World of therapy

If you celebrate the Christmas festive season you know that it can be less of a joyous occasion and more like a test of your patience and resolve.

Dealing with difficult people or situations can spoil any good feelings or enjoyment, and it can fill you with dread just thinking about it, money problems and high expectations that can never be met can add even more stress to the growing anxiety you feel.When you consider the people who suffer with eating disorders, social anxiety or depression etc it can be a real worry trying to cope at this time of year.

Ever thought of providing some therapy sessions as a present for some one before the stress get too much?

What do you want Santa to bring you?

It’s sad to say that when divorce becomes a battle it’s often the children that become weapons in an ongoing attrition, usually it’s the mother that starts the first attack by with holding access or making it as difficult as possible for the father to see the children.
I am not talking about the violent or abusive fathers who should be kept away from the kids for their own safety or the neglectful partner who never turns up after making promises to see the children but the loving fathers who need their children and will do what is expected from them.
(it’s not always the case but it’s normally fathers who find themselves in this situation)

It’s the poor children that are often left confused and hurt by this war, hearing constant personal attacks against the father from the mother can make the kids feel that dad does not care or love them any more.
The mother can in time turn the children against the father and they in turn may tell dad not to call or that they don’t want to see him again in some instances.

The future for these children can be plagued with low self-esteem and confidence or they may become angry and isolated turn to drugs or alcohol and many other problems.
Another possibility as they grow older and learn the truth in time is the anger and hurt that they feel can erupt into fury against the mother or lead over time to a distancing from mum.
It’s always best to treat the children with honesty and to try to protect their needs as mush as possible.
Don’t bad mouth each other in front of the children or make them feel guilty for wanting to see the absent parent.
Think of the children first. if you care and love them you will try your best to do what’s right even if that means dealing with your own anger in a way that is not going to damage the kids.

Not always easy to do when hurt and pain can make your life so very difficult to cope with in times like this, but it’s worth remembering that the very real possibility of permanently damaging our children’s future lives may depend on how you handle such situations.

They are your children not weapons of war

 Lies and more lies

The free therapy problem

Providing free therapy is for me as a therapist an important way of helping people who can’t afford therapy, but there is a difference between people who can’t pay and people who don’t want to pay.

Its a sad fact that I can’t provide the free service I would like to give, I need to balance my paying clients with the people who need the help and support from free therapy, I can understand why some people who are desperate to find the help they need will some times try to apply as a paying client for the free session and then try to persuade me do more sessions  for free, I always say no! even us therapists need to keep boundaries to keep our selves safe and saying no to client putting us under pressure to say yes is an important boundary to keep, it’s not in the clients best interest if the therapist takes on a client under pressure, this could affect the dynamics of the client therapist relationship.

I can understand that some people don’t want to use a free service that is provided by a charity that uses training therapists to provide the service, but they have very experienced therapists who do offer free therapy and any inexperienced therapist is normally at a competent level of experience and will have a good support service provided by the charity to help them if needed.
So using a free service does not mean a bad service in fact some of the therapists working for free are exceptionally good at what they do.
I my self provide free therapy for a charity when I can and find the people I work with very dedicated and I feel privileged to know them.

How do we cure depression naturally?

Well it seems that just by taking food supplements or natural remedies
and keeping fit people can cure depression or so some people and products claim, I do
believe that this can help some people in some instances but just to claim
it cures depression makes me think this is wrong, just another cure-all advertisement to make money based on dodgy ideas or unfounded research for pulling in the cash from desperate people.

In some cases it could provide some help just as will eating a good varied diet and exercise, depression can be a  complex and a very personal experience and not to be confused with feeling a bit down or upset.

If we could cure depression with such simple practices we would have no
people with depression, a cure is just that, like how medicine can CURE
some diseases and infections, well the truth is we can not cure
depression just by using drugs or supplements, it can help to give
support and help people past a short-term problem with depression or
provide a way to manage the depression effectively when needed.

Therapy can also be a good way to help people with depression and in some cases help the person to recover completely.
And what type of depression are they talking about, Major depression or Dysthymia for instance? not all depression is the same.

What makes me sad is that some people suffering with depression will try
anything to find a cure or find release from the suffering they have
come to understand as depression.
Unfortunately big claims are not always what they seem but are in fact just a marketing play to take your cash.
If your interested in using supplements or natural remedies remember
that they can help reduce symptoms or help in other ways but remember
to check with your Doctor as even what is called a natural remedy can
interact with any medication your taking at the time.

Eating well and regular exercise is always good for you

Self help books! in my mind they should come with a  health warning.

I’M not suggesting that all self help books are no good or harmful to everyone,
some do provide a good way to find new ideas or ways forward, and they do help many people find new ways of thinking and allow for changes to take place that improves their life in many ways.but they can lead to more problems than they solve in some cases.

So lets say your suffering from low self-esteem and find a book suggesting how easy
it is to gain confidence by following their system or exercises and other ideas they promote on the cover.

The book suggests and is proclaiming that anyone can have a higher level of confidence by following what’s said in the book. but after you have read it you feel no different from before, this can further effect your self-esteem and make you feel even worse, after all the book said its easy to gain confidence so when you feel no change has taken place and you have a low opinion of your self it’s so easy to place the blame on you, it could feel to you that it’s your fault and you must be useless or a failure, so now you may have just confirmed you’re a failure and that’s no good for anyone’s self-esteem yet alone to a person who already has a low self image, some people may be secretly or unknowingly looking to prove how useless you are, sounds strange?
well it can be posible in some instances.

Take care reading self help books and remember that looking for a quick fix some times leads to disappointment and a waste of money or worse.

A book is made for a majority market and is aimed at a mass audience and making money, it’s not made to suite your personal needs. books can be a good way of finding new ways to tackle old problems but you must keep it in context with what is possible for you.

For a personal approach more suited to your individual needs, try some real therapy, you may be surprised how quickly it starts to work.

I often wonder how therapists specialize in certain areas, for instance some say they specialise in depression or relationships and maybe sexuality issues, does that mean they can only deal with depression and don’t handle sexuality issues? so if a client is feeling depressed because there confusion over their sexuality is harming the relationship is that in need of three separate therapists?

I have a very good understanding of anorexia and have had a lot of experience in helping with that issue, do I say that I am a specialist in Anorexia? no! not at all, when your involved with helping a person suffering from this issue you can also uncover many other issues or experiences, from sexual abuse to bullying, or childhood family relationship experiences that have led clients on to developing the disorder.

I believe you can’t specialize, as a therapist you need to try to help the whole person and not just the depression or relationship problem, I think that every therapist who can’t help with rape also can’t help with trauma and depression or self harm, there are clients I wont work or deal with, clients who are paedophiles is one area I won’t deal with at all, my thinking is that my own anger, mistrust and disgust would hinder my ability to provide a beneficial therapeutic service.So as a therapist I see the need  to understand the client as more important than just looking at any one issue, by understanding the client as a whole entity and not just the issues presented to you as a therapist you may better serve the helping process.An example is when trying to help with depression it maybe more important to try to understand what factors in their life may have limited the ability to cope, and why now? and not last year or five years ago.

Some people can fight against the rising tide of depression for some time before it finally over comes them, or until they finally crumple under the pressure, the start could be a simple unrealistic expectation they have tried to fulfil or a past traumatic event like a death of a loved one or persistent long-term stress, so you don’t just deal with depression but any issue that comes your way when working towards helping a client recover or discover a way forward in life.

So I don’t specialize in any single issue but gain experience in many issues and learn.

It’s a shame that people wait until the problems in their life become over whelming before seeking therapy, maybe some of the blame for that is more about how society sees therapy and therapists in the UK and its not just the reluctance of clients to face the issues in their life, some clients do feel that people will judge them as weak or see them as unstable if they enter into therapy.

The UK has a slightly different view about therapy compared to the American perspective, there is still a lot of stigma associated with seeing a therapist in the UK but that is changing fast thankfully.

The benefits for people who seek therapy at an earlier stage will normally be that they will find they improve faster and it will cost much less in the end, when people wait until the problem becomes so big that they have no choice but to enter therapy it normally has created a situation that will often need a lot of damage limitation, relationships can be pushed to braking point or their ability to face changes and set goals in life is much harder.

I don’t often see clients that only need just a couple of sessions very often, but when I do it gives me hope that people are seeking therapy at an earlier stage, some people will always need long term help after having suffered from some of life’s nasty traumatic experiences, but for those who some times just need to find some understanding or answers to personal questions it’s possible to find reassurance and information that sets them free from uncertainty or fear.

I have been looking around at the therapy web sites, and am intrigued by some therapists who charge for the first session, I have always found this practice a bit confusing.

For the client it’s all a bit of a gamble if you have to pay up front for a service or therapist that may not suite them, waisted time and money. as therapists we use the first session to help us evaluate if we can indeed help the prospective client, there are times when it would not be prudent to take on a client because of ethical or medical reasons amongst others, so charging for the consultation is like charging for just time, I can see the point regarding the therapists time is a valuable resource and needs to be accounted for, but for me the first session is a time of evaluation for both people concerned, the client may not feel happy with the therapist, maybe its the way they look or talk, but then the client is charged for not employing the therapist?, If I need to see an accountant with a view to employing his services they usually don’t charge for the first 30 Min’s or so.