Therapy Guide

Some people enter therapy for a specific identifiable reason, whilst others may experience a general sense that life isn't how they want it to be. At times we may all feel dissatisfied, lost, unhappy or stuck. Our ability to live forwards at such times, i.e. to carry on and engage with the daily demands of life, can be greatly impaired or even lost altogether.

Therapy offers a unique place where you can safely explore any and all issues which are making your life less rewarding than you want it to be. We all create a way of being in the world which works for us. This includes how we see ourselves, how we think others see us, how we relate to others and how we face the challenges life throws at us all. From time to time and for many different reasons, we feel more vulnerable and less able to cope; it is at such times we are challenged to create a new way of being in the world. This can feel frightening, and yet with an experienced therapist it can also be seen as a wonderful opportunity to change what is no longer working for us. Out of often deeply troubling and painful places, and in relationship with a supportive therapist, something new and more fulfilling can be created.

As a Psychologist I have trained extensively in a range of therapeutic approaches, this allows me to select the most appropriate way of working, in order to address the specific nature of each client's presenting issues. Some clients will require a focused CBT approach, whilst others will find an Integrative model of therapy more beneficial. As part of an initial assessment, we will discuss what constitutes the best therapy for you, but below is a brief outline of therapeutic models which may be used.

Where psychological symptoms and therapeutic goals are clearly defined, it may be most appropriate for a CBT model to be used. The central idea supporting CBT is that it isn’t what happens to us in life that is necessarily problematic, but rather how we think about what has happened. Put simply, we can all form negative patterns of thinking, and these can become automatic, rather like having a bad habit. When this happens we lose our ability to be creative with our thinking; we in effect become psychologically lazy. In using a CBT model, you will learn to identify your negative thinking patterns, and through homework tasks, put into action more creative thinking which will have a positive impact on how you feel and behave.

Here the work is to focus on the client’s motivations and drives. Often as adults, our thinking and behaviour can remain influenced by early family life, and our childhood experiences. Psychodynamic therapy aims to increase the client’s ability to identify the real impulses and motives which drives their behaviour. With greater insight the client is better able to adopt more useful and less destructive behaviours.

This Humanistic form of psychotherapy is rooted in European existential philosophy, and takes an holistic view of the individual, that is to say, the therapist will be interested in the client’s psychological, physiological, social and spiritual sense of themselves. Rather than relying on specific therapeutic tools and mechanisms, the therapist relies heavily on a philosophical stance which will guide their work. We all know at times, what it feels like to be alone, bored, anxious, depressed, in short, times when our existence is in someway painful. Existential psychotherapy aims to help the client increase a sense of meaning in their lives; this is done by first encouraging the client to take responsibility for their well-being. We cannot avoid making choices, indeed to do nothing is in itself a choice, so in a supportive therapeutic relationship, the client will review the choices they have made or avoided, and consider those they fear making, in order that they may begin to live a more authentic life.

Often an experienced psychologist will decide that no one model of psychotherapy in its pure form is likely to help the client reach their therapeutic goals. In order to encourage change, the psychologist will bring together both theoretical and practical features of psychotherapy from across a wide range of therapeutic models. By structuring a coherent form of integrated therapy, the aim is to provide the client with the necessary catalyst for change to take place. At Live Forwards Counselling the one item on our agenda is to help you live a more fulfilling and content life.