Psychotherapy works on the basic understanding that past experiences and relationships are active in their influence on our feelings, thoughts and behaviour in the present. We all create patterns of experience, behaviour and personal conclusions, regarding the outcomes to give our life meaning. These patterns, good and unsuccessful alike, will also continue to influence our understanding, decisions and viewpoints in the future.
If we have negative experiences and poor outcomes, if life does not play out as we had hoped for, it may lead to negative feelings of not being in control, sadness, confusion, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and self-doubt. We may realise that we re-experience certain outcomes over and over again, not seeing the pattern. This way we will shape our perceptions and understanding of our environment and people as our own unique reality.
In this context if we feel not met by other people, family and friends we begin to have a lot of negative emotions and thoughts. Well meant advice and self-help literature is often of very little use to us, as we tend to still behave and think in old patterns.
In psychotherapy we can explore our experiences, feelings, thoughts and link the present to the past and trying to get an understanding or new and maybe different perspective on the situations as they happened to us. Making sense of ourselves and our lives in a safe and confidential environment in the presence of a trained psychotherapist allows us to learn and understand about ourselves, our feelings and the meaning we have given our life in the past and in the present.
As your therapist I will facilitate you to learn about good and trusting relationship, respect and value your uniqueness in your experiences and meaning you have created and are building on your understanding of your life. I will use aspects of different schools of thought and understanding, depending what your needs are and discuss that with you.
For example, short-term, solution-focused therapy puts different emphasis on the counselling process and time as would psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, trauma therapy transactional analysis and sand tray or trans-generational therapy are more suited to connect the present to the past by looking at early life experiences and underlying unconscious motivations and drives and need a different time allowance to be useful to you. Equally, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) has different aims in terms of modifying unhealthy thoughts and habits into healthier ones than attachment and developmental therapy will have to serve your needs for learning and understanding about yourself.
Adult Therapy
We all know that growing up and going through adolescence can be a tough time. Life can be confusing. The adolescent’s relationship to parents and peers changes and feels at times difficult to understand and negotiate. School can be daunting and many adolescents may wonder at times what will become of them.
A young person may feel alone, misunderstood, sad, lonely or under pressure with academic demands in school, with family life at home and friends and classmates. In short life gets to the adolescent and becomes overwhelming.
Often parents may look back to their own childhood when interacting with their child and realize society has undergone rapid social and technical changes in the recent past.. New concepts and advances in science have contributed to rapid changes to time honoured practices and understandings. Parents may feel bewildered and insecure how to deal with these issues. Particularly issues around neuro-developmental aspects of sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions for example, with dyslexia, dyspraxia, sensory processing and integration issues, emotional control or executive skills will create a strain on the adolescent and the parents in the everyday experience. Parents may feel out of their depth regarding new technologies, new theories and how these will affect the adolescent son or daughter and they may feel worried for their adolescent child in terms of integration and performance in school.
In adolescent psychotherapy the adolescent is encouraged to talk about anything that becomes an issue of concern, worry or overwhelming and/or makes life in family, school, community difficult to deal with. For a parent considering attending an adolescent psychotherapist it means that they can talk about their experiences with their child that changes from childhood to a young teen into an adolescent and finally into the emergent adult.
Issues like:
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school refusal,
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neuro-diversity in experience and learning
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issues with executive functions, like time keeping, organizational skills, emotion control, etc.
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gender identity related issues,
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social identity and integration,
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bullying in school or cyber bulling,
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family related issues around issues like divorce, patchwork families and sibling interaction,
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online access to inappropriate websites/social media interaction,
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setting boundaries and rules for the family and the developing adolescent.
These issues have the potential to disrupt and bring upset to adolescents and parents, amongst many other issues a modern family can experience.
As adolescent psychotherapist I will be able to facilitate support and understanding for the developmental process of the adolescent and the emerging adult in a confidential and accepting environment.
Adolescent psychotherapy differs from adult psychotherapy in the ways that adolescent client and therapist explore an issue together in terms of session length, the use of art materials and the facilitation of dialogue between the adolescent and parents, where appropriate. Parents as legal guardians for their underage adolescent child need to give their permission for engaging in psychotherapy.
Every psychotherapeutic session is informed and regulated by the Children’s First Statement, bearing the client’s safety and wellbeing in mind at all times.
