Counselling professionals know this already, but counselling improves people’s lives positively and often dramatically.

We know this because of hands-on experience and the changes we see in the people we are helping, whether it is low self-esteem, anxiety or depression and other issues people have with their mental health.  

We know people can’t be happy all the time and it is a natural process to sometimes feel unhappy or melancholic, this is a normal part of ‘the lived experience’. But being unhappy most of the time or failing to feel happiness and contentment when you expect to experience it is very different to this.

Autumn is a beautiful time for many people, with the changing colours of the leaves to the onset of stormy weather and crisp nights and mornings. But for many people, Autumn is a time that signals the onset of the ‘winter blues’, with anxiety and often depression being exacerbated by the shortened days, persistent cloudy skies and cold weather.

We know that every home environment is different and so is each child’s individual experience, however, this variety of experience notwithstanding, it is still possible to explore the effects generally of parentification and that is what I will be doing with both scenarios I’ve posted in this blog section.

For the purpose of exploring the issues caused by being parentified as a child, I have created two fictional scenarios which offer different insights into the effects parentification can have on an adult’s life. They do not relate to any specific individuals, they are merely a vehicle to explore the harmful effects of growing up in a dysfunctional home environment and the harmful effects of parentification

Although there are persistent representations in our society of an idealised childhood with nurturing parents and doting grandparents on hand to help, in reality, there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect home’ to grow up in.

7 things for everyone to know about counselling

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.