Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy/Counselling

What is psychotherapy?

Anyone can benefit from psychotherapy. Talking to a trained professional can help you explore your concerns, thoughts and feelings, which will, in turn, allow you to improve your mental health. You may feel that what you’re experiencing isn’t severe enough to get help, or you’re unsure about the kind of support that psychotherapy can offer. Still, anyone can benefit from becoming more aware of how they see the world and why.

What can psychotherapy help with?

You don’t need to be in crisis or diagnosed with mental illness to benefit from psychotherapy. It can significantly improve your emotional health, including each of the following:

• Feeling confident
• Dealing with stress effectively
• Coming through difficult times quickly and efficiently
• Coping calmly with difficult situations
• Feeling stable enough to allow sexual intimacy
• Dealing with self-harm effectively again after an incident was over before doing lasting damage

What happens in psychotherapy sessions?

The idea is for you to have the opportunity to explore the issue or concern you want to work on with your therapist. Different therapists will support you to do this in different ways. Some will help you to talk generally about your feelings, behaviours and thoughts, and others will have specific exercises to do this. They won’t tell you what to do but will listen and ask questions that can help you explore these things further. This might feel uneasy, to begin with. But your therapist is there for support through the tough times of exploration.