Individual Counselling and Psychotherapy
Achieving optimal performance and maximising wellbeing.
What is counselling?
Counselling is a process where a therapist and a client come together to create a joint understanding of personal challenges and identify what might be done about them. Some times there are practical things we can do and the support of the counsellor is helpful in encouraging and achieving change. Other times it is about developing insight so that we can understand why we do the things we do and how we might see, and ultimately do, things differently.
For many people, counselling is the first time they have ever been genuinely listened to in the absence of judgement or advice.
What should I expect?
Counselling is different to talking with a friend. The therapeutic relationship is all about the client. That doesn’t mean that the counsellor just sits there and stares at the client saying nothing. To the contrary the counsellor is active and collaborative. Each session is a confidential, non-judgmental 50-minute exploration that is focused on what has brought the client to therapy.
Counselling can be upsetting because difficult issues are often the focus of sessions. It is however the counsellors job to ensure that the client is feeling safe and ready to go back into the world outside of the therapy room by the end of the session.
How long will it take?
Sometimes a single session is all it takes to achieve clarity and move an issue forward. More commonly counselling sessions might stretch over 6 to 8 sessions or perhaps longer. Sessions are usually weekly to achieve continuity, but this of course can vary.
The number of sessions is never prescribed and always negotiated and jointly agreed. Most commonly sessions are face to face but at times people’s schedules might mean that meetings are via Skype or similar technology.
Who is counselling for?
People come to counselling with an enormous range of concerns and these might be readily understandable in terms of cultural adjustment and feelings of isolation, relationship disharmony or bereavement. In contemporary times, anxiety, depression and confusion around identity or coping with a chronic medical conditions are common challenges.
Alternatively some people simply feel ill at ease within themselves and know something just isn’t right and that what ever it is, it is standing in the way of their happiness and well being.