Why Psychotherapy?
My approach draws on the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology and offers a professional relationship that helps to promote understanding and the effective tackling of problems.
It does this by increasing awareness of how each person’s inner world influences their day-to-day behaviour. Fixed but unconscious patterns of behaviour can develop at different times of our lives, or as a result of trauma. These patterns then promote ways of dealing with life’s desires and demands that simply don’t work. In fact they restrict growth, confidence and a sense of fulfilment. The therapeutic relationship helps to open the mind and feelings to a growing sense of embodied alternative solutions.
Here are just some of the initial reasons a person might consult with a Jungian or Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist:
◆ Depression
◆ Lack of confidence or ‘self-esteem’
◆ Loss of a general sense of well-being
◆ Inability to manage life effectively
◆ Relationship difficulties
◆ Self-defeating activities
◆ Difficulties with sexuality
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Addictive behaviour
◆ Anxiety – which might manifest in panic attacks
◆ Emotional overwhelm – feeling out of control
◆ Lack or loss of feeling
◆ Feeling alone and isolated
◆ Frightening dreams
◆ Critical inner commentaries on self and others
◆ Old solutions to problems no longer working
People usually decide to get help when they are feeling stuck; when they find themselves at a crossroads in their life; when suffering relational difficulties or when they are faced with difficulties that they are not able to sort out on their own. Getting help through the relationship with a trained and experienced professional is often an important step towards making a real difference to one’s experience of life.
Many people deal with problems and concerns by pushing what is worrying them out of their conscious minds and ‘forgetting’ them. However they don’t go away. Instead they tend to have a powerful unconscious influence on us so that we can feel that things are not right but have no idea of what the cause of this is. Other people worry so much about everything that there is no room to really think.
I offer a therapeutic process that does not involve a set of instructions or a prescriptive way of doing things. It does not provide quick facts and answers. It is tailored to listening openly and curiously to an individual’s needs and providing a process of discovery aimed at the expansion of mental strength and emotional freedom and maturity. This can lead to a better ability to creatively manage the demands and risks of having a full and unique life.