Chronic Illness, Intimacy Issues Marriage & Couples Counselling
Chronic Illness, Intimacy Issues
Chronic illness has the ability to affect you in more ways than just medically. In fact, it can impact you psychologically. The degree of impact is dependent on the person's personality and the circumstances before the diagnosis. Support structure plays an important role on a person's ability to cope, but oftentimes, a person has to go through various stages of dealing with the condition before they are able to adjust to the realities of the chronic illness.
When a person is diagnosed with a chronic illness, he or she will go through a number of stages similar to the stages of grief. Denial, disbelief and shock are just some of the emotions a person experiences when a diagnosis is made, and it's natural for them to resist major changes. Eventually, they will become exhausted, when all they really want to do is to recover. At that point, fear and anxiety will set in and worry in the face of uncertainty of the future.
Sadness, grief and depression are common emotions when they consider the possibility of lost goals, hopes and dreams. Losing independence is a real fear, which becomes inevitable if an illness progresses and that brings about the fear of being a burden to loved ones, which brings on more anger, resentment and even shame.
Counselling can help a person to deal with the emotions relating to chronic illness and to cope with the stress and anxieties of accepting and coping with life changes. It will help to regain personal control over life and yourself.
If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who works with in chronically ill individuals you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.
Intimacy issues are common for people who fear vulnerability. Some people can become vulnerable in front of a few trusted friends, however, but when a relationship starts becoming too close, they feel suffocated. In this sense, the intimacy issues are seated in the fear of developing a deep and meaningful relationship with another person.
Two fears that are at the heart of intimacy issues, are the fear of abandonment (fearing the partner might leave them) and the fear of engulfment (fearing that they would lose themselves in a relationship), which sometimes co-exist. These fears, often rooted in childhood traumas, are often deeply entrenched in codependent adult relationships where they cause friction.
A therapist who works with people who have intimacy issues will first help you to learn to become comfortable with yourself and accept yourself for who you are. You will explore the complex past events that have created these intimacy issues and discover that those events don't have to cloud your present experiences.
This process is essential in discovering that rejection does not have to be a traumatic experience. Finally, you will learn how to set personal boundaries that will help you to avoid the fear of engulfment and to cope, should abandonment occur. While healing intimacy issues can be a challenging and somewhat painful task, the rewards are incredible.
If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who addresses intimacy issues, you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.
Marriage & Couples Counselling
Marriage & Couples Counselling offers a wide range of approaches that incorporate a variety of models to work in different situations. Some of the most common approaches in couples counselling are Imago therapy, emotionally focussed therapy, and Gottman approach.
One of the first undertakings of marriage & couples counselling is to set goals for the therapy. Establishing healthy communication within the relationship is one of the key components in any of the approaches make up their union, because this is what helps couples to better understand one another and the patterns that Couples will be led to examine their communication styles and explore their attachment experiences. Healing past hurts and trauma is essential in building healthy future relationships.
If you are looking for a therapist who offers Marriage & Couples Counselling, please browse our list of practitioners below..
Note: You may narrow your search by selecting more than one filter below.
- (-) Remove Chronic Illness filterChronic Illness
- (-) Remove Intimacy Issues filterIntimacy Issues
- Abuse - Emotional, Physical, Sexual (1)Apply Abuse - Emotional, Physical, Sexual filter
- Anxiety and/or Panic (1)Apply Anxiety and/or Panic filter
- Cancer Care and Support (1)Apply Cancer Care and Support filter
- Chronic Pain (1)Apply Chronic Pain filter
- Compassion Fatigue (1)Apply Compassion Fatigue filter
- Creativity (1)Apply Creativity filter
- Death and Dying (1)Apply Death and Dying filter
- Depression (1)Apply Depression filter
- Divorce and/or Separation (1)Apply Divorce and/or Separation filter
- Family Caregiver Stress (1)Apply Family Caregiver Stress filter
- First Nations Issues (1)Apply First Nations Issues filter
- Grief and Loss - General (1)Apply Grief and Loss - General filter
- Grief and Loss - Pets (1)Apply Grief and Loss - Pets filter
- Grief and Loss - Prenatal (1)Apply Grief and Loss - Prenatal filter
- Life Transitions (1)Apply Life Transitions filter
- Marriage and/or Relationship Issues (1)Apply Marriage and/or Relationship Issues filter
- Perfectionism (1)Apply Perfectionism filter
- Personal Growth (1)Apply Personal Growth filter
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (1)Apply Post Traumatic Stress Disorder filter
- Postpartum Depression (1)Apply Postpartum Depression filter
- Professional Burnout (1)Apply Professional Burnout filter
- Self-Esteem Issues (1)Apply Self-Esteem Issues filter
- Sexuality (1)Apply Sexuality filter
- Spirituality (1)Apply Spirituality filter
- Trauma Counselling (1)Apply Trauma Counselling filter
- Women's Issues (1)Apply Women's Issues filter
- (-) Remove Marriage & Couples Counselling filterMarriage & Couples Counselling
- Body Centred Psychotherapy (1)Apply Body Centred Psychotherapy filter
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (1)Apply Dialectical Behaviour Therapy filter
- Existential-Humanistic (1)Apply Existential-Humanistic filter
- Expressive Arts Therapies (1)Apply Expressive Arts Therapies filter
- Feminist Psychotherapy (1)Apply Feminist Psychotherapy filter
- Mindfulness approaches (1)Apply Mindfulness approaches filter
- Narrative Therapy (1)Apply Narrative Therapy filter
- Relational Psychotherapy (1)Apply Relational Psychotherapy filter
- Solution Focused Therapy (1)Apply Solution Focused Therapy filter
- Video Counselling (1)Apply Video Counselling filter