People seek therapy for all sorts of reasons. Some are looking for prompt resolution of a specific problem while others face a range of long-standing difficulties. Some are working to recover from a single incident while others are struggling to cope with a lifetime of trauma.
Whether you feel sad, angry, afraid, lonely or just plain lost, it is my experience that the decision to seek help is an act of courage and resilience. Many people will find the support they need from family members and friends. But in some situations, that kind of social support is either not available or does not feel quite up to the task.
Counselling and psychotherapy offer, in a structured and protected way, a safe place to articulate anxieties, needs, fears and hopes and identify fixed and unproductive patterns of behaviour and relating. I aim to help you put this in a meaningful emotional and intellectual context so that new and creative ways of dealing with life can be found. You might quite naturally feel unsure about what is involved, so in our initial meeting (which I do not charge for), I’ll explain to you a little more about what to expect from me, and you can tell me what you would like to achieve.
I won’t tell you what to do, but I will help you identify the origins of your problem and explore with you the (potentially contradictory) feelings that you’re experiencing. Together we can then begin to open up the options that are available to you. Good therapy, I think, can help guide people past the blockages, defences and self-defeating choices that are limiting their lives, opening the door to a richer and deeper engagement with the people, places and activities that matter to them most.
Regular monitoring of the therapeutic process can be a very effective way of ensuring that we are making progress towards your goals. There are a range of assessment measures and questionnaires that can be used to do this and I am happy to explain the options to you if you are interested in this way of working.