What springs to mind when we think of relationships?

When we think about the word Relationship, what is it that springs to mind?

Well its probably our personal relationships, with family, friends, people we work with, neighbours. These are the type of relationships that can cause us upset and issues in our lives with their complexities, uncertainties, issues of trust and abuse often come up in counselling sessions and by talking about them reviewing them and our own feelings thoughts and reactions to them can have enormous benefits for clients. But can relationships we have go wider than just personal ones?

We can often feel attachments to things like our pets, our homes, our jobs, our cars, our neighbourhods, so much so that we can feel that we have some sort of relationship with them and if things change with them it can affect us deeply. The death of a beloved pet can bring feelings of bereavement. The loss of a job can bring feelings of emptiness, and lack of self worth. being forced to leave a home we have lived in for a long time can bring feelings of loss and a fear of the future.

There are many things that make up the tapestry of our lives and our relationships with these things as well as the people in our lives can be put under pressure and the negative thoughts and feelings we can have about them can bring about problems for us.

Talking to someone who has no judgement about your feelings and treats everything you express with respect, can have enormous benefits for you. Having that time and space available to talk through your relationship issues whatever they are seeing them reflected back to you can help you to see how your relationship with them is and how it affects you and most importantly what it is you can and want to change.

Relationships are very important to us, the therapeutic relationship stands out on its own as a valuable tool in helping you deal with what it is that causes you problems and what to do to put things right.