"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there..."
Many people who seek counselling or psychotherapy have found themselves experiencing relationship or emotional difficulties. However, therapy can also benefit those who are curious about themselves and wish to engage in therapy for personal growth and development.
The overall aim of psychotherapy is to provide you with opportunities to explore, discover and clarify ways of living in a more satisfying and resourceful manner. Actively participating in psychotherapy can help you understand yourself, improve your relationships, encourage you to feel a sense of aliveness, develop emotional resilience as well as prevent more serious problems from occurring. Healing and growth occurs by becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and bodily movement in the present moment in a confidential, safe and trusting space.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of some of the challenges that people may wish to seek therapy for:
We explore what is arising in the here and now, since it is only in the present moment where change can take place.
Through the therapeutic relationship, we uncover relational patterns, both past and present that may have become fixed and are unhelpful in the present.
From time to time we offer creative ways to explore feelings that may be difficult to express using words alone.
Our bodies often hold wisdom that supports healing and growth, so we pay attention to our embodied experience with one another.
We develop in the context of complex relational worlds of family, school, culture, and environment. We recognise that these worlds inevitably shape how we relate to ourselves and others. We seek to contextualise all experience, breaking down ideas of individual pathology, shame, and blame.
We are genuinely interested in the person we're meeting as a person, recognising their uniqueness and distinct separateness from us, without obscuring our relatedness and underlying common humanity. This focus on the relationship between the therapist and the client is central, not ancillary to the healing process.
Individual psychotherapy usually takes place once a week, at the same time and place. It can be either short term: usually 8 to 10 sessions — more structured and focused on solving the identified problem or situation or, medium to long term: lasting from a few months up to a few years to explore more deep rooted and historical difficulties.