You may feel uncertain as to whether talking therapy will be helpful to you. Although everyone is different, generally speaking if you feel emotionally stuck, constantly worried or on edge, or a loss of purpose or joy in your life, talking therapy can be of help to you. It is not uncommon for uncertainty about therapy to remain even after the initial consultation. I actively invite my clients to share with me any concerns or questions they may have about their therapy so that this can be thought about together and understood. Sometimes an agreement to review how the therapy is going after a period of weeks can be helpful.

Talking therapy is not a substitute for psychiatric medication but it can be undertaken concurrently with medical treatment and is likely to support the process of recovery from mental illness. If you are currently receiving psychiatric treatment or have a history of severe mental illness it may be helpful, with your consent, for your psychotherapist to discuss your treatment with your medical practitioner.

Counselling and psychotherapy are both forms of talking therapy. Whether someone refers to themselves as a counsellor or psychotherapist depends on the particular training and qualification they have completed. It is most important, whether you see a counsellor or a psychotherapist, that they are registered with a professional body and abide by a code of professional ethics.

A psychodynamic therapist is likely to be curious about your past experience and what you recall from childhood. This is not to ignore your current circumstances or difficulties but to seek, with you, to make sense of their emotional roots. Difficult early life experiences give rise to particular ways of behaving in order to cope with them, and these ways of behaving can persist into adulthood in unhelpful ways. Psychodynamic therapists are trained to help you understand how past experience affects how you behave, feel and relate to others in the present. This can be a challenging, even uncomfortable, process at times but has the potential to bring emotional relief and deep-seated change.

The decision to bring your therapy to a close is yours. If you are considering pausing or ending your therapy, for whatever reason, I recommend you raise this with me so that we can discuss it. I do not stipulate a notice period for ending therapy.

I retain my client’s name, contact details and a brief log of sessions in my professional records. These are kept securely according to data protection regulations. I hold records for a period of six years following the end of therapy, as recommended by the regulating bodies to which I belong.

Regarding confidentiality, I abide by a professional code of ethics which places confidentiality as a pillar of the therapeutic relationship. In order to maintain my own standards of practice I seek regular professional supervision in which I share thoughts about my work. However individual client details remain private. If a situation arises in my work with someone which I believe needs to be shared outside the sessions – and this is rare - I will raise and discuss this with them in advance.

I invite my clients to raise any concerns or questions about privacy and confidentiality with me at any time.