about psychotherapy and counselling

Counselling and psychotherapy can help with a variety of difficulties from a change in circumstances to difficulties with relationships. Where difficulties are long-standing and deeper work is required I recommend longer-term psychotherapy as opposed to counselling - your requirements will be discussed at an initial meeting.

Where you wish to work with a specific issue, for example how to cope with anxiety or panic attacks it may be that CBT can be useful – again this option can be explored in an initial meeting.

My training is Integrative which means I have studied various theoretical perspectives. My practice is informed by psychoanalytic ways of thinking about people and relationships. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a talking therapy that seeks to understand how past experiences and current ways of being may be linked, and the difficulties past experiences may cause.

Early experiences can affect our adult lives, for example the way we form relationships, or the way we feel about ourselves. Engaging in psychotherapy can enable a greater understanding of ourselves and others, and of how our past has affected our present lives and the choices made. In turn this can create a different way of relating to ourselves and others and of being in the world.

Psychotherapy aims to help people experiencing emotional difficulties including:

• difficulties in making and sustaining satisfactory relationships
• depression
• anxiety
• issues around identity
• cultural issues
• bereavement
• difficulties arising from emotional, physical or sexual abuse

>>> More on the processes involved in both psychotherapy and counselling.