Counselling & Psychotherapy
The words counselling and psychotherapy are often used interchangeably. People come for counselling or psychotherapy for many different reasons. You may want help with one specific concern or worry, or may want to understand or recover from something that’s happened in your past.
MY WAY OF COUNSELLING
There are many different schools of counselling and counselling theories, research showing that all tend to be equally effective. My predominant way of working is Gestalt; this therapy is one of a number of humanistic therapies which place a high value on respect and understanding of the individual’s experience, rather than trying to change the person. The focus is often on working through unresolved issues and conflicts, and becoming more aware of feelings and behaviours.
If you’re looking for a more structured approach, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), I am happy to use this with you. The CBT approach is that the way an individual thinks, feels and behaves are all intimately linked, and changing the way a person thinks about him or herself and their experiences, changes the way they feel and what they are able to do.
When you first start counselling, it is sometimes not clear how many sessions you are likely to need. One session is sometimes enough to help you become clear about your next step. If you are in a crisis, I may suggest a couple of sessions a week until the crisis has past. For some people, I may suggest that we agree to a fixed number of suggestions (maybe four or six) and then review and see what next. In certain cases, I may explain that the work is likely to be long term, and we can discuss how to go forward with that. In all cases, I will try and help you make sense of your experiences, and perhaps find better ways to cope, or to bring about changes in the way you think, feel or act.
I would be pleased to explain more if you’d like me to; please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
MY FEES
I charge £50 per hour for counselling or psychotherapy sessions.
Appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice incur 100% of my fee.
SOME OF THE REASONS PEOPLE SEEK COUNSELLING:
- Personal crisis
- Relationship problems
- Current or past trauma
- Coping with loss, such as death, divorce or redundancy
- Coming to terms with issues arising from childhood such as feeling unloved, abandoned, neglected or abused
- Mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, OCD, self harming
- Feeling stuck, overwhelmed with problems, not knowing what to do next
- Unresolved emotional issues
- Feeling low, depressed or anxious