Understanding Dissociation: Navigating the Depths of Detachment

How Couples Therapy Helps New Parents Manage the Pressures of Starting a Family

Becoming parents brings both excitement and unexpected challenges for couples. Many find the pressures of parenthood, sleepless nights, and changing roles can strain their relationship. Couples therapy for new parents provides a supportive space to navigate these challenges, strengthen the relationship, and prepare for the emotional ups and downs of becoming parents.

Healing Through Feeling: Integrating Mind, Body, and Emotions

Healing isn’t just about thinking or analyzing—it begins with feeling. Our emotions influence how we communicate, behave, and relate to ourselves and others, often in ways we don’t fully notice. By integrating mind, body, and emotions, we can reconnect with our inner experiences, release trapped emotional energy, and cultivate deeper awareness, balance, and wellbeing.

Why am I feeling so anxious? Understanding anxiety as a natural part of grief

Grief can bring a wide range of emotions, many of them unexpected and overwhelming. One often overlooked response is anxiety, which is a completely natural part of coping with the loss of someone close. This guide explores how anxiety can appear during grief, why it happens, and offers gentle suggestions for support and self-care.

The Body Remembers: A Somatic Healing Approach to Emotional Pain

The mind and body are deeply connected, and emotions we ignore or suppress do not simply disappear—they often get stored in the body. Over time, these unresolved feelings can manifest as physical tension, discomfort, or illness, signaling the need for healing. Individuals who are disconnected from their emotions or who carry past trauma may notice these feelings emerging somatically, revealing the profound link between emotional and physical health. By recognizing how unprocessed emotions show up in the body, we open the door to deeper healing, resilience, and overall well-being.

Just Breathe—Or Is It Deeper? How Breathwork Helps You Heal and Reconnect

Modern life can leave our nervous systems in overdrive—especially if we’re carrying unresolved trauma or chronic stress. Breathwork for trauma healing offers a gentle yet powerful way to reconnect with your body, calm your mind, and begin releasing what no longer serves you—one conscious breath at a time.

Discovering Autism at 50: My Journey to Late Diagnosis and Self-Acceptance

In this deeply personal piece, the author reflects on the experience of being diagnosed with autism at the age of 50. Through moments of recognition, grief, and ultimately self-acceptance, they explore what it means to reframe a lifetime of experiences through the lens of neurodivergence—and the freedom that can come with finally understanding yourself.

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy

The mind-body connection is a powerful and often underutilized tool in therapy. By understanding how mental and physical states are intertwined, therapists can help clients achieve deeper healing and overall well-being. This article explores the significance of the mind-body connection in therapeutic practice and offers insights on how integrating this approach can enhance the effectiveness of treatment.

From Fear to Confidence: Managing Maths Anxiety Effectively

Math anxiety is a common challenge, but it doesn’t have to hold you back—especially when it comes to exams. Recognizing the signs of math anxiety is the first step toward overcoming it and building confidence in your skills. With the right strategies and support, you can break the cycle of fear and approach math with a more positive mindset. Whether you’re preparing for a test or looking to improve your relationship with numbers, there are ways to manage anxiety and succeed.

Is my therapist racist?

Race and racism can be particularly difficult topics to address and assess within the therapeutic relationship. Although all therapists are expected to reflect on and minimise their own biases, racial or otherwise, it’s not possible to entirely mitigate them.

Embracing Neurodiversity: How I Practice a Neuro-Affirming Approach to Counselling

As a late-diagnosed AuDHD (autistic and ADHD) counsellor, I completed my training before there was much awareness of neurodivergence. My own therapists did not pick up on my neurodivergence, and so, for many years, I put all my social anxiety, overwhelm, black and white thinking, boom and bust ways of working etc down to a dysfunctional upbringing.

How to calculate counselling fees? A guide for counsellors.

There are various ways businesses decide what the price should be. Some companies check the competition to see how much others charge, some calculate their counselling fees by costs and add a profit margin on the top…

Psychological Resilience – why it’s important and ways to build it

I find human beings ability to change and grow fascinating! I became interested in the topic having had my own reserves tested through a particularly challenging time, so I started…

Bereavement, loss and grief

Bereavement, loss and grief are universal human experiences Although grieving is a natural process and a natural response to bereavement, loss and grief still affects everyone differently. Sometimes the anguish…

What is Psychoanalysis?

It’s a shame the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, has become somewhat of a mockery in popular culture. The Freud cartoons are often very funny, but serve to add ridicule to his ideas; those very ideas that have profoundly influenced and changed our society…

Marketing for counsellors: How writing counselling profiles may be similar to tinder?

Marketing for counsellors is an underexplored subject within our profession and even less explored when it comes to advertising online…

How to survive the coronavirus isolation when living alone?

Self-care is important in every day-to-day life, but especially when we find ourselves in isolation. With the Coronavirus spreading, isolation is becoming the norm for the elderly and vulnerable…

Are counselling and psychotherapy practices safe for face to face work after the pandemic?

The current pandemic has impacted various areas of our lives including how and where we access counselling. Although initially, the majority of sessions moved to the online domain…

Eye Movement Desensitization (EMDR) in West London

Our psychotherapists offer EMDR in West London, a treatment that was proven by research and welcomed by clients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

What is cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy and how can it help?

You may have heard of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT); a foundation of modern psychological therapy which empowers you to tackle unhelpful thinking and improve your wellbeing

TRAVMA DEDEKTÖRÜ ‘EMDR’

TRAVMA DEDEKTÖRÜ ‘EMDR’ Dünyayı nasıl gördüğümüz, çevremizdeki insanlarla kurduğumuz ilişkiler büyük ölçüde bellek ağlarımızda saklı olan yaşam deneyimlerimizle şekillenmektedir.

Christine Hogg

Biography:

Christine has been counselling and working as a psychotherapist in London for nearly 20 years . She had a legal and business background before qualifying as a psychotherapist.
In her work she uses an integrative approach which means she uses a number of approaches depending on what is suited to the individual client. She works predominantly in the’ here and now’ to help work out and resolve issues for clients.

For more information or to book a session, contact her with details at the bottom on this page.

Date updated: 10.11.2024

Understanding Dissociation

Many people experience dissociation and suffer from dissociative symptoms when they become anxious or overwhelmed. This experience could be anything from zoning out when overwhelmed to more extreme feelings of feeling separated from their own body and surroundings, or feeling they have different parts within them.

Symptoms vary among individuals, leading to diagnoses such as depersonalization (feeling detached from oneself), derealization (perceiving surroundings as unreal or blurry), and Dissociative Identity Disorder (this is where the mind splits off feelings or personality traits, characteristics and memories into separate compartments that then develop into unique personality states where one or other state might be dominant at one time. This can create confusion about one’s sense of identity)

1. Dissociation – Accompanying Symptoms

The above symptoms can be accompanied by feelings of being in dream- like state; feelings of surroundings being an intrusion; experiencing amnesia; numbness and depression.

Dissociative disorders can also overlap with other diagnoses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

2. Causes of Dissociation

Dissociative symptoms have in all likelihood been developed as a coping mechanism for extreme anxiety or stress that a person has experienced. This may be in as a result of a specific trauma that has occurred or could have been developed as a way of coping with anxiety or stress that was experienced in childhood. Whatever the cause or diagnosis, living with the symptoms of dissociation is a distressing experience.

3.Treatment Options

There are many specific treatments which can help with dissociative symptoms. Talking therapy is the most recommended of these. Often people feel uncomfortable and embarrassed living with symptoms that are difficult to understand and are often misunderstood by others.

Counselling and Psychotherapy can help people to understand what they are experiencing with their symptoms and the possible triggers for dissociation. It is an opportunity to learn how to manage anxiety and so move away from the place of fear. In therapy clients can develop practical ways which work to manage life better on daily basis. This might include grounding exercises which help with symptoms as well as developing life style activities to provide a much needed anchor at times when client are confused and anxious.

It is of course important to engage with a practitioner who makes the individual feel safe, who understands dissociation and has experience working with the symptoms.

4. Specialized Services for Support

Seeking help from specialized services can also be instrumental.

Clinic for Dissociative Studies (clinicds.co.uk, 020 7794 1655) is a dedicated resource providing expertise in dissociative disorders. Additionally, South London and Maudsley Trauma and Dissociation Service (https://slam.nhs.uk, 020 3228 2969) offers comprehensive support for trauma-related conditions.

For more information or to book a session, contact Christine at www.pimlicocounsellors.co.uk/directory/christine-hogg