Philosophy

The endless challenges of life can sometimes result in us becoming disconnected from our own strengths and positive attributes. But, however difficult it is to believe it at the time, people looking for therapy still have, and always have had, the resources and resilience to find new ways to successfully manage their difficulties. 

We all have the capacity to change, and a good starting point for change is to begin to make rational sense of our situation and of our habitual ways of responding to the world. Why have they become habitual? What mechanisms are at play in maintaining our unhelpful patterns of behaving, and keeping us stuck in difficult situations and with painful emotions.

Therapy provides a regular moment away from a troubled world, a confidential space where we can work together on exploring alternative ways of thinking and reacting, which can then allow you to move forward again in life.

Approach

My work is influenced primarily by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which I've found to be a very powerful tool in helping people to resolve stuck situations and then move beyond them. My style of working is also informed by solution focused approaches to therapy, as well borrowing techniques from narrative therapy.

Therapy should not be expected to continue into an indefinite future – I myself work within a time-limited framework, generally seeing clients for no more than twenty sessions. Indeed on a handful of occasions, even a singe session has been enough to help someone resolve a specific acute emotional issue. And once you're happy with the main work of therapy, it can sometimes be very helpful to get together again after two or three months, say, to review how the changes you've made are working out in the real world.

Motivation

Having found therapy very useful in my own life, I appreciate first hand the benefit of being able to talk to another person in a confidential and supportive environment, and to examine subjects that would be hard to address with friends and family, or even with your partner. Therapy can certainly have a transformative power – I've witnessed that in my own life – and it always thrills me to witness the same thing happening for my clients.