Mental health could be regarded as a state of wellbeing enabling you to engage with and enjoy life. When you feel emotionally well, you are able to work towards personal goals and contribute toward family, community and society, and this feels personally satisfying and rewarding. It assumes a level of resilience enabling you to cope with ordinary life stressors and lets you engage with others for pleasure and support. Read More

There is no clearly identifiable list for the things that humans may develop an addiction towards. We might find that we turn to substances or behaviours which may have once (or even continue to) help soothe feelings of distress, offer comfort, increase confidence and foster connection with others and the world or overcome loneliness and boredom. Read More

Research indicates that relationships are at the core of many disorders and many of lifes challenges that we all experience. Attachment isa term referring to your first interactive love relationship—the one you had with your primary caregiver as an infant, usually your mother. This set the stage for how you unconsciously experienced and understood future relationships and bonds.

This attachment helped shape your brain and influenced your self-esteem, your expectations of others, and your ability to attract and maintain successful adult relationships. By understanding your attachment dynamics, you can build healthier, attuned relationships, and communicate more effectively. This is true whether it presents itself in:

1. Romantic relationship, ideally the sustaining emotional bond in most adult relationships providing a platform of acceptance, safety and support. Although when miss-attuned can be a powerful source of frustration if not feelings of insecurity, rejection and feeling unloved.
2. Relationship with close friends, fostering a sense of community and belonging a source of strength and support for many who can cultivate and maintain this and without this for many results in a sense of isolation, loneliness or even depression.
3. Peers or co-worker, can make daily life something to look forward to as you mutually sustain and support each other in what might be meaningful or productive purpose but when dysfunctional can lead to exclusion, burnout or bullying.
4. Spiritual bonds with something greater than the self, for many can be a source of inner strength, resilience and a source of love, ideally impacting on several above-mentioned relationships through compassion, kindness and understanding.

The process of therapy can assist you to understand your attachment roots, how this presents itself in your current relationships and the areas of unmet needs. Overtime, it will support you to engage in these relationships differently, where youll have your needs more effectively met and reciprocally meet the needs of those around you.  

Whether your relationships have ended, are on the verge of ending, or whether you wish to reverse some of the negative patterns before they get out of hand, therapy will help you to get on track.

Parenting and Attachment

Research indicates that the main predictor of how well your child will do in school and in life is the strength of the relationship he or she has with you, the parent or primary caretaker. The secure attachment bond is the nonverbal emotional relationship between an infant and primary caregiver, defined by emotional responses to the baby's or child’s cues, as expressed through movements, gestures, and sounds. The success of this relationship enables a child to feel secure enough to develop fully, and affects how he or she will interact, communicate, and form relationships throughout life. By understanding how you can better participate in this emotional interaction, you can ensure that your child has the best foundation for life. This relationship impacts your child’s future mental, physical, social, and emotional health. It is not founded on quality of care or parental love, but on the nonverbal emotional communication between child and parent known as the attachment bond. While it’s easiest to form this secure attachment bond with an infant, don’t despair it can be formed at any time or at any age even with adults. Read More

Counselling and psychotherapy can be an effective early intervention strategy for children and young people who have had emotional, behavioural or social difficulties. The aim could be described as alleviating, lessening or preventing these problems from becoming more complex or requiring referral to costly specialist services. However, Counselling and psychotherapy can only genuinely take place when the therapist is able to sees a child or young person in a private and confidential setting to explore the difficulties they may be having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose. Ideally counselling and therapy should be at the request of the young person as no one can really be sent for counselling.  

The Counselling Clinic welsomes young people who self-select counselling or psychotherapy as a desired strategy or support. However, if you are referring a young person under the age 16 please contact The Counselling Clinic to discuss this with a clinician. Please note, that depending on the reason for the referral, therapy can be equally or more effective effective when provided to a receptive care giver who is living or working closely with a child or young person, at other times family therapy may be more appropriate. Contacting the clinician can help with making this decision.