Bath Talking Therapies

Making Counselling work for you

Types of Counselling


Prospective clients are sometimes not quite clear what kind of counselling they need or what would be most useful for them. So, here is in some more detail, how the counselling I offer is working.

Counselling is a confidential arrangement between client and counsellor. Clients will bring any concerns they want to address to their sessions.

Broadly speaking, most clients who come for counselling to my practice look either for some crisis resolution, or seek help to overcome a particularly stressful time in their life, or they need some help with recurring problems, that in some way keep interfering with their life. Depending on the nature of the concern, I would work with the client to identify their individual need and explore which type of counselling arrangement would be most beneficial, either short-term or long-term work. Sometimes that need is very clear cut and sometimes it might be more fluid, but there are some general pointers as to what might be most helpful.



Solution Focused Counselling

When people experience a crisis or need to make a decision that they find difficult, it seems most useful to them to have some short-term solution focused counselling which addresses specific issues of the crisis or the decision making process. In those circumstances an agreed number of sessions, which can last for several weeks or several months, would be used to work towards a resolution that enables people to move forward.



Psychotherapeutic Counselling

Longer-term psychotherapeutic counselling is indicated when people cannot resolve long-standing or recurring concerns, which might be felt as a sense of being stuck, making the same mistakes, feeling unhappy in relationships, feeling depressed and lacking of energy and drive, feeling anxious, feeling angry with themselves and others, feeling stressed or distressed some or all of the time, feeling burnt-out, feeling not in control to mention but a few. Clearly, when such states of mind take a hold they can become entrenched and interfere considerably with people's happiness, health and well-being.

In those cases clients need a process of exploration to look in some depth at underlying personal issues. The exploration aims to identify possible unhelpful patterns of relating to life and important others in life and will help clients to become aware of and attuned to their emotional responses and distress triggers that feel debilitating. However, cognitive insight alone is often not enough to make lasting changes. In addition a psychotherapeutic process is needed which involves the experience of and a closer look at difficult and previously often unconscious emotions to facilitate personal growth and to re-shape the internal emotional landscape. Over time those hitherto difficult or unknown, as well as maybe suppressed good and creative parts of a person will become an integrated part of their personality by way of a corrective emotional experience and people become more compassionate with themselves and others, they often feel more authentic in themselves, are able to assert themselves while being mindful and respectful of others. For this internal process of change at a more profound personal level to take place a longer-term arrangement is necessary, and the therapeutic work can take anything from a number of months to a number of years.



Psychotherapeutic Counselling through Life transitions

Another area of concern where longer-term work is needed to be sufficiently supporting is when people undergo life changes through bereavement, severe illness, break-up of a marriage or family, mid-life, professional issues, relocation, children leaving home and many more. In these cases a major personal adjustment is needed that takes time and can be accompanied by emotional turmoil, depression, confusion and uncertainty, excessive rumination, self-doubt, loss of direction, loss of self-esteem to mention but a few. In those difficult times people often feel they cannot or do not want to burden friends or family with their ongoing concerns, but prefer to talk to someone professional, who will not try to fix things but will allow them the time they need to work through their life change. By talking about their issues in counselling they will relieve their distress, gain clarification, deeper understanding and restore their emotional balance which in turn helps to bring about the development of new and sometimes unexpected perspectives and life goals. This adjustment at a more profound personal level may take some months, a year, or longer.

These are only broad indications and what an individual needs and wishes to achieve is always worked out between us when people come to their first appointment and re-assessed periodically during the course of the work. The goals might change over time and some flexibility will be part of the process.