I work to help people dealing with many issues. Guiding them as they discover the best versions of themselves and better ways to live.
Some of the issues and conditions I can help with include:
The illness of addiction, it’s persistent, insatiable stronghold of wanting and needing, even when not wanting, and awareness of the negative outcomes dictated by the demands of the brain’s reward system can be destructive to the individual, their loved ones and their future.
The simplest way of defining addiction is the presence of the 4 C’s:
Craving
Loss of Control of amount or frequency of use
Compulsion to use
Use despite Consequences.
The addiction to chemicals (alcohol/drugs) or behaviour/process (sex, food, shopping, approval seeking, control etc.) attempts to alter one’s mood. The pathology perpetuates creating misery as the temporary euphoria that the addict seeks soon diminishes into “come down”. The cycle then continues with adverse consequences. In some cases, the illness is a result of childhood trauma, for others it’s generational, or stress, or the deep emptiness within that they attempt to fill. However it started, the outcome is always the same compulsive obsession to change how you feel. It’s often characterised by denial, dishonesty, blame and overwhelming negative emotions with continued use despite the destructive outcomes. New neural pathways are formed in the brain as addiction develops. This is because addiction chemically alters the brain’s communication system. When you take that drug/behaviour away, the brain must again form new neural pathways.
Recovery can be difficult and uncomfortable, but starts here at Discover Me, helping you to become empowered to identify the core issues, process, self-regulate and heal from the malady within as we create new neural pathways that result in healthier behaviours, relationships and lifestyle. I treat all addictions including alcohol, substances, food, shopping etc. as well as sex/love and emotional addictions.
Anxiety is the world’s leading mental health concern, with one in six adults in the United Kingdom regularly experiencing symptoms – a figure that has increased dramatically since the start of the pandemic, with current estimates at 1 in 2 people suffering. It is life limiting, emotionally distressing and can impact many areas of our lives.
Whether you are suffering from moderate or severe anxiety, therapy at Discover Me can help you explore and understand anxiety, giving you the space to share and process your fears, worries and concerns, and helping you find ways of managing anxiety.
Central to many emotional issues is the concept of loss – loss of innocence, loss of freedom, loss of love. The death of a loved one can impact our lives to such an extent that we are unable to fully function in the roles of our lives – at work, socially, as parents, friends or partners. Sometimes the death of a person with whom we had a problematic relationship can leave us bereft, with feelings of guilt, shame, and anger.
Bereavement therapy helps you re-establish equilibrium in the family or social system upset by the loss. By assisting you to relocate the relationship and associated feelings in your long-term memory, Discover Me can help you through a healthy grieving process.
It can sometimes feel difficult to differentiate depression from the normal highs and lows of life. Everyone has phases of feeling down or at a low ebb, but when those feelings persist it may be depression. Depression impacts our physical, mental, and emotional health. It may affect your ability to engage with your life, to think positive thoughts or have positive feelings. It might leave you irritable or numb. It is very easy to become stuck in depression as a cycle of negativity feeds into itself.
Talking to a therapist like me about the symptoms you are experiencing is very often the first step to working through and getting past the fog and despair associated with depression. Discover Me therapy for depression will help you to do this.
We are generally unaware of the very intimate connection we each have with food, but most of us will either use food as a comfort in times of emotional stress, or we will avoid food altogether. Problems with food can begin when we use food as a way of coping with difficult circumstances. An unhealthy relationship with food could mean suffering from one of several different eating disorders. Eating disorders are often complicated and nuanced but successful treatment is possible.
Discover Me’s approach to therapy for eating disorders looks at the underlying causes of the eating disorder, considers what triggers the behaviour and looks at new, healthier ways of coping with the challenging emotions that drive unhealthy eating.
OCD – short for obsessive compulsive disorder – is an anxiety disorder. It has two defining characteristics: obsessive thoughts and repetitive ritualised behaviours. Resisting the compulsive behaviour produces tension and anxiety, only relieved immediately by giving in and carrying out the behaviour.
Discover Me Therapy for OCD will involve discussing your OCD together; me helping you to understand what you are experiencing; reality checking the thoughts that precede your need to act on the compulsion; building the confidence you need to resist the compulsion; and teaching you ways to nurture your self-esteem to protect you against relapsing into old behaviours.
Our formative experiences as children; with carers, families, and teachers, can impact the way we interact to others. This can affect our working life, friendships, marriages, love life and the way we relate to our children.
Therapy for relationship issues can help improve the way you relate to those around you and allow you to break free from old patterns of behaviour. Discover Me can provide a supportive and non-judgmental environment to help you identify issues in relationships and find ways through those difficulties.
While stress is an unavoidable part of being alive, living with stress can sometimes be intolerable, draining all the energy needed to live life fully and enjoyably. Stress can lead to negative interactions, poor health and feed into other issues including depression.
Discover Me’s stress counselling aims to help you overcome the stress-related symptoms you are experiencing and to help you devise coping strategies and a new way of approaching life that allows you to experience the joys of living without the burdens of stress.
Children receiving any care that is less than nurturing between the ages of 0-17 can experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), developmental or childhood trauma. For the child, the perceived threat is as catastrophic as one who fears for their survival and enters into flight, fright, freeze or fawn responses. Children will develop defences that help them survive these traumatic events, but the body keeps the score (Van Dr Kolk). When triggered, powerful feelings emerge with an inability to focus or a sense of imminent doom. When you cannot tolerate what is known or feel what you feel, your defences will kick into denial, suppression, repression or disassociation resulting in you shutting down with a long term effect of not feeling real inside.
Aged 0-5 the child is egocentric and prone to create negative appraisals of situations and beliefs. For example, “dad is leaving us because I wet the bed”, “mum doesn’t hug me because I am bad”. Such narratives are ingrained and as adults we often regress and operate in reactionary mode that prohibits intimate relating with others. The adverse effects of these childhood traumas for example, being exposed to family violence, different types of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual etc.), abandonment/neglect, betrayal, dark secrets etc. will make it difficult to establish stable, trusting relationships as an adult. PTSD arising from this means the individual is constantly assaulted by, and consciously cut off, from the origins of these experiences. They are unable to communicate what is happening. The regression results in the same feelings/behaviours but is disproportionate to what is happening in the present.
The work I do at Discover Me in these situations, allows you to get in touch with your body/reality by connecting viscerally with yourself to regain a sense of who you are and from that place you’ll be armed with the ability to confront, detox and heal from those childhood traumas within the therapy.