How I Can Help
Dissociation
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is defined as any type of sexual activity which is unwanted. It includes rape, being touched sexually without your permission, being coerced or exploited into sexual activity, it also includes having intimate images of yourself shared or posted online without your permission or receiving unsolicited explicit images (sexting).
People who have experienced sexual abuse often feel unable to share their experiences with others. Being able to talk, perhaps for the first time about painful experiences is possible in counselling. Sexual abuse can happen at any age.
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Difficulty Relating to Others
Human beings experience all sorts of relationships through life, from parents, partners, the wider family, friends and work colleagues to the supermarket cashier. The quality of our relationships affects our lives.
Counselling helps people understand their roles in relationships and recognise any unhelpful patterns that might be present. The therapy provides a safe space to consider other ways to relate.
Anxiety
Anxiety is one of the most common psychological problems for which people seek counselling. Symptoms include worry, panic, social and health anxiety, agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Counselling helps you consider what the anxiety might be trying to tell you and why it is present at the moment.
If you have a constant feeling of anxiety or feel like a panic attack is just around the corner, counselling can help.
Is it increasingly affecting your life?
Anxiety is very often debilitating, limiting your…
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Health Anxiety
Do you worry about your health? Do unusual symptoms spark concern that something serious might be wrong? Being hyper alert of our body, scanning for changes that might indicate a problem can cause us profound anxiety. Health anxiety is often a distressing, painful and misunderstood condition. It can become hard to concentrate on our jobs, our relationships and our lives if we are worried about cancer, heart attacks and other illnesses being just around the corner.
It is entirely normal to react to worrying symptoms, to look these up on the internet maybe and consult a doctor. If you continue to worry, even after test results discount a problem, counselling can help support you and give you a safe space to talk about your concerns.
Trauma
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Bullying
Bullying behaviour might include being teased in a manner that is hurtful, being humiliated or put down without thought for your feelings, being ignored, intimidated or threatened whether explicitly or implicitly. It might occur in your workplace, in your relationships or in other areas of our lives such as online via social media (cyberbullying).
Bullying can leave us feeling isolated and alone. Perhaps you experienced bullying in childhood and the experience still remains with you, or you are supporting your own child through a bullying experience. Speaking out about your experience gives you the opportunity to feel supported and heard so that you can process your feelings.
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Menopause
The added challenges of peri-menopause, menopause, and early menopause on women is very often underestimated. Symptoms, and their impact, seem to vary between women, with many feeling deeply debilitated, whilst others seem to sail through the transition.
Perhaps you are mourning the loss of your childbearing years. Finding the lack of sleep affecting your working life. Or even finding your moods difficult to manage. This sometimes brutal reminder of ageing can be difficult to manage and women are notorious for not talking about it with their friends and family.
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Bereaved by Suicide
To lose a friend or relative by suicide is tragic and can feel complicated and confusing. Very often coming as a complete shock without warning signs. The shock experienced when a loss by suicide is experienced can be intensely painful and enduring. It is not uncommon to have conflicting feelings of abandonment, rejection, betrayal and anger. The profound sense of loss felt around suicide may linger and hurt for a considerable period of time. Questions are very often left unanswered. It is not unusual for those left behind to feel responsible in some way for the death, what could they have done differently, what should they have noticed.
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Betrayal and Affairs
- Affairs in your relationship
- Breakups as a result of betrayal
Betrayal is a common topic that comes up in counselling. Often it is not an affair that is the main issue but rather the betrayal of trust and the deception that hurts so deeply. Trusting a partner again after trust has been shattered is very difficult. People liken the experience to a bereavement or loss, the relationship has lost its firm ground and both individuals can find it difficult to reconnect. The betrayed partner may have suspected there was something not quite right for some time, with the guilty partner playing down or denying the problem. Perhaps the betrayal is around money, debt or gambling rather than an affair. The hurt and loss of trust is just as deep and hurtful.
Counselling after a betrayal in a relationship will help you work out your thoughts and feelings so you can rebuild your life, and your relationship, or recover from a separation.Grief
Loss is inevitable for all of us as we progress through life. Dealing with the death of a loved one can bring up feelings of deep sadness, confusion and even anger. Sometimes grief lifts over time and sometimes it can still cause upset many years later. Grief is not linear; it affects us all in different ways and can resurface when we least expect it.
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Shame
Shame is a social emotion, it is often present in people who have experienced bullying, trauma or abuse. When shame is used to humiliate and degrade it can be experienced as overwhelming and unbearable. Shame can lead people to be fearful and hide.
Seeking counselling to work through feelings of shame gives you the chance to grieve the harm that was done to you.
Depression
Depression is more than simply feeling unhappy or fed up for a few days. Most people go through periods of feeling low but depression is marked by periods of persistent sadness which might last for weeks or months. People can feel sad or empty, they might lose interest in daily activities. In some cases people may think about suicide.
Symptoms of depression also include difficulties sleeping, or even sleeping too much, anxiety, anger, unexplained physical symptoms such as migraines and muscle pain, changes in eating, for example overeating or food avoidance.
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Illness / Disability
Illness and disabilities can cause significant difficulties in daily life. Perhaps a sudden illness has impacted your life and you are struggling to cope. Chronic illness can also represent a substantial challenge to daily functioning, perhaps you struggle to manage pain, maintain employment, or keep up physical activities.
Living with illness or disabilities can also be met with family and colleagues in ways that are experienced as hurtful. Therapy can help support clients who are managing distress as a result of illness or disability.
Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Loss
