Services Archives - Kaleidoscope

STRUGGLING AS A COUPLE

admin-kpp-cornelius — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:21:50 +0000

Struggling as a couple.

What we do:

Struggles in couples’ relationships are common, with over 1 in 4 people describing their relationship as “distressed” (Relate, 2017). Lots can change over the course of a relationship and lots of ‘life factors’ can serve to drive people apart, shutdown helpful communication and stop couples tending to their relationship. At Kaleidoscope we see relationships as being like a garden, they require regular attention, care and maintenance to help them blossom and bloom. All relationships are unique (there’s no right way to build your garden!) and what every couple creates is their own. When we neglect our relationships, they can develop in unhelpful and undesirable ways, weeds can appear, and we may even stop seeing our garden as a ‘beautiful sanctuary’ and may start seeing it as ‘overwhelming mess’. If this feels familiar, please listen when we tell you that it’s okay; it’s not just you and it’s not beyond help.

The problem is, it’s really easy to neglect our relationships, life is a difficult place, and our closest relationship can easily get side-lined as we tend to other parts of our lives. We can find ourselves in patterns of behaviour or interaction that just encourage more distance, that lead to flashpoints or friction, and may eventually encourage us to simply avoid one another or avoid being ‘real’ through fear of ‘that same argument’.

Our mission is to help people take their relationships back from troublesome patterns of arguments, poor communication, resentment, distress, mistrust and unkindness. Through our talking and creative approach, we help people find new ways to communicate, new ways to listen to and understand one another and new ways to be with each other.

All of our couples’ therapists are qualified as Systemic Family Psychotherapists or Systemic Practitioners, meaning they have completed a postgraduate training in Systemic Family Therapy, often after having a former care professional qualification and years of experience working as a Clinical Psychologist, Social Worker, Nurse, Counsellor, etc. We ensure that our therapists are suitably qualified and experienced so that our clients are ensured to get a quality service. Our therapists are experts in working with people’s communication, stories and patterns of interaction in a way that can help bring harmony back to a home.

Unfortunately, ‘family therapist/couples counsellor’ are not protected terms, meaning that anyone can call themselves this even if they have no qualification or one that is not accredited or regulated by a governing body. Each of our therapists has completed an Association of Family Therapy (AFT) accredited course and is registered with a suitable accrediting body.

You can check out our FAQs (including our fees) by clicking here, or if you think we might be the right service to help you then please get in touch via the box below or by emailing or calling our office.

Get in touch.

The post STRUGGLING AS A COUPLE appeared first on Kaleidoscope.

STRUGGLING AS A FAMILY

admin-kpp-cornelius — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:49:55 +0000

STRUGGLING AS A FAMILY.

What we do:

Families are so integral to who we are and how we see ourselves that it can be extremely difficult when there is disharmony between members. Home should be a place of love, fun and connection but can become a space of tension when problems arise and trying to help everyone ‘get along’ can feel like a huge undertaking. Sometimes problems engulf a whole family, these can be due to loss, a breakdown in communication, a significant change. They might start with one person and effect a whole family or the whole family may be hit by the problem equally. Either way, we find that working with a family together (rather than seeing each person individually) is a much more effective way to help overcome the problems families face in life.

We recognise that there is an evolutionary importance to our development as social creatures who operate in groups and develop close and meaningful attachments to others. Our biology, neurology and psychology all indicate our need for people and, as many of us know, when these relationships are working well (through understanding, acceptance, collaboration, communication, care, affection, safe challenge, and consideration) we are stronger and more able. This can be quite the opposite when our relationships are adding to or exacerbating the problem. It can leave us doubly lost, stuck or struggling.

In our experience families get stuck in ways of interacting that can lead to problems arising over time; perhaps these relate to regular arguments, falling outs or people ‘walking on eggshells’ at home. There can be lots of reasons why these problems arise; perhaps people have stopped talking to one another, one person feels put out by another or someone feels overshadowed or replaced. These are completely normal (albeit challenging) rhythms for a family to find itself in. We find that by helping a family talk about itself, that is, the people within the family sharing and listening to one another about what it is like to be in this family, families can start to take back control of the problems that have encompassed or directed them in the past. Through using talking and creative methods with the families we meet in Kaleidoscope; we help them build better and more meaningful relationships with one another, help them start being the kind of family they want to be and work together to take their lives back from the problem.

At Kaleidoscope we provide a safe and supportive talking space which enables families to find new and different ways to talk and listen with one another. We privilege peoples’ relationships and are experienced in helping people communicate in ways that are more useful to them, without falling into the stresses and arguments that can occur at home. Our aim is to help families get on better and provide help as early on as possible to prevent problems from becoming entrenched. Most families do not need more than 10 sessions with us, and we work in a way that is bespoke to you and your family as your family is unique.

All of our family therapists are qualified as Systemic Family Psychotherapists or Systemic Practitioners, meaning they have completed a postgraduate training in Systemic Family Therapy, often after having a former care professional qualification and years of experience working as a Clinical Psychologist, Social Worker, Nurse, Counsellor, etc. We ensure that our therapists are suitably qualified and experienced so that our clients are ensured to get a quality service. Our therapists are experts in working with people’s communication, stories and patterns of interaction in a way that can help bring harmony back to a home.

You can check out our FAQs (including our fees) by clicking here, or if you think we might be the right service to help you, then please get in touch via the box below or by emailing or calling our office.

Get in touch.

The post STRUGGLING AS A FAMILY appeared first on Kaleidoscope.

STRUGGLING WITH YOUR ‘SELF’

admin-kpp-cornelius — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:41:54 +0000

STRUGGLING WITH YOUR ‘SELF’.

What we do:

We can understand many of the emotional problems people report to mental health services through our relational lens. The relationship we have with our feelings, our thoughts, the events in our lives all influence how we feel about ourselves, how we interact with the world, and how we behave towards those around us. These relationships are circular and can be self-fulfilling, which mean they go round and round and feed themselves. For example:

the more we avoid things we once enjoyed because we are feeling depressed, the more we feel depressed about ourselves,
the more we listen to those anxious thoughts that tell us we’re ‘no good’ the more we doubt our abilities to succeed,
the more we struggle to make meaningful friendships the more we feel like we’re destined to be alone and struggle to open up to people.

To take your life back from a problem you need to develop a different relationship with the problem itself. We need to put you back in the driver’s seat of your life; cultivate new skills and ideas that help keep you in charge of you and draw on the knowledge of what has worked for you before.

At Kaleidoscope, we do this by creating a safe, reflective space, where we can both seek to understand the origins of the problem and what maintains it now. In our therapeutic space we will use talking and creative approaches to help you consider what life would look like without this problem in it and develop a bespoke intervention plan to help you move forwards in the way that best suits you.

Everyone is different and needs something tailored to them. Our relational approach enables us to work with a range of what are traditionally referred to as mental health problems in an empowering and strength-based manner. Please click here to see our ‘our help’ page to see the types of problems we regularly help with.

We work collaboratively with all of our clients, we’re in this together after all; you bring your expertise on you, your life and the problem and we bring our expertise on what has helped others and how change works. Together we can make a difference.

If you are interested in the help we offer, then please get in touch via the form below or by emailing or calling our office. If you have any further questions, please click here to see our FAQ page.

Get in touch.

The post STRUGGLING WITH YOUR ‘SELF’ appeared first on Kaleidoscope.

HAVE A CHILD WHO IS STRUGGLING

admin-kpp-cornelius — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:30:09 +0000

HAVE A CHILD WHO IS STRUGGLING .

What we do:

As parents, we want the absolute best for our children but can worry about how they’re doing and how best to help when they’re struggling. Sometimes we can feel stuck, trying our hardest to help, but either feeling like we’re getting nowhere or that we’re making it worse.

If this is how you’ve been feeling, then don’t worry as you’re not alone. Being a parent can be an impossible task sometimes as there are rarely right ways to do it and children certainly don’t come with an instruction manual! To make things even more challenging, each child is so different that there is rarely an easy-to-reach, off-the-shelf answer to the problems that arise. At Kaleidoscope, we believe that each child needs to be supported in their own way. For this exact reason, we have a beautifully interactive and engaging therapy room that will suit children of all ages. We work with children at their pace, using talking, creative and play approaches so that we can build a meaningful relationship and work together on understanding and overcoming the problem. Our non-pathologising approach means that we will help your child see that they are not the problem, the problem is the problem and in doing so we safeguard and often help build their self-esteem and support a positive relationship with themselves.

Every child is different and needs something tailored to them. Our relational approach enables us to work with a range of what are traditionally referred to as mental health problems in an empowering and strength-based manner. Please click here to see ‘our help’ page to see the types of problems we regularly help with.

Seeing your child struggle can be almost incapacitating for parents. My mum used to say to me that you’re only as happy as your least happy child. It reminds me of how interconnected we are in families; how much our moods and experiences impact one another.

Childhood is a time of development, being shaped by the key relationships and experiences that happen around us. At home, school, in friendships, with family members. There are different projects for young children and different ones for teenagers. Families grow and develop over time as the people making up the family grow and change as well (children and adults alike).

At Kaleidoscope, we recognise the importance of taking a family view when looking at a young person’s emotional struggles. Families are often the greatest and most readily available resource young people have when trying to navigate and overcome problems. Even when facilitating 1:1 work with children and young people, having a view of the significant relationships around them can give us a sense of how best to help, and who to recruit in helping overcome these distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

If you are interested in the help we offer, then please get in touch via the form below or by emailing or calling our office. If you have any further questions, please click here to see our FAQ page.

Get in touch.

The post HAVE A CHILD WHO IS STRUGGLING appeared first on Kaleidoscope.

STRUGGLING AS A SEPARATED FAMILY

admin-kpp-cornelius — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:18:41 +0000

STRUGGLING AS A SEPARATED FAMILY.

What we do:

Making a separated family work can be a difficult task. Often parents have separated because they do not wish to be around each other anymore and still being tied together through their children can present a minefield of potential hurt and conflict for separated parents. Battles over child-care and child-time arrangements can leave parents struggling to agree and regularly leave each party highly stressed. Sadly, for many of the separated families we meet within Kaleidoscope, effective communication has essentially broken down and families are left spending excessive amounts of money communicating through solicitors and regularly returning to court.

The core problem for us, as child-focused and trauma-informed professionals, is that it is the children in these separated families that really feel the consequences of this animosity between separated parents. We know that children’s development is shaped by their key relationships and the environment they are growing up in. Children are wired to tune into the moods and attitudes of their parents as, evolutionary speaking, these indicate how safe a child is from moment to moment. When there is major disharmony between parents, children naturally pick up on this and adjust accordingly. They may start to worry more, to regress and show younger child behaviours, they may start to take sides with one parent or act out in destructive or worrying ways. Children of separated parents who are unable to work together are often shouldering the burden of that conflict and can often feel lost for who they are, or who they’re supposed to be. Rarely have separated parents found the headspace to reflect on the impact of their acrimonious separation on their children.

At Kaleidoscope, we are one of the few centres in the UK that offer a structured and specialist, therapeutic approach to working with separated families. We draw upon our knowledge of relational approaches to therapy and systemic ways of helping alongside an expertise in working with parents in conflict to develop better and more collaborative forms of communication. Our founder, Dr Paul Walton, is a co-author of the Parenting Apart Programme, a structured intervention designed specifically to help separated/separating parents move forward without conflict or animosity and work together in ways that not only help their children thrive, but also reduce their stress and struggle as co-parents.

We are mindful that being a separated parent is extremely difficult and that co-parenting as separated parents is often something that we’ve not been shown how to do. We recognise that unless we get separated parents working together in sessions, then there is little chance they will be able to do so out in the real world. We ensure that we create a safe, explorative space for separated parents to find ways to communicate and work together. We are different to mediation services as we come from a therapeutic lens and use our formal therapeutic training to support each party to not only reach agreements, but to be changed in the way they work together through our process. We work on the relationship between separated parents rather than just seek to find an agreement between parties. We may offer direction and/or challenges to either parent to achieve our shared goals and will always hold the wellbeing of the children as the core rationale for parents working better together, whilst apart.

If you are interested in the help we offer, then please get in touch via the form below or by emailing or calling our office. If you have any further questions, please click here to see our FAQ page.

Get in touch.

The post STRUGGLING AS A SEPARATED FAMILY appeared first on Kaleidoscope.