What actually happens.
An hour a week, in a quiet room, with someone whose only job for that hour is to pay attention to what you are saying.
There is less mystery to it than people imagine
You talk. I listen properly, which is rarer than it sounds and is most of what you are paying for. Sometimes I say what I have noticed. Sometimes I ask about the thing you moved past quickly. Mostly we go at whatever pace you set.
There are no exercises, no worksheets, and nothing to do between sessions unless you decide there is. You will not be asked to rate your mood out of ten.
Over time, things that were tangled tend to come apart into separate threads. That is not a technique; it is what happens when something gets said out loud, repeatedly, to someone who is not frightened of it.
How I was trained, in ordinary words
My training was integrative, which means I was taught several models and expected to use whichever one actually helps the person in front of me rather than defending one of them.
The relationship does most of the work
This is the least glamorous finding in the whole field and the most consistent one. What predicts whether therapy helps is largely the quality of the working relationship — whether you feel understood, whether you can disagree with me, whether it feels like we are pointed at the same thing. Everything else is secondary.
Meaning, not symptoms
Much of what people bring here is not a disorder. Grief is not an illness. Neither is realising at fifty-two that you no longer recognise the life you built. These are problems of meaning, and they respond to being thought about rather than treated.
Practical where practical helps
If you are not sleeping, or drinking more than you want to, or avoiding a conversation that is getting worse by the month, we will talk about that plainly and look at what could change. I am not precious about staying in the abstract.
You are allowed to come here without a diagnosis, without a crisis, and without a clear reason.
Reasonable things to wonder
Do I need to know what I want to talk about?
No. A good number of people arrive able to say only that something is not right. Working out what it actually is tends to be the first part of the work rather than a prerequisite for it.
How long do people usually come for?
It varies more than anyone likes to admit. Some people come for six or eight sessions with something specific and finish. Others come for a year or more. We review it openly every couple of months, and you can stop whenever you want to.
Will you make me talk about my childhood?
I will not make you talk about anything. If your childhood turns out to be relevant it will come up on its own, usually because you bring it. If it does not come up, that is fine too.
Is this the same as counselling?
In practice, for the work I do, the two words describe the same thing. Psychotherapy sometimes implies longer or deeper work, but the distinction is not regulated and is not worth much. What matters is what happens in the room.
What if it is not working?
Say so. It is useful information, not a failure, and it is often the most productive conversation we have. If it still is not working after we have looked at it properly, I will help you find someone else.
What this is not
This is not a crisis service. I am not available between sessions, and I do not offer emergency appointments. If you are in danger, or worried that you might be, please contact your GP, call 111, or call 999 in an emergency. The Samaritans are on 116 123, at any hour.
I do not diagnose, prescribe, or write reports for courts, employers or insurers. If you need a psychiatric assessment or medication, your GP is the right starting point, and therapy can run alongside it perfectly well.