It can be difficult to know when the best time is to enter therapy as sadly, we often wait until the feelings are unbearable to give ourselves permission to seek help. However, it can be enough to have a sense that something doesn’t feel right, even if we don’t know what we want to change. Below I have listed some areas that have come up in my therapeutic practice to give you an idea of the types of concerns I have helped people with.
Individuals – Therapy can be helpful when you feel unhappy with where your life is going and you don’t know how to change this. It can help with relationship difficulties, family, romantic or otherwise. Many have spoken of feelings of depression, a feeling of disconnection, anxiety, a history of abuse or other recent or historical trauma that have not been processed. These can be precursors to feeling of low self-esteem that just layers the pain that we are experiencing.
Couples/relationships – Most common complaint amongst couples are problems communicating with your partner (s). Couples/relationship therapy provides space to develop a greater insight into each other, learn how to communicate, resolve conflict, and explore/develop your sexual relationship as needed. Infidelity and multiple forms of betrayals can also be explored in therapy as we try to process pain that has been created over a period of time. On occasions couples have also engaged therapy as a form of mediation as the want to have an ending that does not hurt the other.
Family – If you need help expressing needs in a safe/supportive environment, want to address issues of discipline, parental separation and loss, coping with a recent diagnosis of mental illness affecting the entire family, or issues of an inter-generational nature (intergenerational traumas), to give but a few examples, then Family therapy could be beneficial to you.
Psychosexual Therapy – known as PST, is treatment which addresses a sexual dysfunction or emotional block within a sexual relationship. Together we look at physiological and psychological problems which are causing sexual difficulties. This can be applied to individuals or various partnerships that people live.
Some areas covered:
- General breakdown in a couple’s sexual relationship
- Loss of sexual desire
- Painful penetration
- Difficulties with orgasm
- Arousal disorders
- Erectile dysfunction
- Premature or delayed ejaculation
- Vaginismus
- Anorgasmia
- Recovery from sexual abuse
PST is open to adults of all ages: lesbian, gay, bisexual or straight [LGBTQ+]; married or unmarried. If you have a sexual partner my preference is that you attend sessions together, because sexual and relationship difficulties are usually influenced and interrelated within the relationship. If you don’t have a sexual partner at this time, or s/he is not willing to attend, it could still be beneficial to attend sessions on your own.
How I can help
A common theme in my practice to help you connect with the heart of your own problems, often here people find stories of abandonment, trauma and low self-esteem. Getting to the heart of our pain is different for each. This could be something in the present, something in the past, something in relationship to another or something else all together. We all have dreams and sometimes we are not aware we were carrying this dream until its lost and we grieve in different ways about this. When we can get to the heart of our pain, we can begin to make different choices which reflect our entitlements and not our fears. Compassion and relationship are key tools that I use when helping you in this journey.
