Massacre in Norway triggers lessons in bereavement, grief, trauma and mental health
The massacre in Norway raises many points about mental health, bereavement, grief and trauma.
Let’s look first at Anders Behring Breivik whose actions resulted in 76 people being killed or, as we write this, unaccounted for. While it might have been legally judicious for his lawyer to label Breivik “insane”, using that word says more about prejudice than it does about understanding mental health.
When people retreat from the norm – behaving anti-socially, whether by withdrawing from others or behaving inhumanely towards themselves or others – it is often because they feel out of kilter with the world, or misunderstood by it, or because they cannot manage their emotions. This is not a defence of Breivik’s behavour (clearly extreme and exceptional) but it is an example of what can happen if mental illnesses are not recognised, diagnosed or treated.
While the majority of our clients are well-informed and self-aware, mental illness remains a taboo. Talking about mental health issues with partners, family, friends – or with colleagues at work – is not something everyone has the chance or inclination to do. Keeping concerns private does not often lead to extremes of behaviour – but it can cause significant shifts in behaviour or personality, turning people in on themselves. And that could lead to self-harm, eating disorders, mis-using drugs or alcohol, an over-reliance on smoking; it could cause anxiety, panic, stress, phobias, sleep issues. It can also affect behaviour and performance at work and relationships. Anyone feeling they do not fit in, that others are against them, or that they cannot cope deserves support and encouragement. Yet, as our human instinct is often to shy away from exposing what we think of as private weaknesses or inadequacies, support is often hard to seek.
The Norwegian tragedy also shows how others can be affected, directly or indirectly.
We’ve heard about the guilt that some survivors of the incident feel – that they escaped his attention or were just of out range so they lived but others didn’t. There is anger at the police – for taking what the public considered too long to respond to the incident, and for not having the right means to get their fast. Many who witnessed the incident were immediately traumatised and may remain affected by the trauma for some time. Some parents felt relief on learning their child was safe, but their relief was tinged with sadness at others’ loss. We saw the tearful response of the King and Queen of Norway at the memorial service, shocked and saddened by the individual deaths and by what was the country’s biggest loss of life since the second world war. And we noted the stunned expression on the Norwegian prime minister’s face as he took control of the incident, balancing his emotions with his responsibilities to set a lead for the country and protect its reputation as a tourist destination.
Paramedics who reached the scene described the people they found as traumatised. Those paramedics are likely to have built up resilience that helps them manage their reactions to traumatic incidents but they might need continuing support to maintain that resilience.
And we’ve experienced our own reactions, at a distance from the incident, trying to make sense of it from our perspectives, with many of us reliving grief at lives lost years ago or recently.
All of these reactions are normal – grief is a complex emotion even when a death or loss occurs naturally and is expected. Sometimes it takes an extreme act for people to notice the extent of their own or others’ mental distress – and to give themselves permission to seek help to overcome it.
If this traumatic incident has triggered difficult emotions, changed behaviours, or reopened issues you thought were under control, do get in touch with us for professional, therapeutic support. We offer a range of therapies including EMDR (recognised by NICE as particularly effective for recovering from trauma), CBT, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and counselling - and often recommend a blend of therapies so each person receives the form of therapy that is best for them.
29/07/2011 | Posted in Psychotherapy, Psychodynamic therapy, Psychoanalytical therapy, Person-centred counselling, NLP, Integrative counselling, Hypnotherapy, Humanistic psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, Existential counselling, EMDR, EFT, Counselling, CBT, Sensorimotor psychotherapy,
What is counselling?
To many people, the term “counselling” is a catch-all phrase, a generality that encompasses all the talking therapies without singling out any one form of therapy. This is not necessarily wrong – but counselling is also a talking therapy in its own right.
Many people have innate counselling skills – good friends, for example, who have a knack for listening to what you are saying, posing questions about what you have said and giving you a chance to consider your own thoughts. And so it is with a professionally-trained counsellor, with the essential element of being dispassionate, standing apart from what you are saying and posing more-searching questions without fear of risking a friendship or damaging a long-standing relationship.
A trained counsellor will also not give advice – many friends can’t resist doing so – although a professional counsellor is likely to suggest courses of action for you to consider and might also recommend exercises for you to do between sessions. Professional counsellors will also guarantee you time in private – so you can speak openly – as well as confidentiality – there is no chance of gossip between friends. The structure of formal sessions with a professional is also more beneficial than ad-hoc chats.
For many therapists, straightforward counselling is one of the first therapies they study. They then go on, as have our therapists, to study other forms of counselling, expanding their skills to provide a broader range of services. In our case, we offer a blend of therapies to suit each client, always first discussing options with the client before agreeing an approach.
This holistic approach is called integrative counselling.
Counselling helps people deal with and overcome challenging emotional experiences such as depression, relationship difficulties, redundancy, bereavement, low self-esteem, eating disorders, the rollercoaster that is parenthood, stress – anything that affects your emotional well-being.
In addition to counselling, the therapies we provide at our London therapy rooms are: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR), emotional freedom technique (EFT), existential counselling, Gestalt therapy, humanistic psychotherapy, hypno-birthing, hypnotherapy, integrative counselling, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), person-centred counselling, psychotherapy, psychoanalytical therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and sensorimotor psychotherapy.
There is more information about each of these therapies on the What we do section of our website.
If you would like to explore whether counselling for depression, or any other emotionally challenging issue, would be right for you – and which form of counselling is likely to have the greatest effect, do get in touch. We provide counselling in London in two locations : Twickenham and central London (on Oxford Street).
16/05/2011 | Posted in Counselling,
Tamara Drewe - Life, richly observed
It’s the hottest ticket in town, this film – with critics finding no fault and with film-goers emerging with smiles on their faces, two hours well-spent and at relatively low cost.
Based on cartoonist Posy Simmonds’ interpretation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, this is modern life in all its, well, harsh reality – wrapped in cotton wool amidst idyllic countryside scenery. It’s easy to sink into escapist, uplifting comedic fiction – which is the point of Tamara Drewe.
There are times – fleetingly – when you see your own life in front of you, flashing an “oh, that was me” thought onto your mind’s private screen before you sink back into the moment. The teenage angst that comes from boredom and unfulfillable dreams; the struggle with self-esteem and under-achievement; the unspoken anxiety about missed opportunities; the mask of ego; the compromise too far in relationships; and the way we retreat from difficult emotions and truths or handle depression and bereavement.
Many people choose films for their idealistic joy and rightly so. They take us out of ourselves, put a spring into our step and bring new energy into our lives – for as long as we let them. It would be wrong, therefore, to over-emphasise the dose of reality that underlies this funny romp through middle-class Britishness. But, if it stirs things up for you, talking them through with a psychotherapist or counsellor could help you regain whatever it is that the film makes you think you’ve lost so that you, too, can aim for what its brilliant actors provide – a welcome, if momentary, happy ever after feeling.
Read The Guardian's sharply-written review of this richly observed version of art imitating life: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/09/tamara-drewe-review
17/09/2010 | Posted in Psychotherapy,
Medically unexplained symptoms
Recent studies have revealed that between one in six and one in three people in the UK consults their GP about what turns out to be medically unexplained symptoms – symptoms that are either not related to an illness or are unusually exaggerated for that illness. The majority of those symptoms has a psychological foundation, though the cause can often be missed.
Take, for example, the case of a woman (let’s call her Sarah) who comforted her aunt through her last days and was with her when she died. Several months later, Sarah began to feel out of sorts. She slept badly, largely because she repeatedly woke to find her left arm a leaden weight, cold and without feeling but causing pain including inside her chest. Worried, she imagined this was a sign of a heart problem and booked an appointment with her GP.
Tests showed no signs of a heart condition but a few questions revealed that Sarah had been unexpectedly affected by her aunt’s death – and she recalled that her aunt had died, from lung cancer, while lying on her left side with Sarah holding her left hand. The GP was reluctant to prescribe sleeping pills – sleeplessness was not the symptom that needed treatment. Instead, he referred Sarah to a psychotherapist where she talked through her aunt’s death and other stresses; the symptoms ceased.
Medically unexplained symptoms can affect all parts of the body and in various ways. About a third of them are musculoskeletal (including but not only back pain), roughly a fifth are abdominal (such as digestive problems), a smaller proportion has ear, nose or throat problems, others experience fatigue, dizziness or simply don’t feel right. Some symptoms can be extreme, such as paralysis or blindness; others are less severe.
Common experiences include people with depression who feel pain more intensely and people with asthma whose asthmatic attacks increase when they are under stress – but there are no hard and fast rules; symptoms and their severity vary from person to person.
We don’t know how the mind, brain or body turns the psychological into the physical; the fact is that it does – and we’ve known this for millennia. The solution is to consider whether the symptoms might be triggered by an underlying emotional cause and, if so, to seek psychological support. [Source: Therapy Today]
01/09/2010 | Posted in Psychotherapy,
Counselling for our police officers
According to an article in the Express & Star, figures released to them under the Freedom of Information Act have shown that almost 1,000 police staff members in the West Midlands alone have had to take time off work citing stress as the cause in the last three years - with over half of these being front line officers.
Post-traumatic stress is something that perhaps we may expect our police force to suffer, given the things they have to see and do in their day-to-day work life. But other reasons given include depression and anxiety. The figures are from April 2006 to March 2009 and included 959 police force staff from the West Midlands police force, ranging from constables to operations centre offices and telephone operators. West Midlands police explained some of these absences were for external reasons, such as bereavement, and they have a counselling section to help staff.
A retired police superintendent John Mellor, aged 80, told the paper that counselling and psychotherapy didn’t happen in his day. He said:
“I understand that modern police officers like those in my day suffer from stress and it seems everything these days seems to be done to assist them. Back then when officers got sent to incidents such as murders or bad road accidents, which could be causes of stress, they didn’t seem to notice it.”As a nation, it seems we suffer from stress and related depression much more, perhaps because of the expectations of the society we live in and perhaps because of the publicity surrounding murders and bad road accidents we are more aware of the number. With therapies such as hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and psychotherapy, a greater awareness of our feelings and early intervention, we can use the tools therapists have nowadays to help combat our problems.
22/05/2009 | Posted in CBT, Counselling, Hypnotherapy, Psychotherapy,
