Looking inside
When we come to therapy, we begin to explore our lives, both inside and out. For therapy to help, we need to be open to looking inside ourselves to see how we are making sense of the world and how that plays a role in our unhappiness or fear.
Learning from experience
Our ways of seeing things are shaped from our early experience, and the guidance of those around us when we are young. It helps in therapy to explore what life was like for us when we were young, and what lessons we learned then that might have helped or hindered us since. Therapy requires us to look back in this way, not because we can change what has happened, but because how we learned to cope back then may prevent us from getting what we need now. The here and now is where we work to make the changes to help us live more satisfying and fulfilled lives.
It’s a serious commitment
Therapy that seeks to make lasting change cannot be done quickly. It is a process that requires a commitment of time and effort to make it effective. How much time depends on the nature of our difficulties, how long they have been going on, and how much our current life situation supports or hinders change. As your psychologist, I take my commitment to your psychological wellbeing very seriously and will show this through a commitment to meeting with you regularly and predictably, and always with my full attention.
Coming regularly is vital
Coming to appointments regularly allows the best possible conditions for the work to flourish, as skipping sessions to prioritise other commitments interrupts the momentum of the work and makes it harder to focus on specific aims. It is important to think about the various pulls you may have on your time that might get in the way of coming to your appointments. It can be useful to speak with those in your life about how you can prioritise therapy, such as your partner or your manager.
Is now the right time?
It is important to recognize whether now is the right time for you to begin this journey of self-understanding, compassion and personal transformation. It is not always possible to put aside the time and mental space to do so, and anything that we can do to make this as likely as possible will ensure that therapy can really make the difference towards living the life that you are seeking.
