Mental Health
Problems with mental health can be disruptive, unsettling and inconsistent leading to disruptive nights, isolation, difficulties in communication and lack of confidence. Problems can manifest in forms of depression or general lethargy or more dramatic such as schizophrenic episodes or losing touch with the self. Over time, problems with mental health can lead to feeling loss of personality and inner emptiness.
​Medications, whilst helpful can create side effects including lack of feeling, changes in sensation or appetite, pain, sluggishness and increased sensitivity. Many suffers of mental health problems have self-medicated for long periods of time in the hope their symptoms will dissipate encountering further side effects possibly even conflicting with existing medication. It is sadly too often overlooked that one condition can interfere with another; the complication of which can have far-reaching consequences.
​Past work has involved counselling with a range of issues including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, bipolar, Dissociative disorders, depression, issues with sleep, addictions, anxieties, panic attacks, borderline personality disorders, suicide ideation, trauma and Medically Unexplained Symptoms.
​Counselling can address many of the areas affecting anxiety and isolation offering empathy, understanding, compassion and belief. As we explore your path historically, so we can start to find again the inner self you left behind. We can look at your current goals taking each step at a time, looking at ways to reengage with the outer world using a variety of techniques involving talking, drawing, music, art and different forms of relaxation.
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It is my belief that the very first important step is realising and identifying the behaviour or feeling taking place and coming to terms with what is going on. Counselling can provide a much needed place for a person to be heard, valued and held. Listed below are some of the common aspects of mental health which both counselling and hypnotherapy are able to assist:
Depression
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Depression can be energy consuming, exhausting and feel as though a dark cloud follows us through each day. It can be hard to think clearly, focus, or even work out how to fulfill each day, let alone plans of the week or even career paths. At its worst, depression can leave sufferers feeling suicidal and isolated from friends and family. Allowing an outlet through counselling can provide space to get hold of new thoughts and ideas, linking patterns and offering opportunity through dialogue and connection.
Anxiety
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Anxiety can drive ambitions and dreams into thoughts of foreboding and terror. It can infiltrate confidence and negative spirals leaving behind feelings of helpnesses and isolation. "Sentences beginning "what if... I shouldn't, I mustn't, I wish I'd" tend to be tied with guilt and anxiety. Within the theraputic relationship it is important never to judge these convictions but notice when they arise, exploring when they first started, and offering challenge to see if new positive thought sentences can be constructed.
Hypnotherapy and deep relaxation can also be a useful tool in relation to anxiety.
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Obsession
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Obsession can take the form of repeated behaviours, such as the continual checking of a lock when leaving the house, selecting alternate paving stones when walking or continually having the urge to wash. Linked with anxiety, obsessional behaviour allows a management process to take place of which the sufferer is relieved of the anxiety for short periods of time. Unfortunately, sufferers of obsessional behaviours find these compulsions incur the desired result for decreasing amounts of time. Counselling can help explore how these behaviours occur, exploring links between past and present and help you find new ways of managing the causing anxiety.
Hypnotherapy can also be a useful process to develop relaxation techniques and offer alternative strategies which would be discussed prior to this taking place.