About You

Everyone has struggled with issues at some time or another. Some have found resolution alone through self-reflection, meditation or a spiritual retreat, and others by sharing problems with a sympathetic listener. The answers to our problems are usually discovered within us – but sometimes solutions are more easily found by explaining our story to others.

If you’re overwhelmed or in crisis but have found the energy to seek out this site, your healing process has already begun. Carl Jung believed that life is a series of alchemical cycles, through which we transform the blackness of lead (our problem) into the perfect beauty of gold (the solution). As the alchemist of your own life, you experience cycles of transformation many times, learning the lessons from experience and becoming exactly who you’re meant to be.

If you’re experiencing any of these issues, the thoughts below may reassure you: 

If you’re feeling low and depressed

We all feel depressed from time to time. It’s absolutely normal. But if the depression persists alongside a sense of hopelessness, it might be time to talk to a compassionate counsellor.

Whilst depression is often exhausting, the accompanying feelings can be navigated to reach a balanced state. Depression is a message from your unconscious, challenging you to reflect on your inner world so that you can become conscious of the deeper issues at play. The process of examining your inner life is easier with a companion who can help you grapple with unresolved issues until they are understood.

If you’re anxious and panicky

Anxiety and panic are the natural reflex of the flight, fright, freeze mechanism. Anxiety functions as the warning system that protects us from danger, real or imagined. It is natural to feel anxious when approaching a difficult encounter, but a panic response can suggest a triggered memory of a traumatic event. The event may have taken place early in childhood even before you could talk, but your body remembers the fear while your consciousness remains shielded from the trauma.

Panic attacks are extremely distressing, but examined through gentle questioning and exploration, the experience might uncover an unconscious memory which can then unfold and be diffused.

Understanding the cause of anxiety can alleviate your symptoms. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) are both successful methods in the treatment of anxiety and panic attacks.

If you feel trapped or paralysed

You might be re-living in your adult life a sense of being trapped in childhood. Feeling imprisoned in a joyless job or relationship is an experience common to many of us, but saying goodbye seems inconceivable. You cannot risk giving up the safety of an unhappy situation for an uncertain future which is more unsettling. The result is paralysis.

In therapy you are encouraged to identify the roots of your feelings and re-plant them back in the past, so that the present is free from old echoes. You then find you have the confidence and courage to take the necessary steps, sometimes risks, to make positive changes.

If you eat compulsively

Compulsive eating is secret and isolating, often releasing angry or self-punishing feelings. It is so shameful, it is usually done in private. When you’re eating compulsively, you can never get enough of what you don’t really want.

For overeaters, food is not nourishing. It is a compensation for feeling unloved or unlovable, lonely and invisible, and a way of somehow connecting to ourselves and to life. Eating soothes the pain of a difficult experience and silences unbearable feelings.

Talking about the shame, whilst exploring childhood memories, can help to alleviate your suffering around this common problem.

If you feel lonely or isolated

Very few people survive entirely on their own. Most of us need to belong in a relationship, family or community. But if life has not presented us with a loving environment we can feel extremely isolated.

The human condition is driven by a desire to be loved, accepted and to live in harmony with others. When conflict arises, we can feel unsafe, rejected and question the meaning and meaninglessness of life.
Being able to talk about these feelings with someone who listens with compassion, is a step toward building the confidence to survive them.

If you have lost someone you love

Mourning is a process that we will all face in our lives. The pain of losing someone close to us can be unbearable. When we grieve, we go through a process that may begin with disbelief, which turns to anger, deep sorrow and finally acceptance of our loss.

You may be feeling isolated and not want to burden others. As soon as you begin to talk, you fear that the tears may never stop.

Therapy allows you to honour and express your feelings in a safe place, and help you make sense of them.

Get In Touch

If you have any questions, or you would like to book a session, please call or email me on: 07966 699149 or maxinealtman@gmail.com

“No one can give you better advice than yourself.”

Cicero