Our first therapy sessions aim to clarify and clearly identify an internal psychological problem.
At the outset, often clients describe ‘external’ difficulties such as trouble with closeness to others, or anxiety in various situations, or problems with behaviours such as compulsions, or impulsivity, or many other issues.
However these difficulties are always symptomatic of internal problems, of which clients are often less aware.
Alongside of forming a therapy relationship, this is usually the most helpful focus; beginning to identify what drives the problems. This then often forms the agenda for change.
Sometimes I offer an intensive immersion into therapy lasting a number of hours in the course of a singe session. This may be available on request. Such an intensive initiation into therapy can help to make a strong start; accelerate change and alleviate distress or problems more rapidly.
Breakthrough Therapy
Subsequent sessions generally are one hour long, and can also be quite intense. Clients often say that they’ve “worked hard” and will commonly reflect that this is both rewarding and challenging.
In a therapy session we will usually pay attention to somatic (bodily) states - this helps to identify how anxiety manifests in the body and helps to regulate the anxiety.
We will pay attention to ‘defences’, which are the adaptive ways which we all have relied upon to get through adversity. We will pay attention to emotion both in and out of sessions, including the avoidance of emotion as this is often central to poor mental health.
We will monitor the sense of collaborative engagement but also patterns of avoidance of closeness. Examining all of these patterns will inform an understanding of what is predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating problems. It involves intellectual inquiry, but mostly a quality of openness and honesty and courage driven by a commitment to understand oneself.