A former client, Tom, shares his experience about his time with The Harbour.
“Let me be clear at the offset that what I write takes as its starting point the skill, professionalism and humanity of the organisation as I experienced it, and more immediately the therapist I was allocated to work with. He and they both behaved humanely and impeccably throughout my process with them. From the initial conversation with the administrator to the words said in consultation, there was the same thoughtfulness and care given…
What I want to write now goes beyond that, though ‘that’ is in itself is no mean achievement. I contacted the Harbour because I was very frightened, disturbed if you like, following my wife’s death and the medicalisation of the last part of our lives together. I needed help to both experience what had happened, strange but, despite at one level its obviousness, true; and I needed help to find out I could survive the experience.
What I got was all of this and something unexpected, something more. My therapist had a delicate mixture of firm down -to -earthness and a rich poetic imagination. I felt a great freedom to explore the territory of my grief in my own way, and even more importantly, at my own pace. What took me by surprise was a gift, an opening up of my personality into something more warm, more loving and more generous and paradoxically more able to look after itself too, once the shocks had subsided.
At the time I felt I needed more, sixteen sessions was way too short, but in fact the Harbour and my therapist had given me what I needed and much, much more.”