Counselling & Psychotherapy in Brighton

How Can We Help?


We are able to offer help with:-

•Relationships – Partner/Sexual/Work

•Depression

•Anxiety – Panic Attacks/Phobias

•Abuse – Sexual/Physical/Emotional

•Serious Illness/Bereavement

•Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD)

•Eating Disorders

•Self Harm

•General Stress

•Parenting Issues

Relationships - Partner / Sexual / Work

The beginning of a partner relationship is an exciting time, full of hope and expectation for the future. You spend a lot of time talking to each other. As time goes on communication can become more difficult. Practical issues can take precedence.

Sex may well be an important part of your relationship and when problems occur these can spoil other things you share together. As this is a very private area of your lives you may be reluctant to seek help, hoping that it will sort itself out.

You may be someone who has experienced a sexual problem and are reluctant to begin a new relationship for fear that the problem will arise again.

The next most important relationship in our lives is often the one with our children. Whatever age they are there are sometimes problems that occur as they grow up. There are certain markers along the way that can disrupt the communication, i.e. birth of a sibling, starting school; moving to senior school; adolescence; leaving home.

Relationships at work can make or break the success with which we carry out our jobs and advance our careers. We have to spend a major part of our lives with people we would not choose as friends but would hope to co-operate with.

Depression

Depression is the commonest type of illness seen by GP’s. Your quality of life can be severely affected with disrupted sleep, low energy, poor motivation, tiredness, and little enjoyment of usual activities and a dread of coping with daily life.

Medication can have a role in helping you cope with the distressing symptoms. Counselling can have an important part to play in assisting you to feel more in control of your life again, make sense of what may have led to your depression and develop strategies to cope so that you can get on with enjoying your life.

Anxiety - Panic Attacks / Phobias

Panic attacks are very frightening to experience. You often feel sick; your heart beats very fast, you feel faint, and in extreme cases you may feel that you are going to die.

Phobias may or may not have the same causes but they certainly have similar symptoms. There is terror, heart racing, shaking and feeling sick.

Here at TBG we have therapists who use CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) to help you regain control of your life.

Abuse - Sexual / Physical / Emotional

Whatever the kind of abuse you may be suffering, or have suffered, you may be experiencing more than one kind at any one time, the situation is debilitating and humiliating. There is constant fear of further abuse; guilt at what may be seen as your own fault; low self esteem from a belief that the abuser is in the right and the abuse is justified; an inability to tell anyone for fear of your not being believed.

Serious Illness / Bereavement

Serious illness is often life threatening. Sometimes, those closest to you are not accepting your plight or, from a false sense of protecting you, may not be allowing you to talk about your fears. There is a grief and often an anger, about your inability to control the situation and the pain of loss of what was and what could be. If you are a relative or friend of someone who is dying or has died you may not have the opportunity to talk about your loved one and gain support in coming to terms with your loss. This can make you feel isolated and alone.

Our counsellors are very familiar with the pain associated with loss and can support you whilst you come to terms with the most difficult feelings in this situation.

Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD)

This is a disorder which affects people who have been exposed to, witnessed or been threatened by death or other serious event. These circumstances can generate intense fear. Some of the most common symptoms are nightmares, flashbacks, sweating, panic attacks and avoidance of any situation that replicates, even in the slightest detail, the original occurrence. In this case whilst supporting you we would make use of CBT techniques to help you deal with your feelings about the event and, whilst not completely forgetting it, allow you to remember without the intensity of emotion that may be present now.

Eating Disorders

Many women and, increasingly, men have anxieties about food. This anxiety can be associated with the risk to health of eating the wrong kind of food, but very often it is about the way we think we look and the weight we are.

Your anxiety can start as young as 8 or 9, when peer group pressure makes you unhappy with yourself. There are three main types of problem, Anorexia, Bulimia and Overeating.

At TBG we offer a way of working on the problems which will support you and enable you to tackle the issues with the help of CBT techniques.

Self Harm

If you are someone who cuts or burns or hurts yourself in some way you will probably have experienced a lack of sympathy from people in general and the medical profession in particular. On occasions they fail to recognize the kind of turmoil you are experiencing and the amount of self-hate you feel that would drive you to submit yourself to this remedy for many of the problems listed above.

No matter what your problem we will offer you empathy, understanding and best of all we will help you to help yourself make the necessary changes in your life that will enable you to realize your hopes and dreams.

General Stress

We all know that a certain amount of stress is very positive in our lives. It gets the adrenalin flowing and enables us to achieve great things. However, when you have too much of it, it moves from stress to strain or over-stress.

These feelings can be experienced at any time. Sometimes they are connected with overwork and lack of leisure time. Alternatively, it could be that you are trying to juggle work and family and there just does not seem enough time for yourself.

In talking about general strain we have in mind the sort of feelings that when someone asks you what is the matter you cannot quite put your finger on the main problems but you know something is wrong and it seems to be getting worse by the day.

At TBG we can help you separate out the various issues, help you prioritize them and then work through them so that by the end of the counselling you will have dealt with the causes and, hopefully, developed some strategies for preventing a recurrence of the situation.

Parenting Issues

Parenting is one of the most challenging tasks we can take on. We rarely have any preparation for it apart from our own experience of being parented. These can have been positive or difficult experiences and will undoubtedly affect our ideas about what kind of parents we want to be. Families come to us seeking support with various issues affecting children of all ages, including step-parenting, behaviours that are challenging or unexpected, bullying at school, anxieties and drug and/or alcohol problems.

We can offer sessions with the whole family or sessions for parents on their own or children on their own.

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