Psychodynamic Counselling

Psychodynamic counselling has a long and rich history of alleviating distress, facilitating personal growth, increasing self-awareness and growing self-compassion. It is an in-depth form of counselling suited to discovering the roots of your problems and improving your psychological wellbeing (where other therapeutic approaches may focus on surface symptoms only). Due to the depth of this work, it is not time limited and consistently takes place once weekly (in 50 minute sessions) for the duration of sessions. Psychodynamic therapy is shown by research to have high effectiveness with lasting, long-term benefits.

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This form of therapy recognises the influence of a dynamic unconscious, that is, an unconscious part of our minds which guides our automatic behaviours, thoughts, feelings and perceptions, based on our past experiences. Accordingly, in addition to exploring your current struggles together, we place value on thinking about past experiences that informed harmful or distorted narratives about the world and yourself. These felt senses and ideas, many of which form in early years, become part of our 'blueprint'; our unconscious way of perceiving and reacting to the world and others. It is in considering our own blueprints that we can come to know ourselves deeply, gain autonomy and gain freedom to make new choices in our lives.

It may also be valuable to consider together life experiences that have been difficult for you. It may be that emotions such as grief, anger, despair or fear continue to reside within you following these experiences, perhaps in an unconscious 'blind spot'. Likewise, we might too spend time reflecting on experiences which have brought you great joy and contentment. In the development of our relationship, you may feel safe enough to revisit some of these experiences and allow any emotions to be felt and processed in our compassionate and attentive space.

Psychodynamic counselling invites you to talk about whatever feels important to you in the moment. It pays deep attention to what you bring, curious about language, symbolism and metaphor which may help us to understand your unconscious communication. There is no homework or exercises to undertake; all of our work takes place within sessions. The process is necessarily organic and individual to you.