What is Therapy?

A space just for you

Counselling, coaching and psychotherapy offer you the opportunity to focus entirely on yourself, and your needs without judgement.

Skilled listening

Therapy is the skill of listening in a creative way. Through the use of gentle guiding questions, therapy can help you develop insights about yourself and your difficulties.

A therapist to yourself

There is a lot of evidence that therapy can lead to emotional and psychological change, but good therapy is also about helping you become a good therapist to yourself.

Counselling

I use Counselling to focus on your current difficulties, to help you make some progress towards resolving, or coming to terms with an issue or problem.
Find out more about counselling.

Coaching

I use therapeutic Coaching methods to help you develop personal, interpersonal & leadership skills at work. I use a problem solving approach to help you achieve your goals in these areas. Although coaching does not offer quick fixes to personal change, coaching does offer a more tailored approach, to help nurture your personal development quicker than is possible through skills based training workshops.
Find out more about coaching.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy involves a longer commitment of time, because it works in depth with deep seated problems, and aims to bring about lasting changes to the way you think, act or feel. I offer a range of different types of psychotherapy, which are explained below.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)

CBT sessions are highly structured, using a logical approach to exploring and understanding your difficulties, with homework assignments set each week to help you build on work developed in sessions.
Find out more about CBT.

Psychoanalytic therapy

Psychoanalytic sessions are unstructured. I help you explore both positive and negative feelings concerning past and present relationships, by bringing these alive in your therapy sessions, and helping you understand how these relate to your current difficulties.
Find out more about psychoanalytic therapy.

Integrative therapy

My approach to integrative therapy weaves together Person-centred, psychoanalytic and CBT approaches. I also help you explore how social and cultural inequalities, may be contributing to your difficulties.
Find out more about person-centred or integrative therapy.

Limitations of psychotherapy

Psychotherapy also has limitations and may be unsuitable if you are actively psychotic or suicidal, addicted to alcohol or other substances, or currently struggling with an eating disorder. This is because a rise in anxiety can occur in psychotherapy which can increase these problems.

Managing a psychotic episode

Before entering psychotherapy it is essential to stabilize a psychotic episode through antipsychotic medication in consultation with your GP or psychiatrist.

Coping with suicidal feelings

An essential requirement before beginning psychotherapy is to have coping strategies in place to manage thoughts, feelings or images which could trigger suicidal thoughts.

In recovery from an addiction or eating disorder

It is essential that you have been in recovery for at least a year from alcohol or other substances, or from an eating disorder, before entering therapy.