Glenn Nicholls Counselling & Psychotherapy in Cambridge & London

I will begin a new face to face therapy group after the movement restrictions have been lifted and when enough people have registered interest (see below) The group will meet at my home in Cambridge - it is for people who would like to feel more at home in groups.

The first group many of us belong to is 'family' - not that we necessarily feel at home or even that we belong. We try to fit in by observing or adopting familial values, ways of relating and norms of behaviour. These norms seem normal since they're all we know, until of course we meet other families and join other groups. Families and other groups can be places where we struggle to be ourselves; much of our energy gets taken up trying to survive and make sense of family life. Ironically most of us have first to leave home before we can really explore who we are.

There are many reasons how and why people find groups difficult, not least that life tends to be a series of being in and out of different groups, and so we all too often repeat old versions of who we've been, or think we should be, such that we might not even recognise who we are. Life can be a bit like a series of 'coming out' to ourselves and others; and if it's not, its more like a closet.

The group's aim is to become a culture of support. Support can feel warm and fuzzy, and it can also feel prickly since it can also entail challenge - challenge to others and to ourselves. With the right support challenge feels risky whilst also being safe.

I enjoy helping people discover the value and reward of supporting one another, and of giving and receiving of themselves. I like seeing a person able to sit together with someone in pain, and I delight when I see a person discover laughter in the midst of their suffering: it is neither pain nor suffering that disconnect us from lightness and joy.

'And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.'

Friedrich Nietzsche

PRACTICALITIES

The group is a ‘rolling group’, meaning there is no designated ending; it rolls on, this means the group can develop and mature without the pressure of time. Members offer a minimum commitment, probably six months, if and when they leave a new member can join. The maximum size is eight, the minimum is six. The group is on Monday evenings from 6.30 to 8.10pm. The fee will be £45 per group meeting.

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