Pathways Counselling Perth

05/03/2026

This is why ChatGBT cannot replace therapy.
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06/03/2025

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24/02/2025

Have you ever felt loyal to someone, been their biggest supporter, but the moment you expressed yourself or shared a different view you were criticised for not being right?

If you don't do things their way they end up correcting you, so you end up doing things the way they want.

It feels like you're being criticised for not getting it right. So you try to get it right, but then it will be something else you do wrong. You might be told how to behave, be judged on your appearance or feel constantly nitpicked. It feels like nothing you do is good enough.

Maybe you feel pressure to meet their expectations, which seem unrealistic. You may feel pressure to respond the way they want.

Eventually, you end up walking on eggshells in case you do or say the wrong thing. So you become hypervigilant about what you say or do. You live under constant fear of their reaction.

Perhaps you felt wrong for speaking up, and question yourself. So you are careful in what you say to avoid being wrong.

You may even feel drawn into doing what they want, because they guilt trip you or punish you.

So you feel a shell of yourself around this person and give up your own thoughts, because you feel this person knows you better than you. You tell yourself this person must be right, not trusting yourself. So you start to gaslight yourself. You back down on yourself and let this person control you. You may feel under their thumb, as if this person has some kind of psychological hold over you.

But you get backlash for not going along with them, so you give up on yourself to avoid the fight. It becomes easier not to say anything at all. It will just make things worse.

This could be your boss, who micromanages you for minor mistakes. It could be a co-worker, who gossips behind your back. Perhaps a partner picks on you or pokes fun at you. A parent might control what you think in order to keep you there.

Any time they get exposed, they feel inadequate for getting it wrong and have to protect themselves by devaluing you in order to modulate their fragile self-esteem. They may have had a harsh, critical parent who focused on what they did wrong, so they learned to be perfect to get approval.

To find out how to deal with a narcissist or recover from a narcissist contact info@counsellingservicemelbourne.com.au
Zoom sessions are avaliable within Australia.

19/02/2025

Do you betray yourself to get the love you want, only to feel abandoned, hurt, bitter or resentful when your needs are not met? Here is something that I see in my practice.
Love is what we give ourselves, and the worst betrayal is when we abandon ourselves in the pursuit of trying to get the love we want. No amount of fighting and protesting will give us what we can give ourself. Only then, we can allow others to love us in the way we need.
Healing from within allows us to accept ourselves as worthy, so we can foster relationships that are aligned with who we are, rather than settling for the breadcrumbs in relationships.
So, change starts from finding the love for oneself, rather than trying to change someone else.
When we learn how to accept what is good enough, we can create the relationship we deserve.
Instead of settling for something we don't want, we can learn to say " This does not align with me", "this does not work for me" or, this is what I am looking for in a relationship." By setting boundaries and limits on what you choose to accept, you can attract the person who is willing to align themselves with you.

18/02/2025

Clients ask me about the process of therapy.

One way to decribe this is that often therapy is a process of unlearning the patterns that became self protective coping mechanisms, which no longer serve us or our relationships.
When we start to focus on ourselves, it can feel uncertain or even scary. When we get to understand ourselves it does not always feel good, particularly if we learned that expressing ourselves was met with judgment, rejection or some form of control. We can start to feel these things and doubt ourselves or the therapist, especially if it triggers our template for relatedness. But as we work through these feelings and start to let go of what belongs to our past, our real self can emerge and awaken within and we discover who we are, rather than live according to others in order to avoid the fear of judgment, abandonment etc.
Therapy is not about getting instant gratification or adivce, it is about getting better and reclaiming yourself.

21/11/2024

27/10/2024

If you're an anxious attacher, you constantly feel left out or rejected when you don't feel included or invited. But once you heal yourself from feeling not good enough, you don't care what others think about you.
It is a sign of healing when you don't look to others to feel good enough.
Once we heal we stop searching for our unmet needs and let go of displacing them into people, events, places etc. This allows us to be present with ourselves and not run away from unprocessed feelings that lead to dissappoinment, anger or abandonment.
When we don't need others to accept us, it is because we have started to accept ourselves and let go of seeking the approval or validation of others.
Once we start to give ourselves what we need, we can overcome the quest of searching for what we did not get.

Therapy takes us on the journey of letting go of our past so we don't get stuck in it and move on, so we can live our own lives.
Tip
If we look for a quick fix in therapy, we are trying to avoid doing the actual work.







realself

05/09/2024

What is the difference between borderline, narcissistic or schizoid?

In 2014, I graduated from the International Masterson Institute learning how to work with each disorder when Dr Judith Pearson was the director. I came across this interview for those who want to know more about these behaviours.

By far the most important age to get parenting “right” is 0-3. This is when the “self” forms and if the primary caregiver (often the mother) is not well, maj...

05/09/2024

GASLIGHTING

If you address a valid issue in a calm way, and the other person feels exposed for their behavior, they can gaslight you by denying your reality so you question yourself. In this way they take the focus off of themselves and don't have to face their own behaviour if it makes them look bad. This way they can maintain the positive image they have of themselves. This is because facing their own actions causes them to feel ashamed or humilated so they have to deflect blame in order to feel better about themselves and boost their fragile self esteem.