What is psychotherapy and How it Can Help?

Psychotherapy, whether it is as an individual, a couple or a family is a way of understanding and working with things in life that feel unsatisfactory. Sometimes, expressed through the use of words, such as, empty, anxious, depressed, stuck, painful, or confusing. At other times, it is expressed through understanding what actions to take, what you want to do more of, what you want to do less of. Both require understanding and listening. 

Psychotherapy starts by recognising that our struggles didn't happen in isolation. The way we cope, and make sense of things is shaped by many influences. Such as, our relationships, gender, upbringing, religion, cultural background(s), beliefs and values. Working with me can help you to uncover how these parts of life connect and affect one another. My particular skill is helping you to be curious about what's going on inside you, while also paying attention to what is going on around you . 

Sometimes, in trying to figure out a solution, less useful conversations take place. This can make it difficult to understand the problem clearly or decide what to do about it. Please do contact me and together we can work toward creating some certainty!

Stories lived, stories told

Every person, every couple, every family has a story.

Some of those stories are spoken out loud, such as the ones we tell to explain who we are and  how things came to be this way. Other stories are lived quietly, things left unspoken; these things do not just disappear. Instead, they tend to settle into the spaces between people, shaping how we relate without us realising it.

We might keep circling the same arguments, or focusing on the surface-level issues, while something deeper stays out of reach. 

You might find that the ways of thinking and communicating that work so well in one part of life don't seem to land the same way  in other parts. It can be confusing when you're doing your best to approach things clearly, logically, but others respond in ways you didn't expect, and it's hard to understand why.

In psychotherapy, we make space to think about this, uncover those deeper layers. The things that haven't been said yet. Not by finding fault with one person, but by understanding the different perspectives, expectations, and experiences each person brings. Sometimes what looks like resistance or conflict is really a story that hasn't had space to be heard. Change often begins not with finding the perfect words but with noticing what's been missing from the conversation.

Sometimes it's not that we're not talking. It's that we're not talking about the right things.