Tag: Skype Counselling

Unacknowledged suffering

siobhantoner

I came across the image below and I found it incredibly powerful.

While it applies to any form of suffering, it is very common for the abuse between siblings to be ignored or dismissed. Society tends to downplay problems between siblings and categorise them as normal family dynamics. They are not always normal though.

Emotional, physical and sexual abuse all have long term impacts on the victim and when people around you act as if nothing bad happened it can be devastating. On top of that you are also expected to remain in a relationship with your abuser by family and friends.

This adds another layer of violence to what has already been suffered.

What clients experience when having therapy

siobhantoner

You may question why people go to therapy? What is different about talking to a counsellor than talking to your friends and family?

Quite often our loved ones are great to talk too but they may find it difficult to sit with you when you are emotional. They may want to ‘fix’ you and make you feel better or get defence and not hear you properly.

A couple of examples of that are to do with two different emotions that clients may be feeling.

If someone you care about is upset and crying, what do you do? Offer comfort, hug them, pat their hand or arm, tell them it will be ok? These are all normal responses – but they won’t really happen in therapy. We let the client carry on crying and work through it. It may seem harsh, but it’s about giving the upset space. Otherwise we can end up suppressing it to make other people feel better.

One of my clients feedback years ago taught me how powerful this was “you let me cry, you didn’t try to stop me”.

White privilege

siobhantoner

I’ve written before about privilege and how important it is to recognise what privilege each of us have. How often do we really listen to those who don’t have the same privilege? As a white woman I have privilege that woman of colour don’t. I have never had to change my name or loose my language to fit into a society that is dominated by white ideals. 

This article moved me a great deal as it is very clear how far we have to go.

Social Anxiety

siobhantoner

This article has some interesting points on social anxiety. I’m particularly pleased to see mention of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as I recently underwent some training on this. 

Even though I am a person centred counsellor and ACT is a variant of CBT I found some elements of the training really useful.

Firstly, as the article say “The fundamental premise of ACT, then, is that you don’t try to squash your feelings but are able to notice and accept them while committing yourself to a pathway toward change.” Acceptance of ones feelings is very compatible with the Person Centred Approach (PCA). The more aware we are of them the more we can accept them and ACT has a strong element of mindfulness and self-awareness. 

The other part of the training I had that I found very useful was to focus on what our values are. For each of us as individuals, we have the values we are expected to have but don’t always focus on what is truly most important to us. For an individual with social anxiety, they may realise that it isn’t interfering in what they hold most dear, only with what they think they “should” hold most dear. 

Noticing our true feelings and accepting them can be hard, yet it can also be liberating if we can avoid the “should’s” that we tend to carry with us. 

Bereaved parents of adult children

siobhantoner

Do you know how to support bereaved parents of adult children?

Its a type of bereavement that doesn’t get as much written about it as when the deceased are children or babies yet the parents have still lost their child, whatever age they are.

For the surviving parent or parents, like with any bereavement time changes the way grief presents but it doesn’t go away. Whether it is six months, a year or ten years on their lives have changed irrevocably.

One of the most painful things can be how wiped out of history their child is; this can happen when people around them find it too difficult to talk about the dead person. So what happens is they avoid the subject and the parents are left alone with their grief.

It can also happen when people around them are making assumptions about the level of their grief; just because the parent is functioning and getting on with their life it doesn’t mean they are not still in pain. Mothers Day, the child birthday, the parents birthday, Christmas or other significant dates will be particularly difficult.

The parents may also have taken on a new role as primary caregiver to their grandchildren and be dealing with the many challenges this can bring.

Sometimes the simplest things can be really effective, a handwritten note saying you are thinking of them, showing them a photo you have found of their child, acknowledging their loss, asking how they are and being prepared to listen if they want to talk or to accept if they don’t.

The guideline is the same as when the bereavement first happens, even if some time has past never assume, just be there.