INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
Individual therapy allows us to explore personal issues, such as a problem which has recently emerged, or perhaps a problem that has been ongoing and long-term for you. The length of therapy is different for each person. For some people, their problem may be easily resolved, and for others, some more intensive intervention might be needed. With a collaborative, intuitive and informed approach, Caroline can help you to:
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Explore your issue
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Process your experiences in terms of personal strengths and resources
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Learn to respond in more hopeful and positive ways to life challenges
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Learn to regulate your emotions and thinking patterns
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Building resilience to maintain well-being in the future
Caroline provides individual therapy for various challenges including
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Depression (or perhaps just feeling ‘a little off’, a bit ‘detached’ from others)
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Anxiety
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Phobias
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Eating disorders
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Addiction issues
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Emotional issues
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Self-esteem issues
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Grief and loss
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Chronic illness (i.e. autoimmune disease)
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Women’s health issues (i.e. endometriosis)
For those struggling with having a dysfunctional relationship with food, Caroline can help you to develop a healthier relationship with food, help you heal your relationship with yourself, and help you to regulate your emotions.
Often people who experience shyness or communication difficulties can gain confidence and enjoy improved relationships with others through counselling. For individuals experiencing grief and loss, they can regain feelings of contentment and even joy through a safe working alliance with Caroline.
How is this done?
The process and hall-mark feature of Caroline’s approach is called FOCUSING. Through this process we search for a felt sense in the body. This can give you a sense of a particular problem or situation. Finding its quality, and focusing on it can re-set the thinking patterns and change the way the world appears. Thoughts are not emotions. We cannot analyze our feelings rationally. So by following the description below, you can achieve bodily awareness of a situation or person or event, and then the work begins to change the mind/body awareness.
1. CLEARING A SPACE
I’ll ask you to simply be silent, just create some space by taking a moment to relax. I will ask you to pay attention inwardly, in your body, perhaps in your stomach or chest. Now see what comes there when you ask ‘how is my life going? What is the main thing for me right now? Why don’t I feel good right now? Let the answers come slowly from this sensing. When some concern comes, just stand back and say ‘yes, that’s there. I can feel that, there’, let there be a little space between you and that feeling. Then ask what else you feel. Wait again and sense. Usually there are several things.
So the question is: What’s between you and feeling fine? Don’t answer; let what comes in your body do the answering. Don’t go into anything. Greet each new concern that comes. Put each aside for a while, next to you. Except for that, are you fine?
2. FINDING A FELT SENSE
We will start to explore what came, then we will select one personal problem to focus on. Don’t analyze it or try to decide anything about it, or figure it out. Stand back from it. ‘What does all that feel like?’ Of course there are many parts to that one thing you are thinking about – too many to think of each one alone. But you can feel all of these things together. Pay attention there where you usually feel things and in there you can get a sense of what the problem feels like. Let yourself feel the unclear sense of all of that. Let the feeling exist in its own way for a time.
Pick one problem to focus on. Don’t go into the problem. What do you sense in your body when you recall the whole of that problem? Sense all of that, the sense of the whole thing, the murky discomfort or the unclear body-sense of it. The intention in this step is to help you to locate an internal experience of what is troublesome. You need to allow time to experience this sensation. Takes enough time to experience its location, extent, temperature, edges, where it’s not located. This step is complete when you’re able to begin to symbolize it.
3. FINDING A LABEL / HANDLE
This is where we will explore the quality of the unclear felt sense? Let a word, a phrase, or an image come up from the felt sense itself. (Avoid assumptions or deductions). It might be a quality-word, like tight, sticky, scary, stuck, heavy, jumpy, or a phrase or an image. Stay with the quality of the felt sense till something fits it just right. (Often this is where the first shift comes). What quality-word would fit it best? Don’t say anything to me or to yourself. The key is just to feel what comes up. Be careful not to analyze or speculate, just continue to explore ‘how that feels’. So the label needs to have some sort of specific quality. For example, ‘twisted’,‘cold‘,‘fearful’. At this stage, you will have the beginnings of symbolic awareness of the felt sense and the job is to now extend this awareness and take the internal journey even further inward.
4. RESONATING
Resonating is the action of going back and forth between the felt sense, the word, the phrase and the image. We will see how they resonate with each other. See if there is a little bodily signal that lets you know there is a fit. To do it, you have to have the felt sense there again, as well as the word. Let the self of sense change, if it does, and also the word or picture, until you feel just right in capturing the quality of the felt sense. A tiny movement and the breath may let you know that you have a handle on the felt sense. I will guide you to go back and forth again and check. Questions may be asked like: What are its unique qualities?
Can you feel it within you and see what fresh words arise?
We will go back and forth between the word, the image, and the felt sense. If they match, you will have the sensation of matching several times. If the felt sense changes, we will simply follow it with your close attention. When you get the perfect match, the words (images) being just right for this feeling, I will encourage you to let yourself feel that for a minute. We will ask, is this the right sense? The task here is to help you to know when the way you are labeling the felt sense is precisely correct. When you ‘know’ that the right label is present, there is a sense of relief.
5. ASKING
Now ask – what is it about this whole problem that makes this quality, which you have named or pictured? Make sure the quality is sensed again, freshly, vividly, not just remembered from before, when it is here again, tap in, touch it, be with it, asking ‘ what makes the whole problem so big, or difficult, or whatever it may be for you.
If you get a quick answer without a shift in the felt sense, just let that kind of answer go by. Return your attention to your body and freshly find the felt sense again. Then ask it again. Be with the felt sense till something comes along with a shift, a slight ‘give’ or release. For example: What is that… sort-of jealous feeling I’ve got… it’s more like…… a feeling of being left behind.’ An ahhhhh sensation will come with a large, satisfying sense of movement.
6. RECEIVING / CARRYING FORWARD
In this final part of the focusing process, receive whatever comes with your shift in a friendly way. Stay with it a while, even if it is only a slight release, whatever comes this is only one shift; there will be others, you will probably continue after a little while, but stay here for a few moments. Enjoy the feeling. Let your brain get used to it, so that it becomes familiar. You may get voices attacking with protestations. If that happens, just put these to one side. They are just old sabotaging thoughts or feelings trying to get back in to take you back to what is unhealthy, but familiar. So sense the new opening, welcome it, and become accustomed to this feeling of release and shift or change.
THIS PROCESS MUST BE GUIDED. IT IS COMPLEX AND PROFOUND. YOU CAN FIND THE NEW YOU THROUGH WORKING WITH CAROLINE ON THIS PROCESS. LIFE CAN BE GOOD AGAIN. YOU REALLY CAN LEARN TO LIVE IN PEACE AND HARMONY WITH YOURSELF AND OTHERS.
Send your email to Caroline. She will respond within 24 hours to your enquiry.