Let's be honest, deciding to see a therapist is not something that comes easily to everyone. To truly benefit from the process, one must be willing to be honest and completely open with their therapist as well as themselves. As a result, you will often find yourself revealing things about your experiences and your thoughts that you would not normally share with your friends or family, let alone a complete stranger.
Imagine if you will, your counsellor as a blind car guard. He is an old man, with the years lined on his face. Even though he cannot see into your soul, he had the clearest and brightest blue eyes you’ve ever seen.
We have been living in a changed world for nearly 2 years. The Covid-19 pandemic has been around for 2 years and has changed our lives in many ways. During this pandemic, we have suffered major losses such as the loss of family and friends, however, we have also suffered a wave of other losses.
TRIGGER WARNING: CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE | Sexual abuse victimizes a person, and the partner can play a crucial role in the recovery and healing process of the abused. The love and support of a partner, friends, and family, can encourage the process of healing. It is crucial for those surrounding the abused, to understand the mixed signals they convey daily. The abused can; in many instances, turn to their loved ones for help, but in the wink of an eye, turn against them.
Different people react differently to traumatic experiences and also deal with these situations differently. For some, an event might cause a lot of emotional turmoil, and intervention is needed for that person to start their way on the road to recovery. For others, that same event might only cause minor frustrations and they can easily move on with their lives.
Everyone in our lives can need a caring, non-judgmental, and empathetic room at some point in their lives. When the time comes, the relationship you already have will serve as a basis for constructing this "container" in which you keep space for the other individual. If you accept the challenge, your desire to be of service to the other person will be the first building block for holding that sacred space.
Ons as beraders, sielkundiges, maatskaplike werkers en terapeute het een van die grootste voorregte; om saam met iemand deur hul emosies, hul vrese en onsekerhede te werk en te wandel ten einde die lig aan die anderkant van die tonnel saam te ontdek of te kan ontgin, maar dit is ook ‘n ontsaglike verantwoordelikheid. Die gene wat hul lewens aan hierdie beroepe wei sal almal weet – hierdie is ‘n uitputtende roeping. Om daagliks, uur na uur saam met iemand deur hul diepste seer, hul donkerste vrese en hul grootste teleurstellings te werk, eis sy tol.
The counsellor-client and loved-one-to-loved-one relationships are fundamentally different. Following are 6 differences between a counselor and a friend, and how both parties may support you in a different manner.
I often get asked the question "Why should I go to counselling" as if there is a textbook, one size fits all answer. There is no straightforward way to sum up the importance of counselling, because in my eyes the benefits of counselling is personal in nature and therefore, infinite.
What are your perceptions on self-care? Is it something you willingly accept as necessary, or do you (like so many of us) tend to resist the thought or find that life doesn’t always grant such a luxury as ‘self-care’?
One must not be fooled by the discrete and subtle nature of some traumas. The common misconception that a hijacking or a mugging that ended without any physical injuries is “a fortunate result” must be substituted with a new paradigm. We must imagine the soul itself stabbed with a knife, bleeding and screaming for help. Maybe then the true meaning of trauma will finally sink in.
There is nothing I have so keenly needed on my own journey than someone just sitting down with me in the mud; in the hurt and in the breaking. There has been nothing so comforting and endearing as someone just really seeing me. Acknowledging me, my feelings, my thoughts and my behaviours. Being so attuned to my every movement in that moment that I feel overwhelmingly heard and understood.
Admitting to yourself that you need professional help can be quite daunting. After you have finally plucked up the courage to make the appointment, you might find yourself wondering about – even researching – the person that is about to hear your life story. Can you really trust them? How much should you say? Are they really all a little crazy? – I mean they chose a profession where they listen to people’s problems all day!! Will he / she be analysing me the whole time?
A trauma bond can be thought of as running on a never-ending hamster wheel, where periods of intermittent reinforcement (love, promises and kindness) are combined with periods of physical, emotional and psychological abuse. The more you want to get off the hamster wheel, the more you feel confined to the wheel and trapped in the movement to keep running. The cycle becomes toxic as the need to regain the feelings of infatuation that were felt at the beginning of the relationship, leads the victim to repeatedly forgive their partner in order to return to the good feelings associated with the relationship.
It is heartbreaking that many people judge the psychology world by the picture that Hollywood has painted for us. In countless movies the psychologist is portrayed as a know-it-all guru who traps people in an extended, dependency driven relationship. There is a big fluffy couch where the patient will lie down and share their story, while the distracted ‘shrink’ continuously asks “how do you feel about that” and bluntly stops the session the moment time is up. In many movies the client never resolves issues and is just told to come back next week. In light of this I am overjoyed to tell you that most counsellors sees this portrayed image and goes out of their way to break and correct this view of the counselling world.
At the end of the day if I want to gain my self-respect, self-worth and independence back it is important for me to establish boundaries and enforce them. It is healthier to set boundaries than it is to put up walls or constantly be resentful towards others for taking advantage of me. It is my responsibility to teach others to respect me and my boundaries and to be patient with myself while doing this.
This shame and guilt led me to question everything in my life and led me to being more vulnerable to myself and to others. Brene Brown states; “The ability to hold something we've done or failed to do up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. It's uncomfortable but it's adaptive.”
The concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is generally quite well known in society these days. The problem was that although I could relate to the PTSD symptoms identified in research, most of the articles only mentioned people who experienced or witnessed a terrifying event such as assaults; murder or natural disasters. At the time I was unaware of PTSD for people who experienced infidelity and didn’t realise it actually existed. Even when I researched Infidelity PTSD, it was difficult to find any article’s mentioning it until I discovered one, written by Mitzi Bokmann (2019) that I could relate to. As I read through the PTSD symptoms, I realised that I experienced all of the symptoms and maybe by writing this article I can help others relate to it as well.
It is well known that no two children are the same, not even when from the same parents. The same is true for the love language of your child. Every child perceive, understand and show love in different ways. What is important for one child, may not even be noticed by another child. And that is exactly where miscommunication and misunderstanding easily happens.
No parent wants to even think about the possibility of sexual abuse getting anywhere near their family, however, this is one of those horrible realities that we need to be aware of. Our Child Therapist, Heske Sangster, answers some important questions regarding sexual abuse and forensic assessments.
Alle mense het ‘n sekere vlak van stress of uitdagings nodig om optimaal te kan funksioneer. Sonder enige uitdagings gaan niemand hul volle potensiaal besef en bereik nie. Party kinders kan egter stress beter hanteer as ander. Spanning en angs kan ‘n destruktiewe effek op ‘n tiener se emosionele gesondheid hê en kan selfs lei to angs versteurings. Indien jy as ouer bekommerd is dat jou kind ‘n angs versteuring ontwikkel is dit beter om professionele hulp in te kry sodat hy of sy die regte hulp ontvang.
Oppad terug van vakansie af, het ons almal so om die beurt, ‘n bietjie gedeel waaroor ons opgewonde voel vir die jaar wat voorle. Na ek my kans gehad het, vra my man my ‘n baie interessante vraag: “Dit klink alles great, An…maar wat gaan jy hierdie jaar minder doen?”
Liefde is een van die sterkste emosies wat ons as mense kan ervaar. Maar wat is liefde? Daar is ‘n groot aantal boeke wat liefde definieer en vir ons voorskryf hoe dit moet werk. Die probleem is egter dat niemand anders liefde soos jy sal voel nie.
Spel word gesien as die universiele taal van kinders, afgesien van etiese herkoms, agtergrond of sosio-ekonomiese geskiedenis. Spel oftewel “speel” word beskou as kinders se woorde, kinders gebruik spel in dieselfde manier as wat volwassenes woorde gebruik. Dikwels speel kinders hul probleme of emosies op ‘n simboliese manier uit, om sodoende hulself uit te druk.
One of the biggest mistakes we as parents can ever make, is making our children feel that our love for them and our acceptance of them depends on academic achievement. Your child needs to know that,no matter what, they are enough. It's so easy to compare our children with other kids and setting our expectations of them, based on other children's achievements and capabilities. Don't do this – every child differs and you need to help your child understand that his/her best really is good enough. Praise best effort, not high marks!
