It’s January 2025 a new year just started, we are supposed to implant our new year resolutions, feel happy and full of energy. In my practice I see a bit of a different scenario, a lot of my clients are feeling overwhelmed, tired and exhausted. A phone call confirmed these feelings:

One morning a couple of days ago, a close friend of mine called and said to me:”Denise, I don’t know but since a couple of weeks I really feel low energy, unmotivated and I just want to sleep. What is going on with me, and what can I do to feel better?”

As I know her quite well and after asking her a couple more questions, it was clear that my friend is going through the “Winter Blues”. The winter blues are very common when the days get darker and shorter.  One of the reasons for the winter blues is the lack of sunlight.

Do you know sayings like: “I can feel it in my bones”, “My heart feels broken”; “My blood is boiling”; “My back is killing me”; “I have butterflies in my stomach”.

Do you wonder, why we even mention these sayings?

In these sayings, we experience the mind-body relationship. We talk about emotions that we feel in our body, but we are not aware of that. Our body responds to our emotions - the way we think, feel and act. The emotion is becoming visible in our body. Moreover, there is a correlation between our mental health and our physical health.

“No one ever told me that grief feels so like fear”. - C.S. Lewis

It was a cold but sunny day when the world seemed to stand still. A enormous pain started to spread through her body. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she didn’t want to believe. She was in shock. Her eyes felt with tears and she couldn’t stop crying. That where the first hours, days and month.

I have realised recently that psychotherapy is still stigmatised by the assumption that only people with severe mental health issues seek psychotherapy. I want to illuminate this stigma and show you that there are many other reasons to go to therapy. You can seek therapy to deal with severe mental health issues as well as improve an already good life.

Some people also think that they come to psychotherapy to get advice on how to life their lives.  Psychotherapy is also associated with lying on a couch and talking to a therapist who doesn’t say anything. But this is not how psychotherapy works.

But psychotherapy is so much more.I