I first came across the idea, rather than the name, when my father announced that he hated the Autumn as it was the precursor to him feeling down over the winter months. It was only in my 30s that I started to experience the same thing. So, what exactly is SAD?

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression. It generally happens at a specific time of year, usually during the Autumn and winter months when daylight hours are shorter and we tend to spend more time indoors. It makes sense doesn’t it. We have less exposure to natural light at this time. This can disrupt the body’s internal clock and even prevent hormones like melatonin being released at the right time. Melatonin affects our sleep and lack of sleep can impact all aspects of our life.  It is most commonly associated with the winter months, but some people may experience a form of SAD during the summer, especially if they find themselves housebound or working in a basement, for instance.

Common symptoms of SAD are:

1. Persistent sadness or low mood.
2. Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities. You withdraw and also loose the structure and connection those activities used to bring to your life.
3. Increased fatigue and a desire to sleep more.
4. Finding it harder to get going in the morning.
5. Difficulty concentrating and making decisions, perhaps even brain fog.
6. Changes in appetite and weight, often with a craving for carbohydrates, or “stodge.”
7. Social withdrawal and irritability.
8. Feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness.
9. Physical symptoms like aches and pains.

Even if symptoms are small, such as feeling more tired than usual, they can have a knock-on effect on your life. You end up being less productive, for instance, and this impacts your self-esteem.

How to help SAD

For many people, it’s surprisingly simple and easy to feel better. Here are some ideas:

Light Therapy (Phototherapy)

Light therapy involves exposure to a bright light box that mimics natural sunlight. It can be a highly effective treatment for SAD.  I bought a simple lightbox from Amazon for under £30 and it’s been a faithful part of my office every winter for five years now. You only need a short time every morning, and it doubles as a great light for zoom calls!

Lifestyle Changes

It may sound pretty obvious but sometimes not so easy to do if you are working – get out into the daylight early in the morning. Perhaps you can adjust your working hours to start a bit later after a walk, or get off public transport or park further away and bring a walk into your daily routine. See what you can fit in lunch time too.

See people

Do not withdraw as this makes things worse. If you’re not feeling that sociable, do something where you can be around people, but perhaps not relying on talking so much, like an activity. Or, still see people, but in shorter bursts.

Vitamin D

Some people with SAD may benefit from vitamin D supplements, as they can be deficient during the darker months.

Look at your stress levels

Stress can make things worse, and winter brings its own worries. Concerns over paying energy bills, affording Christmas or even relationship issues as we spend more time together can feel hard at this time of year. Building up a menu of stress-reduction techniques like mindfulness, meditation, and deep breathing can help. Talk to a friend and build in more exercise.

Support Groups

Not for everyone, but joining a SAD support group can provide emotional support and a sense of community with others who are experiencing similar challenges. This can be useful if you are feeling isolated and lonely already.

Your GP

If you’ve tried these natural ideas, then it could be an idea to talk to your GP. In some cases, antidepressant medications, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may be prescribed to alleviate symptoms.

Counselling or Psychotherapy

Working with someone like myself can help you develop coping strategies for managing SAD symptoms. If the depressed mood is bringing other things to the surface, we can work with these.

Hope

It’s important to remember that SAD is a real and treatable condition. If you’d like to talk about how I could help you, contact me here, or book in a chat here. I offer counselling in Folkestone and Hythe, as well as online therapy.

The post Will therapy help with SAD? appeared first on The Good Therapy Practice.

Guilt is an emotion and belongs with the other sad emotions like grief and loneliness. There are many types of guilt. There’s guilt for something you might have done, guilt for something you didn’t do, guilt for something you even just thought about. For the moment, let’s look at one type of guilt that I think has a strong pull when we can’t even take some time out. That is the guilt of not doing enough. Psychologists actually believe that this guilt is a sign of something called Compassion Fatigue which is a form of burn-out.

You can see compassion fatigue at work in black and white when you see someone caring for a dying relative. They may be doing everything in their power to ease the sick person’s distress, but it’s still not enough. Frankly, it’s never going to be enough. The fact that it is not enough induces a feeling of guilt that is hard to carry. This desire to help their sick relative is never going to be alleviated and there is dissonance, a gap, between what they want and what’s happening. Taken to an extreme, this is now the stress disorder of compassion fatigue.

On a more domestic, daily level our desires to help others, nurture our family and take care of loved ones mean that anything less than (unobtainable) perfection often create guilt that we are not doing enough. This feeling can be intensified when we do something for ourselves, instead of pouring ourselves into this never ending pit of wanting to help others.

Dealing with guilt around looking after ourselves

The question is, how do we deal with that feeling of guilt for taking time out for ourselves? We can attack it head on, using logic and reminding ourselves that it is the gap between what we can do and we would like to do, nothing more. It is an emotion created by this dissonance. However, that also means that we can push past it and just get on with our self-care anyway.

What could be a better approach is something of the two and try to look at the situation objectively, as if you were looking at a friend’s life. What would you sensibly expect her to do for her family and what boundaries would you suggest where she might draw the line? What combination of time and energy spent on others and on herself would you suggest?

This isn’t necessary a prescription for the actual feeling of guilt, but it may help to know that what you are feeling is the emotion created by a desire to do more. A desire that could never be completely fulfilled anyway.

Another thing to recognise about guilt is that it doesn’t have to be self-destructive. It can make us think about using our time with loved-one in a more quality way, for instance, getting out and doing a bike ride together rather than sitting on the sofa playing on your phones.

Use it as a marker that says you need to give what’s going on a little thought.

If you’d like to throw a light on your own feelings of guilt and what might soothe them, please book a no-cost call with me here, or contact me here.

The post Dealing With Guilt appeared first on The Good Therapy Practice.

I often speak to possible clients who ask me how does online therapy work, and does it work as well as in person counselling? While some of my clients are from Hythe or Folkestone, and come to see me in one of my consulting rooms, many are further afield and we work online.

A typical online counselling session

Previous to the session I’ll send you an email invite with the Zoom login details. At the set time we’ll both login and begin the session. Just like my face to face sessions, we will probably begin with taking measures. These are like scores where we look at specific things like your anxiety levels, needs or symptoms of trauma. We may take these every week, or every few weeks depending on the nature of our work together. Over the sessions, we can then plot your improvement and we can literally see, on a chart, the results of your therapy.

We’ll then move onto the main part of the counselling session. You may have or chose to set a goal to work towards and that session is devoted to that. Or, perhaps, something has happened in the last week that it’s important to bring to the session. This is your time. However, we will still be looking to work on what’s brought you here in the first place too!

We will wrap up just like a face to face to face session, looking at some homework and setting the date and time of our next session. I will then send that invite and zoom link to you.

What do you need for an online therapy session?

A quiet and comfortable place is the most important thing, along with an internet connection. That said, I have had clients who prefer the phone and we can always do that, or revert if we have connection issues. It doesn’t happen very often, but occasionally the tech gremlins pick on us.

It’s important to pick a place where you feel you can talk freely, and that you won’t be overheard. It also helps me to be able to see your face and shoulders. I may take you through how to position your laptop in the right place if necessary. Notifications should be off, especially if you’re using your phone, and ideally, you shouldn’t have to answer the doorbell or anything like that.

That said, life is life, and we work with what we have!

What’s so great about an online therapy call?

People sometimes worry that we won’t be able to make a connection, that it’s not as good as being in the same room. I haven’t found this, and many of my clients love its benefits. These include:

• No need to travel back and forth to the session
• You can build in downtime before and after the session to think about what’s come up
• If you’re anxious, you are in your own space
• No paying out for a commute, parking or the possibloe coffee and cake if you arrive early and need to occupy yourself
• Many people are very comfortable online now, and actively prefer this
• You can have your pet with you if it calms you and they are happy to sit quietly during the session.

I see my my own supervisor online and have found it very effective and practical.

Why not book yourself in for a no-obligation 15 minute chat to see what it’s like to work with me online? You can do that here.

The post How Online Therapy Works? appeared first on The Good Therapy Practice.

The room, at the top of the building, is cosy and welcoming, and it does feel like we are nestled up with the seagulls. It is up some stairs, so if access is an issue, I do have an alternative room in Folkestone.

Therapy in Hythe

I am offering Monday therapy slots in Hythe, where you can book a session that focuses on getting you into (or back into) a place where you feel in control again. As a Human Givens counsellor, my work is not about digging up copious amounts of issues from the past, but concentrating on what’s going to make you feel better as soon as possible. Of course, sometimes there are traumas, or deep seated patterns that need unravelling, and we can do that together to enable you to move on.

It can be incredibly liberating to talk through things with someone who doesn’t know your life and has no preconceived ideas about you and what you should do. However, our time together is more than just talking. Face to face, I use a lovely technique called Guided Imagery which will help you relax and increases the likelihood of you doing the things you want to do, whether that’s taking steps to lose weight or speak to a difficult colleague or family member. I also share practical tools and techniques that can make a difference to your day to day life. Most important of all is that we set some homework together. These tasks are very doable, and have a therapeutic point. Sometimes they are about helping you reach your goal, and sometimes they may be about opening you up, and helping you see things differently. All of my clients find these very useful.

Online therapy

If face to face in Hythe isn’t appropriate for you, then I also see people online. It’s not as easy to build that relationship, that is true, but it can be incredibly convenient for anyone who is not local or who might find a face to face therapy session in Hythe too much to cram into their day.

Many of my clients are entrepreneurs or business owners, but not exclusively, and I do see teenagers too.

The best thing to do is to book a chat here, or email me with your telephone number, to sort out a time to chat and we can take it from there. We will look at your goal, and what type of appointment would work best for you.

The post Therapy in Hythe appeared first on The Good Therapy Practice.