Psychotherapy and counselling give priority to consider what happened to someone in their life, how it impacted them and others and vice versa. It is not about attaching diagnostic labels, although this can sometimes have a role in the psychotherapy space to inform the help a client might need (in particular, I do use the term 'addiction' or 'problem use disorder', but do so to help create a framework for clients to further their own understanding of themselves and bring about changes they desire).
I have listed some of the terms clients use to explain what they want me to help them with. This is certainly not exhaustive:-
You are unique and your therapy ought to be the same. My extensive training in a range of modern and traditional techniques means that I consider a person's body, mind and spirit to provide the right help at the right time, in a way that's right for them. It is a partnership where we work together to identify and reflect on different approaches that we use, informed by a client's past experience of therapy and other support they might have had.
The types of techniques I use to support a client's development include:- person-centered, active listening, reflection, reframing, motivational, visualisation, meditation, breathwork/mindfulness, psychosynthesis, internal family systems, and somatic approaches. I am always happy to discuss these in further detail and explain them to clients so that they can understand the choice in a particular session(s).
Some clients with addiction want to try an alternative to psychotherapy and counselling to move beyond the addictive cycle in their life. I can offer this with recovery coaching, something still relatively new to the UK, but immensely popular in the USA. Clients will be introduced to my 6-step approach that is action focused and needs their active commitment to change and work on meeting specific objectives and tasks between each appointment.
I work with people experiencing problems with:-
Everyone is different, and I work with clients in the short and longer-term. The minimum commitment is to attend once a week for a period of 6 weeks, at which point I will help you reflect on your progress and together will explore suitable options for the future. My appointments are for 60-minutes (unlike a strange 50-minute 'therapeutic hour' which many therapists impose).