As children, our coping skills, mental abilities, emotional stability and security are developed and nurtured through our families, relationships and friendships. The more support and positive resources available to us at the time, the more likely we are to grow and develop into well-functioning children and adults.
Unfortunately, it does not always happen in this manner. As children, we often can’t make sense of our experiences and the emotional toll they have on us. Our childhood experiences, both positive and negative, become “our normal”. As a result, we develop and adapt, “as normal” in response to our experiences.
Often later in life when our coping skills no longer prove to be effective and our mental abilities have increased through our reasoning and decision making skills, we can experience our choices as not achieving our desired outcome. We may experience relationship difficulties that leave us feeling emotionally stuck or ill-equipped to deal with. We can struggle with our lives.
Counselling offers the opportunity to examine and work through what may be unresolved for us, up to that point in our life, in a safe, supportive and protected space. Working with a counsellor to name and talk about any childhood trauma, allows us to resolve the issues which were causing us to become “unglued” as adults, enabling us to move forward in our lives.
