Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about talking. Or to be more exact we have given some time to a discussion around communication between the sexes. It seems that at times men and women are speaking different languages. And maybe they are. It is often expressed in couple therapy as a feeling of not being listened to or understood by the other. It can be a frustrating experience and if you can’t find a way to improve communication a couple can find themselves drifting apart. One can switch off from the other and effectively end up leading a separate life. Working on ways of communicating will help to keep a relationship healthy.

One of the surprising things that can come up when a couple come to counselling is just how little they are in the habit of checking in with each other. It might seem obvious but it is a good first step to ask your partner how they feel about what you do in the relationship. When we work with couples one partner might begin by outlining all the things they do. In this view of the relationship various tasks are done for the other. A person can come to believe that they are putting a huge amount of work into the relationship but find that their energies are misdirected. It is important to check in with each other and develop an understanding as to what each of you wants from and values in the other. We can neglect emotional needs in favour of busying ourselves with running a house.

One point of discord that comes up in relation to communication is a difference in what men and women might be looking for when they sit down to talk. Again and again women tell us that they just want to be heard; that they just want to talk something through. A woman can become frustrated if her partner just looks for solutions. A man might be paying close attention to his partner and attentively listening for cues as to what the nub of the problem might be so that he can set about fixing it. He might feel pleased when he identifies what needs to be done. And he might reassure his partner that a solution is at hand. A woman might come away from this encounter feeling that she wasn’t heard at all. She just wanted to talk and to be heard. If each of them can learn to understand this process it ought to lead to fuller communication.

Sometimes we can find that conflict in a relationship feels intolerable. This can lead to avoidance and denial. If we go about avoiding an obvious source of disagreement we are not really communicating well at all. It is important to understand that there will be disagreement some of the time. This may mean that we have to learn to live with a little tension. It is a healthy thing in a relationship when we can continue to be close with our partner in spite of our differing on some issue that seems important at the time. We cannot write that without pointing out that a good deal of the time a couple cannot recall exactly what it was that started a big row. If you can’t remember what you started to argue about it might be a good idea just to cool down and have a think about it. This usually means that you are really arguing about something else and that maybe you need to take a deeper look at your relationship.

Communication between couples means continuing to work at the connection you have between you. It involves making sure to devote some time to each other on an ongoing basis. This can prove difficult when the demands of daily life are taken into account. It is a sad fact that some couples emerge from years of mutual child rearing to find that they have drifted apart and grown into separate people. To continue to grow together involves consciously working on communicating with each other. It is also important to bring some good humour to these things. A little kindness and understanding is a wonderful thing to give and receive. If you can find it in your heart and, among the pressures of daily life share it with the one you love you will be going a long way towards maintaining a healthy relationship.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk, 15^th March 2012.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been continuing our discussion about aspects of depression. In particular we have been focusing on the processes involved in coming out of depression. We don’t subscribe to a quick fix solution to depression. Nor do we believe in a ‘one size fits all’ approach because we see depression as being personal to each individual who endures it. Whereas there is an understandable demand for solutions or tips for recovery our view is that we must begin by reflecting in a deep way on our life and influences in order to begin a process of change. Often, a lasting recovery from depression begins with this period of deep personal reflection; a looking back in order to begin to look forward.

Even the very concept of recovery is the subject of discussion within our group. To recover means to get something back or to get back to a previous position. In that regard the purpose of therapy for a person with depression is not to recover but to change. The task is one of transformation of the self rather than of going back to the way things used to be. If the first task is to figure out how we got to the point of depression the latter is to map out a view of how we would like things to be in the future. This process is very personal to each one of us.

It is not a simple task to unlock the secrets of depression. We have described previously how self reproach plays a part in this. Continuing the process of working through the reasons why we become trapped in this cycle involves looking at the ideas we might have about the way we would like to be. We do have an idea within us somewhere of what kind of person we would like to be. Comparing our current life with how we imagine things ought to be undoubtedly contributes to depression. We may not be able to live up to our internal ideas of an ideal version of our own self. This can become a punitive sort of comparison.

Our image of a potential self is likely to be influenced by our idealising significant figures from our earlier years. We may identify with certain traits or characteristics which we find admirable in family, friends or teachers. We may secretly strive to attain some similar virtues in our own lives. This can become a personal project which we dedicate our lives to; but meet with frustration when we come up short of our ideal. Personal change following a period of depression involves trying to recognise these identifications in our self. We can then become conscious of their appropriateness and of what prevents us from achieving them. We can decide if we want to renew our efforts in a particular direction or tear up the plan and draw up a new one.

In examining our past we may discover impediments which caused us to deviate from or abandon earlier ideas of our own potential. Some of these may relate to unrealistic early ideas of where our life may take us. But we may also discover that family or other external influences caused us to hesitate before considering possible ways of being. We may realise that we turned away from a kind of life that actually accords well with our real self. The transformation involved in a sustained renewal following a period of depression will involve our working out how to proceed towards our own personal view of how we would like to be. Once we have become aware of how to do this we can change again and continue to adapt to life in a way of our own choosing.

Counselling Connections.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about separation. We have been speaking in particular about how to help children to negotiate their way through the separation of their parents. This is an issue that comes up in our work on a daily basis and includes the full range of participants in a family break up. We see couples and individuals who are going through or have gone through a separation. This often involves a subsequent divorce. We see children of differing ages who are trying to come to terms with the breakup of their parents’ relationship. We also see the aftermath with adult children of separated or divorced parents reflecting on their childhood experiences. Grandparents also feel the effects of separation involving children and grandchildren.

There are some actions that parents can take that will help children to deal with separation and divorce and the changes that these bring about. This first thing is to keep lines of communication open. It is important that parents keep their children informed in an age appropriate manner. Children will notice changes and wonder what is going on and it is reassuring to be told what is happening. Children will be better able to deal with changes in living arrangements if they have been told what is going to happen in advance. This can include being involved in viewing and furnishing a new house if that is what is happening.

On a more fundamental level is the truth of what is happening between mammy and daddy. Again, it is important to try to be as honest as possible without burdening the child with too much information. Age appropriate communication with children can include the clarification of the difference between parents no longer loving each other while each still loves the children. A child may come to believe that they are in some way responsible for their parents breakup and it is important to reassure them that this is not the case. Children will feel reassured if they know that each parent still loves them and will remain a big part of their lives after the separation. Extended family have a role to play too and maintaining contact with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins keeps a level of familiarity in the child’s changing emotional landscape.

It is a general rule of thumb that children will do well when parents co-operate in their upbringing. In a post separation situation it is useful if the parents devise a way of communicating with each other about what is going on in their children’s lives. If the parents find it difficult to speak with each other a system of regular email or other communication can work well. It is reassuring for a child if each parent is kept up to date with issues that may arise in school or with friends. It also helps a child through a separation when each parent gives the same message. Children may harbour hope of reconciliation between their parents and look for differences in the parents’ attitudes. A consistent message delivered gently by each parent will help the child to gradually come to terms with the reality of the breakup.

One of the key things is for each parent to speak respectfully of the other. This may not reflect how they really feel but what is asked of a parent here is to put the interests of the child first. There may be any amount of unresolved emotional issues between the parents but these should not be communicated through the children. Open conflict, arguments or shouting are very stressful for children. It hardly needs us to say it but it is harmful to children if they become enlisted in a battle between their parents. As a parent it is important to find a space where your own feelings about the breakup of your relationship can be expressed and understood. We hope that this would prevent a situation where feelings of anger, resentment or a thirst for revenge are expressed using the children. It is possible to continue to well do well following separation and divorce if each family member can remain understanding of the other’s and especially the children’s ongoing emotional needs.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about love. A good deal of our work could be described as being about love; frequently this is when love goes wrong. Love is elemental and universal; it is complex and difficult to put into words. If it eludes description it is not timid or withdrawn about letting us know when it is present. It can take over to the extent that when it strikes we hardly know how to think straight and feel butterflies in out stomach. And when it is lost or rebuffed it will protest loud and long. It can take a long time to get over love in the coming or the going.

The reasons why people come to us to talk about love have to do with the pain that losing love or not being able to find love can cause. One of the features of this is how little control we seem to have over love. It seems that our love will invest itself wholly and completely in another with no thought at all as to the consequences. In this regard the old saying is true; love is blind. Sometimes at an early stage of a new romantic attachment we will become aware that our love is running away with itself and try to apply the brakes. Paradoxically this process only seems to increase the attraction.

Trying to calm the raging passion of love may have resonance with our experiences with the objects of our early affections. Indeed understanding our relations with our mother and father during infancy may hold clues to how we learn to love. It seems that one aim of our instinct to love is to merge ourselves absolutely and completely with the other. This may be how we felt about our mothers when we were babies. This may also give us some clue as to why losing love might feel so devastating.

Our way of loving as an adult may be related to how we felt when we were coming to terms with periods of separation as a baby. An example of this kind of thing is in the fun that a baby takes out of the game of peek-a-boo. The joy that is experienced is in the reassurance that the other person goes or disappears and then reappears again and again with a happy, smiling face. The game loses nothing in its repetition. If the other person goes and does not return the loss can seem overwhelming and almost impossible to bear. Aspects of this prevail in our adult romantic lives.

It seems likely that in any adult relationship traces of our early experiences of love will reappear. Longings that may have been lying dormant within us for years can suddenly burst back into life and seek expression. It seems that the wish to merge with another and feel fully known and understood is part of this process. We can also feel frightened by the prospect of a loss of self in the act of trying to bring this situation about. This can present as deliberately scuppering relationships when they get to a certain point of closeness.

With a bit or work and self awareness and maybe even bitter experience we can gain some control over the wild stampede of our love. We can learn to see our partner as a separate person with their own needs and independence. We can tame the more fervent aspects of our own love and blend it into a mature, adult companionship. There is a love to be found that is quieter than the raging passion of our younger love. In this by a beautiful paradox we can come closer to experiencing that togetherness of our fervent dreams. It comes with a fuller and deeper understanding of both our own self and that of our partner being separate and together.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about one of the more puzzling aspects of human behaviour. We’ve been looking into why we can find ourselves repeating the past. Sometimes it is one of the things that a new client will mention in a first session. The work of the therapy then becomes a process of remembering past events and trying to work out why some of the more painful things seem to reoccur. It can be quite distressing to overcome a difficult period only to find a similar set of circumstances cropping up again.

An example of the kind of thing that people come to us to seek help with would be if a tendency to repeat becomes evident in romantic relationships. It is not unusual for someone to wonder aloud ‘what it is about me that attracts these kinds of bad partners?’ It might be more profitable to reframe the question and wonder what it is about these others that attracts us. In trying to figure out why we might seek out a particular kind of partner we might uncover clues as to what our own individual patterns are. We might also succeed in uncovering hidden motivations behind our actions.

Some form of repetition can also be found following a traumatic event. We may have vivid and terrifying dreams in which the details of the trauma are replayed. This is a kind of repetition even if it is only in our imagination. Anyone who has been woken in the middle of the night by one of these kinds of dreams will testify to how real the feelings of terror are. The reactions in our body can be similar in intensity to those we experienced during the initial trauma. We believe that in these dreams we can find clues to what the phenomenon of repetition is really about.

The way we think about repetition involves taking into account the past, the present and the future. The past is represented by whatever event we experienced and which we have not understood or overcome. This might be a relationship which caused us pain and which ended in an unsatisfactory manner. In the present we replay some of the characteristics of that relationship. We can find ourselves acting out aspects of the past and often find ourselves at a critical crossroad faced with a decision as to how to proceed. If our thinking on this is correct the purpose of the whole repetition is to then try to bring about a more satisfactory conclusion and create a better future.

The purpose of repeating behaviours would be to return to a past difficulty which left us with a degree of dissatisfaction; to try to resolve it and bring about a better outcome. One of the difficulties this poses is that once we have succeeded in recreating the original situation we often do not then know how to proceed to bring about the desired result. There is even a danger that we might find ourselves stuck in a cycle of repetition. We may end up secretly striving for nothing more ambitious than to be able to live with the discomfort of the situation in the absence of any satisfactory solution to it.

The work of therapy is to lay bare the range of our hidden motivations in these situations. This can throw up some surprising insights as to how little control we have over our emotional lives. We would seek an understanding of these influences and to try to facilitate a different outlet for them. The repetition is about trying to find a solution to an old problem. We would hope to bring about an awareness of the inner self so that we can exercise more choice over how we proceed with things that we got stuck on in the past. In this way a cycle of repetition can be broken for good.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections we have been continuing our discussion on various aspects of depression. This week our focus has been on one of the most difficult and also the most admirable aspects of coming through depression. We are talking about the ability to bounce back from what can seem like a series of knocks each of which represent a possible road block to our getting well again. The motivation it takes to overcome the obstacles that life presents us with is severely tested in the process of coming out of depression.

Sometimes we wonder where motivation comes from and how it works. Before we undertake a task we would have to have some reason for doing it. There has to be motivation to complete even a simple chore. Sometimes in depression we can’t seem to find the energy to put into even small day to day tasks. Part of therapy can involve plotting a way to achieve even a small goal which can then be registered as one achievement on the path out of depression. This may be nothing more complicated than a trip to the local shop. These little things which we usually take for granted can take on a bigger significance when we are coming through depression.

As part of a depression we can lose contact with others and become withdrawn into ourselves. This social isolation contributes to our anxious feelings as we struggle at the prospect at having to face people again. A one step at a time approach to coming out of depression involves facing these fears and having the determination to put small goals in front of ourselves. Being able to mark off a success in one of these tasks can give us the sense of satisfaction that builds into the confidence to tackle bigger things. This is part of a strategy aimed at getting back into a fuller life after the retreat of depression.

We understand that there are occasions where motivation seems to have deserted us completely. At times like this it can seem impossible to get started on any project. It is likely that a part of our self is telling us that we got seriously hurt by the world when we tried to achieve something in the past. This part of us is wrapped up in a type of mourning for the loss of past dreams which have gone unfulfilled. It cautions us against trying anything new for fear of getting disappointed again. At times like this we have to understand this fear and try to go on anyway in spite of it. We may feel that motivation is absent but we try the action anyway. It’s a bit of a paradox but action may need to come first in the absence of motivation in order to start the process of moving out of depression.

We hope that with achieving small milestones which we have set for ourselves we can build a step by step path out of depression. Our feelings of caution which are nursing the hurt of past failures will try to protect us from harm by holding us back. Any new setback will be seen by this part of our self as further evidence that there is no point in trying. Overcoming this takes a lot of determination and a little blind faith. It is a case of not necessarily knowing where the next step will take us but knowing that we have to keep trying. Putting a series of small successes together will lead to a sense of confidence. Belief starts small and is brittle but it grows as we keep on going. The strength that it takes to do this and to come out of depression is something we admire very much.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been having a debate about what the goal of therapy might be. Our discussion arises out of questions we are often asked as to how exactly therapy works. People ask us what it involves; how the weekly sessions might go and where it leads to. Often the reasons for someone attending therapy have to do with difficulties in coping with their work or romantic lives. Sometimes they report a kind of dull feeling of dissatisfaction and a sense of a directionless or unfulfilling existence. We have been considering things recently from the perspective of the aloneness of the individual in relation all aspects of the world.

Therapy is first and foremost an individual process. You come on your own each week and you talk about yourself. You might talk about your childhood and your relationship with you mother or father. You can spend some time considering your relations with brothers and sisters and with friends. The focus is on the paths that these significant attachments take and how their ups and downs inform our subsequent ways of being. The focus of the therapy is very much on the self and our feelings; our hurts and our reactions to things. After we spend some time working through these things we hope to learn about our own patterns of behaviour.

Sometimes therapy works a bit like an archaeological dig in that we begin with the deposits from the most recent events and work backwards through time to earlier ones. Past events can be seen to exert an influence over how things develop from there. Learning about how we might repeat the patterns of the past becomes a big part of therapy. We talk about these things and sometimes have moments of insight where we can see deep inside our own self. But therapy is not just about our own self. In the first instance all these personal explorations are done in the presence of another: the therapist. We are relational beings and we develop and live to the full when we achieve good relations with others.

To some extent individual therapy is about working out a hypothesis of our own inner life. It is in relationships outside of therapy where we put this to the test. Our work and love lives are the places where we try to put into practice what learn in our therapy. We work things out in the privacy of the therapy room and even test them out on the therapist. One aim of therapy then would be to try to work firstly on our relationship with our own self. This is done in the presence of and with an active relationship with the therapist. Good relations with the world may mean working things out on several levels including bringing meaning and purpose into our daily lives. Each of us has to work out these values for ourselves. This is a personal journey but not one which requires that we have to go it alone.

Counselling Connections.

Here at Counselling Connections this week we continued an ongoing discussion about aspects of depression. We have been looking at the different ways in which depression comes about and trying to identify and separate out aspects of the process that may lead to one of us becoming depressed. Today we want to look at another aspect of our inner critic and the role it plays in depression. We spoke about our inner critic a little while ago and how we believe it is developed throughout childhood. Our inner critic can become our harshest citric and this is central to what happens in depression.

Ordinarily our personality seems to be in a state of balance. One the one side are our hopes and dreams. These tend to be positive and creative and provide the energy for us to achieve things. When things are going well we see meaning and purpose in everyday life. We can maintain a kind of momentum; focusing on daily tasks and feeling generally satisfied with life. The contents of our inner critic can represent the opposing forces to this creative energy and sense of contentment. From time to time something can happen to knock these opposing forces out of balance. When the hopeful side of our personality takes a step back we can be left feeling undefended in the face of the forces of our inner critic.

This can feel like the whole world is against us. One of the most difficult aspects of this is that it becomes internalised. What may have begun with some difficulties or disappointments in our external world becomes an internal struggle. It is as if the reverses we suffer in our working or romantic lives become aligned in our minds with the parts of us that are critical of our own self. We can then retreat from the world in a state of depression as we try to deal with the pain and tend to our emotional wounds. It can feel like there is no escape from a negative view of the world as we try to cope with self reproach. This state of being can become quite fixed. It can evolve into a cycle which we struggle with for years but never quite seem to escape.

Our view of depression is central to the way we practice. An ongoing task in therapy is to try to understand this dynamic internal process of expectation and disappointment. We spend a good deal of time examining these things and trying to understand them. Some practical, short-term therapeutic techniques involve tuning in to our negative thought processes. The idea is that we become more aware of how we are thinking and how this affects how we feel and behave. We can set about challenging these negative thoughts of self reproach that we experience in depression.

A longer term therapeutic approach is to delve into these matters more deeply and to become aware of them at a fundamental level. The goal here is to really get to know the different aspects of our inner life. We can spend some time remembering and reflecting on significant relationships and events from our past. We may identify patterns in how we have responded to these in similar ways over time. We may then get a clearer picture as to what we may really have been trying to achieve or overcome. This will help in building up an inner strength and a sense of confidence in our self. A cycle of becoming fixed in periods of self reproach can be broken in this way. Depression can be overcome by a growing belief in our self and the world which is secure in the face of the opposing forces of self reproach.

Counselling Connections Dundalk.

Here at Counselling Connections this week it has all been about settling back into the routine after the holiday. The New Year begins in earnest for many when the kids go back to school. And the return to school has thrown up some interesting asides: from parents and children alike. One mum told of how she had been really looking forward to the kids going back to school. Cabin fever had begun to settle in over the last days of the holidays. The weather wasn’t good and the children were getting tetchy being cooped up in the house. That cry that drives the average parent mad ‘I’m bored’ was heard more and more. And the reply ‘why don’t you clean your room’ got the usual unwelcome response. School, it seems offered the chance of an antidote to these ills.

One of the issues that people faced was an increase in the ordinary feelings of dread experienced on a Sunday night in anticipation of the week ahead. It’s that feeling that many of us get early evening on Sundays which is a throwback to the days when a thought of homework, banished since Friday afternoon, pops into your head. Thoughts of homework not yet done resonate even into adulthood long after any homework is still required. We think this affects people in their work; especially where work hours mirror the school week. Indeed we may get into a habit of repeating these routines without thinking about them. That’s where we come in. It is part of our work the help people become aware of these things and to consider what the purpose of it all is.

These are questions that are naturally faced at this time of year. In fact, there is some evidence that questions around the purpose of daily routine rise in September too, mirroring the cycle of the school year. This week we have heard from mothers who found that, despite the length of the holiday, they really missed their kids when they went back to school. They describe feelings of loss. We have also heard from school children who dreaded the return of class and who really struggled with facing into it again. The same goes for many people who returned to work this week. Some reported minor illnesses and aches and pains as they tried to adjust back to the weekly routine.

This all raises questions about the purpose of our routine and maybe even whether we can find meaning in everyday tasks. It’s clear that not everybody feels this dread work or school. It is quite amazing how much activity a person can fit into their week when they are focused on a particular goal. Sometimes this goal is a medium term thing that can be achieved in a matter of months. Sometimes it is a project that can take years’ like for example a university degree. And maybe this kind of thinking can also add meaning to a sort of purpose in life which we carry with us through all kinds of ups and downs. This may be a goal that has to do with the way we live our life, one which might be difficult to define or describe clearly in words.

There is something to be found in daily existence that makes routine at least bearable and maybe even enjoyable. It could be that we will never again experience that Sunday evening dread if we look forward to our work or our learning schedule. The secret seems to be in having a reason that we are aware of in the moment for the task we are doing. Each little day to day assignment and interaction becomes a building block, a small part of something we are building. These things which we used to dread become meaningful because we understand that they form one part of picture which we are painting. When we stand back and look at it we can admire what we have achieved and where our effort has taken us. It seems that if we became aware of what we would like to achieve, if we are in tune with it and can make a plan to get there we can live a more purposeful and meaningful life.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.

Here at counselling connections it has been a quiet week. The feeling we get is of people emerging from a sort of ordeal. We are surprised by the language used to describe the post-Christmas period. People ask ‘how did you get over the Christmas’ or even ‘how did you survive the Christmas’. It sounds funny when you point it out but that is the nature of a good deal of the chat this week. Having expected so much from the holiday it seems like people might be feeling a little down. You wouldn’t think that the holiday was actually something that people were preparing for and looking forward to for months. But therein lays a clue to the deeper meanings of this time of the year.

Christmas is about mid winter; the turn of the year and more importantly the end of darkness and the beginning of a letting in of light. On Christian level it is about the birth of a baby and all that this baby represents. But the season has been celebrated for many millennia and how the modern feast is celebrated retains traces of the earlier pagan form. So much of the season seems to be about excess and this is where the idea of having to survive or overcome it originates. Maybe it is about getting rid of the last of the darkness; the bad in us while we prepare to let in the light and try to be good.

There are a few milestones over the holidays which are to be marked or overcome or endured depending on your point of view. One is the solstice which is at the heart of things. It has been enjoying a bit of a revival of interest in recent years especially in these parts where we are so geographically close to the passage tombs of our ancestors. This is closely followed then by the Christian celebration of Christmas itself. And one week later is the official calendar New Year. Somewhere in the midst of all of this many will also have an office Christmas party and family get togethers. It is all spread out over quite a period of time and it is no wonder that the talk is of ‘getting over’ it.

These things are aspects of public or group events where the individual is called upon to partake sometimes it seems in spite of their better judgement or intentions. There is the sense of an obligation to take part and join in the sort of hysteria that abounds in the run up to Christmas. It is something that people describe as being hard to avoid. How many of us have stood in the shopping street or mall in the days before Christmas with only one thing left to buy but with the slightly panicky temptation to grab a load more ‘stuff’ for nobody in particular? There are clues to a way out of the cycle in both the spread out nature of the events and the group versus individual aspects of it all.

The public landmarks of this time of year represent not only the change of the seasons and the turn of the year. They also replicate personal or internal undulations of mood and expectation. We go through natural cycles of fluctuation in how we feel or in our outlook. We can celebrate and enjoy things or we can consume to excess in a sort of denial where we are in fact detached from our self and our own natural cycles. Some people have a good way of working these things out through a process which is like integrating these highs and lows of life on an ongoing basis. This is like a daily, internal renewal which is akin to the bigger cycle of renewal which is separated out into the public events of this time of year. So it seems that with a little work it is possible to break these big things down into a day by day personal process. It is possible to personalise the great public celebrations into smaller internal ones without the great highs which are followed by great lows. In this version of events this time of year is integrated and enjoyed quietly rather than becoming something which has to be endured.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.