counselling | davanti counselling

Why change has to happen one moment at a time

Don't rush for an xyz when your rate of change is still at abc (pietc courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/sheelamohan)

Don’t rush for an xyz when your rate of change is still at abc (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/sheelamohan)

People who come to long-term therapy want to change. They’re becoming more aware of what isn’t working for them in their lives. They want to introduce new ways of behaving and being in the world. Most importantly, they want to stop feeling the horrible stuff they’re feeling now.

They want a quick fix, a magic wand or potion, that will transport them from the stuckness of now to the freedom of the life they want.

Except that change doesn’t happen overnight. Hard to digest, maybe. But change isn’t ingested in a red or blue pill. Change isn’t about waking up one morning and deciding to be different. Change happens in those tiny moments of life when we decide to respond in a new way. How? (more…)

Stress: is kindness more effective than confidence?

Press forgiveness rather than punishing yourself. (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/stuartmiles)

Ever found yourself finding reasons to beat yourself up, believing yourself to be at fault, and wishing you could be a better person? If that’s a familiar (or daily) situation, then research is increasingly seeking to prove that being kind to yourself is far more effective than finding mantras for your self-esteem.

Being kinder to yourself, and finding more compassion for your faults and those of others, could help you deal more effectively with the daily stressors of life. That’s the main finding of research from Brandeis University on self-compassion.

The long-standing view has been that self-esteem is the cure-all, but the new view is that self-compassion could be far more effective in helping us cope with the stresses that bear down on us all.

Self-compassion is the ability to forgive yourself for stuff you’ve done, not blaming yourself or taking more responsibility than you should, and letting it go rather than dwelling on it. In other words, it’s the ability to cut yourself some slack.

The researchers asked people to rank their agreement to statements such as, “I try to be understanding and patient toward aspects of my personality I do not like” and “I’m disapproving and judgmental about my own flaws and inadequacies”. Resulting stress tests were recorded.

Tests showed that people with low self-compassion carried their stress from the day before into today, which made them more vulnerable to the effects of stress.

The researchers said: “It is easy for stress to build over time, and a seemingly small daily stressor, such as traffic, can impact a person’s health if they don’t have the right strategies to deal with it.”

My take on this? Forgive yourself for stuff outside your control – where possible. Beating yourself up in areas that have nothing to do with you, or have a detrimental effect, are to be avoided. This way of being can have its roots in childhood, and how you had to take care of a parent as a child.

For support and to work on forgiveness, call 07956 823501 or email davanticounselling.com

Why bereavement can feel like getting lost in space

Losing gravity is a powerful metaphor for grief. (pic courtesy of porbital/FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Anyone who has seen the movie Gravity will know that it wows on two fronts: one, for its special effects, which have won it countless film awards; and two, for the grief metaphor that runs like a slow teardrop down a window pane until it sploshes, with relief, into the credits at the end.

One of the on-screen phrases at the start of Gravity is: ‘Life in space is impossible.’ It can feel beyond a bereaved mind to contemplate how you will never see the person again, and how life will never, ever have the same richness or colour as when the person lost was alive. LIfe, as we’ve known it, will literally never be the same again. Living can feel impossible.

Anyone who has lost anybody close to them will know how tempting it is to (more…)

Counselling could give ‘loveless’ households a chance

One in four children grow up in loveless households. (pic courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/smarnad)

With a quarter of children growing up in ‘loveless’ households – where parental relationships have broken down – the government is calling for more people to seek counselling to work through their emotional issues.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that 24% of households where both biological parents live together are unhappy in their relationship. Growing up in unstable homes can put kids at a social disadvantage in later life, says the DWP, and at higher risk of issues with mental health, substance abuse and lower educational attainment.

“We know that family breakdown – or a damaged parental relationship – can have a devastating impact on children’s prospects as they grow up,” says Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. “Whereas when families are strong and stable, the children tend to have better life chances.”

Conservative MP Andrew Selous, who chairs a parliamentary group for sustainable relationships, adds that people should not feel ashamed to seek counselling support. “We need to remove the stigma around counselling. We have a natural British reserve which assumes there must be some kind of problem if you need counselling. We need people to understand it is essential to their emotional health.”

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Can you ‘do an Oprah’ and let go of claustrophobic clutter?

“Knowing what you need is more than knowing what you want,” says Oprah Winfrey in an article about clearing her clutter. Big words, big aim – but not making anyone immune to the anxiety that goes with clearing out the clutter of our lives that can keep us stuck.

Even Oprah admits to feeling some anxiety – and wanting to buy back some of her stuff – when dealing with the emotional impact of saying goodbye to some of her most prized possessions. Ultimately, her instincts were that “instead of feeling walled in by stuff, [she] want[ed] to feel surrounded by calm”.

Having a vision for a cleared space is admirable. Many of us want to feel less ‘walled in’ by our clutter, but there can be so much invested in the objects we hold dear – especially if those objects belonged to someone who is no longer in our lives.

Oprah’s point is that our stuff doesn’t have to own us, but it can be so hard to let go. Who’s to say when it’s time to let go of a particular object?

Experience of letting go shows that you more you’re able to release to the world, the more the world is able to release to you. Hold onto the objects that you’ve paid a fortune for, but you have no further need of, and work out what you will get in return. Release objects to people who really need them, instead of hoarding them yourself, surely has to be the opportunity we’ve been given: to bestow on others the gifts that we have been given ourselves.

In Oprah’s words – assuming we’re not wanting for our basic needs – then “less actually is so much more”.

Could your stress levels today be picked up from mother when you were a baby?

Infants absorb stress and anxiety from their mothers, says research. (pic courtesy of Serge Betasius Photography/freedigitalimages.net)

Now and again, a new piece of research comes along that explains so much that my counselling clients are experiencing today. Such pieces of research pretty much sum up the reason why psychotherapy exists: to help heal the wounds of our past and come to terms with what was painful on our childhoods.

The issue with the past, however, is that so much of that early wounding happens in a pre-verbal phase. It’s when we are tiny babies when we don’t have words to express what’s going on that some of those hurts can happen. People may think that babies won’t know the difference. But, as adults having a crisis in later life, feeling unable to cope, we can often feel left with an unease that something isn’t right. We just can’t put it into words. It’s just a feeling that keeps playing out in unhelpful behaviours, situations and cycles that they feel stuck in. And some of those behaviours and feelings may be in response to the nurturing – or otherwise – we experienced as infants.

So, what’s this piece of research that I feel resonates with the wounds in my clients? (more…)

Talking and saying ‘thank you’ are key to relationship happiness

Being best friends and making your partner a cuppa contribute to relationship happiness. (pic :istockphoto.com/Dimedrol68)

Being best friends and making your partner a cup of tea contribute to relationship happiness. (pic: istockphoto.com/Dimedrol68)

Open, honest communication and the ability to unburden at the end of the day are key to relationship harmony – as are small gestures such as cuddles and making your partner a cup of tea. That’s one of the key findings from a new survey Enduring Love? Couple Relationships in the 21st Century from the Open University.

The two-year survey of more than 5,000 people found that shared values, ambitions and interests are important for relationship health, and people feel disappointed when they could not share the everyday experiences of life with their partner. Saying or showing love is highly valued and symbolised a closeness in the relationship, as is saying thank you and feeling appreciated. While big romantic gestures, such as bouquets of flowers, are enjoyed, it is the sentiment behind them that really counts. Being ‘best friends’ with one’s partner ranked highly for both men and women respondents. Arguments and poor communication are the least pleasant aspects of a relationship, the survey found.

When it comes to being parents, that survey has some interesting findings:

Childless couples are happier with their relationship than couples with children.
Parents put less effort into maintaining their relationship than childless couples do.
Fathers are less positive than childless men about the quality of their relationship.
Fathers are twice more likely than mothers “to include different needs or expectations around sexual intimacy in the things they like least about their relationship”.
Mothers want less sex than their partners do, but this apparently does not affect overall relationship satisfaction for either mothers or fathers.
Mothers are twice more likely than fathers to say children are the most important people in their lives, while for fathers the partner is the most important person.
Mothers are more negative about the quality of their relationship compared with childless women – but overall mothers are reported to be the happiest group of all.

When communication does break down, both women and men say they would use couple counselling as a source for support, help or advice. Men are more reluctant to ask for help, but women say they would consider both couple and individual counselling.

Ruth Sutherland, chief executive of Relate, says: “What this study shows us is that couples need to keep investing in their relationships. It’s reassuring to know, especially in these tough economic times, that it’s the small gestures of appreciation and affection, rather than the big romantic displays that really make the difference.”

Bereaved people are ‘failed’ by employers, says charity

Eight in 10 people support paid compassionate leave for the bereaved. (pic: istockphoto.com/kzenon)

Eight out of 10 people would support paid bereavement leave. (pic: istockphoto.com/kzenon)

Employers need to put more compassion into the term ‘compassionate leave’ and give more support to their workers who are going through a bereavement, according to the Dying Matters Coalition, an alliance of 16,000 charities, hospices and care homes.

Its report Life after death: Six steps to improve support in bereavement – produced in conjunction with the National Bereavement Alliance the National Council for Palliative Care – concludes that bereaved people in Britain are being “failed by a lack of support in the workplace”.

Its survey of 4,000 workers found that half of people would leave their employer if they were not given sufficient support when a loved one died – and a third who had been bereaved in the last five years felt their employers had not treated them with compassion.

Eight out of 10 people polled would back a change in the law to offer paid bereavement leave to employees who had lost someone close to them – with 82% believing this leave would be beneficial to employers in the long term because the workers would feel supported through a difficult period. And nine out of 10 think employers should have a ‘compassionate employment policy’ offering support and flexible working to the bereaved. (more…)

Can spirituality make you more resilient to depression?

Researchers says spiritual beliefs can protect the brain from mood disorders such as depression. (pic: istockphoto.com/Skaya)

Apparently it can. A scientific study has suggested that spirituality gives people who are prone to depression a thicker outer part of the brain – which may offer some protection from depression.

The report studied 103 adults aged 18-54 from a family background of depression, and took MRI scans of their brains. They found a thicker cortex – the part of the brain that processes senses, language and emotion – in the survey participants who said religion or spirituality was important to them, compared with those who didn’t. A thinner cortex is linked with higher risk of depression.

However, being spiritual does not give you a thicker cortex, the researchers reported. Nor does more frequent attendance at church.

Myrna Weissman, professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and chief of the Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology department at New York State Psychiatric Institute, who worked on the study, said: “Our beliefs and our moods are reflected in our brain, and with new imaging techniques we can begin to see this. A thicker cortex associated with a high importance of religion or spirituality may confer resilience to the development of depressive illness in individuals at high familial risk for major depression.”

What to make of these results? The researchers had previously found a 90% decreased risk of depression among the adult children of parents who were suffering from it. The therapeutic value of these findings is not clear, not even to the scientists, who believe that it’s the start of further research.

Weissman says the body and mind are connected – but how? Does having faith or belief in something beyond the physical here-and-now body help sustain people through difficult times? In an area that must be incredibly difficult to measure, I’ll be interested in what scientists can prove in the future.

You can ‘catch’ depression from friends, says study

Action on Depression has launched a campaign to challenge stereotypes about depression. www.actionondepression.org

Vulnerability to depression can be catching, especially at times of life transition, according to a scientific study.

People who think in a certain type of way – who respond negatively to stressful life events, and believe things won’t change and their own deficiencies are somehow to blame – are described as having ‘cognitive vulnerability’ by the researchers at Notre Dame University in Indiana. Cognitive vulnerability is a risk factor for depression, they say, even if people haven’t suffered from depression in the past.

Cognitive vulnerability can be ‘catching’ at times of big change, like going to college for the first time. The researchers’ study of 103 pairs of students sharing rooms on campus found that levels of cognitive vulnerability were contagious. Students would pick up on the other person’s levels of cognitive vulnerability. Those with higher levels after three months would show more depressive symptoms at six months.

Study author Dr Gerard Haeffel says this could have implications for predicting who might become depressed in future. He adds: “Surrounding a person with other who exhibit and adaptive cognitive style should help to facilitate cognitive change in therapy.”

This news comes during Depression Awareness Week 2013. Depression Alliance is launching Friends in Need to help end the loneliness that accompanies depression. And Action on Depression in Scotland has launched a new campaign ‘Never judge a book…’ to tackle stereotypes about depression.

To speak to a counsellor one-to-one about depression, email info@animacounselling.co.uk or call 07956 823501.