Further Information
Therapy is an investment that brings awareness for positive change. The amount of time and the affordability may be influencing factors on your decision to access counselling. This aims to help you consider if short term or long term may be suitable. In the initial session we can discuss in more detail which approach might best suit your situation.
Long Term
This is a more traditional approach to therapy and is often called open-ended. Sessions are usually weekly but can be fortnightly in certain cases. There is sometimes a main focus but the sessions have a more ebb and flow to topics covered, as influenced by the day. This work is varied and allows time for a deep level of understanding of the many underlying influences we gather through life that create our patterns of behaviour. We will maintain an open dialogue on how therapy is helping you progress, develop and review if you want to prepare to stop or take a break.
Short Term
This approach involves between six and twelve sessions, meeting weekly. It involves finding an area of focus, that will guide the flow of the sessions. Other interconnected topics may arise and we consider their influence. It may be appropriate at a later stage to have more therapy to fully explore these interconnected topics, but in short term therapy it is often not essential to do so. The best way to think of this work is not the number of sessions but actually the number of weeks because often there will be encouragement to do self-development/self-awareness practices between sessions. The work focuses on your current situation in relation to what is troubling you. As the sessions progress we have time to monitor the accumulated progress, so that as the end approaches you have a sense of going forward with what you have learnt. You may decide that to be enough or at a later stage to consider more therapy with me or another therapist, or to have check-in sessions as and when needed (as a back up and a safety net in moments of need). All of those potentials will be discussed as we prepare to end.
