What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?
Both counselling and psychotherapy give you the opportunity to explore the issues you bring, build your awareness and help you make choices that will support you better in the world. Counselling, I see as a shorter term relationship (we may agree on a fixed number of sessions for example) that has a specific focus - often a difficult life event. Psychotherapy is a longer term relationship that enables you to explore deeper patterns of behaviour and relating that may have developed early in life but which are limiting you or causing you distress in the here and now.
Maya Angelou
My approach
I am a relational psychotherapist. This means I believe that the ability to build deep and satisfying connections with others, and with our environment, is at the root of our well-being.
My aim is to provide you with a warm, sustaining and secure relational base that will give you the support and courage to explore what is limiting you. With this in place I believe we all have the power to heal ourselves and find richness and meaning in our lives.
In recent years scientific research has given us a deeper understanding of emotional problems and the roles played here by both the brain and the body. I integrate this knowledge into my practice. This means that we may explore your thought processes, your belief systems and your emotions but also how you experience these in your body.
I find that people make profound shifts when we pay attention to exactly how they are experiencing their life in the here and now. We may talk about past experiences, this can be very important, but the focus will come back to how your history is being played out in the present between us and in your wider world. With this insight we can work together to help you make choices that bring a new vitality to your life.
Rumi
