Identity & Sense of Self

Our sense of self can be influenced by many experiences, including:

• Family and upbringing
• Culture and community
• Relationships
• Work and career
• Parenting and caring roles
• Successes and failures
• Significant life transitions
• Separation or divorce
• Retirement or redundancy
• Grief and loss
• Trauma or difficult experiences
• Health changes
• Ageing
• Social expectations
• Experiences of acceptance or rejection
• Values and beliefs
• Changes in priorities over time

Identity can also be affected when a way of seeing yourself that once made sense no longer fits your current life.

You might notice:

• Feeling unsure about who you are
• Feeling disconnected from yourself
• Struggling to identify what you want
• Defining yourself mainly through work or relationships
• Feeling different depending on who you’re with
• Changing yourself significantly to gain approval
• Feeling that you’ve lost part of yourself
• Questioning long-held beliefs or priorities
• Feeling uncertain after a major life change
• Comparing yourself with who you used to be
• Feeling that your current life doesn’t reflect who you are
• Struggling with changes in roles or responsibilities
• Feeling as though other people know what they want from you but you don’t know what you want for yourself
• Wondering what comes next

Questioning identity is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong. It can be part of growth, transition and understanding ourselves differently.

Therapy can provide space to explore who you are without requiring you to arrive with an answer.

Together, we can look at the experiences, relationships, roles and expectations that have shaped you, as well as what matters to you now.

Therapy may help you to:

• Develop a clearer understanding of yourself
• Explore the roles that have shaped your identity
• Separate your own needs from other people’s expectations
• Understand how past experiences influence how you see yourself
• Explore values and priorities
• Recognise parts of yourself that may have been neglected
• Work through changes in identity following loss or transition
• Explore the gap between how you appear and how you feel
• Develop greater confidence in your own choices
• Consider what you want the next stage of life to look like
• Develop a more flexible and balanced sense of self

The aim is not necessarily to discover one final answer to the question of who you are.

It can be about understanding yourself more clearly and allowing room for who you are becoming.

Questions about identity don’t always need immediate answers.

• Notice the roles you use to describe yourself. Consider which feel important and whether any have become too dominant.
• Ask what matters to you. Try separating your answer from what other people expect.
• Think about when you feel most like yourself. Consider who you’re with, what you’re doing and what is different in those moments.
• Notice where you change yourself. Pay attention to situations where you feel you need to become someone different to be accepted.
• Reconnect with something you’ve neglected. An interest, friendship or activity may represent a part of yourself that has received little attention.
• Consider what has changed. Your identity does not have to remain exactly as it was ten or twenty years ago.
• Allow some uncertainty. Not knowing exactly who you are at a particular stage of life does not mean you need to immediately create an answer.

Questions about identity can emerge at almost any stage of life, particularly when roles, relationships or circumstances change.

I offer practical, person-centred counselling and psychotherapy that provides space to understand yourself, explore what has shaped you and consider what matters to you now.

If you think talking to someone could help, you can learn more about my approach or get in touch to arrange a session.