The initial appointment is usually 90 minutes long and will include a comprehensive assessment. I will work with you to discuss your goals, expectations and the best way to manage and improve your situation. Subsequent sessions are 50 - 60 minutes long. Therapy progress will be reviewed, with reference to your goals.
What we discuss is confidential. However, the law demands that in situations where there may be potential harm to yourself or others, I have a duty of care to disclose the information, but I will discuss any concerns of this nature with you before disclosing to another party.
This depends on you, your needs and the current presenting problem. A single discrete problem with relatively straightforward
Many people attend therapy not to address problems, but to facilitate growth, wellbeing or effectiveness. In this case, the therapy time depends on you and your goals.
I follow an eclectic approach rather than adhering to a single modality. I tend to do short term, rather than long-term therapy.
The therapeutic modality used depends on a combination of client characteristics and the nature of the problem. I tend to use a psychodynamic approach in my general understanding of human struggles. As such I believe that early experiences play an important part in character development. I believe strongly in our ability to grow and to change. Therapy aims at helping the client to come to a conscious decision about their actions based on their own best interest instead of unconscious needs or conflicts. In psychotherapy, I help people identify critical patterns in their thinking or behaviour, point out alternative interpretations of events, help identify new strategies for problem-solving, as well as ask the patient questions to stimulate. I provide the patient with an objective ‘sounding board’. I hope that a caring, accepting environment helps to nurture psychological development.
When young children are referred to me I initially meet with the parent(s) in order to gain a thorough understanding of the problem without the child being present. This allows for freedom of speech without the child (no matter how young) being part of a negative, or problem-saturated narrative. My goal in working with children is ideally to release suffering, to strengthen parent-child relationships and to empower parents. I do not believe that it is helpful to see a child in play therapy week after week, having fun with me but returning to a difficult home situation. Of course, play therapy is part of my work but I like to assist the whole system.
At times I use psycho-education, to provide information about difficulties e,g, parenting or a particular diagnosis. I am trained in EMDR (Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing), a powerful modality for use with trauma and a number of other problems. I also use BWRT (Brain working recursive therapy