Fran Dennehy Counselling

20/06/2025

07/10/2023

29/09/2023

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/13/my-stories-have-left-therapists-happy-sad-and-bored-but-did-i-ever-tell-the-whole-truth

Ok so I get that this isn’t meant to be a particularly serious article.
But of course it got me thinking (what doesn’t)

He clearly has had therapy and says he found/finds it really helpful. Great.
But any of what he has light-heartedly written here is true then he clearly doesn’t ‘get’ therapy.

To save you the read he says that it’s great to talk all about yourself, it’s really helpful, but how does the therapist know you’re telling the truth.

My answer is, I don’t care!

He jokingly suggests that you invite all the players in all the stories you’ve been telling your therapist and together come up with one ‘truth’ out of all your individual ‘true stories’

I couldn’t give a monkey’s!

I talk about so many things with clients, some of it fascinating, some of it light-hearted, some of it harrowing, some of it repetitive.

It’s is important to talk about it all, but that’s not the point of therapy.

The whole point is to have that time and space to be set aside for just you. Whether you use that time to lie, dig deep into your past, plan for the future, analyse your present, I don’t mind, whatever you want.

The point of therapy is that you are there as a person who is worth getting to know.

You are a person worthy of having time spent focusing on just you and your thoughts and feelings. Whether other people in your life agree with or corroborate those doesn’t matter.
This is about you and only you.

I don’t care if you lie to me, tell me truths you’ve never told anyone, chat about what you watched on TV last night.

Actually, more accurately I care about it all. I care about you, spending time with you, getting to know you.

Lie to me if you want, I’m interested. Bore me if you want, I’m interested. Share vulnerable thoughts and feelings with me, I’m interested.

Therapy may have many flaws, but if you turn up wanting to spend time with me getting to know yourself, there isn’t much that needs fixing.

Most talking cures involve just one person telling their version of events. Let’s hear from their nearest and dearest

11/09/2023

How do people actually plan to do something, set a day to do it, make time in that day to do, actually do it, and the complete miracle, finish doing it?

I genuinely have no idea.

Example from about a month ago of how things get done in my world. (Yes I've noted that it has taken a month to write this after thinking this would be a funny thing to write about)

Right, this morning the kids and I are going to clean the inside and wash the outside of the car because it is gross.

Ok, get the buckets and cloths, water in the buckets, all going well.

Actually, while they do that, I’ll just pull up some of the bindweed around the shrubs on the driveway.

Actually there are shed loads of weeds too I’ll just pull a few of those up.

Blimey there are load of really spiky weeds, they’d better go. I’m in crocs, shorts and no socks I’d like to point out.

If I stop for appropriate garden wear though I’ll get distracted or overwhelmed and nothing will get done, so just keep going.

‘Kids just grab me some of those garden waste bags and some gardening gloves, no not all of you some of you keep cleaning the car. Yes you have to take turns with the hoover, yes you actually have to do this, just do it please’

‘More garden waste bags please, yep all of them’

Oh look there is a long bit of wisteria there, I’ll just clip that back.

Oh there is some wisteria growing round the guttering and the cable line, better just get rid of that.

Actually it is all a bit overgrown, I’ll just clip back what I can reach.

‘Darling where did the big ladder go, I just want to reach this one bit’

'No it’s ok thanks I don’t need the the big cutting things I’m just doing a little tidy up.'

‘Actually yes, can I have the big cutting things please this all needs cutting back’

‘Have you seen that bush growing round the side of the house, that really needs cutting back, do you think we have time this morning?’

‘Sorry, what’s that kids, you’re really hungry? Oh yes, it is lunch time, ok don’t worry I’m just finishing up, no don’t fill up on snacks I won’t be long’

‘Just watch something for 10 minutes while I finish this bit then I’ll make some lunch’

‘Yes, I know I said no more screens this morning but that was before I got carried away with this’

Oh my god my crocs are full of prickly bits, can’t get them out while I’m balancing between the ladder and the roof of the car that was newly clean before I started cutting wisteria all over it.

Would be much better if I got the keys an moved the car but see above about getting distracted and overwhelmed'

‘Ok that’ll do, do you think, that’ll do, you sure, shall I just do.. ok ok it’s fine I won’t. Yes, we definitely need to get some lunch for the kids.

‘Are you ok to take this lot to the tip this afternoon?

‘Yes, I know we were only cleaning the car because it was stinking from the last load of garden waste we took to the tip. Yes, I see the irony’

I have known for about a year that that weeding needed doing and that wisteria needed cutting back.

I had tried to find time to do it so many times. It never happened. Yet when the moment comes and it feels like, ok, maybe I can get some of this done, however inconvenient, sometimes I just have to roll with it because that is the only way these things will happen.

And no, I didn’t and still haven’t got round to the bush growing round the side of the house. We now can’t open the gate on that side.

And the gardening gloves the kids brought out for me are still on a shelf in the hall because I never put them away properly.

30/08/2023

I don’t need counselling.

The words guaranteed to get me interested in what’s going on here then. 😊

This time it was a friend who had been talking about a few things that had been bugging them.
I wasn’t saying they needed counselling just wondering if it was something they thought might help.

There was a pause and then the slightly confused.
‘Yeah but I don’t need counselling.’

It’s something I hear a lot worded in lots of different ways.

I don’t need counselling
It’s not a big issue
It’s not that kind of problem
I mean it’s fine really

There is an idea out there that counselling is for people who are depressed, struggling, have poor mental health, or any other phrase for people who aren’t ‘fine’.

In reality of course there is no right or wrong reason to come to counselling.

I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t benefit from being able to talk to someone who is there to really listen.

It doesn’t matter, how big, small, important, trivial, life-changing or mundane the subject matter may be.

Anyone will benefit from spending time with someone who is there to care about you and not judge you, whatever has brought you there.

You can be absolutely fine. It doesn’t mean you can’t want things to be even better.

04/08/2023

I love this quote.
I hear so often,

I should be the bigger person
I should rise above it
I should move on
I should get over it

It doesn’t make you a good person to allow bad behaviour from others
It doesn’t make you a bad person to say it’s not ok to treat me that way
Disagreeing with other people isn’t attacking them

You can be kind and say no that’s not ok

31/07/2023

Summer holidays.
So long anticipated, Kids exhausted after a final manic term of plays, residentials, sports days, maybe even final year at school.
Now, finally it’s the holidays and you can do all those things you didn’t have time to do in term time. Too many after school clubs, everyone is too tired, weekends disappear before you’ve quite registered they’ve started.
Now you have time to relax without the rush of the school run. You can arrange all those playdates you never got around to last term. You can visit friends and family who live further away, those ones you never get to see but always promise ‘you’ll sort something out soon’
You can do all the activities that the kids are always begging to do but you can’t quite get organised for in term time.
Sounds brilliant right?
Except…
Before you can blink it’s a week or two into the summer holidays and you’ve only just recovered from the shock of everyone being home all the time enough o even start thinking about all of the above.
Everyone else is already fully booked for playdates.
Those far away friends and family only had a window in the first few days of the holidays but you’ll definitely ‘sort something out soon’
Kids can’t remember all those activities they were sooo desperate to do, you had written them down but obviously lost the list.
People are always asking you ‘got anything exciting planned for the holidays?’ You give a panicked grin and stammer something about taking it easy and seeing what everyone feels like.
They tell you all about their amazing plans booked and organised months ago, because they are ‘proper adults’.
So for everyone who is constantly bemused but those who seem to actually plan, organise, and put those plans into action, yup, I don’t get it either.
But hey we are always available for playdates so long as it doesn’t involve thinking more than 2 days ahead!

22/07/2023

This is a full-on emotion researcher geek out with Susan David on how emotional granularity and agility benefit us as individuals and as leaders. We think that denying our emotions makes us stronger and more resilient, but the research shows that it actually makes us LESS resilient. This is such a GREAT conversation on the new episode of the Dare to Lead podcast. http://bit.ly/3bO1qbT