Private Therapy

Psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling are classically talking therapies. They are used to assist in treating emotional struggles and mental health issues. Psychotherapy can also include using the arts. Sometimes words cannot be found, to convey the experience individuals may be struggling with. Working with a multi modality approach to psychotherapy can help – music, image and metaphor can also express what words can’t. We use many approaches including this in psychotherapeutic work, with individuals, couples and groups.

Psychotherapy sessions are confidential, as long as you are not of harm to yourself or others. This means you can be assured that your personal issues are not shared with anyone. A therapist would help you to explore the issues you have been struggling with and to assist you to work through the feelings associated. It may be that you want to look at how to cope better or bring about changes in your life – so you can feel happier and achieve your goals. You may be locked into old patterns of relating to others and can’t seem to change it. Therapy can help.

In psychotherapy practice, Donna Butler termed the phrase – ‘The Beachball Effect’.

Many of us have moments in life where we feel – ‘I don’t want to deal with this emotional difficulty right now’ – we may, in this case, know we are pushing feelings away. On other occasions, we may not consciously know that’s what we are doing.

Thoughts and difficult feelings can be symbolised as a beachball. They are pushed away, or down into the basement of your mind. In the case of the beachball – it can be pushed under water, but it will, at some point find its way to the surface again. If feelings are pushed down, they too, may emerge sometimes weeks, months, or years later.

It may manifest in a physical symptom, or in a behaviour, or troubling thoughts that ruminate. It can also be triggered back to the surface by something that links to the original difficulty. Psychotherapy helps to go back to the feelings that are getting in the way of living a fulfilling life.