Understanding the Jargon
CBT
'Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave. It's most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression, but can be useful for other mental health problems’. (NHS)
CBT assumes that thoughts, feelings and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts can lead to a cycle of negative feelings and actions. It aims to help you manage problems by noticing the negative patterns and working to make changes to improve how you feel.
Unlike psychotherapy, CBT only works on changing negative patterns in the here and now and does not explore the reason the patterns began.
Psychodynamic
Psychodynamic therapy helps you understand how your current feelings and behaviour are shaped by your past experiences and your unconscious mind and impulses.
'The relationship with your therapist is key to this therapeutic approach. Having an accepting and trusting relationship with them encourages you to talk freely and openly about topics like your childhood and your relationship with your parents.
This can help you understand what you’re feeling now, why you behave in a certain way and how this affects your relationships’. (BACP).
This type of therapy can be helpful with various problems including depression, anxiety and addiction. Although often a slow process, producing subtle changes, a client can find that their friendships, relationships and work lives improve as their creative parts that have been previously subdued by stress, become productive and they can experience more clarity of mind.
Person-Centred
When you’re attending counselling sessions with a Person-Centred counsellor, you’ll be encouraged to bring your own issues to the session – the counselling is led by you and not directed by the counsellor’ (BACP)
The Person-Centred counsellor provides certain conditions that allow autonomy and personal growth to occur in the client. Working with a person-centred counsellor feels more like an exploration with a close ally rather than an appointment with a doctor.
What can I work with?
Counselling may be able to help with a wide range of issues including anxiety, stress, depression, loneliness, relationship problems, upsetting experiences, abuse, loss and bereavement, self-esteem, gender difference, sexual orientation, discrimination and pet bereavement.
I am a gender informed therapist and have had specialist training in working with children and young people and in working online. I also have training in domestic abuse and coercive control and rape and serious sexual assault.
Not all types of issues can be resolved through counselling. Where I consider that counselling would not be the most suitable means of support, I will make every effort to provide you with details or refer you to a suitable alternative source of support. I must work within my competency and so if I feel that you need special support that I am not qualified to give you, I will refer you to someone who can help.