Not sure what to expect from therapy?

Although there are a bewildering array of competing schools of thought and types of practice, all psychotherapy ultimately entails a client & counsellor engaging in some form of reflective dialogue around the issues the client wishes to address, with the aim of shedding some light on those they struggle with most. 

Through this reflective process of raising awareness of what lies at the root of our problems, hopefully some new hope can emerge, where newfound insights can often be the catalyst for acquiring the renewed courage we need to take the necessary steps forward in confronting our problems and living life more fully & joyfully.

“I am able to control only that of which I’m aware, that of which I am not aware controls me” 

(Whitmore, 2003)

My philosophy in life and the cornerstone to my therapeutic practice revolves around my belief that Life is about learning, and that we learn through experience.  Allied to this belief, is the understanding that we cannot help but learn from each and every experience - as such the issue then becomes - how much of what we learn is currently unconscious reinforcement and out of our control and how much can be made available to our conscious awareness and as such open to reflection, re-interpretation, new meaning-making and adaptive processes that enable the new behaviours necessary to resolve the perennial issues we repeatedly struggle with!

As such, it is through this process of identifying the experiential & perceptual processes that are within our power to influence and change, that we may re-frame our experience in order to find alternative and creative means to get our needs met, that lies at the heart of my experiential approach to psychotherapeutic practice.

 It is my firm belief that if you can find the courage to take that first step and ask for help (which is often the hardest part of the process), then as long as you commit the time, energy and emotional resources to unpacking your difficulties with an open-mind and attitude of curious self-compassion, you can - in the presence of a caring, empathetic and non-judgemental other - learn how to make more meaningful sense of your experience.

 This process of re-framing your experience through open-minded dialogue with a curious and caring other, enables new perceptions to emerge that can in turn provide you with the new self-knowledge, inter-personal insights and skills needed to move forward into more productive and authentic relationships - where you have a newfound confidence in the validity of your subjective experience being of equal import to any others viewpoint, bolstering your commitment to negotiate your relational boundaries in non-conflictual ways in order to get your needs met.  

I offer a safe & caring therapeutic relationship based on a compassionate presence and empathetic ear, where I bring an open-minded curiosity to our dialogue that is rooted in steadfast positive intentions - all of which are grounded in my desire to understand, appreciate and relate to your experience from your perspective.

This stems from my belief that we all need to feel 'seen' and 'heard' as we are (by that I mean - understood and respected in our unique ways of being in the world) before we can entertain a frank discussion of those aspects of self we are less comfortable with - typically those sides that cause us shame or challenge our sense of identity and have led us to seek counselling. Once we sense this genuine acknowledgement and confirmation from others (and even more so our therapist), it forms the foundation of a trust relationship that allows us to feel safe enough in who we are and identify as, to express our self more freely and openly.

Given these interpersonal needs for trust & safety, my relational approach to therapy aims at fostering within my clients the capacity for non-judgemental self-reflection - which is often much harder than it sounds given the nature of our internal critic's tendency to censor those parts of self we are less willing to acknowledge or unable to accept. 

 Whilst I understand its vital to encourage my clients to move towards a more compassionate relationship with those less palatable parts of self, I also recognise the importance of tempering that support with an appropriate level of challenge towards the other more familiar parts of self that often dominate our experience and are more easily identified with, in order that those less assertive aspects of self are given the space to emerge. 

I believe that when clients sense that their perspective and subjective experience is valued and that their therapist genuinely cares about understanding what it means to be them, that their experience of this attitude towards them - lays the ground for a relational dynamic founded in Trust & Respect - which in itself invites an open dialogue that is the foundation for facilitating them in their journey of self-discovery.   

When we engage in this process, it enables us to re-frame our problems, see them through new eyes, and through this reflective process we can begin to experience a new reality, one that emerges from seeing that we have more options and choices than we realise.  In so doing, we develop the capacity and ability to manage our problems more effectively, which in turn allows us to engage more fully and congruently in our lives and relationships, with a renewed sense of Autonomy, Agency, Self-Confidence and Purpose. 

I am acutely aware of how difficult this process can be, so my approach is very much tailored to each individuals needs and levels of tolerance, and any challenge will always be done so in the spirit of playful curiosity and proferred as an open invitation that is always only ever intended to be in the service of deepening my clients' candid self-reflection. 

As part of my practice we will as a matter of course, have regular intervals where we assess our work together in order that you can ascertain whether or not the goals you have for therapy are being met in terms of seeding some form of tangible results. Becasue this is not a binary process, I have provided a subjective benchmark with which to assess your subjective well-being - this can be found on my Eudaimonia page. 

This is an important question, and one for which there is no predetermined answer. It depends on the nature of the issues you wish to address and what emerges through the process.  

Typically however, short term work will last for between 6-12 weeks and is usually most appropriate for very specific issues with clearly defined outcomes.  

When addressing deeper rooted issues associated with longer-term or open-ended work, where clients problems typically stem from more profound childhood wounds, adult trauma or persistent long-standing issues like depression, then 6-12months would tend to be the minimum period needed to address them.

 However, there is no formula for how long the work will take to address your unique set of problems, especially as one set of presenting issues can lead to more deeper rooted underlying causes that were intially out of awareness. In my experience, often once this depth of work has been entered into clients tend to recognise ongoing support may bear more profound life changing fruit.  

For this type of work we would typically agree an initial 6 week period where we can both get a feel for each other and sense of the relational fit, at which point we would come to an agreement together as to what feels like the most appropriate duration, and set in place a periodic review - usually every 3-6 months.

 All sessions last for 50 mins and are set at a particular time slot each week - starting on the hour and finishing at 10 to.  All client bookings will be taken to be on a weekly basis and always on the same day.  

My Fees are £100 per session, with 48 hrs notice required for any cancellation. 

Discounts available for Students, OAP's and those on income support.

Please refer to my Subjective Well-being Key Factors page.