Welcome to Therapy for Life

Counselling and psychotherapy in North & West Wiltshire, Bath, Bradford on Avon and North Somerset

Do you feel ‘stuck’?

You maybe surfing the internet because something is troubling you and feel unable to work things out on your own.

You may be experiencing severe emotional, physical pain or both, just trying to get through each day as it comes or realising that your wellbeing, your life, could be so much richer.

Perhaps you simply feel 'stuck' and long to feel alive again, you may wish to enhance personal relationships in order to live a more fulfilled life.

Whatever it is, part of you may be looking to find someone who is able to listen and support you, who is able to draw on a wealth of accredited training, knowledge and life experiences which can help you to explore, change and grow in a safe and confidential environment that is neither critical or judgemental.

Working originally in industry and for over 30 years as a therapist I'm able to provide that safe place where you will not only be listened to, understood and shown empathy but acknowledge you as a unique human being with all the inherited weaknesses and strengths that makes you so special.

So how can I help?

By working together, sometimes called the therapeutic alliance.

Therapy is not about ‘fixing’… it’s about listening and empowering you. This process ‘teases’ out your awareness and insights, conscious and unconscious. This can then enable you to unleash that potential that resides in your being and so begin your journey towards more fruitful and healthier relationships and enhance your overall wellbeing.

The key areas or issues I work in include:

• Marital & relationship problems, including couples therapy
• Childhood ‘neglect/abuse’*; including mental, emotional & sexual traumas
• Fostering and adoption work
• Bereavement & loss
• Emotional, mental & physical ill health, e.g. depression & panic attacks
• Counselling in the workplace, see Support for Enterprises Management & Staff (EAP Article)
• Anger & stress management
• Addictions, can include alcohol, medical and recreational drugs, gambling, sex, pornography but can also be overly fixated on an activity or interest….’escapism’

*Abuse can be a suffocating love (more usually maternal but can include the doting father) which presents itself as over protective, intrusive and so stymes healthy development into adulthood. This can sometimes lead to parentification where the child becomes the parent and as a carer in adult life negates their own needs and finds it difficult to ask for support.

So what Counselling Strategies do I use?

In essence the counselling strategies are ones which will be related to your needs and include:

• Psychodynamic (often longer term, in depth, exploring the impact of early influences)
• Solution Focused & Egan (usually the here and now, time limited and targeted)
• Humanistic & Person Centred
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Changing Patterns of Behaviour)
• Transactional Analysis (Exploring the Parent, Child & Adult Dynamics)

Can we learn from the past?

In addition to learning from our past, upbringing and formative influences the distant past also has a message….

Over 3,000 years ago on the ancient Temple walls of Luxor in Egypt the following was deciphered:

“The key to all problems is the problem of consciousness.”

It could be adapted to read "The key to growing awareness is increased consciousness". However there is a cost to increased consciousness and growing awareness, not only in terms of money but more importantly time, commitment, energy and soulfulness.

As an anonymous sage once put it, "if you think awareness is expensive try ignorance".