Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a therapeutic process which helps clients understand and resolve problems by increasing their awareness of their inner world and their ways of relating to the external world. Its aims are deep-seated changes, particularly in emotional development, and it can be a longer process. Sessions may be twice or three times a week.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is an effective treatment for a range of psychological disorders, such as eating disorders, psycho-somatic conditions, obsessional behaviour, or phobic anxieties. Clients may also seek this type of therapy because of more general underlying feelings of depression or anxiety, difficulties in concentrating, dissatisfaction in work or inability to form satisfactory relationships. The therapy can contribute significantly to clients’ mental and physical health, to their sense of well-being and to their ability to manage their lives more effectively.
Your relationship with your therapist is an important part of the therapy. The therapist offers a confidential and private setting which facilitates a process where unconscious patterns of the client’s inner world become reflected in the relationship with the therapist. This process helps patients gradually to identify these patterns and, in becoming conscious of them, to develop the capacity to understand and change them.
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If you think this sort of therapy could be helpful for you, contact us to arrange an initial consultation.
At the consultation session, you will have the opportunity to talk about the issues you want to explore, and find out if this way of working will suit you. This session will last for up to an hour and a half (normal therapy sessions will be 50 minutes).
At the end of this session you will have an idea of what your therapy may be like, and what you can expect from your therapist. At this point you may want to discuss the benefits of either counselling or psychotherapy. Normally, we expect to offer you regular sessions to start within 3 weeks of the consultation.