Initial Telephone Consultation
Once you contact me, I will get back to you as soon as possible and arrange a time for a FREE initial telephone consultation.
During this consultation I may ask you about the difficulty you or your loved-one is experiencing; how long it has existed; how it affects you, them and the family; what efforts have been made to address it; and what you hope to get out of working with me. I might also start to talk with you about the therapeutic approaches that might be suitable based on scientific evidence (e.g. NICE guidelines) and my experience in order to give you a more precise idea of what therapy might involve.
During this consultation I may ask you about the difficulty you or your loved-one is experiencing; how long it has existed; how it affects you, them and the family; what efforts have been made to address it; and what you hope to get out of working with me. I might also start to talk with you about the therapeutic approaches that might be suitable based on scientific evidence (e.g. NICE guidelines) and my experience in order to give you a more precise idea of what therapy might involve.
Initial Session
This session is an opportunity for us to get to know each other. You can see where our sessions will take place and get a better sense of who I am and how I work. I can get more in-depth information about your difficulties and preferences for therapy. Together, we can start to put together a therapeutic plan. A typical plan might include 6 sessions of CBT followed by a review.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or CBT helps you understand problematic thoughts, feelings and behaviours and how they interact with each other. It then helps you develop strategies to challenge negative thoughts and break unhelpful behavioural patterns. Unlike other therapeutic approaches it tends to focus on current issues rather than the past. This can be a brief (6 session) form of therapy depending on the nature and severity of the issues that need to be addressed.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Psychodynamic Therapy enables you to explore the potential historical causes for your problematic thoughts, feelings and behaviours and then helps you break unhelpful patterns by offering you a safe and secure space in which to try out new ways of being. It is typically a medium to long-term (6 months to 1 year or more) form of therapy.
Systemic or Family Therapy
Systemic Therapy highlights the ways in which members of a family, couple or group influence each other in positive and negative ways. It then attempts to break unhelpful relational patterns by improving communication, increasing empathy and empowering members to address difficulties together. This tends to be a medium term form of therapy (6 months).
Solution Focused Therapy
Solution Focused Brief Therapy uses people's strengths and ideas about what life could be like or is like when a problem doesn't exist to help them identify the steps they need to take to achieve their goals. This tends to be a relatively brief form of therapy as the name suggest (6 sessions).
Integrative Therapy
Integrative Therapy draws on multiple therapies depending on what seems most appropriate at the time. This allows the therapist to be extremely responsive to developments in the therapy and to people's needs and preferences. For example, the therapist might:
+ use techniques from Solution Focused Therapy to explore the nature of a persons difficulties
+ use techniques from Psychodynamic Psychotherapy to understand the history of the difficulty and to assess the progress of therapy
+ use techniques from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to identify appropriate strategies for a person to start to make changes in their life
There is no set or average duration for this approach.
+ use techniques from Solution Focused Therapy to explore the nature of a persons difficulties
+ use techniques from Psychodynamic Psychotherapy to understand the history of the difficulty and to assess the progress of therapy
+ use techniques from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to identify appropriate strategies for a person to start to make changes in their life
There is no set or average duration for this approach.