What does Psychotherapy help with?

‘This is all well and good…you’re talking a lot about who you work with, but not what you work with...where’s the list of things you can fix? Do you work with anxiety? Trauma? Grief? Depression…? Bipolar? Personality Disorders? Do I see you if my teen self-harms or my grandmother has dementia? What if I just feel anxious all the time…who do I see for that?”

In general, Psychology works forward, helping clients navigating their lives from the present to the future. Psychotherapy, on the other hand, is more about pattern seeking; about looking back and seeing how things may have come to be, and working from there forward to create change using insight.

The average Psychologist is trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and perhaps one or two other modalities… a Clinical Psychotherapist will have trained in more than two hundred different modalities, of which they will routinely integrate a select number based on the needs of each client.

So, yes, I can help you with all these issues

But keep in mind, you may not know exactly what it is you need help for. Time and time again I find clients may come to therapy to solve one issue, and it’s only after working together that we discover something else entirely is sitting underneath... some old childhood trauma that is impacting their ability to build solid relationships. Rebuilding without exploring the ground underneath can make for shaky foundations.

Often I find…

That the client who comes for hypnotherapy to help with weight loss may end up revealing that he gained weight to avoid a lifetime of pain from child abuse…

Or that the client who comes for depression may discover their history of trauma has had more impact than they realised…

And that a client may come for help with ongoing grief, and learn that a previous lost connection is playing an unacknowledged role in prolonging healing…

Therefore the answer is…

Let’s talk. I know you’re worried about something. Let’s look at it. It might be a short-term episode, or it may be part of a larger pattern in your life. We won’t know until we start.