Featured Interview With Susanna Sweeney
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in a country that no longer exists – East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain. In fact, I was born within a kilometer of Checkpoint Charly in Berlin and grew up there – on the wrong side of the wall. Growing up in a quite regimented world where mass surveillance was an everyday thing, where you couldn’t speak freely, where you couldn’t get truthful news and only propaganda, where many world-famous books were banned, and where there was no regard paid to mental health or personal development, had a profound impact on me. I’ll never forget finally getting my hands on Orwell’s 1984 just after the Fall of the Wall in November 1989- a book I had been wanting to read for years.
The disregard for the individual’s emotional lives, which affected me directly as I had issues with anxiety from early on, brought me down the path of becoming a psychotherapist- after I relocated to Ireland in my early 20ies. For 25 years, I worked exclusively in the area of trauma and anxiety.
These are two areas where you will be on a steep learning curve to determine what works and what doesn’t, provided you are open-minded and pay close attention. Within five years of my career, I realised that talking alone was not enough to help people overcome the difficult feelings they experience daily, which limit their enjoyment of life and their potential in work and business. This insight led me on a journey to seek solutions that are more effective, easier, and safer than talk therapy alone.
Part of these solutions lies in working through the senses rather than the cognitive mind alone- which is what I specialise in now. Since this approach is less well-known yet, I aim to bring it to a broader audience by incorporating it into my writing.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always been fascinated by books since the moment I started school at the age of six. When I was young, I primarily read fiction, but in recent years, my focus has shifted to nonfiction. I started writing as a kid. Initially, I wrote poetry and, in fact, was a published poet in my teens, with my poems appearing in print and read out on national radio.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
In my nonfiction work, I am inspired by some of the great writers in the therapy field, such as Lori Gottlieb, as well as writers with a more professional audience, including Pat Ogden, with whom I trained, and Peter Levine, John Bowlby, and Dan Siegel.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Relationship Anxiety Guidebook is my first piece of nonfiction writing. It came to be because I came across relationship anxiety again and again in my work and realised just how widespread it is and how connected to other forms of anxiety.
I aim to show readers effective ways to reduce relationship anxiety. The book features some targeted information on the multiple drivers behind this complex issue, along with practical, hands-on solutions. One primary key to fulfilling and securely attached relationships lies in being able to regulate your emotions effectively. In my book, I teach safe, gentle, and effective psychosensory approaches to achieving just that alongside many other tools, exercises, and strategies.
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