Counselling and Mental Health Service

Entry to this group is via Practitioner referral only.

These sessions will be face to face, taking place in Counselling and Mental Health Service (CS1), Room 5.004, Fifth Floor, Crawford House.

Better Relationships with Ourselves and Others

A five-week group on understanding signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships and how to start and maintain healthy relationship approaches.

Week One

Introduction to the TA ego-state model, the Parent-Adult-Child model of self. We will use this model to understand how we relate to ourselves and others. The model helps us work out how we care for ourselves, how we tend to relate to others. The model offers ideas about how we can shift our energy, care, and attention to have a healthier relationship with ourselves and other people.

Week Two

Using the TA Ego-State Model to conceptualise self-care. We will look at how we relate to and look after ourselves. We will look at the Nurture/Structure Highway model to identify helpful and unhelpful self-care behaviours. We will look at developmental needs across our lives and the permissions we need to support our growth and development.

Week Three

Using the TA Ego-State model to understand our communication and relational patterns. Introduction to the concept of symbiosis. This is a model that describes co-dependence and shows us how we can move from enmeshed relational patterns to close but independent relating.

Week Four

Introduction to the Drama Triangle, a tool which helps us understand unhelpful roles that we take on in relationships and how we can end up repeating problematic psychological games. The Winning Triangle offers alternative, positive approaches to setting and holding boundaries, caring for and responding to others, and asking for help and support.

Week Five

Bringing it all together.

We will review the Parent-Adult-Child model and its uses in helping us to understand our communication and relational patterns. We will identify helpful ways to bring nurture and structure into how we care for ourselves. We will review the symbiosis model of unhealthy co-dependence and the positive counterpart of mutual inter-dependence. We will revisit the Drama and Winning Triangles to review positive roles and approaches for relating to others.