What can I help with?

I am here to provide mental health help services, covering a range or issues including:

Anxiety issues, phobias & panic disorders

Many people hold a variety of fears. As human beings, we learn from our past mistakes and experiences that inform our present and future. Past experiences can help us navigate dangers and keep us safe. But what if every present and future event we encounter brings dread? What if we have to constantly strategise ways to pre-empt, prevent, avoid and manage what we believe is a risk? For some people, this can bring constant dread, a need to stay vigilant and on guard anticipating the worst case that might happen, overthinking strategies to prevent it from happening, difficulty in falling asleep and if severe, experience panic attacks.

Body dysmorphic disorders, eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD)

These presentations are essentially driven by fears. Many of these fixations on appearance, body, appearance, food, weight, contaminations, safety and so on are ways to manage the deeper anxieties that are beneath it that we seldom become aware of. The fear of bad things again can feel into some of the obsessions and shame of being defective, flawed, unworthy or unlovable or somehow bad or broken can feed into many of the appearance, weight and food related pre-occupations.

Complicated Grief, attachment and loss-related issues

Loss is universal and grief is a felt sense of something valuable not returning back to us. Grief is felt in many situations, for instance, when a relationship breaks up, when a family member gets diagnosed with an illness, or our loved one loses their identity through illness, or from losing a dear pet, or from losing a priced status, job, from losing one’s value or importance. Grief sometimes can get complicated and unprocessed in us. It can stay as an enduring void and emptiness, and bring frustration and anger or other times, we feel stuck unable to move on in life.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD, Post-traumatic reactions following medical or surgical emergencies, ICU experiences, birth trauma and major life events

I have worked a lot in this area including publishing research and other academic contributions to this topic. In my view, any experience that was felt in aloneness, is painful and without these being witnessed by anyone with compassion, can be left raw and overwhelming. It remains like an unread chapter in a book because to re-visit the chapter, it might be too painful. Whether it be childhood adverse experiences, school bullying, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional and physical neglect of a child, discord amongst parents, a child having to witness addictions, constant arguments, violence in a family, or narcissistic adult relationships, domestic violence, or a road traffic accident or tragic loss, there is no end to what can bring such aloneness pain.

Personality and Dissociative Disorders (including dissociative identity disorder)

I do not see people as ‘dysfunctional’ in their personality. Everyone holds disturbances in parts of their psyche but all of us have some healthy aspects within ourselves too. For some, emotional highs and lows that are normal part of life, can be felt as extreme. These often are driven by our unresolved status of our various parts of our psyche in conflict trying to find ways to manage our unhealed wounds. Dissociation is one of the ways to help manage our pain. It is our inherent way to survive what may have been frightening or too much to deal with all by ourselves. The downside is, disconnected from what is painful for too long , it blocks us from our true self and who we really are.

Functional Neurological Disorders (FND), somatic, hypochondriacal fears, and Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS)

‘Body Keeps the Score’ is the title of Bessel Van Der Kolk’s well-known book on trauma. The impact of unresolved issues on our bodies can be discrete yet, profound. Chronic pain, fatigue, heart pounding, restlessness & other unexplained difficulties like sudden inability to speak, sing, not being able to walk, seizures, stomach pains, migraines and many symptoms that have no underlying physical health cause may be a result of how trauma is held unprocessed in our bodies. Sometimes, several investigations may reveal no underlying pathology and physicians can even refuse to see clients once they have exhausted all resources or worse they may become victims of being taken advantage of with further endless investigations.