Depression and Anxiety
Relational Psychotherapy and Counselling

Our deepest and most painful wounds were caused in past or present relationships. The isolation and hopelessness of depression, and the distress and dread of anxiety stem from relationships and traumas we haven’t been able to heal. The therapeutic container provides a new relationship with new experiences that can open to a new way of being. 

Therapy has been described as a “new experience in a specialized setting.” That new experience for many of us is relational: the freedom to be real, candid, and spontaneous in the company of another who has no expectations or judgments towards them. Many people experience that as part of their upbringing and early life, and it prepares them to be effective in trust and intimacy. However, too many of us are starved of this kind of safety, and resort to care for ourselves in isolation. Relational therapy is an attempt at reaching into that space and isolation and create connection.

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Oppression + Lack of Expression = Depression (Andrew Feldmar)

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Although depression and anxiety are the primary reason that new patients cite as their reason for accessing therapy with me, the true nature of their feelings and concerns often present as mysterious. A consistent theme is the aloneness and isolation that comes from not being able to connect deeply enough with another so that one’s own deepest despair can be expressed and shared openly. Therapy as the “talking cure” (Freud) aims to facilitate the new experience of safety and trust where the expression of one’s truth is itself the vehicle of healing and growing in confidence. 

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Whether it is hopelessness as isolation in depression, or the constant activatedness and hypervigilance of anxiety, therapy as a vehicle for connection may offer an experience that might give you a sense of a different relationship with life and with others. Please reach out here if you’d like to connect.