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Relationships

“We can only truly develop ourselves through our interactions with other people, and yet many children, teenagers and adults never sit down to reflect on their relationships.  As a result, they may spoil their lives through repeating destructive relationship patterns: choosing people who are bad for them, staying in deadening relationships, or destroying the lovely relationships they do have.”

 

Dr Margot Sunderland, Child Psychotherapist.  

As your therapist, we will share in the process of working through relationship issues and offer you a safe way to reflect on and reassess your relational world.  It is hoped that you will see things more clearly and where necessary, it may prompt you to take action to make changes to suit your needs.


It may be necessary to explore your own experiences of being a child, and those early experiences of your relationships with parents, siblings, friends and teachers.  You may have been exposed to unpredictable, neglectful and abusive relationships which have resulted in attachment trauma.  Your current relationship patterns may include a variety of manifestations of survival strategies which you are not aware of but in working together we can address such attachment injuries  to offer an understanding of those relationship behaviours so they stop being fixed and inflexible. 

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Importance of working through feelings about relationships:

I will offer you a safe place where you will be able to work through and to reflect on relationship experiences where painful feelings can be validated, modified, and assimilated. When feelings are not worked through they can continue to spoil and disrupt a person’s life.  It is important to work through difficult feelings as opposed to just managing them, as it can result in all manner of ongoing emotional and physical pain.  In working through together, we create a greater self-awareness, psychological strength and personal resilience. 
 

Some Questions We May Consider:

  • Do your relationships offer affection, comfort, soothing and validation?

  • Do you feel heard and enriched?

  • Are you sticking with the status quo?

  • Do your relationships sap your confidence and your self-worth?

  • Do you feel alone, isolated and vulnerable?

  • Are you noticing a disconnection or are you distancing yourself from others?

  • Do you feel angry and resentful?

  • Do you feel bored, lack excitement and creativity within your relationships?

  • Particular areas to focus on:

    • Relationships and  Fear

    • Relationships and Guilt

    • Relationships and Power

    • Relationships and Conflict

    • Relationships and Loss

    • Relationships and Trauma

    • Relationships and Repair

Using a variety of techniques and exercises, we will reflect together to enable  you to think, feel and act in more fulfilling ways.  The techniques and interventions used are backed by psychological and neurobiological research and psychotherapeutic concepts which are accessible for anyone. It is hoped you will be able to explore and learn about those relationships around you, those from your past and present,  and thereby assist you to improve,  repair and thrive within those relationships.

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Feel free to contact me to see how I can help?

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