Bristol Positive

What to expect

After an initial assessment, we may spend early sessions supporting you to come to a safer space in yourself or perhaps to release and better manage distressing feelings. We may then move to gathering information, this includes naming the problems, taking the life story, looking at ways in which you 'think' which may not be helpful to you, and maybe looking at ways that you have learnt to form relationships. From here we will decide together on what the focus of the work will be, paying particular attention to the core of what limits or restricts us. I sometimes use diagrams to help clients observe and revise problematic patterns. Depending on the life issues you bring, we may explore such diverse things as when and how you have managed successfully in your life, how you derive meaning, past family patterns, mindfulness meditation, unconscious roles you play and perhaps use creative therapies to access more intuitive, unconscious aspects of yourself. Sometimes I recommend a diary of thoughts and feelings is kept by you. Agreed insights are noted, a powerful tool for use within, outside and beyond therapy. In this way clients gain skills to help manage their lives more successfully.

About the therapy

Sessions draw on varied theoretical frameworks to suit what you may need. These may include psychoanalytic ideas, cognitive and social psychology and also cognitive behavioural approaches such as transactional analysis or cognitive analytic therapy. We work collaboratively to discover what beliefs, behaviours and assumptions may cause you to perhaps be feeling sad, angry, anxious, obsessed, stuck or unfulfilled in life. Having spent 3 years in psychotherapeutic gestalt groupwork, I often use Gestalt therapy, a powerful way of feeling more alive in the present, by accessing emotions and making better contact with other people, oneself and the environment.

How does it work

We discover together how problems have evolved and we work together to look at what has hindered change in the past. Problems are understood in the light of personal histories and past experiences and we look at ways in which to move forward in the present. The relationship we have with ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with other people is then better understood. We may , for instance, become more aware of negative self talk which may include, 'I will fail' or "I’m useless", "people will reject me" and these are internally challenged through a more positive and realistic dialogue.

Everyone seeks change for different reasons - to feel less anxious perhaps, to overcome debilating problems like depression, to feel more in control of life, to stop forming destructive relationships. Perhaps you seek change because you feel sad or bad, unhappy or empty, but aren't sure why. You may not necessarily be aware that change is what you want, until you begin to look closely at yourself and the ways you have become used to doing things. Just being prepared to look at ourselves from a different perspective is already embracing change. And deciding to have therapy is probably one of the best gifts you could give yourself. For what could be more important than psychological wellbeing.

What is just as important as changing negative patterns, is to value the things that you have done well and feel good about. Acknowledging that you have survived through difficulties in your life is important. For example, having survived through a childhood of abuse in some form, working at what we can, trying again and again to make relationships - is brave! So we spend some time looking at courage and encourage you to look at your own capacity for success and endurance.

The core of my approach is person centred. This means that I really listen to you empathically and respond to what I hear and this will help you to explore painful places and limitations to growing and moving forwards. This helps your own awareness to grow. WIth greater awarenes we make better choices in life. I also bring empowering aspects of brief solution focused, transactional analysis, gestalt, Adlerian, psychosynthesis and Jungian (transpersonal approaches), cognitive analytic therapy (CBT and CAT), gestalt , systemic and neuro linguistic programming (NLP) to my work.

for further info, appointment call