What is counselling and psychotherapy about?
Therapy is about personal growth, self awareness and self acceptance and resolution of hurtful emotions.
Therapy works by revising emotions, behaviours and patterns of living in the light of growing awareness, new insights and altered perceptions of ones self and ones environment.
Both counselling and psychotherapy are processes that involve two people and sometimes groups of people working together to the benefit of the client or clients in the case of a group. The therapist provides a safe and accepting container and guidance on an exploratory journey following the direction of travel chosen by the client/s.
The skills of the therapist facilitate the development of an objective and wider view of your presenting concerns, a view that, progressively becomes free from fear of judgement or criticism. The warmth and acceptance of the therapeutic frame allows you greater freedom of expression and consequently a sense of safety in which creative exploration and an enhanced depth of understanding can be achieved.
The collaborative work focuses on your needs. The process addresses your feelings, thoughts and senses, behavours and intuitions to expand understanding and develop strength, self awareness and personal growth. The process is interpersonal, educative, creative, challenging and intensely rewarding.
Through the therapeutic process, you can explore your concerns with the counsellor/psychotherapist. The benefit is - gaining understanding of problems in a supportive environment and with another person who really is focused on your needs and emotions.
It is a reflective process which facilitates a journey which ‘flows in the direction of’ healing, understanding, resolution and self development. The movement isprogressive over time and is ‘in the direction of’ rather than complete achievement of ‘reorganisation of self’ because your ‘self’ has so many aspects that growth and change happens gradually and sometimes only in part.
Counselling and psychotherapy are often referred to as 'change' processes. That change will happen when there is a shift in your perception and a relearning about yourself. This has to be experienced - not learned from a text, and the therapist is your companion, support and witness to that achievement.
Importantly, Maureen recognises that the starting point for your journey is your personal strength, courage, commitment and ability to overcome the concerns or difficulties that you identify. Warmth and acceptance forms the foundation of all my therapeutic work, add to that a relationship that is professional, trustworthy and is based on evidence and experience and you have a very effective helping resource.
"It is this warm willingness on the part of the therapist to lay his/her own self temporarily aside, in order to enter into the experience of the client, which makes the relationship a completely unique one, unlike anything in the client's previous experience"
Rogers. C. 1951