Psychotherapy & Counselling
Counselling is generally concerned with talking through life events, rites of passage and stages of life, loss and bereavement, and the mundane or extraordinary dilemmas that come up over the course of a life. Counselling is a conversation directed toward working through these.
Psychotherapy is more concerned with abiding trauma and stuck or chronic recurring patterns of interpersonal and self relating. Psychotherapy is a conversation about becoming yourself.
'I never dreamt, in my dream, I'm Dalai Lama.'
Dalai Lama
To become aware that you're dreaming is to become lucid. In this sense dream life and waking life are no different; in both we dream up who we are, our reality, our perspectives, values, suffering and joy. In this sense life is a dream from which we never awake. The challenge is 'waking up to ourselves' to become lucid or present in our waking lives.
Life inevitably tasks us with how to deal with, and get beyond the stress, fear and drama that is life. I enjoy helping people wake up to themselves, so they can let go of their preoccupations and become engaged and engaging, productive and creative.
'And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'
Anais Nin
Both counselling and psychotherapy start with a conversation about why you have come for therapy. It's not necessary to decide whether you want counselling or psychotherapy; the nature and extent of the issues generally suggest the direction. Often therapy starts out as counselling which might then develop into psychotherapy.
Counselling is generally shorter taking a matter of weeks, months or a few years; psychotherapy is generally longer. I see people over the short and long term. Unless otherwise contracted for, each session lasts 50 minutes. I usually see people once per week at the same time; greater frequency can be arranged upon request. I see people face to face, by telephone, Skype, FaceTime and Zoom. Weather permitting, and by arrangement, therapy sessions can take place while walking out in the sunshine.