Life can be unpredictable and everything can change in a split second. Therapy offers a way of helping a client to move beyond feelings of being overwhelmed to discover his(her) mind and respond to this presenting dilemma in a thoughtful way. In short, therapy is invaluable because it offers a way of finding one’s own voice: so rather than acting out in a thoughtless panic, the client is given the psychic space to think through to the solution that is best suited to who she or he is.
This intolerable feeling may lead you to seek a therapist and in the therapeutic alliance find a new way to address this. Therapy offers a way of valuing the truth, and a way to face reality no matter how painful,
I have had many years experience of helping clients on this journey to discover the meaning behind the presenting issues and the reasons why this change is occurring now. In the therapeutic session, we can explore your symptoms and see if they symbolise past events that for whatever reason could not be processed at the time and that are now reappearing.
I offer the chance to explore all areas of your past and present relationships. This is an opportunity for us to see how these past patterns are reflected in how you relate to others in the present. How the session unfolds in the present gives an indication of how you form and have always formed relationships. This can mean a renewed sense of self, a strengthening of self agency as you move into the future. So when unforeseen challenges arise, in therapy you are able to make an active bid for freedom and choose how you respond.
The therapeutic process can either be short term or long term. Short term involves a few assessment sessions: this is where client and therapist explore the reason for seeking therapy and agree on and name the specific problem which may be inhibiting development and growth. Following on from this, the treatment phase will involve honing in onto this particular area, tracing its origins and processing it. This treatment is finite and an agreed end date is set when therapy will end. This is followed by a six week interval with one post treatment session to summarise the therapeutic journey.
Long term therapy involves treating larger existential issues and deeply diving into the general dynamics of the client’s relationships particularly with how the primary relationship evolved and how this has affected all other relationships in the past and now in the present. Endings occur when the client and therapist feel that certain milestones have been achieved and the psychoanalytic thinking process has been thoroughly internalised ie the client knows his/her mind, understands his/her boundaries and is well able to manage life on his or her own terms.
I also offer short term therapy to adolescents following the time limited psychodynamic process: this is a developmentally focussed psychotherapy for young people providing psychodynamic psychotherapy with a psychosocial understanding of adolescent difficulties. Through the therapeutic engagement, the sessions focus on the developmental process to encourage change and growth. This may involve beginning the process of separating from the parental figure; bearing and thinking about feelings and states of mind rather than discharging them through impulsive or destructive actions, and above all, understanding and engaging with reality.