your emotions (your expression)
• Sources of motivation (thoughts, feeIings, will)
• Recognising emotions in others (interpersonal skills)
• Being in relationships (social skills)
• Awareness of your impact upon others (social skills)
• Building rapport, empathy & connection with others (social skills)
• Connecting with us & others – being kind, caring, warm, compassionate, understanding, affectionate, generous (empathy)
• Not just in our heads, but meeting others, staying consciously present (awareness) - see As We Relinquish below
• Social & self-awareness, -management, -direction

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
How We See The World

We all interpret the same events differently. The process of counselling & psychotherapy attempts to understand how we look at the world around us and ourseIf in it. There may be something you want that's not working; how you see yourself getting there and the ever-changing journey itself may also be important.

We may also explore your perceptions, perspectives, belief systems, any expectations, assumptions & conclusions.

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Finding Our Way Through Difficulties & Old Beliefs

The therapy process includes integrating aspects of our personality, which we might find unacceptable. These aspects may include unwanted feeIings or our beliefs. We may therefore also go into the promises we made to ourself, we have held on to or continue to be loyal to, including the beliefs that are precious to us. These may also include beliefs like "I'm not supposed to have needs", "I should...", "I must always...", "I should know" & "Not knowing is unacceptable", that "Feeling vulnerable is a weakness" or "Dark & chaotic moments must be avoided". It is often that somewhere within these difficulties themselves, are pointers to solutions & as we find our way through them, we are able to liberate ourseIf from their binds.

Counselling London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Developing Fundamental Life Skills

Some people may want to focus on specific areas of concern. Counselling & psychotherapy can help with this. Examples include:

• Decision making
• Critical thinking
• Ways of relaxing
• Expressing & containing emotions
• Being creative
• Other...

Counselling London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Tool Kit

During the therapy process, you may prefer a listening ear, understanding & gentle guidance. You may also be seeking tools or a structured programme to help you with aspects of you & your personality. The counselling & psychotherapy can work with what troubles you, the different parts of your Iife in detail & as a whole.

Counselling London Psychotherapy - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Life Re-Appraisal - Our Internal Resources

A Iife re-appraisal or audit can be offered. We can look at your external & internal support systems - a bit like a personal MOT, including how you do & don't take care of yourself & get your needs met - what does & doesn't help. These resources may enrich your Iife, support you in understanding (and make meaning of) your experiences & overcoming inevitable setbacks & adversity.

The therapy process can include seeing how we get our primary needs met, by looking at:

• Taking Stock Of Our Life
  • Where you are now, your influences
  • What you've achieved & what matters now
  • Your habitual behaviours & choices
  • How you express & contain your feeIings
  • Your emotional connection with others
  • Whether you feeI needed by others
  • What motivates you
  • What gives you faith & hope
  • What gives you meaning, status & a role
  • What you really want – what's most important & the steps you take in getting there
  • What might your challenges & resistances be
• Our Support Systems
  • Whether you are Iiving & working in an environment where your basic needs are met
  • How you get your basic needs met - how you give & receive care, love
  • Your values & how you fully express them
  • How you make worthwhile commitments
  • How you connect with your own purpose & direction
  • Your range of coping mechanisms & support systems, including if things go wrong
  • How you manage adversities, suffering
  • Alternative ways of responding to difficulties
  • How you adjust & your flexibility
  • What helps & what doesn't help
  • How resilient you are & able to soothe yourself
  • Your sense of control
  • What helps you relax
  • Doing pleasurable, challenging, satisfying & rewarding activities that stimulate the brain & stretch you
  • How else you stretch yourself
  • What you enjoy & what your most important experiences are
  • Interest sharing - being connected to something larger than us, e.g. sport, passionate interests, music, art, nature, family, friendships, spirituality, religion ...
  • How you utilise your good qualities, strengths, abilities & personal skills
  • What you appreciate & are grateful for
• Our Future Aspirations
  • How you can achieve realistic goals - the options, choices & actions necessary
  • Whether your life meaning, purpose & direction gets you closer to where you intend
  • Your creative & imaginative options
  • What you believe is possible
  • What your next steps might be

Counselling London Psychotherapy – Releasing, Letting Go - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Releasing Ourselves & Letting Go

Bereavement & Grief for someone we cared about, or knew has its own pace (see Grief & Bereavement Counselling). We may also be in touch with loss or personal grief of a different nature ...

Releasing & Letting Go Sometimes we can become trapped like a bird, holding on to our branch, believing we are not free (see also Our Free Will below). The branch can't let go of us, and our challenge at times may be to let go of the branch, which may seem counter-intuitive (see also Mourning Our Losses below). We may become freer, our attitude & perception may change, the choices before us may widen. Stuck or trapped, we can hold on to things which no longer work (e.g. the heartbreak of a relationship, resentments, disappointments, control, grief, being overly competitive, etc.), which cause tensions. When we are ready, we can choose to let go, trusting what will be, will be. Giving us permission to let go of the burdens, we no longer wish to carry, may be our desire. We may question if we need to fight the same old battles any more. We all have our own pace & often we personally know when the time is right to let go of our over-reliance or attachments to objects, opinions, ideas, thoughts & beliefs. This letting go may also apply to our over-attachment to people by letting others be (without expectation or dependency), we are OK and they are OK. When we let go, we may discover that we don't have to struggle unnecessarily anymore. We may need to let go in many areas:

• Our Past (see Impact Of Our Past)
  • Grieving over the loss of our past (see below)
  • Releasing the binds & bonds from our past
  • Redundant Iife patterns
  • Sore spots, old wounds, resentments
  • Our Hurt & pain
  • Stuck memories
  • Things we hold on to, which no longer help
  • What might have been
  • Grieving our unmet needs, unfulfilled childhood & sadness
  • Freeing us from the hold of our past
  • Regrets (see Releasing Our Regrets below)
• Our Future(see Living To Our Full Potential)
  • Worrying, planning, rehearsing, hankering for the future (see also Stress, fear, Anxiety)
• Feelings, Thoughts & Beliefs (see Thoughts & Beliefs, Difficult Feelings)
  • Being in our head, need to know everything (see Not Knowing – Our Need To Be In Control)
  • Fear, anxiety, anger, depression, sadness & disappointment
  • Preoccupation with future scenarios, or worries from the past
  • Constantly searching for answers
  • Limiting assumptions, meanings & conclusions
  • FeeIing & thinking in limiting ways
  • Redundant beliefs (e.g. "It must be perfect")
  • Attachment to outcomes
  • Control what we are powerless to
  • The unhelpful stories that run in our head
  • Believing that if we let go, others (or us) will critically judge us
  • Sacred cows or redundant loyalties, which inhibit us
  • Negative, distortive, irrational or unhelpful thoughts
  • Fixed beliefs, e.g. we are bad, unlovable, what "should be"
  • Believing we are unable to bear uncertainty, that we must know everything
  • Grievances
  • Wasteful thoughts
  • The pain of choice
  • Redundant roles or rigid identities
  • Overly worried about what others think
  • Overly dependent on others for love
  • Possessiveness
  • Envy & jealousy
  • Loneliness
  • Our hurts or wounds
  • Being overly sensitive
  • False, fake, like a fraud
• The Way We Behave (see How We Behave)
  • Redundant learnt behaviour
  • Unhelpful ways of behaving
  • Our maintaining cycles - what we keep doing to ourseIves
  • Old patterns of suffering
  • Old roles, struggles we are willing to let go of
  • Traits, attitudes which limits us
  • Unwanted habits or addictions
  • Procrastination
  • Being perfectionist
• Our Bodies (see Our Body)
  • Tension & tightness in our bodies
  • Going to sleep
  • Emotional release
  • Letting go of our physical tensions & being in our body

Pride Being proud in who we are supports our self-esteem (see also Self-Abandonment). Yet there can be another pride where we are "too proud for our own good", or "foolish pride", "false pride" - holding on to things which no longer work. We may also be holding on to our wounded pride. Being willing to learn, be vulnerable, take responsibility, forgive (see Forgiveness below), let go, surrendering to "what is" - not how things should be, being real with our humility & remaining strong may be challenges, yet bring us peace of mind, as may finding our own way to lick our wounds.

Our History We can't always let go of our past, yet can learn to carry things lighter. Counselling & psychotherapy can explore this with you.

Old Roles, Fixed Identifications What is familiar can be comforting, even if it is painful or gives us trouble. Yet, as we hold on to certain things, we are blocking other possibilities, and if we hold on too tightly, we may be crushing what we are holding. The unknown & being open - allowing things to come & go, can be scary. Some of us can be overly identified, or focused on one specific area of our Iife, e.g. a specific role, feeIing, desire, need, thought, belief – so one of these may dominate at the exclusion of others. We may also have a selfimage (e.g. people pleaser, the striver, self-critic, our own inner judge, the rescuer, "poor me", the persecutor or a saviour of others) that no longer helps, or doesn't do justice to all of who we are. Counselling and psychotherapy can help us integrate of all aspects of us.

Grieving Over The Loss Of Our Past Many memories may stir, deep love, regrets, good times, bad times, heartache, heartbreak, nostalgia. Our grief may run very deep, as if right to our soul, as we struggle to bear this. The therapy can be a space to talk about these.

Mourning Our Losses Our grief can be about something in us that has died, which may be hard to mourn. We may be in inconsolable. Yet, as something dies in us, it can create the potential for something new to emerge, renewal. As we let go, we are often in touch with uncertainty & loss, which can trigger past memories of endings. Our grief & loss can be experienced in many forms. Loss of: power, control, identity, interests, love, friendships & relationships may deeply affect us. What we do and how we let go of betrayals, rejections, endings, unfinished business may also be our challenge. Being openheartedly able to forgive ourseIf or others may be a need (see Forgiveness below).

Gratitude When we find our gratitude, or can see a situation from this place of gratitude, our impatience, frustrations, anger, confusions dissolve. Showing our gratitude can build bridges. Many of us find it easier to express gratitude than find forgiveness.

Forgiveness Some of us may no longer want to hold on to past hurt, pain, resentments, miserableness & want to forgive. Holding on to this can fester inside, becoming destructive. We have all made mistakes & the past has already happened (see also Evolving Consciousness - Hindsight). Accepting that mistakes are made, being in touch with our forgiveness, being able to forgive others & us - asking for our own forgiveness, may be challenging. Finding our way to forgive others & us, moving on may free us. Our need to be heard, right, seek revenge or justice may get in the way of choosing to forgive, as can holding on to our unhealed wounds, being too proud (see Pride above). Our own guilt or shame may also get in the way of being able to forgive. We may also be confused between forgiving someone's behaviour & forgiving them (this is also true of us). If we have become unforgiving, beating us & others up, then we may find it hard to forgive or choose to love. If we can't compassionately find our way to forgive & accept us, we may struggle to forgive others. Like the saying "To err is human, to forgive is divine" (Alexander Pope) our challenge may be: Can we be humanly divine, let go, really feel our feelings, be true & honest? For some this may lead to a spiritual enquiry.

Existential Grief Our existential grief, loss & letting go may include: what was in our Iife or what might have been, regrets - wishing we had done more, letting go of a stage of life, our mortality, deep sadness of what we believed mattered, yet no longer does. We may experience this grief right to our core. What's left & now ignites us we may be asking. Counselling & psychotherapy can help us find our way through this challenging phase. (See also Existential Concerns)

Releasing Our Regrets Being in touch with, or expressing our regrets, can be a healthy process. Owning our mistakes can be a way we speak our regrets. Yet when we tightly hold on to our regrets, sorrow, guilt & shame for what we've done, how we've been or how things might have been, we can end up disappointed. Some of us can remain stuck in our regrets, or blame ourselves for what happened back then, even if we weren't as aware or conscious as we are now. Some of us may find it hard to let go of our regrets, regretting what we've done or not done. Holding on to our regrets can keep us stuck in our past, yet we can't change our past, and in some ways it has made us who we are today. We can choose to carry on regretting things, or consider that things also happen for a reason, that we may benefit from learning something. We may also wonder what might we need to learn, what we could have done differently.

Not Setting Up Future Regrets We may have developed a habit of consistently regretting things that we should have done. We may therefore want to consider not always playing things safe, thinking creatively before our actions, connecting to what we love & being in the present moment (see Personal Freedom below).

Complaining Or Appreciating When we complain, it not only brings our own mood & motivation down, but affects others. We can choose to complain or appreciate things, however small, or the ones we take for granted.

As we relinquish what we have been holding on to – often something safe & familiar, we have the potential to be less constrained and more open in our mind, body & heart, experiencing & expressing love. Paradoxically we become closer to who we are by being in touch with who we are not. Some report that by letting go we initially feeI a sense of alienation, yet also connected to a childlike innocence, more renewed, alive, present & in our body. As we let go we may become more engaged, appreciative, accepting of "what is" & freer to Iive our Iives now - in the moment (free of our past or future worries), as if things fall into place. We may experience our sense of acceptance, being real rather than necessarily doing something - "this is me, my existence (that I am), my essence (what I am), my centre & base, my uniqueness, my constant sense of self". Receiving life afresh, unexpected and precious like a gift at each moment, we have the potential to be enlivened with our personal faith. We may experience some courage, clarity, compassion, receptivity or curiosity. We can choose to act or indeed reflect. Being in touch with our inner direction may become important. When we are present to who we are, moment by moment, we may no longer have a sense of missing out on things (e.g. putting off life until tomorrow once I have done ...), and can experience our wellbeing. Stepping outside ourself, we may also realise that there is more to Iife than only what's happening to us at the moment. In this space of simply being "me" we may have a sense of timelessness. (The small things don't matter any more and never did.) This may lead us to having existential concerns and a closer connection to our past, present & future. We may be in touch with our hope, what matters to us & sense of commitment. Letting go of the concept of non-attachment may also be important for some. Being in our own ground may support us.

Release In this time of personal transition or transformation, we may be more attuned with ourseIf & others, empathic, responsive, able to trust Iife, feel separate yet also connected, open, strong, whole & other qualities. Knowing ourself, and that we are more than this, may mean we experience life unfolding for us and our true nature, as we question consciousness itself, beyond our own consciousness. We may have a strong sense that not only do we matter, but also what connects us to the wider world. Liberated, we may also seek deeper connections with others in the realisation that we are a part of a greater whole. This sense of continuity & state of presence (that we remain present to each experience as it arises - the experiencer, aware of our awareness, able to encounter fullness & emptiness, isolation & unity), experiencing things as they happen (see also Present, Past & Future), can be described as being in touch with our will, as if we are being will. This experience may support us in deciding where we put our attention. Some experience this release as being in touch with their spiritual realm - in touch with their deepest sense of SeIf. Allowing or surrendering to this may be a further challenge for us. As we let go, our resilience & personal boundaries can support us.

Counselling London Psychotherapy – Free Will - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Our Free Will

Certain stages of our physical & psychological development are determined, e.g. baby, child, adulthood. The role of chance, randomness & fortune accounts for much of our existence. Our life is not merely determined by fate, our history, genetic inheritance. It is also self-determined through our autonomous free will, in the present moment, and it is this sense of seIf (with the capability to rise above influences, seIf observe and act in the world) inherent in us all, that I value & work with in therapy (see also Facets Of Personality). The counselling & psychotherapy may try to support you in recognising your free will & the choices you make, so you take charge of your destiny, especially if you feel like a victim to determinism (that absolutely everything, including outcomes, is already determined) or fate (what will happen will happen). We may also explore how free your choices are, your passions and who you want to be in each moment, whether open or closed, loving or unloving, etc. (See also Releasing Ourselves & Letting Go)

Counselling London Psychotherapy – Personal Freedom - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Personal Freedom

For some the process of therapy is successful when we are freer to choose, less automatic - living in the moment, accessing our own strengths & skills, clarity of thought, autonomy, free will and inner wisdom, being fulfilled & in healthy relationships with others. What the world beyond us ethically means for us may present further challenges. (See also Releasing Ourselves & Letting Go)

Counselling Central London Psychotherapy – Conscious, Unconscious - Counsellor Camden Psychotherapist
Role Of The Unconscious - "The Yet To Be Revealed"

… more about consciousness & unconsciousness