Articles & Reflections
The Library
I write to explore some of the things that are difficult to explain within the confines of a therapy page — how counselling actually works, why we can understand ourselves intellectually and still find ourselves repeating familiar patterns, and how our relationships, bodies and nervous systems shape our experience.
Some articles begin with psychological ideas, others with the body, and some with ordinary moments of human life. Together, they reflect the way I understand therapeutic change: not as something that happens only through thinking, but through awareness, relationship and lived experience.
Explore the series
Understanding Counselling. What actually happens in counselling and how therapeutic change develops. [Explore the series ↓]
The Body Keeps the Score — But Not the Story. How our experiences are carried through the body, nervous system and our stories about ourselves. [Explore the series ↓]
Stay with the conversation
If something you have read here has stayed with you, you are welcome to receive new articles as I publish them.
New articles only. Unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Notice.
Understanding counselling
What actually happens in counselling?
This series follows ordinary people through therapy to explore what counsellors are listening for, how patterns become visible, what happens within the therapeutic relationship, and why understanding something about ourselves is not always the same as changing it.
If Counsellors Don’t Give Advice, What Do They Actually Do?
Counsellors rarely tell you what to do. So what are they listening for? Through Ruth’s story, we explore how counselling can make the things we do without noticing begin to become visible.
The Body Keeps the Score — But Not the Story
This series explores the relationship between our stories, emotions, nervous system and embodied experience — and why understanding what happened to us may be only one part of therapeutic change.
The Body Keeps the Score (But Not the Story) – Part 1
Many people understand their emotional patterns yet still feel anxious, tense, or reactive in their bodies. This piece explores why insight alone often isn’t enough — and how the nervous system holds experience not as story, but as pattern. A gentle introduction to relational, integrative therapy.
The Body Keeps the Score (But Not the Story) – Part 2
Why change happens in relationship? In the first part, we explored how the body holds experience not as story, but as pattern. If this is the case, a natural question begins to form: If the body learned through experience… how does it learn something different?
The Body Keeps the Score (But Not the Story) – Part 3
In the first two parts, we explored how the body holds experience as pattern, and how those patterns can begin to change through new experiences in relationship. This leads to another question: If some patterns are held beyond words… what happens when we begin to work with the body itself?
© Ruta Gabalis Counselling & Integrative Therapy