Therapy exists to help people come to terms with trauma, crises and breakdowns in interpersonal relationships. Rayle Roberts can advocate from both sides of the couch.

 The psychotherapist and former owner and manager of the Wellness Centre has been ‘offline’ for some time, but over the past year has been building up a new practice, Rayle Roberts and Associates.  

“I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go back to therapy but about a year ago one of my old clients found me and was like “I need you.” After working with him for a bit another one came.... Eventually I came to the point where I wanted to re-commit to it and friends and family were there to help me,” he says.  

Roberts had stopped working as a therapist following the murder of his wife, Estella Scott Roberts. It was a brutal crime that shook the entire community. It’s taken time and effort to pick up the pieces but he is clearly determined to see the value in what he has experienced in terms of his work. On a small island, he knows his personal tragedy is no secret.  

“I think my strength is that I can say to clients, ‘I’ve sat in the chair. I’ve been the client,” he says.  

Clients looking for empathy, for someone who can genuinely understand the difficulties they have been through, will find that with Roberts. “Every tragedy I’ve had up until now - there’s always someone that walks through my door with similar stuff. One of the first clients that I saw [since opening the new practice] had been through a personal tragedy similar to mine. I love the idea that I could look at that person and say, “Yes, I know” - and that they were like, “Yes, I know you know.” 

“This was probably the fourth trauma in my life, but this was the first time I was qualified to understand it from a client’s point of view. I no longer had to read it in a book, I was experiencing it myself.” 

After many months of therapy, reading, meditation and soul searching, Roberts is back and ready to help others put the pieces back together. For the time being, he is keeping his operation small and personal, but sees individuals, couples, families or groups. His approach is to get to the root of the problem as quickly as possible and then design the most suitable course of treatment. This may incorporate a number of other modalities which he is experienced in.  

EMDR 

“Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing therapy is a modality I learned a long time ago for trauma. I have seen huge successes especially with rape victims on this island,” he explains. “When you go through a trauma, the programming in your brain gets mixed up. Daily life may become difficult. For example, a victim of rape might develop a fear of men, of the dark or of being alone. EMDR goes after the incident, the triggers, and future responses.” 

The therapy uses the eyes to bi-laterally stimulate the brain, a process which makes it hard to hold on to negative connotations. It’s something that occurs to a lesser extent, Roberts explains, when people go running. We’ve all heard of the runner’s high. “The left-right, left-right, movement bilaterally stimulates the brain and negative thoughts disappear or if they are there, are not so emotionally charged,” he says.  

As a therapeutic modality he might use his hands or a light bar, which is moved from side to side while asking patients to focus on the negative thoughts. While the trauma will not be forgotten completely, it can make day to day life much easier to cope with.  

Roberts has now added a child component to this treatment and is pleased to be able to assist some of the children on the island who have, as he says, been badly hurt.  

Hypnosis 

Hypnosis is a useful tool in helping people change lifestyle habits but the misconception surrounding hypnosis, Roberts points out, comes from stage hypnotists, who might make their subjects do things for comic effect. It is important to remember, he says, that these people all volunteered to be hypnotised and that even under hypnosis, it is impossible to make a person do something against their will.  

“The hypnogogic state is a naturally occurring state in the body. Just before you go to sleep, there’s a point where you know you’re not awake and you know you’re not asleep - that’s the hypnosis state. The only unnatural thing I do is I make that state occur. We trick the body into going into that state,” he explains.  

“Once in that state the conscious, critical mind relaxes,” Roberts continues. “Then the subconscious mind comes up in its place. This is when you are more open to receiving information. I then have the ability to input new ideas. I can input pain management ideas, or the idea you no longer have a connection to smoking, or food.”  

Hypno-birthing 

Hypno-birthing is a process that Roberts teaches to expecting couples to make the process of childbirth a more natural and relaxed one. “When you look outside medical complications a lot of the issues people have in childbirth are out of fear,” Roberts says.  

Developed by Marie Mongan, herself a doula, hypno-birthing takes self-hypnosis and applies it to the birthing principles.  

Roberts says that some women have an almost ingrained fear of childbirth. They are brought up hearing about how painful and difficult it is, so expect it to be that way. Hypno-birthing reminds women that it is a natural process. “We use it to re-frame a lot of stuff. We don’t use words like contraction or painful - how can those words be anything but negative? There’s a whole new level of conversation. You want to go in with the right vocabulary and thought processes,” Roberts says.  

Many people are reluctant to seek therapy for whatever reason, but the one most important thing Roberts says he has learned is the importance of caring for oneself. “It’s like on the aeroplane: you put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. You can’t take care of your family if you’re not taking care of yourself. We live in a world where everyone else is more important, but you have to put yourself first.”