EXPLAINING PSYCHOTHERAPY
Searching for a therapist can feel bewildering, especially when something is wrong and you're suffering. After all, we rarely seek therapy for the sake if it. You’ve likely been struggling for a while, living with an uncomfortable feeling but, something has now tipped the scale.
Meaningful therapy has a purpose. It’s aim is to relieve you of your pain. So, finding a relationship where you feel trusting enough to speak freely, can be transformative. To experience yourself connected and in deep conversation, expressing feelings you might otherwise avoid sharing. Feelings that have hitherto been silenced, ignored, minimised or negated.
The terms counselling & psychotherapy are broadly interchangeable. Counselling perhaps leans towards problem-solving and the latter more of a journey; the boundaries however are fluid. Both have evolved over recent years to meet the needs of a more informed, tech-savvy society.
Contemporary counselling and psychotherapy is generally a relational experience. While confidential, non-judgemental, supportive and professional, there is now an active relational process that takes shape. We all bring something different to an encounter, so the work moulds and shapes itself to fit the needs of each individual.
In simple terms, therapy offers an opportunity to speak freely. To experience yourself in conversation with someone, perhaps saying things where you might otherwise have remained silent and thinking thoughts that may have never crossed your mind before.
It is a unique experience around which a relationship develops and where hopes and expectations invite change, toward an outcome neither party can quite foresee. Therapy is often referred to as 'work' by those who practice it, as therapeutic relationships require intention, commitment, thoughtfulness and time. Opportunities for change appear, as blind spots in our thinking are carefully highlighted, within the body of what we can hold together as patient and therapist.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a long established and well researched approach which links present experience with past events & relationships. On adjusting to unforeseen perspectives and understanding, meaningful and lasting change can occur.
Often clinical terms or phrases become attached to particular behaviours or traits; this can be helpful. For example, anxiousness, obsessiveness, hyperactivity or depression. These terms attempt to offer meaning for what we experience, but behind the symptoms or diagnosis is a complex individual with thoughts, feelings and memories...
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
AT ITS CORE
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is about knowing ourselves more deeply so that we can live our lives with greater freedom and flexibility, instead of being ruled by past experiences and in ways we don't fully understand. Meaningful psychotherapy has a purpose. It’s aim is enduring relief of your pain.
PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychodynamic
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is about exploring those aspects of self that are not fully known, especially as they are revealed and potentially influenced in the psychotherapy relationship. New definition. Jonathan Shelder (2025)
Academic papers demonstrating the efficacy of Psychodynamic Theory
David J. Roseborough. (2005).
Jessica Yakeley & Peter Hobson. (2018)
Falk Leichsenring, et al. (2017).
Peter Fonagy (2015).
Jonathan Shedler (2010).
Christiane Steinert, et al. (2010).
Stephen Briggs, et al. (2017).
Falk Leichsenring, et al. (2013).
PSYCHOTHERAPY PROCESS
Session 1-3
Considering goals.
Session 1-6
Establishing a working alliance
Session 4 onwards
Focusing on unconscious processes
Working through change
