Who do you work with?
I work with adults and with couples. Making the decision to come to counselling can be an enormous step forward in itself. I work with all sorts of people on a wide range of issues, with the aim of gaining insight and clarity into not just the difficulty that brings you to counselling, but what lies beneath it.
How do you work ?
I work psychodynamically. This means that I am particularly interested in your early experiences and how these have shaped your thinking and relationships in ways that both help and hinder you. This may be in relation to individual difficulties, or you may need help within your couple relationship. You may have come to counselling because you are aware of patterns in your life that feel impossible to break, or because you are overwhelmed by difficult feelings that impede you from feeling as though you are really living your life. We will work together to identify and explore how the conscious difficulties you are experiencing in the present may have their origins in old, unconscious attempts at solving these difficulties. It is these attempts that can lead to distress, keeping us stuck in unhelpful patterns.
How long is the work?
The struggles that have brought you to counselling may themselves have formed over a period of many years. Psychodynamic counselling is not about finding immediate solutions to fix present problems, but rather about working in an exploratory way together over a longer period of time in order to navigate and address these complex issues. By understanding and processing your experiences, at a pace that is right for you, we can gain insight to help you change and grow in the future.
What are sessions like?
Psychodynamic work is about creating a safe, confidential space in which you can really be listened to, and heard. I won’t ask you lots of questions, or give you exercises to complete, but rather allow you to say whatever is on your mind. We will also think together about the feelings that come up for you in the sessions and how you experience me, because that can tell us a lot about how you feel in relation to others beyond the counselling room.
Is this right for me?
The psychodynamic approach isn’t for everyone, and we can think about this together before we agree to work together on an ongoing basis. It may be that you would benefit from a different kind of therapy, in which case I can point you in the direction of another therapist or organisation.
What happens next?
If you would like to find out more about the possibility of our working together, please contact me.