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sarahfishburnrober
- Oct 15
- 2 min
Unsafe Neighbourhoods
In his 2003 memoir, Dry, Augusten Burroughs writes: “think of your head as an unsafe neighbourhood; don’t go there alone.” Yet go there...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Feb 22, 2021
- 2 min
The possibilities of boredom
Lockdown is evoking a curious sensation in us all, of feeling unremittingly under pressure but simultaneously rather bored. On the...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Jan 31, 2021
- 2 min
The Gift of the Desert
Some of my clients are experiencing a sort of numb boredom, which is not the consequence of having nothing to do, but of feeling...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Jan 31, 2021
- 2 min
Celestial Encounters
This week, several clients have told me that they are finding lockdown difficult but feel they cannot complain about it because other...
13 views0 comments
sarahfishburnrober
- Jan 7, 2021
- 2 min
The dance of life
Matisse’s dancers seem at odds with the year 2020. Their exuberance, self-expression and harmony do not match these days of lockdown and...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Nov 7, 2020
- 2 min
Drowning, not waving
Sometimes we must seek a temporary respite from fierce and difficult emotions. This morning as I walked by the sea in Hove, the water...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Nov 2, 2020
- 2 min
How to fall, purposefully.
Van Gogh painted this autumnal scene, ‘Leaf Fall,’ after he admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital in 1889. His correspondence at...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Nov 2, 2020
- 2 min
Finding meaning amidst futility and absurdity
This is Maria de’ Medici, eldest daughter of Cosimo I and Eleonora of Toledo, painted by Bronzino in 1559. Maria was 11 at the time, a...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Apr 15, 2020
- 2 min
At home in the house of the living
My friend Claire has just celebrated the beginning of Passover with her family. She shared photos of their seder, of drinking from the...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Apr 7, 2020
- 2 min
The Story of Achilles
We all have our own Achilles’ heel, by which I mean our own specific point of weakness, that spot that when pressed, hurts more than any...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Apr 5, 2020
- 2 min
Finding a light of meaning
‘Little girl in the forest’ is a painting by the Cuban artist Eduardo Abela. It speaks to me of our collective sense of confusion and...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Mar 22, 2020
- 2 min
Needs in the time of Corona
This week, we counsellors have been doing three things: addressing our clients’ heightened anxiety in the face of the Corona virus,...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Feb 17, 2020
- 2 min
CBT - and the hunger to be more serious
When I look at Rembrandt’s self-portrait of 1669, I allow myself to believe that this was a man who lived a life of great psychological...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Jan 4, 2019
- 2 min
You need not be alone.
Enquiries about starting counselling surge around the Christmas and New Year period. This is often attributed to the fact that Christmas...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Sep 17, 2018
- 2 min
Dissolving our petrified opinions
Artist Emma Middleton and a group of care leavers created this art installation currently on display at the Foundling Museum in London....
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sarahfishburnrober
- Sep 17, 2018
- 2 min
The Sounds of Silence
The pressure to keep moving and stop thinking (and we could add feeling, sensing, perceiving and so on) is a very real one, and in this...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Jul 2, 2018
- 2 min
Coughing in the dark
Perhaps one of the hardest things for clients to tolerate is the feeling that therapy isn’t getting them anywhere. They complain of a...
35 views0 comments
sarahfishburnrober
- Jun 4, 2018
- 2 min
The Gift of Uncertainty
Clients come to therapy looking for answers to their misery and confusion. They want to know why they’re depressed, for example, and...
30 views0 comments
sarahfishburnrober
- Apr 25, 2018
- 2 min
The soil we are sown in
“Addiction runs in the family.” “She’s just like her father.” “It’s just the way I am.” These, and many other similar statements, are...
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sarahfishburnrober
- Apr 25, 2018
- 1 min
Chasing butterflies
This painting by Gainsborough depicts his daughters trying to catch a butterfly. They probably won’t manage it; the butterfly is pretty...
137 views0 comments