What does a Therapist actually do?

A Psychotherapist can help you work through both short term and long term problems such as; depression, anxiety, coping with a serious illness, losing weight or stopping smoking, relationship troubles, job changes, death, substance abuse and any other issues that may be causing you problems. Any time your quality of life isn’t how you want it to be then psychotherapy is useful to help you live a happier, healthier and more productive life.

Therapy is a collaborative process – it is a relationship between two people. The therapist will use both yours and their language to identify thought patterns and to open up your awareness, they will create a supportive environment and a safe space so that you feel comfortable to talk openly. Your therapist will be objective, neutral and non-judgemental. You and your therapist will work together to identify thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are holding you back from achieving your best self.

Therapists use different interventions to help people develop more effective habits. There are several approaches to therapy including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Humanistic Therapy, Existential Therapy and Psychodynamic Therapy to name just a few (I will go into this further in another blog). Most therapists will usually use a variety of approaches and will refer to themselves as Integrative Therapists. Each approach acts as a roadmap to help the therapist understand you, the client, and your presenting problems and provides tools to help the therapist create a solution. All of the techniques that therapists use are based on: the orientation, psychological research and what works best for you as the client.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy uses a practical approach; the tasks that the therapist offers are designed to help you develop better coping skills. Whereas, Psychoanalytic and Humanistic approaches focus more on talking, this type of therapy aims to explore past experiences to find the root cause of the presenting problem. Most therapists use a variety of approaches and tailor their treatment to clients needs

There is a lot of research to show that the most important factor in therapy is the therapeutic alliance – this is how you and the therapist connect, behave and engage with each other. The therapeutic alliance is one of the most important tools for achieving positive outcomes in therapy. This relationship is so important as you must be able to trust your therapist and feel comfortable around them to be able to learn and grow with them. For many clients the therapist may be the only person who they trust and feel safe to be vulnerable with. The therapeutic relationship can be used as a tool to teach the client what a trusting relationship feels like, an opportunity to find new ways to relate in a safe space, a chance for the client to be authentic without having to impress or please someone else and a space to share things with someone who is impartial, non judgemental and has the best interests for their client.

I personally work with neuro-linguistics, which is the understanding of how thinking, feeling, language and patterns of behaviour relate to specific outcomes. Essentially this helps clients to become aware of the language of their own minds and to adapt in order to achieve their full potential.

I offer a safe, compassionate and non-judgemental space where we can focus on the cause of your challenges, your immediate needs and your future wellbeing. I have a warm and positive approach to therapy and draw upon my varied experience and training to find the best way to support you. I am used to working with clients in a needs led way using a range of tools and platforms and hold the belief that it is you, the client, who is the expert and it is my job as the therapist to provide the conditions to enable you to make changes so that you can flourish.