Individual Therapy

Individuals may come to therapy for an endless list of reasons. Some people come feeling clear about what they want to work on, change or heal while others come because of a general sense that “I don’t feel right” or “things aren’t the way I want them to be but I can’t pinpoint what it is that isn’t working.” Both ways of coming to therapy are good reasons to come!

As well as coming for different reasons, Individuals also come with different expectations of what they need from the therapeutic experience.
Some just “want a sounding board” where they can sound out what is happening in their life. They may “just need to vent!” and in doing so, they have more capacity and head space to continue. These individuals use the therapeutic space as a release valve away from family and friends. This can be powerful work as it helps to integrate our experiences in life in useful ways. 

Other individuals come because they want to deeply explore their inner world and use the therapeutic tools available to them through me, to find new ways of seeing themselves and the way they relate to their world. 

Both of these expectations regarding your therapy experience are great ways of approaching therapy. The most important thing is to let your needs be known to me when you come. You are the expert in your life and it’s most critical that if therapy is useful to you, then you need to get what you need from it.

Individual therapy is a safe, neutral space away from all the people in your life that know you and have their opinions. In the therapeutic space there is “air time” to share aspects of your world, sound them out and through the process of speaking your story, change happens in the dialogue that unfolds.

The work I do with individuals is to assist you to identify your thoughts, feelings and needs using lots of different tools. Through the process of getting clearer about these things, choice opens up and the opportunity for change happens. Often the process of giving space and time to tune into ourselves and pay regard to our thoughts and feelings in a considered, safe and held way, creates the shift. The shift may be visible in our behavior or it could be an internal shift in how we understand ourselves and the people around us. 

For more information about the specific types of therapy that I use, please check out my About My Work page