What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?
Counselling is usually shorter-term and focuses on working through a solution to a particular difficulty. I would usually recommend a minimum of 12 weekly sessions.
Psychotherapy tends to be more in-depth and longer term, and can be open-ended. This allows time for a deeper process of change to take place, and an ending can be discussed when the client feels ready.
Psychotherapy may involve looking back to past experiences to understand present difficulties, but this is not always so. The depth of the work can also come from focusing on a client’s whole way of being in the world. This may include looking at a client’s thought processes, unconscious beliefs and patterns of behaviour, and their relationships with themselves and others.
What can psychotherapy and counselling offer?
- Help you gain greater insight and understanding into your thoughts and feelings
- Provide new perspectives on your situation which allow you to have a greater range of choice and possibilities in your life
- Provide support during difficult periods in your life, such as serious illness, bereavement, relationship difficulties
- Help you sort out your priorites and make clear choices about the future
- Support you in facing difficult feelings
What can be Expected from Counselling?
Counselling provides a safe, confidential non judgmental space in which you can talk through and explore issues which may be causing you pain and difficulty in your life. The focus may be on a specific crisis or on a wider exploration of the origins of personal problems.
Whatever your concern, the emphasis is on offering you a supportive and accepting space in which you can reach a clearer understanding of yourself and your present situation, helping you to find your own answers. My role as a psychotherpist is not to give advice but to work with you to increase self-esteem, communicate your needs to your partner, feel more positive, to help view your world differently, maybe acceptance of things that cannot be changed. This could be the first important step on the way to feeling better about your life and yourself.
At an initial session we can explore together the issues that you bring and whether the approach I offer feels right for you. We can discuss what you would like to gain from counselling and whether it is right for you at this moment. We may also make an initial agreement on the length of commitment. It is important that the therapy I offer is tailored to your needs as an individual seeking help and support.
Godalming
Surrey