Sounding good?!
I've asked my clients to write a few words of feedback, advice or encouragement for people thinking about whether to take the leap! They are the experts from experience of course! I’m sure you’ll feel inspired about possibilities for change, when you read how far others have come. I hope it also gives you a more detailed sense of how I could help you on your life journey, from those who have walked the path from struggle to strength themselves. There are no identifying details, not even first names or initials, as, to me, it‘s of utmost importance to protect peoples’ total confidentiality.
Building strength, courage and resilience
I decided to start CBT because I had been prescribed it by my GP. The things I wanted to address were pretty much rebuilding my empty life from scratch. CBT has helped me to take control of my life again and regain a sense of sanity. The most valuable things I’ve learnt are that to solve my problems I need to accept them and face them with courage and self encouragement, rather than avoid them and suppress things, or just get into an obsessional head spin. Through my journey with Eleanor, my thought patterns are now much healthier and my behaviour patterns are much more constructive to my situations.”
I started CBT with Eleanor because I was suffering from severe anxiety that became progressively worse as the months went on. I was very down and couldn’t understand why I was feeling like this. I thought that it would pass and that I could get through it myself but it reached the point where it was time to get some help. I did some research and knew medication was available for it but I just didn’t want to go down that route. I came across CBT online and thought that it looked like a good option for me. The things I wanted to address were mainly around changing my negative thoughts. I knew that would be a good starting point, but I also wanted to find ways to cope with the physical symptoms of anxiety in everyday life. I also wanted to find ways to deal with my reactions to social situations, as this was becoming a source of extreme anxiety. Well what can I say? CBT has helped me to turn my life around and become the kind of person I always wanted to be. Eleanor – I want to say a huge thank you to you.”
Eleanor has helped me to address a lot of the negative patterns that I was living with by giving me techniques not to ignore my patterns but to overcome them, including techniques to help me recognise that I don’t need to seek others’ approval all the time and that its ok to make mistakes and I need to make mistakes to help me learn. CBT has also given me an ability to understand my relationship with my father, my partner and other relationships.
The most valuable things I’ve learnt are how to stand beside my feelings and recognise that they are important signposts that show me something about why I am feeling certain things. More often than not, such signposts are indicators to do something constructive, rather than avoid things. I have learnt that strength is acting in spite of fear and that feeling fear is not wrong but part of being human. Through the process of CBT my confidence has grown because I know that I have techniques that I can rely on to make a positive change to my life myself, and my inner peace has increased, because I understand where a lot of my destructive patterns have come from and am now able to get out of the cycle of them.”
I’d thoroughly recommend CBT because it really has helped me and I find that its method of positive reinforcement of messages works and can be applicable to anyone. Eleanor is a brilliant choice of CBT therapist because she approaches the therapy in such an open minded and honest way, often making suggestions of where you might be coming from, giving you inspiration to think about ways you can make positive changes and keeping you reviewing whether techniques are working. Sometimes I would not know what to focus on in the particular session and Eleanor always had suggestions of what would be useful which somehow were exactly what was needed next in my process.”
