If you’ve reached my website then you are probably looking for help in some areas of your life.
There are many different reasons why people might seek help – unhappiness and emotional pain, destructive behaviours, perhaps a loss of purpose or the desire for greater self-knowledge. Psychotherapy can help.
Psychotherapy is a way of exploring difficult emotions and patterns of relating to yourself and others; making helpful connections between past and present experiences. Its aims are to help you understand and connect with the underlying causes of your distress, to bring about change and ultimately enable you to live a more vibrant and fulfilling life.
It is a collaborative process between therapist and client, providing opportunities for self-reflection and insight in a confidential, safe and supported way. For me, relationship is at the heart of psychotherapy – an opportunity for you to be truly heard.
If you are considering psychotherapy, it is crucial you find a therapist you feel comfortable with and potentially able to trust. Try out a few before you choose!
Counselling or Psychotherapy?
There are many similarities between counselling and psychotherapy. Both will enable you to explore what is troubling you and help you to make positive changes in your life.
Counselling tends to focus on exploring and supporting you through an immediate crisis, such as a bereavement or relationship break-up. It can also be used to resolve a specific issue. It is often a shorter-term form of help.
Psychotherapy works at a greater depth, seeking the roots of issues that are causing you distress. As these will often originate in the past, psychotherapy explores both present and past experiences, conscious and unconscious. It aims to enable you to make fundamental changes in your life, so tends to be a longer-term venture.
Psychotherapy can help with issues such as:
- anxiety
- depression
- suicidal feelings
- anger
- grief
- loss
- addiction
- abuse
- bullying
- self-esteem
- relationship difficulties