(5 minute read)
Much like many other therapists, my own experience of therapy influenced my decision to train to become a therapist and specifically work with relational trauma.
If you have relational trauma, the experience of working with a therapist can give you the opportunity to feel what it’s like to experience a secure attachment to another person. A secure attachment is really important if you want to go forward and have healthy relationships with other people in the future. Therapy can offer a corrective experience and one that teaches you about your potential for positive growth and achievement in all areas of life. It brings hope for the possibility of contentment and joy, because if we can experience the world and the people in it as safe then we can go out into the world and explore and learn about ourselves through our experiences with confidence and resilience. To be with someone who is able to consistently give their time to listen and help you understand yourself can be a very powerful experience. It helps us realise our worth and it enables us to seek relationships with people that remind us of our worth. As opposed to relationships that reinforce our lack of worth or that we are in some way unlovable. As well, a therapeutic relationship can teach us that we can change what isn’t working because we are adults now and we will be ok. We no longer have to over adapt and change ourselves or discount our needs in favour of someone else’s in order to keep hold of the relationship. It is possible to create a life that is worth living.
My therapist came via recommendation more than 20 years ago. They were 40-minutes away and could only see me in the evenings, which wasn’t ideal for my circumstances at the time, but they were a good fit so I had to make it work. I paid for childcare, drove the distance and deposited a carefully decorated little brown envelope in their hand at the end of each 50-minute session. Paying them was a gift to myself that symbolised a greater commitment I was making to myself. As well I felt immense gratitude, this person was willing to share their valuable time, energy and wisdom with me.
That was the beginning of my long and winding, sometimes bumpy, relationship with therapy. Through the offering of the core conditions, their innate wisdom and their human ness, I was able to process my pain. After a time I began to feel an inspiration to use that pain in the form of empathy to grow and develop professionally, realising the extra empathy I gained through my lived experiences could create a greater feeling of purpose in life for me. I now know it’s that extra empathy that allows me to connect with my clients in a way that helps them to feel seen, heard and understood.
Dialogues was born out of a desire to work alongside like-minded therapists who all complement each other, but I also wanted to support trainee therapists in the development of their skills. If trainee therapists feel nurtured, they can learn and grow at their own pace, in a properly and ethically safe environment. We are different to other therapy organisations because we assess our clients fully and carefully before we allocated them to a therapist. This means clients can be assured they are working with the therapist who is best placed to work with them because of experience and skills, and our trainees know they won’t be pushed too fast and too soon out of their comfort zone, building confidence along the way. This ensures safety in the therapeutic work for both the client and the therapist.
Dialogues exists because as human beings our relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship we will ever have and the stories well tell ourselves about the world around us and the people in it have a profound effect on how we live, what we do and what we can achieve in our lives.
Dialogues therapists work at various price points to suit all budgets and we all accept clients on a concession basis because we don’t want finances to be a barrier to accessing support. We work both in person and online and across all time zones so if you’re not in the UK that’s no problem for us. Our therapists offer single session, short term solutions focussed or longer-term work and we are sure we can allocate you to a therapist without much of a wait. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it, but it isn’t.
Life doesn’t always have to be difficult and there are people out there who are genuine, safe and caring. Our sessions are boundaried, professional and non-judgemental because our therapists know what it’s like to have lived through the curve balls of what life can throw at us and between us all, there isn’t much we haven’t seen or heard and helped someone through.
If you think we may be able to help you, the first step is to send an email:
We look forward to hearing from you. For more information, visit our website:
Dialogueslife.com
Dialogues 