A counselling or psychotherapy session is a place where you can talk, share problems and explore thoughts and feelings in a safe, accepting and confidential environment. Sessions usually take place weekly and having time each week just for you, a time when you can be listened to with openness and acceptance can be a very healing experience.
WHY PSYCHOTHERAPY?
As humans we are creatures of habit. From the beginning of our lives each of us decide what is good and what is bad, how we feel about ourselves and what we are. As we grow we begin to build theories to explain what life is all about and what it means to us, why certain things happen and how each of us should behave. Some of these early theories are overturned and some are reinforced by what happens to us in life and our reflection upon our experiences. These theories may have a profound influence on how we act and the habits we form, which may be of thought, feeling, response, action or belief and may govern us rather than us governing them. It is this examination of our own lives and reflection upon our choices, assumptions and beliefs that can be facilitated by counselling and psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy or counselling can help people to resolve problems through an exploration of underlying issues thereby enabling people to live life to its full potential. Through counselling and psychotherapy people may address these underlying issues and examine their actions, thoughts, emotions, responses and ways of relating; identify limitations and possibilities; and make choices about how to live. In times of distress, psychotherapy may bring comfort by sharing problems and exploring thoughts and feelings in a safe, accepting and confidential environment. But much more than this, counselling or psychotherapy may be able to help individuals and couples to make the changes in their lives that they may consider to be necessary in order to have a rewarding future.
HOW DOES PSYCHOTHERAPY WORK?
Life is full of ups and downs. The ups we face with a smile but it is the downs that drive us into difficulties and can create problems hard to overcome. It is at these points of our lives that the help of a counsellor or therapist can be invaluable in dealing with the dilemmas of mental unease and disturbance.
A counsellor or therapist’s task is to assist the client to explore their concerns and challenge those problematic views that underpin the presenting difficulties. In this way a therapist may help the client to make sense of what is actually happening in a person’s life and thus manage the pressures and stresses that problematic situations bring.
Consequently therapy can help the person feel better about themselves and thus live a more contented and fulfilled life; have a beneficial effect on their relationships be they family, friends, children and/or colleagues and thus achieving a better balance.
In my experience I have seen people coming to therapy for a whole host of reasons. Establishing a safe, therapeutic relationship where clients may feel supported, understood and comfortable with, is incredibly important. Within such a frame the concept of change may become gradually attainable and lead to an increased sense of personal control enabling people to move forward positively into the future.
