A supportive, professional and respectful environment helps you to begin talking about your situation. This provides an opportunity to speak openly about what you are experiencing and to be listened to empathically and without judgment. Receiving feedback and understanding will bring some relief.
Going further with counselling or psychotherapy will enable you to look more deeply at current difficulties and to think about how the past may be affecting the present.
You can work towards making sense of your current situation: your reactions and behaviours, and your thoughts and feelings, including those of which you are less aware.
A sense of both relief and release comes from gaining insight and clarity. Relief from physical, emotional and psychological symptoms will bring improved health and well-being. You may find yourself acting more freely and confidently, with more awareness and direction.
This can involve:
- developing new coping strategies
- finding new ways of responding and relating
- working through unfinished business
- reflecting on unresolved grief and loss
- building awareness of your thoughts, behaviours, feelings and motivation
- developing the capacity to respond as you wish, rather than to react as if compelled
- recognising what you really want, prioritising, negotiating, and asserting yourself in order to make positive changes