What is Therapy?

A journey...  taken by two people in a room (or virtual space) (probably) talking.

It sounds simple and on the one hand it is.

A good psychotherapist will offer you a safe space to talk through what you need to, giving you the opportunity to really hear yourself clearly.  It is your journey, and I will walk alongside you wherever it takes us.  It may include words, images, feelings, or body sensations to help us understand your experiences.  This can be a difficult process to do which involves hard work and sometimes people feel worse before they feel better which can be challenging.

By experiencing a genuine, honest, professional, safe, and caring relationship with your psychotherapist/counsellor it allows you to have a better understanding of yourself and means you can experience greater freedom and explore choices that you weren’t aware of before.

Once you have this awareness there is a choice as to whether you would like things to change or not.  I believe it is vital that the person in control of the direction of the process is you, the client and that I am with you whatever you decide, whether that is to continue in therapy to effect change, or to stay the same in which case we can work on how you would like to move forward.

However, most people who are motivated to change and continue to work through the challenges often find it a life changing experience.

Footpath View

Ending Therapy

It usually becomes clear that our work together is coming to an end in a mutual way.  We will carry out reviews periodically to check you are happy with the progress and direction the therapy is going in.  It is important to ensure a safe and positive ending which for both short- and long-term work would normally be at least 1-3 sessions in length, and I would normally encourage every client to have a least one ending session to effectively bring our work to a close.