I have a photograph on my wall in my practice room. It shows a horse and rider jumping a wide fence. Nothing unusual about that you might say, except the horse is not wearing a bridle and the photo was taken in the early 1920’s.

The reason I love it, is because it shows what I think is most important in any relationship and that is absolute trust.

The rider trusts that the horse will jump the fence and the horse equally trusts that the rider will not over face him.

Each is vulnerable, and that of course is the bravest thing, - to trust that you can be vulnerable and still do it, to form a relationship yet again after being hurt in a previous one, to trust that what you say will be heard and listened to in the way that you meant it, to trust that you will still be loved even if you have been foul or unkind, to trust that at the end of the day you are not alone, even if at the moment you feel incredibly lonely.

I look at my photograph often, to see the expression on both the horse and the rider, the body language, the sense of freedom.

Yes trust and vulnerability go hand in hand, but how do we achieve that trust, how do we allow ourselves to be truly vulnerable?

The answer is of course time and experience. Time shows us that the more we trust the more the relationship develops, there becomes a sharing, an equality in the vulnerability. If over time in the initial parent child relationship trust was not there of course it is going to be incredibly difficult to trust in the secondary relationship as an adult.

So many people come to see me in anger, angry with their partner for not giving them what they want, and yet I know that the anger masks the fear that lies underneath, the fear that they will be hurt again, that maybe they are not loveable, and so they hold back They never fully commit, and of course this leads to an unsatisfactory relationship yet again, and so the relationship becomes self fulfilling. It is never what it is sought because the seeker does not fully seek to commit, not only in the trust of the other but the trust in himself.

Therapy of course can help, if the patient can learn to trust the therapist then maybe just maybe given time and a good experience and a new way of thinking and feeling, they can learn that they can be vulnerable and yes that they can survive.

Prince Charles talked about 'Inner impoverishment', what does that mean? I have many patients who are wealthy financially but feel they are poor. Life seems not worth living if the £100.000 per year salary stops coming in. And yet I know of someone who rents his own house has very little in the bank and yet is one of the most contented people I know. Money is not his wealth, his lifestyle: living for the moment, being generous, some might even say extravagant is the means by which he lives, and yet he is more content than people I have known with 100 times as much.

To be able to find your own inner wealth, now that is the key to contented living. But how is that done? Perhaps by firstly understanding money is the not the key issue here, finding that you are loved and are loveable are the 2 most important things in life, and that sometimes takes years of help, or sometimes by helping someone think about their thinking, by simply noticing what we are feeling, by giving ourselves the time just to be, these are all ways and means of creating a change.

I was listening the other day to a conversation about how people compromise themselves to fit in with the other person's idea of who they think they are, or even their idea of how they should be themselves.

It set me thinking how rare it is to find someone who is always the same with whoever is around them, whether that be someone they look up to or someone who they might consider to be their equal or their junior.

What confidence it takes and also what humility is needed to accept that we are no better - or worse than anyone else, we are just different.

To admire someone's great brain, or be in awe of a person's great beauty is something we all feel from time to time.

Ultimately though it is not their wealth or their brain or their looks that counts and if we could only learn that we are not valuable to someone else because of these things, but that we have our own intrinsic and unique value.

Where does that opinion of ourselves come from? Where does our self doubt creep in which destroys that sense of ourselves?

To be a people pleaser and adapt ourselves to the person or situation takes some recognising, for we would have been that adapted self for a very long time.

To learn that who we are is good enough takes self realisation and for some, years of therapy. It is worth it however, for to be who we are and to like and fully accept who we are, and be the same with whoever we are with is surely wealth beyond riches.

Vikram Seth on Desert Island discs gave a very interesting take on the above question earlier today.

So many of my patients will say how they try so hard to be liked, to try to fit in, to be part of things.

Of course for some people there are deep psychological reasons why they feel like this, for not feeling part of the family, for feeling ostracised, for taking on the name within the family of the ‘black sheep.’

For these people they may need long term therapy to help them to discover why they feel the way the do, to work through it and to finally let it go and to know that they are good enough to be loved.

However for other people who may come for short term work, for an acute rather than a chronic issue. For these people they may still have similar feelings, i.e. I want to be liked, but for them to change the way they think can change the way they feel. To use conscious awareness of thoughts and feelings, can create change.

What Vikram Seth said that caught my interest was the following statement from a friend of his,

‘At one time I used to be very concerned what people thought of me, and now I am much more concerned with what I think of them.’

It is the sentiment within this statement that is interesting, because if we can consciously change our thoughts we can change how we feel. And in this case being aware that you have importance and it is your thoughts and feelings which count, can lead to a quite different way of being in the world.

Watching Freddie Flintoff talk about depression on TV last night proved interesting viewing. He seemed to indicate it was the sport that created depression whereas perhaps closer to the truth is, it is about the type of person who is attracted to become a top flight athlete. This type of person may well become obsessed and their sport all consuming. When their athletic prowess is diminished through age this can create a difficulty in their self worth. They see their value only in terms of their achievements. If they lack robustness and resilience enough to deal with it then they may find that their world comes crashing down.

We have just started back after the Xmas break and I was interested in what 3 of my patients expressed to me,
the first said: -
" Counselling should be on prescription",
the second one said,
"I feel more me than ever before"
and the 3rd one said,
"Everyone should have therapy, regardless of whether they have a problem or not".

I was particularly interested becuase two of the three work in the mental health profession.

My last patient of the week, added that he had been to see his GP and wondered if he could see me on the NHS. Unfortunately this is not possible, he was told he could have CBT but as many of you know that I feel that whilst CBT is suitable for some conditions, one size hat does not fit all. If there are underlying, deep seated causes, 6 sessions of CBT will not fix it.

DREAMING AND ITS MEANING
Have you ever had a dream and wondered what it meant? Have you ever had recurring dreams? What about nightmares or dreams that leave you feeling anxious and disturbed all day?

Well now there is an answer, I will help you understand what may be going on.

In a series of weekly workshops I will guide you through the meaning of your dreams and help you understand how to use them.

I have workshops in Framlingham, Debenham, Beccles, Walpole, Lowestoft and Ipswich. Courses will be between 6 and 10 weeks, for between an hour and an hour and a half, depending on numbers.

Please call me to book first session on Monday 16th January at 7.30pm or 10.30 am on Fridays from January 27th.

Venue Alde Cottage, The Street, Bruisyard
Or call for further details and to book in to your choice of venue.

Watching Great Expectations, I was aware of what I would call the Estella affect.

By this I mean that Estella, having grown up in a cold lonely loveless environment, could only meet and marry someone such as Mr Drummle. He was cruel and heartless much the same as Miss Havisham.

It is so commom to meet and marry (completely unconsciously) the person who has the same characteristics as that of the primary carer or parent who has been internalised. Therapy (and sometimes it takes years) will eventually turn around the feeling that we are only deserving of someone who fits our internalised self image. If we feel unloved we will become a partner to someone who cannot love us. If we have never been loved, it is too frightening to trust that we can love, hatred is more familiar and therefore safer. Estella could only spurn Pip who despite his difficulaties growing up eventually returned to Joe, and as he returned he recognised what Joe had always given him consistent unconditional love.

I am apporaching my last session with my last patient of the year.

Endings are always difficult. I had one patient who wept on leaving, another who hugged me and yet another who as normal appeared not to mind. As I filed their notes I am left wondering, will they remember? Will they have benefitted in the way I had hoped they would? One patient has sold her house and will live abroad for a couple of months, a huge diesion, but she felt at last ready to take charge of her own life.

And so, finally, I guess that is what this work is all about, - autonomy, taking charge.

Whatever decisions you make in the last few days of this year or in the future, may they be ones you have thought through and known what you both felt and thought.

Happy New Year.

An interesting time of year. For some a time for family and friends for others such as one of my supervisees clients a time when at aged 17 he will be on his own and have Xmas lunch in a cafe to go home to a bed sit.

Is it any wonder that Xmas brings mixed feelings and heightens those of low self worth.

As a therapist it is my job to listen and to hold those feelings, as a human I am torn, I want to take that child home and give him a present, but I know I can't. Ultimately my job is to help someone like that client to help himself, I do him no favours otherwise, but it is particularly at this time of year when it is very hard to do my job.