Your Choices: Is Therapy for Me?

The first thing to say is that any work we do together would be personalised, to meet your particular needs, and would be strictly confidential.  This even extends to where and when we meet, only you would share this information with others. 

To begin with, there would be a discussion about what is worrying you, your current situation, and if I am able to help you.  This process is sometimes called an initial assessment. 

With shared understanding, we would be able to agree an initial focus for our work, and a timescale for our initial review – usually about six weeks.  On reaching that point, with the help of discussion, you would decide if you wanted to continue our work together, or stop, or take a break (possibly with the option of continuing at a later date).  If you do decide to continue, this could be for a further six weeks, and so on, until you feel the time is right to move on. 

Some matters, such as making a decision, or talking through a particular problem, might only take a few sessions. However, if you are facing a major obstacle in your life, you want to explore a deep or long-standing issue, or you want to address something that happened some time ago, this could take considerably longer.  Nothing you might bring is too big or too small, too terrifying or too trivial.  Similarly, however unusual or uncomfortable something may feel to you, it is unlikely to be something that has never been encountered before.  Whatever it is, you need not face it alone.

Finally, counselling and psychotherapy are not limited to negative things, they can support our ongoing psychological and psychospiritual development.  This can include increasing our independence, changing the way we relate to others, or, as is increasingly common, our search for meaning and purpose in life (our spirituality).  Benefiting from good psychological health is now seen as being proactive, a means of taking positive steps in our lives.  It is not something to be ashamed of, or some dark secret to be hidden away. 

My professional charges are kept down to £50 an hour, reflecting my commitment to “affordability” for the highest quality therapy enabled by my long training.  Please be assured that this relatively modest price does not translate into a relatively modest quality of therapy.

If your finances are such that this amount is likely to prove difficult, on request, it may be possible to receive up to six sessions at the reduced rate of £30, as I maintain two dedicated places specifically to support committed clients.

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