Psychotherapy can overcome the barriers that separate us from a more happy and healthy life.

The process of Psychotherapy can help us understand how symptoms are formed and how they develop into psychological problems.

Most importantly perhaps are the possibilities it offers to explore what is within our power to change. Creative approaches working with the ‘whole person’ support individuals to overcome the barriers that separate us from a more happy and healthy life.

An Integrative Psychotherapist is able to draw from different psychotherapy practices to work with you and your particular emotional difficulties, some of these creative approaches are listed below.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

The core theoretical framework looks at the whole-person approach by integrating psychoanalytic insights of Jung and Freud. This may involve working with unconscious processes including dream-work from a Jungian perspective, and memories from infancy and childhood. The methods used are set within a holistic view of the person and acknowledge a potential integration and healing of mind, body and spirit as innate to each individual. These methods can enable opportunities for self-realisation and personal development.

Dreamwork

Carl Jung believed ‘that the dream is a spontaneous self-portrayal in symbolic form of the actual situation in the unconscious’ and as such we can view dreams as a guiding principle in the development of the self. That is to say they are intelligent and may offer an opportunity for the dreamer to recognise the mind’s own power to heal itself. The dream can be viewed as a piece of inner theatre which represents itself ‘as if’ it is taking place in the psyche of the dreamer. For this process, the dreaming mind seems to choose any number of everyday items and situations for its purpose in telling a story. Dreams can be a valuable source in uncovering unconscious process potentially unlocking repressed energy and lessening the damaging effects of presenting issues.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

CBT mainly focuses on the behaviour that constitutes a problem rather than the historical reasons for its development. Offering a targeted approach it can promote the opportunity to combat recurring problems differently by enabling tools to change destructive patterns of behaviour, particularly in relation to feelings of low self-esteem, phobias, depression and anxiety.

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy

Mindfulness lies in the core of Buddhist meditative practices but is universal. It can be described as a way of being, a way of seeing, and a way of connecting to your senses. Staying in touch with the present in a mindful way from one moment to the next may lead to you experiencing things differently; perhaps with more strength, balance, wisdom and confidence. The practice of mindfulness can diffuse our negativity, aggression and turbulent emotions and combined with CBT it can help teach depressed participants skills to disengage from habitual ‘automatic’ unhelpful cognitive patterns. The core skill that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy teaches is to intentionally ‘shift mental gears’ to limit depressive relapse.

Counselling or Psychotherapy?

What is the difference between these two talking therapies?

Counselling is a relatively short term therapy that stems from a need to address problems that, if left unchecked, can lead to related mental and emotional disorders. It can also help people who feel they lack or have a loss of direction, and it is a chance to be heard.

Psychotherapy sessions are normally undertaken over a longer period to overcome more complex psychological, behavioural and emotional problems. By understanding a person’s thoughts, beliefs and personal childhood experiences the psychotherapist will help the patient make changes to their way of thinking and behaviour, enabling them to live a more healthy and happy life.

Caroline can offer counselling and psychotherapy as required for the needs of the client.

Please contact Caroline Elliott:
E-mail: info@elliott-psychotherapy.co.uk
Mobile: 07943 829140