About therapy
Everybody benefits from honest discussion of issues in their lives and we all find things difficult at times. Speaking to friends or family can be helpful, but speaking to someone objective, who has experience and training in how to help others, is often the most effective thing to do.
Often simply talking is hugely helpful, making issues clearer in your own mind, getting things out and working past circular, repetitive thinking towards conclusions. This is part of what we can do together, but while insight and understanding are crucial for change, they are not sufficient alone. Behavioural change, acting and coping in new or different ways, is also needed.
I will also help you understand and deal with problems, using methods that psychologists have developed and researched over decades. These methods and techniques have been demonstrated both in practice and through scientific study.
They include techniques to cope with stress, anxiety and low mood as well as specific advice on how to deal with patterns of thinking and behaviour.
Therapy is a way to gain control, get past problems thrown up by circumstance and personal history and to achieve a richer and more fulfilling life.
Types of therapy
The major approaches I and my colleagues draw on are described below. Whichever you choose, we will prioritise respect, honesty and confidentiality at all times.
We know you will have tried to work things out before you come for therapy. Because we take your perspective seriously we start by looking at what has been happening and how you have been dealing with things. We can then discuss potential ways forward based on your self-knowledge and our training and experience.
If you are looking for clear advice and techniques, we can work in this way. If instead you are looking for a supportive space to focus on your thoughts and feelings, this is an equally valid approach.
We can work on symptoms that are interfering with your life and/or on understanding deeper causes (ie shorter or longer therapy). We can concentrate on rational thinking and behaviour to find solutions, or work on a more emotional and subconscious level. There are different routes to growth or recovery and we will work with you collaboratively to choose the best.
Models of therapy we recommend include
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
This is a more structured and “directive” therapy focusing on ways of thinking, on behaviour and on the emotions these cause. Through identifying and testing these patterns and habits CBT aims to identify where we go wrong. Because thinking and behaviour can be so habitual and repetitive they are often automatic and unexamined. By practicing new actions, thinking styles and beliefs CBT replaces negativity with more realistic and effective patterns.
Person-centred therapy
This approach aims to create the conditions in which people can lead themselves to recovery. Through empathy and honesty therapists provide the space for clients to find their agency or intitiative, their own way towards growth. Person-centred therapists believe everyone has an innate drive towards self-fulfilment and that the therapist’s task is to nurture this.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:
This is a less rational, less ‘cognitive’ approach, one that focuses more on behaviour. Thinking “too much” is seen as a damaging habit. Through a variety of tools and techniques difficult emotions are better tolerated and managed and individuals are helped to live life according to their values.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is mostly used where someone has experienced trauma or abuse. As such it typically deals with flashbacks, distressing thoughts or images, fears and avoidance, or difficulties with trust and intimacy. Clients are shown techniques to stimulate both sides of their brain while facing aspects of their experiences. This “bi-lateral stimulation” is usually through eye movements but sometimes by tapping or listening to sounds through earphones.
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
This approach is used to find and strengthen the ability to treat ourselves with compassion, to adopt a helpful but still realistic view of difficulties and challenges. It is often used where people are highly self-critical. It addresses self-criticisms directly and works to change the underlying causes of this habit by altering our attitude to ourselves and thoughts around self-loathing and self-criticism. It aims to help you promote mental and emotional healing by developing more compassionate responses both towards yourself and others. It helps with developing resilience to life stress as well as emotional well being.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Based on the writings of Sigmund Freud this approach aims to locate a client’s internal conflicts and to penetrate into the unconscious mind through the client’s descriptions of his or her life. Once these deep-rooted problems and internal conflicts are identified a process of ‘working through’ follows, aiming to reconcile unconscious needs with the real world.
Interpersonal Therapy
Some psychologists believe all mental health problems can be explained in terms of our relationships with other people. By examining the specifics of how we relate to others, Interpersonal Therapy aims to improve our satisfaction with both social and intimate relationships, and in that way with life overall.
Mindfulness
This is a process to strengthen acceptance and tolerance of emotions, also leading to better attention control and relaxation. It works by focusing on our “here and now” experiences, replacing worry or rumination with in this way. It means instead of becoming “fused” with our problems we can achieve distance from them. Typically one focuses on one’s breathing without trying to alter it in any way. When we realise our attention has wandered, we should be accepting of this, but refocus on our breathing.
Relationship Counselling
This aims to help couples identify the issues that impact on their relationship and then to work towards actions that can change these patterns. Clients will be asked what they need that they are not getting and what they and their partner could do differently. Relationship counselling aims to improve relationships, but it may also help couples decide that staying together is no longer in the best option, if they have really tried to save it but not been able to.