What is it you are seeking help with? Maybe this is clear in your mind, maybe not.
Will therapy help you? In my experience the vast majority of people who seek therapy do find it changes things for the better. I see it as my role to help you get there.
Do you feel overwhelmed by intense emotions but are unsure where they have come from or why you are having them?
Are sadness, anxiety, sudden anger, shame and guilt, self-hatred, fear of others (or yourself) a problem?
Do you find your relationships often seem to become difficult, whether it be romantic, at work or school, family or elsewhere? Do the people most important to you also cause you the most angst?
Do you find yourself repeatedly doing things that confuse you or you regret later?
These are a few of the things that psychotherapy is designed to help with.
Psychotherapy at the Titirangi Clinic is based on a therapeutic relationship – working together to understand the events, both good and bad in your life. And, crucially, exploring the meaning of the things that happen in your life.
The technical stuff:
The term psychotherapy is derived from the Ancient Greek psyche (breath; spirit; soul) and therapeia (healing; medical treatment).
What does that mean? Well, originally Sigmund Freud developed an approach to talking with patients, he called it The Talking Cure. He helped his patients to explore the problems and patterns in their current life and trace them to difficulties in their early life.
We have come a long way since Freud. However, some of his ideas can still help us now, updated by a hundred years of progress. Modern therapy is shaped as much (maybe more) by the client than the therapist. What you are seeking and what you would like to understand determines what your therapy looks like and what you get out of it.
I have training and experience in a number of medium to longer-term therapies. My approach tends to be measured in months to years, rather than weeks. I think people’s feelings are important and sometimes sensitive, so there needs to be time and space to work on things.
My approaches include more traditional styles such as psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapies, group therapy, and family therapy as well as more modern approaches including mentalisation-based treatments (MBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Therapy is sometimes about exploring the past but equally well it is about your life right now – the relationships and experiences you have in your current life and how they can be better.