• Anxiety depression psychological therapy
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    Face to face therapy continues. Coronavirus update 4 January 2021

    Face to face therapy: Therapists not working from home are allowed to continue offering our services face to face according to the latest Tier 5 regulations. Please see below an excerpt from the 4 January 2021 update National Lockdown: Stay at Home – GOV.UK website Guidance ‘National lockdown: Stay at Home Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly across the country. Find out what you can and cannot do. Published 4 January 2021 Last updated 4 January 2021 From: Cabinet Office Businesses and venues which can remain open Healthcare and public services The NHS and medical services remain open, including: other medical or health services, including services relating to mental health Where and…

  • Depression

    Depression Test

    Feel free to contact me for a depression test. We can do it online or in my rooms in Stamford. We’ll contract for the one session only with the option of further sessions. Taking a test to determine how low your mood is, and whether you are depressed is a wise mental health decision. The result will enable you to choose the most appropriate strategy to improve your mental well being. If you do the test with me you can expect the following in your session: We’ll work through the questionnaire. I’ll supply your results immediately. We’ll discuss your options for treatment. Advantages of taking the test with me, Stamford…

  • Anxiety

    Anxiety – how to slow it down

    Slowing the nervous system down is an effective treatment for anxiety. Haven’t we all tried to reason with an anxiety just to find that it bounces back? We seem unable to suppress anxious thoughts. I want to suggest that our energy is spent more effectively in delaying our response to the fear impulse. The science behind this is that the delay plays for time while our pre-frontal cortex comes online. In other words, the limbic system sends out an alert that danger is imminent; rather than responding in panic mode, we make the choice to pause and assess the situation before we respond. This pause enables our brain to make…

  • Uncategorized

    Coronavirus, home confinement and grief

    Good day to you beloved fellow home confined Britons This morning we woke to the new reality of home confinement. This initial 21 day period may just be the start. In fact, there is an understanding that it takes 21 days to embed a new habit… I felt both frozen and anxious. Remember the discomfort one feels when considering the future death of a loved one? That anticipatory grief describes my feelings when considering the open ended, possibly disastrous future we face in this pandemic. How to deal with it: Understand the 5 stages of grief and that it is not linear but cyclical – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and…

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    Couples counselling

    Sometimes a shift occurs in the consultation room when a couple moves from couples counselling to separation counselling. Brian Appleby writes that ‘separation counselling takes place when one person, or both, recognises, albeit in many circumstances reluctantly and sadly, that reconciliation is no longer viable’. I find that this movement often surfaces as an ebbing realisation, rather than a pre-meditated idea. A psychotherapist’s work is to notice this movement, allowing it to rise, holding the tension and presenting the couple with choice. Moving forward a separating couple’s task at hand, often facilitated by their counsellor, will be to plan an exit roadmap. These conversations create significant signposts for a harmonious…