In the current economic climate, there are many people who are in difficulty with their mortgage repayments and run the risk of losing their homes. It can be a very stressful, difficult time as couples and individuals try to live their everyday lives with often huge financial burden weighing heavily on them.
Here at Counselling Connections, this got us thinking about how the idea or threat of losing one’s home affects us and the meaning we attribute to our houses. Home is somewhere we retreat to relax and unwind. Behind these four walls we can be ourselves, removing the mask we often show to the world. It is our necessary safe place. There is no doubt having such a place helps us to maintain a healthy lifestyle both physically and psychologically.
We can pour a lot of ourselves, our time and energy into the décor of our houses trying to make them look and feel right. Hence one’s home can become an extension of oneself and when these emotional ties are threatened through the possibility of this being taken away, it can feel like our very person is being attacked.
Historically, one’s home was a statement of social class and here in Ireland the residue of eviction by wealthy landowners has been passed down unconsciously to subsequent generations. To own a piece of land on which your house was built meant you were somehow in control, no one could remove you from your own house. This eliminated the awful pain inflicted on families who were thrown out of their homes at short notice and left with nothing. In recent times this threat has been resurrected with the banks issuing letters of warning of legal proceedings should one default on mortgage repayments.
A recent view from the window of a plane coming into Dublin to land helped to put some perspective on the housing situation. Monopoly houses streamlined to fit into confined areas seemed insignificant from the air, that is, from a different perspective. While in no way minimising the threat of losing one’s home, an alternative might be to look at it in a different way, in order to help us to cope. This can be true of all problems and stresses that we may feel trapped by. When we have exhausted all practical avenues, it can be of help to try to take a ‘bird’s eye view’. Sometimes it is hard for us to see things clearly when we are ‘in it’, so to speak. It can take an objective view to really help us see how we can change the way we feel by changing the way we view certain situations. Psychotherapy can help you to do this. In therapy as counsellors we firstly try to see and feel things from our client’s perspective in order to understand what their life is like and the problems they face. The next step is to help our clients form new perspectives in order to facilitate real change.
There’s no doubt we all get caught up in material things, some of which are necessary and basic. However we need to be careful that we don’t get so caught up that we lose our sense of what really matters. For example, in relation to the current housing situation it can help to remember that a particular house does not define you; rather it is you who defines it. It is your presence in the house, your energy poured into it that makes it what it is. If this is true then that energy can be reclaimed and reinvested somewhere else if you so wish. You can be in control from the inside amidst crisis on the outside by changing your perspective and focusing on what really matters.

We have decided this week to take a look at the experience of miscarriage and how it affects women who go through it. Although fifteen per cent of all pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage, the emotional effect of this goes largely unrecognised socially. As a result, a woman can be left feeling lonely and isolated at this very distressing time. This is particularly true if a woman miscarries prior to having a visible bump, usually less than twelve weeks. It can be difficult to mourn a baby who was not yet visible to the outside world. Even if family and friends have been aware of your pregnancy, it is often the case that people avoid the subject so as not to upset you further. People often feel it is a private matter and probably best left alone. It can be even more difficult for women if they are faced with unhelpful comments like “Sure you can try again….” Inevitably, some people will get it very wrong in how they approach you.
How then can you as a woman who has suffered the most intimate loss, talk about your feelings of guilt, anger and sadness? It is very difficult to share the rawness of how you feel if there is little of no understanding of your loss. Other women who have shared a similar experience can be of support but every woman’s experience is unique to her. Because we all cope with grief in different ways, what works for one may not work for another. Every woman has to grieve in her own way for her baby and in her own time.
One of the biggest questions you may ask is if there was anything you did to make the miscarriage happen, if you were in any way to blame. Most miscarriages are unexplained and there is no evidence to support that lack of rest or physical activity causes miscarriage. If you feel you were in some way to blame and are carrying this guilt, it would be helpful to talk to a medical professional to clarify and reassure yourself that you didn’t do anything to cause it. It is not unusual for a woman who was unhappy about being pregnant, to feel enormous guilt at somehow ‘wishing for a miscarriage’.
As with other losses in life, women need support and understanding to get through this difficult time. While the physical healing can take place within weeks, emotional healing takes much longer. It can feel like this unbearable pain will never go away. In many relationships your partner will be grieving too and you can be a comfort for each other. However, problems can arise in relationships when your partner can’t relate to what you are feeling and seems able to get on with life. It has to be remembered that he will not have had the same awareness of being pregnant and also of the intrusion of physical exams like internals and possibly a D&C that you may have had to face. Doctors and nurses involved in your care may have found it difficult to engage with you at an emotional level and may stick with the facts, coming across as cold and detached. This can be very difficult and emotionally isolating.
The loss associated with miscarriage is individual and can be huge, regardless of the number of weeks. This is one of the areas were difficulty arises and other people’s opinions (including partners, family and medical professionals) can cause hurt. Believing that the lesser number of weeks pregnant should mean less upset can be hurtful. A woman losing her baby at 4 weeks pregnant can be equally as upset as a woman losing her baby at ten weeks. There are so many variables in the woman’s loss that is unique to her. It is a loss that has to be grieved. As you move through the different stages of grieving for your baby, there will come an acceptance of your experience. It is not that you forget and move on, rather that you accept and incorporate this loss into your life experience. Expect to be sad around the date that your baby was due, possibly for many years. It is quite normal to feel this way. Expect to feel very apprehensive about future pregnancy. There would be something wrong if you weren’t. Expect when you are seventy years old to still remember that baby you lost way back then.

Here at counselling connections this week we have been thinking about thinking. Or to be more precise we have been giving some consideration to a particular way of thinking. It could be called ‘black or white’ thinking and it is characterised by a wish on the part of the thinker to break an emotional question down to a simple ‘yes or no’ answer. This is especially the case when it comes to consideration of our relationship with a particular person in our life. It is often encountered when coming to terms with a relationship with a parent where that mother or father was absent, emotionally or physically; or when they were at times aggressive and at other times kind.
This phenomenon is also present in romantic relationships. It is not unusual for someone to be caught in confusion when trying to sort out their feelings in relation to the good and the bad in their loved one. One of the conflicts that this presents in therapy is the very straightforward one of wishing that things could be simple and that decisions about the future of a relationship were easy to make. We seem to want the other to be either good or bad and we can spend a lot of time looking over the evidence to support either of these polar opposites. More often than not there is evidence for each and a definitive answer eludes us.
It is not unusual for someone who is in therapy to suddenly declare in frustration ‘it is just not rational’ or ‘I know it’s not logical but . . . ‘. And of course both these statements are true. The conflicts we are dealing with are neither rational nor logical quite simply because they are emotional. And emotional conflict is often characterised by there being no single right answer. It is also true to say that these conflicts are not amenable to logic. This however doesn’t stop us wishing for the simple solution.
Logic would tempt us with the offer of a definitive answer whereas in reality we are dealing matters of the heart. We may need to learn to live with a level of uncertainty. This carries with it an almost inevitable level of frustration. When considering a relationship with another we have to try to learn to live with this frustration and come to terms with ‘not knowing.’ This can be difficult to bear; in particular at times of conflict in a relationship. Our thoughts can become completely taken up with the dyadic thinking of the hope of a single, simple ‘yes or no’ answer.
It is not unknown for someone in a conflicted relationship to find this sitting with ‘not knowing’ unbearable and to suddenly decide against their partner. They may then seek a complete break ignoring any pleas for discussion or attempts at reconciliation. They have at least relieved themselves of the tension of not being able to find the ‘right’ answer by making a decision and resolutely sticking to it. This is one way of resolving the question but it fails to address the underlying issue of our craving for the absolute single right, ‘black or white’ answer.
In therapy we often find that if we can learn to ‘sit with’ the tension of there not being a single right answer to a question about a loved one we can learn a great deal. It can facilitate a process of coming to terms with the good and the bad in a loved one. We can also then begin to look inside ourselves and consider what it is we are looking for in a loved one. Or what we might be looking for them to give to us. Sometimes here we uncover emotional vacuums that we have been trying to fill for most of our lives.
Coming to an acceptance of the complexity of human relationships through an examination of our own major relationships is part of the outcome of good therapy. Learning this by coming through emotional conflict with another can also facilitate a permanent change in a ‘black or white’ way of thinking and make future conflict easier to bear. By overcoming the emotional conflict with our loved one we kick start the process of overcoming an underlying tension in ourselves. We develop the ability to bear emotions that at one time felt unbearable.
Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections it has been a quiet week. We have been away for a long weekend and lots of clients are on holiday at this time. It has been interesting for us to travel abroad and spend a little time visiting another country with a different culture. Having a look at how other people do things gave us the chance to reflect on the way we do things at home. It is probably easier to observe behaviour in others than it is to try to take a step back and see these things in ourselves.
Even in our modern world with global brands and marketing it is possible to find delightful local variations in food, for example without travelling too far. And it can be a joy when we get home and back to the routines of life to try to recreate a holiday meal at home. Indeed much of our modern diet is influenced by the cuisine of the Mediterranean and further afield which we have enjoyed while holidaying abroad.
For us it says something about our adaptability that we enjoy taking on the influences we come across on our travels. As children we have had the experience of watching with great interest the ways of the adults in our world. We were susceptible to all kinds of influence and took on board much of the ways of being which we had observed. Through this process and throughout childhood we developed our own way of being. It would be usual to grow in ways and to learn views which would be considered normal within our own mini culture; our family.
There are of course complicating factors in this process. It is comfortable to take on family influences which sit well with us. We find it reassuring to be part of the group and if the influence of the group feels natural and nurturing we will embrace it. It is a sad fact of life that in many groups or families the dominant culture is not a healthy one. In these circumstances a child might do their best to resist what are considered the norms of the group. This may create a way of being in relation to groups that causes difficulties over and again in work and other group settings throughout life.
We have discovered an odd fact in relation to family and home which has been experienced by people who report discomfort at being away. This is the likelihood that home was not a safe, nurturing place for them. It seems that when someone has had a good, consistent and reassuring time at home growing up that they can internalise this sensation and carry it forward through life. Conversely, people who report difficulties when they are making their way in the world or when they travel often dream of a return to home even when their experience of home when they were growing up was not a happy one.
So, holiday time is a time of discovery and a time to enjoy influences from abroad. It is a time to step out of our day to day routine. We will often then take on board some of the influences which we have come across on our travels. When we return to our normal routine of school or work we can enjoy the good of any of the little changes we have made to our lifestyle under these influences. We can also enjoy the security and comfort which we make for ourselves in our own home. It is the consistency and comfort of home which gives us the capability to travel without fear. And so it goes for holidays as it does for life.
Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

One of the more common referrals to us here at Counselling Connections from General Practitioners is for anxiety disorders and panic attacks. The symptoms are often very physical with a racing heart and shortness of breath and this is why we are likely to go to the GP for a check up as a first port of call. And it is important to first rule out a physical cause for these symptoms. Sometimes other factors such as drug use or alcohol intake can exacerbate the condition. These have to be dealt with as part of the treatment. Anxiety can be associated with depression and your doctor will check to see if you are feeling depressed as part of considering the next step. Sometimes anti anxiety medication is prescribed and a referral for counselling is made.

At the beginning of the counselling process your trained and experienced counsellor or psychotherapist will first ask you about your own personal details and the major landmarks of your life. These may include losses and childhood events that stand out for you as being significant. If nothing strikes you as being important at this early stage that does not prevent progress as looking for underlying causes is actually the second part of a two pronged approach. The first part of the treatment is a cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT approach. This has proved most effective in dealing with symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks.

The initial work of the CBT is to learn to tune in to your own patterns of thought. In this way we can collaborate in challenging some of these thoughts and checking to see of they are appropriate to the situation in which they occur. Often it turns out that our thinking is actually making our anxiety much worse as we tend to make everything seem worse than it really is. We see a catastrophe where one doesn’t exist. We may think that people are looking at us and judging us whereas they may not be. Challenging these thoughts and understanding the part they play in our anxiety or feelings of panic represent the beginning of changing the way we think.

It is a very empowering process to take charge of our own thought patterns and get on top of our fears. Sometimes we will set ourselves goals as part of strengthening our belief in our ability to cope with our environment. These may involve deliberately placing ourselves in a situation which would have caused us anxiety in the past. It is important to approach these tasks slowly and to be respectful of the fear of overwhelming ourselves. That said, to achieve some successes in anxiety provoking situations helps to give a sense of confidence in the process and strengthen our self belief.

There will be times where we may be faced with thoughts such as ‘I will never do this’ or ‘I am no good’. Oftentimes thoughts like these can be traced back to things that a significant person may have said to us repeatedly at times during our childhood. And moving into dealing with these represents the second part of the two-part therapy. Here we begin to get in touch with the root causes of our anxieties and the core beliefs which we have developed about ourselves. It is important to state here that core beliefs are learned and as such they can be unlearned and replaced with newer, more appropriate ones.

We are often asked how long this process takes and the truth is that it is difficult to say with any accuracy. Initially it would be expected that a therapy like this would last somewhere in the region of three months. As you move into the second phase of the therapy as we have described it becomes more of a journey and we would not attempt to put a time limit on that. You can take time take to explore areas of your life and to consider major events and relationships again and maybe re-order them in your mind and choose to respond differently to things in the future. In this way the practice of knowing yourself and your hopes and fears can become an integrated way of being for you. You wouldn’t expect anxiety or panic to become a feature of life again once this practice becomes established.
Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week one event that stopped everyone in their tracks for a few minutes was a shower of hailstones. It was Tuesday afternoon and the weather was following a pattern which is normal enough for our little island on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean; we had sunny spells and scattered showers. This has become a well worn phrase for the men and women of the met office as they try to prepare us for what kind of weather the day might bring. The afternoon in question was following this well worn path, sunny and warm one minute and raining the next; nice soft rain mostly.

In a sudden change the clouds quickly became much darker. Then the heavens opened in a ferocious hail storm and even in our fine, solid old building it became hard to hear for the noise of the hail on the roof. It was quite a scene and we stopped what we were doing and looked out and listened to the falling hail. It being a June day in Ireland the sun appeared again within minutes and the streets quickly began to dry. So much so that we decided to take a break then and there and trust that the sunshine would last long enough for us to enjoy a walk around the block.

We love the seasons here and the different weather it brings and we like to play around with what it might be analogous with in our inner lives. Things that we normally don’t stop to notice because we are too busy with our day to day lives are our stock and trade here in Counselling Connections. Then we did stop and notice; we were walking along beside the river that runs past the end of our garden when we noticed that the runoff from the recent hail shower was causing a blockage as the water passed under a small, low-lying bridge. There was a grid there to catch leaves or branches or anything else that might float along.

Examining blockages and going about clearing them up are another of our specialties here. We got to talking about how we can get blocked up in life and in particular how memories can seem to become dammed in this way. Major life events, traumas even, like the larger branches caught in river can fail to pass quietly along with the flow of our memories. They can become stuck and block the flow of other memories behind them. How we remember things and how we later recall them are a big part of therapy. This is doubly so in the case where the therapy is about dealing with trauma.

In what can feel like real moments of revelation during therapy we can successfully come to terms with difficult memories. This can then leave us feeling like we are becoming more open to new experiences. Then we can suddenly experience a whole different set of memories. It seems that our focus on one particular memory or event has taken so much concentration that we failed to notice or to focus on other, perhaps happier ongoing events in our lives. We had become stuck and our memories and the emotions attached with them had become blocked.

By talking about memories and emotions and maybe even getting past our fear and re-experiencing them we facilitate the discharge of these events. They are then free to flow away and no longer cause us to feel blocked up and unable to fully experience our inner self and day to day life. This process is facilitated by slowly recalling and working through life events. There can be storms along the way. A bit like our unpredictable weather we can go through life experiencing both scattered showers and sunny spells. And if there is a bit of a flood after a particularly heavy fall well then a chance to talk it all through in therapy can help to let it drain away.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here in Counselling Connections this week we were trying to put the right words on a sort of unsettled feeling that we were picking up. It was one of those things that is hard to pin down; a sense that there was something happening that may even have been influencing the mood of the whole town. It was turning out to be an up and down kind of week and we wondered what it might be that was causing this elusive but perceptible effect. Well we got our answer in a vibrant and joyful exhibition of playfulness.

On a walk up to the town we could hear a commotion outside the library and as we got closer it became clear what was happening. Four young ladies from a local school joined together in carefree dance, loudly singing the birdie song with uncontained joy. It was lovely to see the effect of their happiness spreading to passing pedestrians and motorists alike. It was good also to get the answer to our own little mystery. The feeling we were getting in our work was an end of term atmosphere that seemed to be catching. School’s out for summer.

We have noticed before at different time the cyclical nature of our work and how the turn of the seasons seems to affect us twenty first century folk more than you might expect. A big part of the cycle of the year that we have all grown up with is the academic year and it seems that at this time we expect things to be coming to an end. For some of our clients this means beginning to talk about ending their own personal therapy. This may in part be influenced by this external factor of a general feeling of coming to the end of a cycle.

For some it is more a time to pause to reflect, to consider and evaluate where they are going in life and to wonder again how their therapy is proceeding. It is good to ask questions and to keep asking them. Questions like, can my trauma be healed? Or, can therapy help to fix my problems? We ask how we can overcome the grief at the loss of a loved one. Or whether counselling can help with our relationships. Summer is coming, our thoughts turn to holidays, it is a time to rest, to pause and to thing about taking a break form the stresses of day to day living. This is another of those stopping off points, a marker in the cycle of the turning of the year.

A good therapy in our view will fit in with these natural cycles. Sometimes this might mean taking a break to return at a later stage. More often it will involve a pause to reflect, to summarise where we’ve come from and to consider what might be next. If it is part of the academic year cycle we might regard this time of year as a graduation; a time to take a bow and to celebrate the achievements we have made to date. These are personal milestones, advances which can be shared with loved ones. We too can, with a little luck, share in the joy which our local students and students of all ages and of all subjects get to feel at this time of year.

Counselling Connections Dundalk.

Here in Counselling Connection this week and last we watched with interest the story of wildfires in the hills both locally and in other parts of the country. There were regular updates on news bulletins and it seemed briefly that the country was transfixed by the spread of fire in the hills and the efforts of fire-fighters and volunteers to get on top of the situation. Experts explained that lack of rain for some weeks had increased the chances of fire especially taking into account the amount of dead vegetation remaining after the snow and ice of recent months. Despite the heroic efforts of many we were left at the mercy of the elements and it was a change of wind direction and the welcome sight of rain clouds that finally brought relief.

In our moderate climate we rarely have the extremes of weather, of ice and snow followed by dry, sunny spells that facilitate the spread of wildfires. Our reactions to these events as they unfold interest us here and we like to take time to pause and ponder and talk about what might be going on for people. Our modern lifestyles leave us somewhat insulated from the cycle of the seasons for example. We have electric light and central heating and can continue to live and work without paying much attention to light or dark. Only in the case of extremes does the weather impinge on the security that we have built up against it.

The changes in the seasons; and even wildfires are parts of a natural cycle. We can be quite fearful of the destructive force of nature and we try, where possible to keep it at bay. And we have succeeded in this to a large extent with the way we live. Similarly, and maybe even without being aware of it, we try to flatten out the cycles of ups and downs in our emotional lives. There may be natural phases in life where our happiness or satisfaction levels dip or peak like periods of drought or flood in nature. It seems like we do what we can to avoid what might not only be a natural process but one which may have certain advantages.

We seem to be more inclined for example to attach to a single partner for life. We may also live for most of our lives if not in a single house but at least in a single area. Similarly, we may work at the same kind of work for most of our lives, sometimes even in the same company. We gradually make our mortgage payments and scrimp and save into our pension funds. We keep our property in good order and we become regular in our habits, commuting and working, sometimes maybe suffering the present in favour of the promise of a better future to come. We may even cling to all these things, putting our hopes, dreams and expectations for some kind of salvation into how we live our daily lives. A wildfire of any sort that might threaten this status quo would be most unwelcome.

Wildfires do come in life however. This may be in the form of the breakup of a relationship or marriage or the loss of a job or in a build up of financial commitments which suddenly seems crippling. These things can happen gradually but appear suddenly and can really shake our world and our confidence. It is not uncommon in these times for hardworking, honest people to find that their house is now worth less that what they owe. This can be very distressing. A company that was considered blue chip a short number of years ago can now be barely solvent and under threat of collapse. And for the people who work for these firms and who have come to rely on them for a living and for making mortgage and pension payments it brings great uncertainty.

An economy can be depressed just like a person can. Getting out of a depression can often involve considering the things which were in place leading up to it and a re-ordering of these. In an individual it may mean looking at their career and deciding on a change of direction. Sometimes the catalyst for this is outside our control and this makes all the more difficult. It is also a painful fact that relationships come to an end. This also involves an amount of introspection and hurt and a coming to terms with fundamental parts of our selves. These things can all feel very destructive and threatening to the lives we have built up and indeed they are. However, from the ashes of an unwelcome wildfire in life we can find fertile ground for new growth. It may take an amount of courage and hard work and progress might be slow. We are fearful of major change in life and may avoid it until circumstances force it on us. The transformations; the new growth we can bring about in love and in work following a period of crises can be just reward for enduring the wildfires that life may bring.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week one of our number, who shall remain nameless, reported for work complaining of pains and aches. They had gone on a long cycle over the weekend; their first time out on the bike for some time and were feeling the after effects. They also had the enjoyable experience of teaching a child to ride a bike for the first time. It a wonderful thing to witness the exhilaration on a child’s face when they master this basic skill; it is something which had the feel of a rite of passage about it. All you need, it seems is the basic belief, in your body, that if you continue to pedal you will be able to propel yourself forwards. After that the wobbly steering and early mishaps become things of the past and are replaced by a confident, fluid motion; a mastery that we usually retain for life, even allowing for long periods out of the saddle.

This got us thinking and talking about trust. The first difficulty we encountered was to be able to say what trust is. It seems to be something that in the first instance we take for granted in life. Trust seems to be a default position. It seemed like we were heading towards the understanding that trust is in place until some event occurs that causes us to doubt it or to lose it altogether. When we reflected on this further it seemed to us that trust is actually learned in ways similar to learning how to ride a bicycle. That through being held safely as a baby a person develops a trust which they feel in their body. This trust gives confidence in our environment and even consolation in times of distress.

This carries us through the early developmental stages of life which include the exciting new adventures of learning how to walk and to talk. In these instances we do not know how to do either but we learn through a process of experimentation and determination.  We learn to trust that a step will take us to another and another and so on. We fall over and get up and try again. We see what it is that we want to achieve and we keep trying until we get it right. At this early stage in life we seem to be able to take the ups and the downs of successes and failures and to keep on trying. Our emotional lives would seem to follow a similar path where we learn to trust in the reassuring presence of the other.

As adults, in relationships and in life things can happen which can effect our trust in others or in our world. A loss of a job; a serious illness or difficulties in relationships can shake our sense of confidence in our world and the people in it. This presents us with the major challenge of trying to regain trust after it has been lost. In experiencing the hurt of a loss we can withdraw into ourselves in an emotional coil which does not allow the possibility of any risk as this might result in further hurt. Our confidence in the world, in our ability to move forward in it has been locked away. When we find ourselves in this state it is often difficult to take the first step out and we can become stuck.

Our hopes, dreams and expectations have met with disappointment in the world and we have to look over these and consider them carefully in order to re-launch ourselves. Therapy can be like a parent’s hand on the saddle of the bike, holding us steady as we launch ourselves back into the world. Depending on the level of our loss of trust our early steps can be quite tentative. It is hoped that through a process like this we can learn to trust again, taking into account what we have learned from our life experience and earlier losses. Most of all this is about learning about ourselves and having trust and confidence in our ability to move confidently through the world; a bit like learning how to ride a bike.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we took time out to have a long look at our waiting room. It is a very attractive room, high ceilinged with original plasterwork and a large open fireplace. We have a few nice paintings and two comfortable couches. There is a long coffee table with an eclectic mix of reading from psychoanalysis through fairy tales to the local free advertiser. We sat for a few minutes to feel what the experience was like. We realise that a waiting room can be a place of anxiety and we are trying to make ours as welcoming and comfortable as we can. Quite apart from the reading material we place there we realise that one of the first things that someone does nowadays if they have to wait is to reach for their phone.

Whether it is on a bus or a train or waiting for a food order to be brought to your table in a restaurant those few minutes of being alone can make us feel anxious. With the mobile phone being so accessible it is often the crutch that we use to fill those awkward few minutes. It provides the illusion of not being alone; it serves to help us to deny our separateness. With so much information now available we can check the latest news updates for a while or log in to a social network to see what friends have been up to. Or if we feel like we really need to reach out to another we might choose a friend and send that great contemporary conversation opener; the ‘where r u?’ text. It seems to us that this is all about relieving the anxiety of being alone.

Imagine a baby who wakes after a short nap. On waking the baby wants to re-establish human contact and will usually call out for their mother. Depending on the age of the child this may be by making a range of different noises and movements or it may be by use of the word ‘Mammy’ once they have learned this. Just say that one particular day the mother is temporarily out of earshot and does not react to the baby straight away. In this instance the baby will experience a sudden rise in anxiety levels and will worry for a moment about being abandoned forever. A few short minutes can seem like an eternity in these circumstances. Depending on the placement of the cot and the accessibility to it this may happen a lot during infancy and this baby may grow up with a slightly higher than usual level of fear when it comes to being alone.

Fast forward now by twenty years or so and the baby of our example has grown to be an adult in our twenty first century world. Among their gadgets, indeed a necessity for their job is a mobile phone. They may have the addition of a wireless Bluetooth facility to make hands free calls on the go. Imagine then that with voice recognition dialling they had the ability to make a call while driving or walking along a city street. It is very convenient to be able to get in touch with their office base in this way. We feel that this ability also serves to keep at bay their fundamental anxiety about being on their own. They may even have made allowances for the occasional personal call and programmed in their mammy’s number so that she too can be reached simply by calling her name. Just like in their childhood dreams they can experience the soothing tones of their mother’s voice in an instant.

Mobile technology and internet access have made so many things so much more accessible and straight forward. They have also helped us to keep at bay the anxieties we feel abut being alone. It is a good exercise to watch these things in our selves. Sometimes, turning off our modern devices, even the radio and just listening to silence or the ticking of a clock can be very instructive. In those quiet moments we might get in touch with some things which we fear. By considering these things and reflecting on them and on their possible origins in infancy we can understand and placate our fears. In this way we can get in touch with feelings of confidence in our selves as separate from but still in relationship with others. We can learn to feel relaxed rather than fearful when things go a little quiet and we are left alone with our thoughts.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.