What is Psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy usually involves longer term work and people have many reasons for seeking a therapist. You may have a specific issue that you wish to look at or have reached a stage in life where you realise that something is blocked, a feeling of ‘stuckness’ or overwhelm, inhibiting a reaching of your full potential. Or you may want to review and take stock of your life so far with a view to living a more fulfilling, enriched existence.
Rather than problem solving, the focus tends to be on exploration and understanding.
How are your current relationships and patterns of behaviour informed by past experiences and significant early bonds? With understanding comes choice; for growth, for potential change.
These patterns of behaviour and relational dynamics may come into the therapy room between therapist and client. This can often lead to a vibrant exploration in the here and now, within the safe, boundaried space of the session.
In my practice, we may also incorporate some practical CBT tools to help you in your current circumstances, if relevant.
What do I have to do?
Your choice of therapist is an important decision, and you may need to speak to several people before you find a therapist who provides a good ‘fit’.
After this, you will need to be able to commit to a regular weekly session on a specified day and time. This will be your time for the duration of the therapy.
In the session, you can just be; be yourself. As your trust grows towards your therapist and the therapeutic process, you may find that you meet yourself, possibly for the first time. This can be a moving, challenging, and rewarding experience.
What do you do, as my therapist?
I am a psychotherapist in training at Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling, at the submission stage of study in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy. This is a Diploma and MA programme; please see the ‘Qualifications’ page for more details.
My role is to provide you with a safe, consistent space, where you feel able to discuss your material, and to facilitate this exploration.
I am interested in working with imagery and metaphor (for example, images or characters from books, films, poetry or art) as this can sometimes be a useful way of capturing something that may be difficult to put into words, and may provide illuminating insights. If this interests you too then we may be able to incorporate it into our dialogue, if opportunities arise.
I am also interested in how you may experience feelings energetically, in your body.
Whilst the work is a serious undertaking, there will not be an absence of humour; I do not regard the two as mutually exclusive.
When will the therapy end?
Unlike Counselling and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, where a defined number of sessions may be agreed at the beginning of the therapy (although this is always flexible), an ending in psychotherapy will become apparent as an integral part of the process, as the work, and your understanding, unfolds. This will be your decision, and, once agreed, we will work towards the end date.
Get in Touch
If you are a therapist, I have some blocks of time which I am looking to sublet; please contact me for days and rates.