Why have counselling?

Imagine you are sitting quietly with a companion you trust. You have time to think. You don’t feel rushed or under pressure to say, do or be anything. You have internal and external space. Your companion listens carefully when you talk and doesn’t butt in or give you advice. You feel free to say whatever comes into your head and your companion accepts that this is who you are, without trying to change you. Instead they help you to explore yourself – your thoughts, feelings, memories and fears.

Do you miss such experiences in your life?

This is part of what psychodynamic counselling can offer.

There are times for many people when current or past difficulties cause problems and our usual ways of coping don’t seem to work any more. Or perhaps we reach a point in our lives when we want to get to know ourselves better. Counselling involves talking regularly with a skilled person to explore these areas of difficulty, to gain understanding and find more effective ways of managing our selves and our relationships.

Counselling is not a quick fix or an easy option. Facing painful experiences and memories or owning our own contributions to patterns of behaviour can be very difficult. However, making sense of thoughts and feelings that trouble us can help to make them more bearable. We can then move forward knowing and accepting who we are - the good and the bad that we all have inside.