Most people have experienced a at least one period of mental ill health in their life, whether it stress, anxiety, depression, phobias, OCD etc. Other issues that can bring people into therapy include: low self esteem, relationship problems, a lack of control, emotional dysregulation, lack of confidence, a feeling of being stuck, meaninglessness, loneliness, grief.

Mental ill health can be caused internally or externally - through situational stress etc. When it is caused by internal stress it can be helpful to consider this: That how we learnt to feel about ourselves and the world when we were younger is still true today. This can affect how we feel about relationships, work, our thoughts, feelings and behaviours and even our physical health.

Further, it can feel like the only way of feeling valid in the world is if we manage to successfully:

please everyone, put everyone else first, work hard all the time, get everything perfect, don't show out feelings, never give up, feel responsible for people etc etc.....

We might hate it when people get angry at us, never be able to relax, never find meaning in anything, feel constantly on edge, be obsessed with or ruminate on any number of things, be constantly interrupted by unwanted thoughts or feelings, continually act in ways that we KNOW are bad for us but we feel we can't stop and have no control over because we are driven by forces that we have no awareness of. We are continually striving to get things right, be the perfect partner, parent, worker, friend. But we might feel that we are failing miserably.

With all of these examples, if we don't achieve these goals then we might feel stressed, upset, angry, ashamed or go into a full shutdown or meltdown. We might feel numb, empty, cold, We might ruminate or obsess for days,

We might even be aware that we are continually trying to get a parents approval/recognition/love even though we no longer live with them. But have no means/control over stopping this.

Your beliefs about yourself and the world that you developed when younger still hold true now. But they are not true and psychotherapy is an opportunity to curiously and compassionately start to challenge these beliefs.