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Grief and Loss Depression Stress Grief Counselling October 22, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

9 Grief and Loss Types & Stages

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Grief is the multifaceted and often overwhelming response that we experience after a distressing or traumatic event. Often, we think of the death of a loved one but many other events can be the cause of experiencing grief and loss and include:

Miscarriage, stillbirth or an infant born with significant health conditions or disability
Infertility (including the often-tumultuous IVF journey)
Lifestyle or financial loss such as bankruptcy, loss of a house or the loss of a job
End of a significant relationship – spouse, friend, pet
Serious illness or disease or diagnosis of a loved one that changes life as we know it
Loss of physical mobility or independence
An incident that violates your security or safety such as an attack or robbery
A significant near-death experience or accident such as a motor vehicle accident or house fire
Community events such as environmental disasters such as a cyclone or floods.

Anxiety Mindfulness Practice August 18, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

14 Simple Mindfulness Practice Exercises

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Concentrated Mindfulness Practice – 5 Senses

(The mindfulness exercises can be spoken/recorded as a script)

Sit or lie in a comfortable place. You may soften your gaze or close your eyes. Start with bringing your attention to your breath.

Breathe deeply into your belly, expanding your diaphragm counting four beats in through your nose, PAUSE and four beats out through your mouth. It may help to place your hands over the base of your ribs and feel the expansion in and out.

Do three or four cycles or until you can stay focussed on just noticing your breathing without your mind wandering off.

Breathe IN, two, three, four; PAUSE and OUT, two, three, four. In, two, three, four…

Keep breathing.

Anxiety Mindfulness Self-improvement/Identity Stress Practice August 18, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

Mindfulness Practice [Top Tips]

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What is Mindfulness?

Whether it is a professional athlete; a rock star, a Mum in her fitness gear or the chilled-out guy who is cultivating an organic veggie patch; everybody seems to be practising mindfulness. It is not just for Zen Buddhists and yogi masters, and whilst mindfulness is a type of meditation, you don’t need to be an expert to incorporate the principles into your life.

The reason why so many people are doing it is because it has some solid research to prove its effectiveness as an adjunct to your lifestyle or as part of many mental health interventions. But how do you do mindfulness practice?

Anxiety Depression Stress COVID-19 August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

10 Psychological Survival Tips for COVID-19

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Whether we are facing social distancing, self-isolation, quarantine, or lockdown, these uncertain times can be hard, especially for those who have emotional and mental health concerns and relational difficulties.

I am also acutely aware that for some people ideas may feel redundant and not remove the very real fear of domestic violence; grief and loss; compromised health or pervasive suicidal tendencies. It is my hope that whilst I can validate your very real concerns, maybe one of these ideas or thoughts may ease the burden even a little.

For the majority, I’m hoping these tips will draw you to seek and find a deeper meaning, sense of purpose and a back-to-basics type of beauty that is worth engaging. Here are my top 10 psychological survival tips for COVID-19:

Anxiety Depression Stress Epigenetics • Mental Health August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

Epigenetics and Mental Health [Exclusive Case Study]

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It May Not Be All In Your Mind

How are Epigenetics and Mental Health linked? Most people would have a fair understanding of genes and what they do, and maybe you know about the changes occurring at all levels of medicine since the mapping of the human genome was completed in 2003, and the great results arising from the subsequent research (think breast cancer).

Explaining Epigenetics

But in case you have not heard about epigenetics, let’s start with some basics. The prefix ‘epi’ means ‘on top of or added to’ and applies to an addition of some extra molecules to a gene, often called a tag or an SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism). These SNPs change the way that gene works or expresses itself. Since there are 3 billion genes in an individual and more than one tag can attach to a gene the number of different expressions is huge.

Couples Therapy Self-improvement/Identity Couples • Therapy August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

Differentiation Based Couples Therapy: Can I Be Truly Loved?

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As a couples therapist, I follow the work of Dr David Schnarch, a Differentiation based therapist. Schnarch is critical of love and relationships based on Hollywood-style notions of romantic infatuation, which is time-limited once you truly get to know someone where it becomes more personal. He says that marriage is a people-growing machine and an opportunity to become more capable of loving authentically on life’s terms, creating realistic patterns of marriage instead of romantic notions (Schnarch, 2012).

What Is Differentiation Based Couples Therapy

This points to the concept of healthy differentiation. A well-differentiated person is able to balance autonomy and intimacy: being close and being themself. Schnarch defines differentiation as “People’s ability to balance humankind’s two most fundamental drives: our desire for attachment and connection, on the one hand, and our desire to be an individual and direct the course of our own lives, on the other.

Couples Therapy DIDO • FIFO • Relationships August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

How To Deal With FIFO Relationships [Top 10 Tips]

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In Fly In Fly Out relationships emotional and relational investment is just as important as the career and financial investment you work away from your partner and family to gain, don’t lose one over the other – you can have both! Read on to learn how to deal with FIFO relationships.

The effect on the relationship with your partner and on families when working away varies according to the length, predictability, and frequency of shifts. Conditions of employment; personalities; children’s ages; special needs of members of the family; access to services; support networks such as community groups, friends and extended family; and education services all play a role in whether you feel like you’re going to ‘lose it’ or ‘keep it together’.

Managing what is best for you, your partner and your family is as individual as the personalities within it. An important way to resolve issues is to have an open conversation to identify the key concerns and jointly work out how to manage the unique challenges of your own relationship dynamics and family needs.

Couples Therapy Counselling • Couples August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

Couples Counselling: Aren’t you and your partner worth investing in?

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People come to couples counselling for all sorts of reasons – arguments; distancing and avoidance behaviour; coping with major changes; sexual concerns; resolve conflicts; addictions and habits; infidelity; trust issues; extended and blended family concerns; coping with major differences; parenting styles and the list goes on.

Sometimes it is because they recognize they’ve grown apart and want to understand why and work on rekindling. Some couples come for pre-marital counselling to establish a foundation or ensure they are making the right decision to get married. And others come because they want to separate but want to facilitate that process civilly, outside of a legal or mediation process because there is still enough love, respect and concern for the affect on their loved ones – it’s about ‘clean pain’ versus ‘dirty pain’.

Anxiety Mindfulness Self-improvement/Identity Mental Health August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 1 Comment

Growing Scientific Evidence for Mindfulness [Exclusive Tips]

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Mindfulness can relax you and regulate your emotions in the short term, but it can also change your brain permanently if you approach it as a form of mental exercise.

What is the Scientific Evidence for Mindfulness?

Studies show that when we intentionally turn our focus onto mindfulness our brain changes activation and with repetition can change brain structure. This is neuroplasticity, or how the brain can change in response to our experiences, both positive and negative (Mindful.org, Sept, 2019).

Neuroscience research shows that the brain continues to grow and change over our lifespan (neuroplasticity) and we are not ‘hard wired’. When we experience repeated experiences, the brain neural pathways thicken which changes brain chemistry and anatomy.

Anxiety Depression Self-improvement/Identity Bio • Psycho • Socio • Spiritual August 16, 2021 By Sara Martin 0 Comments

What is the BioPsychoSocial Spiritual Model? [Full Guide]

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BioPsychoSocial Spiritual. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? But perhaps that is exactly the point; that we are not one-dimensional and should not be viewed through a single lens. We are integrated and holistic beings and not a set of separate compartments. Many things can affect our emotional states such as underlying medical conditions; general physical health; family background; cultural and social contexts; career situation; stage of life; underpinning belief systems; and recent events.

The path to wellness often involves working on different aspects of our being, that’s why counselling should consider all dimensions of self: the biological, the sociological, the psychological and the spiritual. So, let’s look at what makes us who we are.