Charlotte Parish — Building Awareness And Understanding To Facilitate Change
Charlotte has extensive clinical experience working with individuals who are dependent on substances and alcohol and understands the complex interaction between substance use and emotional discomfort.
Using TA, alongside other psychotherapeutic modalities Charlotte enables clients across presentations to become more aware of their internal world and together they are able to build awareness and understanding in order to facilitate change.
Charlotte Parish, Therapist at Start Something Counselling and Psychotherapy
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life. I have studied Psychology for over twenty years, gaining a Psychology degree and MSc and have extensive experience working in the field of Psychology. I live in Hove, UK with my husband, two children and a sausage dog who is full of personality. We are a beach-loving family and whilst they take to the sea, I enjoy watching them appreciate the waves from a sun lounger with a cup of coffee! Of course, walking the dog is a great way to clear my mind and get out into the surrounding countryside.
I decided to stay at home whilst my children were very young, beginning Psychotherapy training as they began their preschool education; I have completed formal Psychotherapy training and have extensive clinical experience predominantly in the fields of substance and alcohol dependence, trauma and bereavement.
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
I run Start Something Counselling and Psychotherapy from a clinic in Hove, where I see clients face to face. I continue to work online. Within my private practice, I aim to provide a space where individuals can explore their own minds without judgement. When individuals can gain awareness of how they are thinking and feeling, and why, they are able to gain an understanding of how their interactions and environments have shaped their thinking and feeling. With this understanding, they are enabled to make choices regarding whether and how they would like to change.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
My areas of specialism are substance and alcohol dependence within which I work with individuals to navigate an understanding of what their substance of choice is relieving for them. Gabor Mate asks, ‘not why the addiction, but why the pain?’
I also specialise in working with bereavement and loss. For an individual to be seen and heard in their loss is sometimes difficult for those around them to achieve. This is not through fault or lack of trying and is more related to their own relationship with loss or the person who has died. The therapeutic relationship can provide an alternative space.
What is your work inspired by?
I work mainly with the theory of Transactional Analysis (TA). TA is a theory of personality, social interaction and communication first developed by Eric Berne in the 1950s.
As developing individuals we quickly adapt to the world around us, to our environments and to those we interact with; we learn adaptations in order to survive. Some of our adaptations become maladaptive over time, are no longer needed or are not serving us well in our here and now environments. Through gaining an awareness of our thoughts and feelings we can understand our internal worlds, and with this awareness and understanding, we are enabled to make changes, if we decide.
My work is inspired by the belief that everyone has their own mind and can change; I work from the understanding that we are all OK as humans.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today
I have been in my own personal therapy for several years. This was primarily a requirement of my training, and now I continue with personal therapy. I believe this is a necessary element of my own personal and professional self-care. There have been many pivotal moments for me throughout my training, which is rigorous and life-changing. I believe there will be pivotal moments in the future as I continuously grow and develop as a practitioner.
One realisation that stands out for me is that I am not responsible for the thoughts of others; that I cannot fix or rescue another. My role professionally is to enable others to navigate their own thoughts and feelings; I can walk alongside them in this. This has also had a profound affect in my personal life.
