First Posted on April 5, 2013 by alisonball
Life continually throws up change and challenge. We can think of and feel it as disruption and upheaval and it certainly can be “an upset in a steady state” which is the definition I once heard of for “stress”. Or we can rise to the challenge and think of it as adventure and excitement.
Recently I was confronted with just such a dilemma when almost over night or at least within a short space of time and for family and personal reasons, I decided that I would sell my home of 20 years (and therefore my place of work since 1999) and move to live within an hour of the city (on a good run). Because I have so loved living and working where I do, at first I was somewhat shocked that I was considering such a move. However, as I decided that I could look on it as adventure, excitement and stimulation for my brain, I went into action. Of course there have been moments or days when anxiety and frustration have prevailed but on the whole I feel the underlying excitement.
I was quickly offered another place from which I could work and on Saturday confirmed that indeed, when it becomes necessary toward the end of the year, I will take up that offer and work from 201-203 Camberwell Road, Camberwell. Though with a separate entrance from the street, this will be upstairs above what is the Ambrosia Restaurant almost directly opposite the Rivoli Cinema at Camberwell Junction.
My life disruption will also mean disruption in the lives of the people who come to see me professionally. Some will not want to change and may choose to leave me. I hope all can let me know their anxieties and frustrations with the move. Certainly it will be very different for me and for them. The new premises are big and old and rather cavernous but I have chosen a room there that I hope will give all of us enough containment to do the necessary work- which does require a sense of safety. To that end I will also bring my furniture with me to the new rooms.
During my more than 25 years working as a psychotherapist, I have worked in four places so far- this will be the fifth. At first I worked from my home, which at the time was in East Hawthorn. Then in 1986-7 a group of colleagues and myself set up the Somatic Therapy Centre and a co-operative for managing it. We began in Johnston Street Abbotsford then after a couple of years moved to a beautiful centre in Station Street Fairfield. It was only after a close colleague was killed and that co-incided with the end of our lease that I moved to work in the room I had built on at my home in Kew.