A blog by Kysen MD Clare Rodway, capturing interesting conversations she has in the course of her work...
Lauren Rosenberg
I have never met anyone whose professional life is devoted to fear.
Lauren Rosenberg's work, however, is dedicated to helping people let go of it. Through her consultancy, Fear Busters, she supports clients in removing unwanted fears and phobias - often ones that have shaped their lives for years. We met at an event co-hosted by Kysen client and divorce consultant Laura Rosefield of Rosefield Divorce Consultancy, which explored the impact of trauma on divorce proceedings. From the moment Lauren began describing her work, she had my full attention.
I've always believed that the connection between body and mind is far stronger than modern society often acknowledges. Lauren's insights - and the vivid descriptions of the people and challenges she's worked with - took my appreciation of this to an entirely new level.
'Burying emotions doesn't make them go away', she says. 'If they're not dealt with and properly processed, they often emerge as physical problems. A cold could be a sign that you're annoyed with someone. Tonsillitis might signify a deep-seated upset about a promise that has been under-delivered. A chest infection could point to disappointment about something that should have happened but didn't.' The same is true of negative thought patterns, she tells me. 'These often manifest as physical conditions as well. My journey with clients is to work with their minds first and change their thought patterns, for physical healing then to follow.'
Speaking to Lauren about her work, I was struck by how often she is called in after a divorce, especially to help children find their footing again. Often referred by family lawyers, she sees the same patterns repeating: the emotional fallout that ricochets through young lives long after the papers are signed. There is something both inevitable and heartbreaking about it. Fear of abandonment. Fear of change. The quiet belief that they are no longer loved, or somehow not worthy of being loved. Add to that a loss of confidence and the weight of trauma, and the true after-effects of divorce begin to show themselves. For many younger children, this is compounded by the constant post-separation back-and-forth between homes - arrangements made for them, not by them - which can create a frightening sense of having lost all control over their world. So often this becomes a control issue for the child when they reach teenage and manifests in physical as well as emotional problems.
I seized the opportunity of speaking to Lauren to ask her professional view on a bugbear of mine - the sense that today mental health is sometimes over-diagnosed, and that many in Generation Z seem increasingly inclined to adopt labels like "OCD" or "anxiety" as part of their identity. Here's what she had to say: 'Labels can be unhelpful, even when they come from a proper diagnosis. You need to see yourself as yourself - as a human being who breathes in their own right - and to be thankful for the positives in your life and in how you have been made. However, labelling does have its place, in that sometimes you need a label to access the right help. But where it goes wrong is when people forget to drop the label once they've got that help.'
'Knowing you're experiencing anxiety can, of course, be useful in directing you to explore why it's there and how to manage it. But it isn't who you truly are. It simply describes what's happening at a particular time. Calling it "my anxiety" can mean identifying with it too closely - even developing a fear of losing it. I tell my clients: it came because of something, so it can go.'
Such wise words. It was a pleasure speaking with you, Lauren. I learned a great deal.
