Person Centred Approach
I come from a person centred perspective which was initially developed by Carl Rogers. This puts you at the very centre of the work that we will be doing. You know the most about how you feel and what is concerning you. It is my role as your counsellor to help you to explore your thoughts and emotions about the issues that have led you to come to therapy. It is an approach that acknowledges the potential in you to make the changes that you need in order to achieve self fulfilment and to take responsibility for your thoughts and actions. I will support and guide you to understand the power and freedom that you have to understand yourself and your life in a different and more positive way.
By creating a safe, confidential and non judgemental environment where you can be heard and understood you will be able to freely express your emotions and feelings. I will not tell you what to do, diagnose you or give you advice. What I will be doing is listening to you and encouraging you to try to understand your thoughts and feelings and what they mean to you. I may reflect back to you the things you tell me so that you can see them more clearly. The issues that you bring to our sessions may be very current or could be as a result of assumptions, attitudes and learnt behaviours from your past that are influencing you in the present. You may wish to explore how they are impacting on you at this point in your life.
Integrating Other Approaches
I believe it is important to be aware of and flexible to your needs. To that end I may also bring in elements and ideas from other ways of working if they are relevant to the issues that you are bringing to our sessions. For example Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) looks at the links between events in your life and the resulting thoughts, feelings and actions. It is particularly useful for stress-related ailments, anxiety, phobias, obsessions, and addictive behaviours. If relevant we could explore some ideas around how changing your thinking can lead to more positive outcomes. Another useful approach might be that of Transactional Analysis (TA) which can be useful in helping you to understand how you interact with others. This is particularly helpful if you are experiencing difficult or challenging relationship where the same destructive patterns of behaviour are replayed over and over again.
The Benefits For You
So, during our time together we will be working to build up your insight and self awareness and to open up the choices available to you. By having more confidence in your own inner resources for coping you will be able to give yourself the freedom to develop possible long term solutions and to make the changes necessary to manage your life in a more fulfilling way.
Wood Green