In the latest Off The Couch podcast from the Irish Council for Psychotherapy, clinical psychoanalyst Marie Walshe and clinical psychotherapist Stephanie Regan talk about inertia in relationships and how to face problems positively.

The conversation then goes on to establish why relationship psychotherapy can become as - and if not more - important than career coaching, and also how to address fear, anxiety and a lack of communication.

In this episode, clinical psychoanalyst Rob Weatherill and clinical psychotherapist Stephanie Regan explain what psychoanalysis is, who needs it and how it can help individuals to face their demons.

It's for those who want to know how the pieces of their whole life story fit together, the past and the present as well as their interior and exterior lives. 

Whilst psychoanalysis is certainly not about immediate improvement or a quick fix, more so, it's how have you come to be where you are. 

Rob believes that so many of us are strangers to ourselves and we have become programmed to be estranged from ourselves. Psychoanalysis looks at the culture people are born into, the family and the extended family.

When it comes to the subject of sexual abuse there are many layers that need to be gently and safely unpicked because trust has often been compromised, manipulation could have happened and grooming taken place. 

Clinical psychotherapists Stephanie Regan and Eileen Finnegan discuss that when the after-effects are untangled and the memory is triggered, facing the outcomes can be done positively, with the right psychotherapist.

How does psychotherapy fit into the schema of mental health care? And how do you identify how to navigate what kind of therapist an individual might like and a type of therapy that might be best for them?

 In this podcast clinical psychotherapists John O'Connor and Stephanie Regan tell listeners that psychotherapy’s central purpose  is the deeper examination of the human experience. It involves a time frame and a commitment and an interest in exploring one’s life.

Stephanie identifies that psychotherapy goes ‘wider and deeper’ looking at the roots of things and asks whether there is a focus on the present followed by a focus on the past? 

For more information please visit www.About ICP - Irish Council for Psychotherapy (psychotherapycouncil.ie)

Joanna Fortune has witnessed a considerable spike in the number of parents wanting help with their children’s behaviour during the pandemic. Often parents contact her when they are in crisis. In this podcast, Joanna advises that it is often difficult to get help ‘immediately’ when demand is so high. It is hard for therapists to say to parents ‘I’m going to have to get you to wait’. Often parents are coming to therapy in a ‘reactive way’ as opposed to proactive- parents are very much ‘in it’- the problem has been going on for a long time.

In this phase of urgency and particularly during this pandemic, Joanna uses online platforms to undertake a therapeutic parenting consultation, to make better sense of the problem and to identify what are the overt behaviours and moreover what are the emotional and physical states that are underpinning the behaviour that has caused the parent to reach out for help? 

In this podcast, listeners will learn how to name and contain problems and how to prevent them from escalating further.

For more information or if you need a psychotherapist please visit Home - Irish Council for Psychotherapy (psychotherapycouncil.ie)

The pandemic has had some devastating effects on our mental health, whether to do with  bereavement, loneliness, relationships or even its impact through the generations. 

In this episode you will hear from Trish Murphy, who is a member of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy, and who has direct experience of working with individuals to help them navigate the many paths through the pandemic.

In this episode you will hear:

- How isolation and loneliness have become more prevalent across all age groups
- The importance of resilience
- Navigating new and mature relationships
- The importance of community

For more information or to find a therapist visit Home - Irish Council for Psychotherapy (psychotherapycouncil.ie)