Finding safety when life feels overwhelming
For many people who self harm, the act can bring a momentary sense of control or relief. When everything feels too chaotic, painful, or out of reach, self harm can seem like a way to regain order – a private act that makes unbearable emotions feel containable.
But while it might offer temporary comfort, it often leaves behind shame, guilt, or confusion. Psychodynamic therapy provides a space to explore these complex feelings with compassion, helping you to understand what self harm means for you, and to find safer, more lasting ways to feel in control of your life.
Why Self Harm Can Feel Like Control
Self harm isn’t just about physical pain. It’s often about emotional regulation. When life feels unpredictable or overwhelming, controlling the body can become a way to manage emotions that feel impossible to hold.
For some people, this sense of control might come from needing to make internal chaos visible, or from finding a predictable way to relieve tension. For others, it may reflect earlier experiences of being powerless – times when it wasn’t safe to express anger, sadness, or fear.
Psychodynamic therapy looks at these experiences gently and thoughtfully. It helps uncover how early relationships and events have shaped the ways you manage distress now, and how those patterns can begin to shift.
How Therapy Helps You Regain Emotional Control
In counselling for self harm, the focus is not on judgement or stopping the behaviour, but on understanding it. Over time, therapy can help you:
- Recognise and name the emotions that lead to self harm
- Find alternative ways to release tension or express pain
- Understand the roots of your need for control
- Build tolerance for difficult feelings without turning against yourself
- Develop a more compassionate and stable relationship with your body
Therapy offers a space to explore what control means to you and how it can be found in ways that support rather than harm you.
The Importance of Safety and Trust
The therapeutic relationship itself plays a vital role in healing. Many people who self harm have experienced situations where trust was broken or emotions were dismissed. In therapy, consistency and safety are central, providing a space where you can express parts of yourself that might have felt unacceptable elsewhere.
Through this process, control begins to take on a new meaning: rather than something achieved through harm, it becomes a sense of inner stability and choice.
Beginning Counselling for Self Harm
If you’re considering therapy for self harm in Brighton or online, you don’t need to have everything worked out or to have stopped self harming before starting counselling.
I offer a confidential, non-judgemental space to begin making sense of what’s happening and to find gentler ways of feeling safe and in control.
If you have or feel like you might harm yourself right now, you need urgent medical attention. Call 999 and ask for an ambulance, go to A&E, call your crisis team or your GP.