Therapy Made Me Accept Myself – featured in Prima Magazine

Article from Prima magazine:

‘Therapy made me accept myself for who I am’

Debbie, 30, from Hertfordshire, turned to counselling/therapy to help overcome her low self-esteem.

“I’ve always suffered with bouts of depression and anxiety, but never enough to seek help.  That is until I had my son, Thomas, who’s now three.  After I split up with his father when Thomas was two, I was at an all-time low and worried about my ability to be a good mother.

I found my Counsellor/Therapist nine months ago in a small ad, and checked out her website.  She specialises in something called Psychosynthesis, which is “soul-centered” and helps you get in touch with your inner self and deal with problems by seeing how your own thoughts and interpretations have shaped them.  I discovered that I’d felt very judged all my life and that I subsequently took any negative comments to heart, always beating myself up for not being good enough.  I hadn’t previously realised that it was my own emotions that caused me to interpret other people’s words and actions so negatively.

Because of the way I was, I couldn’t trust myself – I constantly questioned my ability to perform well – and couldn’t trust anyone else either, so my relationships with men were always disastrous.

Sometimes my Counsellor/Therapist, Claire, would help me go back to painful childhood memories that I’d buried so I could see how they’d frozen me in time and stopped me moving on.  She didn’t ask intrusive questions, but got me to talk with subtle prompts, for example, “You haven’t mentioned much about your Dad”.  It was up to me to explore those areas when I was ready.  I was seeing Claire every week for nine months and with each session my confidence grew.

I realised I had a lot of buried resentment inside me.  In my family, we hadn’t been allowed to show our anger, but Claire helped me release it, and doing so strengthened me as a person.  I could see how repressing it had depressed me.

Understanding my anger helped me as a mum, too.  I could allow Thomas to be cross, and let him know it was a normal emotion.  I don’t want him to end up burying feelings as I did.  The sessions have made me feel more confident as a mum and as a person.”

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