People decide to seek out therapy for a wide variety of reasons. For some, those reasons are very clear; for others, they might be as vague as ‘I need help and someone said I should see a therapist’. Consequently, I find that two common questions people who haven’t been in therapy before ask when they come to see me are ‘how long will this take?’ and ‘how does this work?’.
These aren’t generally the easiest questions for me to answer because my take on therapy is that everyone is different, and the therapy needs to be adapted to suit the kind of interaction that you and I have. At the same time, I recognise that just metaphorically shrugging my shoulders is fine for me; a gestalt therapist’s training involves building a tolerance for sitting with the unknown. But that’s not necessarily supportive for someone with little or no experience of therapy.
To provide a bit more support, I’ve described what I see as the four approaches I generally take to therapy. Really, these are four different ways of doing the same thing; in all four approaches, I am still offering psychotherapy. Where each approach differs, is in the things they focus on, and in what kind of work they support.
You can read about each approach using these links:
Brief therapy typically 6 to 24 session with a pre-determined end date.
Ongoing therapy usually a regular weekly meeting with no pre-determined end date.
Trauma therapy specifically aimed at people who have suffered a traumatic experience.
Dream therapy brief or ongoing therapy focused on dreamwork.
Alternatively, I’ve devised a therapy decision journey that might support you in gaining a sharper focus on what approach to therapy would suit you best. This is a bit of an experiment, so it may or may not be useful. If it isn’t useful, then you might get better support by arranging an initial consultation with me so we can explore what you need in person.
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