Once we have made our initial contact and arranged a date and time to meet, your first session will be an assessment.    At this first meeting we will think about your difficulties and  why you are looking for therapy at this time. We will also think about your expectations and any goals you may wish to achieve.

 

This first meeting will give us both the opportunity to see whether we are comfortable working together and if counselling or psychotherapy is appropriate for you at this time.   I will do my best to answer any questions you may have. 

 

If we decide to work together, I will offer you a regular once a week 50 minute session on the same day and at the same time each week. This allows a feeling of safety and security to arise.

 

It is important that we have a good rapport in order to establish a good therapeutic relationship.  I will listen attentively to what you are saying and try to ensure that I understand how you are feeling from your perspective.  I will not judge you.  We will work at your pace.

 

Once counselling or psychotherapy progresses, we will think together about feelings that emerge in the session and wonder whether they are linked to past experiences.  By exploring your feelings in more depth and gaining insight it may be possible to notice repeated patterns of behaviour. 

 

Sometimes clients feel angry and don't know why.  Their anger may be buried deep inside from a past experience.  It can emerge inappropriately and out of proportion to the incident that triggered it.  By exploring the past, it may be possible to identify where this anger has come from and in so doing it may lessen its voracity.

 

Counselling and psychotherapy can be a painful process, because old issues that have been buried are brought into the present and examined, but with the experience and support of your therapist, they can be looked at in a new way and processed differently.  Once painful experiences are talked about, often for the first time, their impact can lessen.