www.therapywithsharon.co.uk

I've been off work on annual leave for the last couple of weeks and I had intended to spend the time working on my PhD and building my new website.  Things haven't quite gone to plan though ...

I've done hardly any PhD work ... other than presenting at a Faculty Research Seminar!

I thought I would have my website designed and built within a couple of days ... I now see how overly ambitious (or naive!?) I was being!  I've enjoyed the process but it has been extremely time consuming!  It can be very frustrating trying to line up text frames, graphics, images, etc!  I've spent so much time sat at my PC that I'm sure I've got RSI (repetitive strain injury in my right shoulder from using my mouse so much!!  The pain and burning sensations in my shoulder and the pain in the back of my neck are a bit of a give away! Ouch !!

I didn't realise when I started building this new website just how big it was going to grow!  I imagined it being a similar size to my current website ... www.sharoncoxcounselling.co.uk ... but it has already surpassed that! I chose to develop a new website because I felt that I had outgrown 'Sharon Cox Counselling.'  Mostly as a result of my PhD and everything I have experienced and learned across the last 5 years as a result, I now see that I am so much more than a counsellor.  And 'Sharon Cox Counselling' didn't seem to give me space to be all that I now am.

I'm looking ahead now to when my PhD is complete and what comes next for me.  I think this new website, www.therapywithsharon.co.uk is the start.  It's a good foundation on which I can build and continue to grow and expand.  'Therapy and Other Things with Sharon' seems to allow me the opportunity to embrace anything that feels appropriate.

And that's what I hope my website hints at.  As I've worked on it, my ideas have continued to grow and I've kept seeing new pages that should be added.  I think this website will continue to build in that way.

I've decided to publish it today, even though there are still some pages under construction.  I had thought that the pages that are complete, would have formed the complete website ... but it seems not!  As I say on the home page;

    "This is a newly published website & as such still has some pages under construction.  Please bare with me as I complete these pages as quickly as possible.  As I have developed it, it & my ideas have continued to grow.  Rather than wait for it to be completed, I have decided to publish it as it stands, allowing it to grow as it needs to … in a similar way to how I practice therapy & have conducted my research.

Being able to tolerate incompleteness, uncertainty & imperfection is a necessary stage on the journey to self acceptance, psychological individuation and self-actualisation.

It also helps me sit with, and hold my clients’ confusion, uncertainty, distress and other experiencing

I hope in this way, this website reflects a little bit of me, and how I work and live my life …

I’d also like to offer you the opportunity to help this website grow.  If there’s anything I’ve written that you don’t understand, or that you’d like me to write more about, please let me know.  If you feel that way, chances are other people will too."

Please comment here, or e-mail me with any comments or requests at:   sharon@therapywithsharon.co.uk

I look forward to hearing from you & receiving your thoughts, ideas, reflections & requests ...