Many mental health concerns can stem from or be worsened by challenging or unsatisfying relationships in our lives. We truly are who we spend our time with (or who we don’t spend our time with). Family, friends, co-workers, neighbours, people we encounter at the grocery store… all of our interactions with other humans really matter to our overall mental health. We aren’t just talking about romantic relationships here, we’re talking about relationships of all kinds.
Work on your relationships
We can’t tell you the number of clients who come to therapy to work on depression, only to crack open a whole new can of worms when they consider they don’t feel seen or understood by the few close friends they have. Or a client who wants to work on feeling insecure in their marriage, only to realize they don’t know how to have healthy conflict and communication with their partner. When we don’t have secure connections with others, lots of mental health concerns spring up. Here’s the good part: when we do learn how to form secure connections with others, we can feel so much better.
Work on your relationships
Our road map for relationships is formed early in life by our attachment figures. For some, this can mean parents, grandparents, babysitters, and/or older siblings. For others, it is the absence of these figures that offers a road map for what we can expect from relationships in the future. We learn the rules of engagement, like: What can I expect from another person? What feels safe? How is conflict handled? What do we do with feelings? Do we even know what feelings are?
For many of us, questions like the ones above are not considered until asked by a therapist. Exploring the history of your relationships can help uncover your unique challenges in your relationship patterns. We all have things we fear in relationships, or can’t tolerate, or struggle with, or notice keeps coming up and we don’t know how to handle. Ones we’ve heard range from “Why do I freak out as soon as my partner brings up an issue?” to “How come my romantic relationships always end with cheating?” to “Do I still want a relationship with my father?” to “How do I grieve my grandmother’s death when my mother won’t even talk about it?”
Work On Your Relationships
Exploring your relationships also includes exploring your relationship with yourself. How can you assess what you need from others? How on earth can you communicate those needs? What do you want your relationships to look like? How did you come to take on the role you play in your family unit? The more we examine our lives through our relationships, the more we learn about ourselves in the process. All of us at Levity put a large emphasis on relationships in how we see and treat your mental health concerns. We love working with people who want to learn about themselves and how they relate to others. We see so much as falling under this umbrella; things like: learning how to set boundaries, learning to identify and assert emotional needs, grieving the relationship you wish you had with a parent, building healthier friendships, and so much more fall under “working on your relationships.”
Does this sound good to you? Want to get started?
We understand reaching out takes effort. We try to make it as simple as possible. Send us an email, book a session using the link at the top of this page, review our Contact page – there is truly no wrong way to get in touch with us! And we aim to get back to you within 24-48 hours, because we know the wait can be a drag.
Let us know how we can help you!
Copyright © 2025 Levity Counselling Services. All Rights Reserved.
