What can you expect from therapy sessions with me?

My role is to help you understand yourself, who you are, perhaps to recognise patterns of behaviour that are helpful or unhelpful. 

Although a greater understanding of yourself can be a painful process, it can lead to the possibility of greater calmness and peace, clarity and focus.

Therapy, or change, does not happen overnight and nor is it linear. Just when you think that you are making progress, you will almost certainly go ‘backwards’ for a while. It takes time to try to understand yourself and it takes time to try to work out how some of the bits of the puzzle that is you, fit together.

My aim is that you will never feel judged in the therapy room, at the end of the telephone or via zoom, and that the speed and direction of your sessions are set by you. Each week you talk with me about whatever you need to that week.  You are in charge. You may feel nervous before our first appointment and this is natural. 

Over however long you chose to come for therapy, whether it’s just a few weeks or months or years, you may well at times tell me things you have never breathed to another person. 

That takes a lot of courage but it is only possible to feel and use your courage if you feel trust in me. Trust that I will never judge you and trust of course that everything you say, expect for very specific reasons, will be held in complete confidence by me.

For therapy to take place you also need to be prepared to do hard work. This may, but probably won’t, include actual ‘homework’ from time to time. But it definitely will mean that you will find some areas you want to work on, hard to deal with. Hard often means painful but that’s the reason you’ve avoided them before.  Working through your issues will be hard for you but growth and change cannot take place without it. I am there as a sort of stick to lean on as you pause to catch your breath during your explorations inside your mind.

What I aim to offer is the safety of one precious hour a week that will give you enough detachment from the world just outside the door that you will, in time, seek out and make sense of the truths inside you. It would be an honour to assist you on your quest.

Practicalities:

We can work on a short-term or long-term basis. Face to face, on the telephone or via the Internet. If one method doesn’t suit you then we can try another.

Day time and evening slots are possible.

We can meet face to face in my dedicated therapy room in my garden at Hampton Hill TW12, or on the telephone or via Skype or Zoom. I am on bus routes to Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow (R70, R68 and 285) and overground to Waterloo and suburban South West London (Fulwell and Teddington).

A therapy hour lasts 50 minutes and I charge £70 for a session. Concessionary rates may be available.

You may feel nervous before our first appointment and this is natural. 

The first session is a no-obligation introduction so that we can see how we might work together. Choosing a therapist is a very subjective experience and you need to feel comfortable with me. So much of the success of therapy is down to your relationship with your therapist.   So the first, introductory session, is half price.