Counselling, Psychotherapy and Psychology Blog - Archive for Jan 2018

27 - Jan - 2018

Vacancies for psychotherapists and counsellors

We are currently looking to invite counsellors and psychotherapists to join our team as Associates here in Chiswick. Associates are accredited / registered with either the BACP, UKCP or BPS. You will also have two years experience of working in private practice and hold your own insurance.

As an Associate you will join an established practice and team of like minded professionals with the opportunity to work with a wide range of presenting concerns.

Our ethos is to provide a base for therapists who want the opportunity to work with other therapists but practice independently. This means that patients / clients contract with you - not the practice.

We are particularly interested in therapists who can work with adolescents and couples.

For more information contact Nicholas on info@nicholas-rose.co.uk or telephone Nicholas on 07789488691.

27 - Jan - 2018

New article - Make sure depression does not destroy your relationship

This article was published in the Chiswick Herald on the 19th Janaury, click here to read it our their website or see below:

In my work with couples it often comes to light, that at some point in the past, one of the couple has struggled with depression. Through therapy couples often come to realise that the way they responded at the time harmed their relationship. In this article I explain what often happens and what to do.

Depression often occurs after something has happened in a person's life that has been difficult to cope with. The struggle can be very tiring, resulting in low confidence and a circle of behaviour that only serves to lead to more unhappiness. 

It can have a terrible impact on how someone experiences their life on a day to day basis, symptoms often include a felt sense of low desire to undertake daily activities including work, socialising, exercise etc. It can have a debilitating effect and often be a very confusing experience for the sufferer and their friends and relatives. It can also have a significant impact upon partners and can often lead to the breakdown of relationships.

So what goes wrong? In our relationships we generally expect that partners support each other during difficult times and illness. So far so good! However the difficulty tends to come from failing to support partners in a way that recognises the needs of a healthy relationship.

All too often, the person struggling will most likely be experienced by their partner as withdrawing and this creates a dilemma. On the one hand the partner will be upset to see the person they care about struggling and want to help them, whilst at the same time they are also likely to be struggling themselves with negative feelings about how the relationship with their partner has changed.

To be upset ourselves when our partners are struggling can be difficult as judging thoughts can come to mind like indulgent, selfish, uncaring. We prefer to think that when things go wrong for someone we care about we will drop everything and put the other person first and that they will do the same for us. Whilst this expresses just how important our partners are for us it introduces a mindset that leads to thinking about “them and me” and not about “us”. So at a time when we both most need our relationship to be working well we tend to put it on hold, relegate it, not give it priority.

Quite simply if you are affected by the fact your partner is struggling then you need to look at it as information telling you that your relationship is struggling. If someone is unhappy in a relationship then it is an unhappy relationship and no matter how tempting it is to try and hide this fact from a partner who is struggling, ultimately that partner will not thank you for this further down the line.

So what is it that happens that causes the relationship harm? Usually the partner not struggling puts their needs to one side, they might miss their “old partner”, but they give them space, or their sex life but don’t want to impose, or being able to talk about their own problems. Unfortunately the denial of needs tends to have a habit of impacting upon us in ways we do not expect. 

Of course the struggling partner will be finding it hard to carry on as though nothing is happening but if that partner also loses the benefit to their sense of self that comes from being able to make their partner happy, then thats just another thing to add to their probably ever increasing list of failures. They might not even realise this so it is up to the supporting partner to remind them!

Unfortunately patterns get put in place whereby the supporting partner also withdraws and changes their behaviour with the result the way the relationship works is changed to such an extent that a time comes when neither recognise it any more. The relationship can be experienced as lifeless, dead, lonely. 

Couples can often avoid this for years, particularly if they have children, busy jobs, other interests etc but ultimately they become to realise that their relationship is no longer there for them.

Main points - 

  1. Think about your relationship - it is not helpful to think just about your partner and yourself separately.  
  2. Take a step back and think together about what you can do so that you can both feel as though you remain committed to each other
  3. Even if your relationship is in a good place at the moment talk about this now - if trouble comes along you will have an agreed strategy in place and this will make it much easier to have the conversations that will help.
  4. If you or your partner is depressed share this article with them and think about seeking couples / relationship / marriage counselling.
27 - Jan - 2018

New Article - Keep your children safe and well in their use of the internet - part one

The first part of this article appeared in the Chiswick Herald on the 5th Janaury, read it on page 21 here, or read below:

Do you struggle to talk to your children about their use of the internet and their safety and wellbeing? Are you tempted to stop your children using the internet altogether? Are you unclear yourself on what is appropriate internet use? Do you fear that talking to your children will only serve to drive them to hide their use of the internet from you?

Over the next couple of articles I will endeavour to provide some useful information on current thinking. However I will also offer some guidance on how to prepare and raise potentially difficult conversations about the use of the internet with your children.

In June this year new studies provided evidence that moderate use of the internet and social media does actually benefit children and young people. Suggesting that use of social media helps build resilience and develop social skills thus having a positive impact on mental wellbeing. So it looks as though the usual thinking about moderation in all things does also apply to the new digital age too. In a future article we will look at what “moderate” use means however for this article we will focus on safety.

In the news this week has been the work by the National Crime Agency to protect children using live streaming platforms, work that resulted in 192 arrests and the safeguarding of 245 children. However National Police Chiefs' Council Lead for Child Protection, Chief Constable Simon Bailey, said: 

“We will keep working together to do this, adapting our approach so that nowhere online is safe for people out to groom children or view them being abused. But we also need help. We need internet companies to help us stop access to sexual abuse images and videos and prevent abuse happening on their platforms.We need parents and carers to talk to their children about healthy relationships and staying safe online.”

A new animation has been developed and released to show how offenders try to build relationships online with young people and guidance for both parents and children on the risks posed by live streaming is available on the “Thinkuknow” website.

The website is helpful in providing information on warning signs to look out for, actions to take and how to access further support and information. As they point out, the best way to address these issues is to be able to have “Calm and open conversations” however they also recognise that you might find trying to talk about safety overwhelming and that you might yourself struggle with difficult feelings. 

They provide really great information on how as a parent you need to act and also what you might expect to experience yourself and how to manage that. I think this is really valuable reading if you are at all hesitant in starting a conversation because it is possible that your hesitancy is indicating that you do not yet feel fully equipped. 

The only criticism I have of the information is that it is presented as a resource to be used if you find out your child has been abused, I would argue that it is really very good reading in terms of how to prepare for any potentially difficult conversation with your children. Why? Because as parents it is so easy to feel under pressure and carry expectations about how you should know what is right and wrong and know what to do. 

It is natural to feel this way and it is also natural for your children to feel nervous about not getting things right, upsetting their parents or have unrealistic expectations about what you know and can help with. The important thing is to be aware of this and think these things through in anticipation of starting any conversations.

In the next article I will write about what is needed from you as parents in talking to your children about the potentially difficult subject of their internet / social media use.