Counselling for mothers and grandmothers apart from their children
I have an in depth understanding of the experiences and feelings of women who, through family break up, divorce and separation find themselves living apart from their children and grand children, for part or all of the time.
Family break ups are very stressful. It can feel like you need superwoman strength to deal with family law solicitors, going to court, mediation services, social workers, CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service) and CMEC (the Child Support Agency and Child Maintenance Options).
Women spend a lot of time caring for others and we can feel undeserving, guilty or too busy to take care of ourselves. Sometimes we feel like we should be able to cope or we shouldn’t have got ourselves into the situation we find ourselves in. Society has high expectations of women as mothers and carers and women without children often say they are made to feel like unnatural, abandoning or unfit mothers.
It can be hard to reach out for help and support if you feel guilty, worried about what others think or anxious about being judged. I understand this and am able to support you through counselling.
Counselling can help you with:
- Divorce, separation and shared parenting problems, particularly in acrimonious circumstances.
- Difficulty coping with separation from children. Feeling bewildered, grief stricken, anxious and overwhelmed
- Providing emotional support during the legal process of the family courts. Finding ways of containing strong feelings in an official environment
- Moving on after divorce when feeling angry, frightened, sad and confused
- Loss and sense of bereavement at no longer being 24 hour, hands on mum
- Trauma of lost residency/custody or being denied contact/access
- Grandmother loss– not being allowed to see grandchildren
- Self esteem problems – feeling worthless, without a purpose and lacking in confidence
- Being a target parent when Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) or Hostile Aggressive Parenting (HAP) is or has taken place
