psychotherapyPsychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change and overcome problems in desired ways. Psychotherapy aims to increase each individual’s well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviours, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social functioning.
This definition of the work of a psychotherapist shows just how fundamental the role is, to offer professional help when our emotional or mental processes are acting against our own best interests. Life throws challenges in everyone’s path and there are times for all of us when the ‘mirror’ that a skilled therapist can help us to look into can be a big part of the healing process. That’s what friends are for I hear you say and, while I don’t doubt that our friends are central to our ‘support network’ and that friendships are vital for our emotional health, there are also times and issues which need the trained approach of the therapist.

Which is where psychotherapist, Mary Moran comes in – this is Mary’s own description of her role:
Mary-Nolan-imageI’m Mary and I’ve been working as a psychotherapist and counsellor since 1997. I work with individuals and their problems and I also work with relationships and couple issues.

I trained in The Tivoli Institute in Dun Laoghaire and I’m accredited with The Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, I’m also a Registered General Nurse.

It’s from my nursing baseline that I began to learn and realise that the signs and symptoms manifesting in our bodies can often be symptomatic of an underlying cause. We all need to be listened to and heard. We, each and everyone has our story, our hurts, our fears and our individual thoughts about how life “should” be.

Life is an amazing experience and it’s wonderful and yet it equally can be so, so tough at times. It’s in these tough times that we doubt ourselves and we sometimes don’t feel that it’s worth the effort that it takes for us to carry on. What do we do? To whom can we turn? ‘My dilemma is no big deal in the overall scheme of things’. I need to ‘get over myself and stop whinging’. ‘There are others much worse off than I’. These are thoughts that run riot in our heads and may become potentially devastating to our wellbeing and sabotage our own known coping skills. Overwhelming.

Fear. Fear underpins all of our insecurities. Fear prevents us from pursuing our hopes and our dreams. Fear of failure, fear of success and fear of being judged by others and fear of not being ‘good enough’.

So, this is where I come in. This is where, seeing a psychotherapist may enable you to have the safe place to stay with your own doubts and fears, to work with these doubts and fears and to be ok with being very human.

We are all born to survive. We are all born to have the best life that we’re capable of having. We all have that right to a quality of living. We need to believe in ourselves and to believe that we can live life to the full and believe in who we are.

change-your-lifeMy approach to my work is person centred, humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive. We are all the whole of who we are. We function from our heads, our hearts and from our intuitive nature, and when we unite all of these facets of self we become whole. We begin to believe in ourselves and in our capacity to thrive and to succeed in a confident, competent way. We grow up into the potential of the person we are born to be.

Life is and can be great. Believe in yourself, believe in myself, let’s believe in the goodness and wonder of us.

Contact email: mbnolan16@gmail.com.