Life events counselling
Counselling is suitable for current issues that occur due to major life events like bereavement, redundancy, divorce, getting married, starting a family, leaving home for the first time amongst others. It also can help when choosing a direction in life or reaching your full potential. Perhaps you are feeling “stuck” or having difficulty in accepting change.
Bottling everything up for too long can seriously impact your emotional and physical health, as well as your relationships. You may find that you feel emotionally and physically exhausted, stressed out, overthinking everything, snapping at everyone or you keep bursting into tears. You may have developed unhealthy coping strategies such as excessive drinking, overspending, or emotional eating.
I can help you in your journey to understand how to meet your needs, find healthier ways of coping, and improve your wellbeing.
As the pilot on the aeroplane always says “Please put your oxygen mask on before helping others with theirs”.
Addiction (e.g. Alcohol, computer games, drugs, food, gambling, sex, smoking)
If you are addicted to certain behaviours or substances – it is likely that something that you originally did for enjoyment or to feel better now feels out of control. It may affect all areas of your life in a negative way. Coming to counselling is a first step to identifying how to build coping skills to help you regain control of your life.
Ageing and related issues
Ageing is a natural transition that is likely to cause changes in a persons life. People may find it difficult to adapt to their life once they retire from employment, some may face feelings of isolation and loneliness, changes in physical health and decreased mobility may also have an impact. Having someone to talk to, to share feelings that you may not want to talk about with your partner or family can be very beneficial.
Bereavement and loss
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear” C.S. Lewis
Bereavement is often a time when we experience a variety of strong reactions and emotions which can be overwhelming, painful and hard to make sense of. I can provide a warm, secure relationship for exploring difficult emotions and working through grief during this often, very difficult time.
We can also experience loss in relation to many other situations such as relationship breakdown, loss of a job, life-stage transitions (in which we experienced the loss of former roles and identities), empty-nest syndrome and many more. My personal experience of bereavement and working with clients bereavement has given me an insight into a wide range of problems including anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, anger issues, addiction, OCD, career transition and identity crises.
“The Counsellor’s task is not to help the bereaved give up their relationship with the deceased but to help find an appropriate place for the dead in their emotional lives – a place that will enable them to go on living effectively in the world” – William Worden
Bullying
Bullying can affect both children and adults and can make you feel very alone and frightened. It may make you feel as if you are powerless and there is no solution. Social media can mean that the bullies can seem to follow in to the safety of your own home, it feels as if there is no escape. Therapy can allow you to talk about what is happening and get support in the current situation and skills to change the future.
Abortion
Counselling will give you a safe space to talk about either a planned or a previous abortion in complete confidence. Giving you a chance to talk through your thoughts and feelings without judgement or opinion.
Abuse
Abuse can take on many forms and anyone can be a victim. It can cause both physical and mental pain. It’s often about someone having power and control over you. Abuse can happen anywhere, the abuser could be a family member, someone in a position of trust, or a stranger. Abuse can be coercive which is confusing and misleading, the victim may doubt themselves or think they can change the situation by behaving differently. Counselling can help you address how abuse in its various forms has made you feel, help you work through your emotions and help you feel better about yourself.
Pregnancy related issues
Counselling can be helpful when there are difficulties relating to conception, during pregnancy and birth, loss in pregnancy by miscarriage or stillbirth. The period after the birth of a child can affect both the mother and other family members. Being able to talk to a counsellor in confidence may help with any of these issues.
These are just a selection of issues and events that counselling can support and help with. Please contact me if you would like support with yours.
