Frequently Asked Questions
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE INITIAL SESSION?
Your initial session is fifty minutes long and is a chance for you to describe the issues that are troubling or distressing you at this time and for you to see if you feel ready to engage with counselling or psychotherapy. It is normal to feel anxious or scared if this is your first experience in meeting with a therapist and time can be take to address these anxieties alongside the reasons you are currently seeking therapeutic help.
I will ask some questions about your personal details, family, work and medical history before we look at your presenting issues.
In this session, you also have the opportunity to ask me some questions about what I can offer you in your theapy and decide if you think we can work together.
If we both agree to commence with therapy, a further appointment will be made, I will give you my practice information and the boundaries of our work will be reviewed. Subsequent sessions will also be fifty minutes long, unless you request to have a longer session time which can be arranged.
WHAT ISSUES HAVE PEOPLE BEEN HELPED WITH THROUGH THERAPY?
HOW DOES THERAPY WORK?
Counselling or psycotherapy is a trained, professional relationship, whereby the therapist listens to the client in order to appreciate and understand the client's feelings, thinking and personal experiences. Via this empathic relationship, the therapist acts as a facilitative mirror for the client. This can enable the client to first have an awareness of and then alter the previous repetition of destructive patterns of feeling, thinking and behaviour.
WHAT IS YOUR THEORETICAL APPROACH?
I have a formal training as a Transactional Analyst; this is a theory of both personality and a method of psychotherapy for both personal growth and change. One of the major characteristics of TA is it's contractual method, whereby both the client and therapist share equal responsibility for achieving the mutually goals of counselling or psychotherapy. In my practice, I offer an environment of suppportive and non judgemental support; this offers you the opportunity of exploring previous patterns of behaviour and for developing new and positive ways of being in the here and now.
I have an interest in integrating TA's humanistic approach with its origins in psychodynamic theory. I am very interested in a relational approach in therapy, using object relations and two person psychology and have developed this as a foundation for my approach in my practice through continuing professional development.
FEES
INDIVIDUALS £50 per fifty minute session, usually meeting once a week
COUPLES £60 per fifty minute session, usually meeting once a week.
Fees are fixed in September and reviewed annually.
If you have any further questions that I may help you with, please do not hesitate to contact me.
