First and foremost the work is confidential. I will do everything I can to make the environment as safe as possible. Some of the issues may be difficult to talk about or may take time to comfortably reveal themselves. I will therefore respect your pace. There is no requirement from you to talk about things you don’t want to talk about and you can, of course, pause or end the sessions at any time.

I will use all my energy, knowledge and experience to work with you on your challenges. I very much believe in supporting you to connect to your own wisdom rather than directing you with mine. I also believe in involving you in the process and openly discussing what we are trying to do and the various options open to you.

It will come as no surprise that there will be moments in these sessions that are challenging but I am sure we will have moments of lightness and humour too. As well as dealing with the negative we should make sure to celebrate the positive in life!

Let’s start off with psychotherapy and counselling. In practice the two terms are often used interchangeably. There is a sense, however, that counselling is more short term and deals with narrower and more specific issues perhaps related more to the present. Counselling work may be completed in a shorter period of time than psychotherapy. An example of counselling work is work dealing with the grief of a recent loss.

On the other hand, psychotherapy is regarded as being more in depth than counselling and more long term. It may look at issues and processes that are deeper, more historic, more challenging, and sometimes unconscious. The training for psychotherapists can be very onerous – five years is not uncommon. An example of psychotherapy is the work that is done to uncover and understand a childhood trauma and how it has affected adult life.

While psychotherapy and counselling deal with suffering of various types, coaching is more about goals. Some clients may come with a very specific goal like losing weight or starting a business. Other clients may come with vaguer goals, for example, they are feeling ‘stuck’ in life and want to become ‘unstuck’ but are not sure what this entails. Coaching involves clarifying goals, identifying and executing the strategies required for a client to achieve those goals, and overcoming the obstacles along the way.

As a rule of thumb, if you are suffering in some way this probably means a counselling or psychotherapy approach is appropriate, whereas if you are generally feeling ok and you want to achieve some goals this probably means a coaching approach is appropriate. This statement is, of course, over-simplistic.

In practice we may move back-and-forth between these approaches as needed. For example, some clients get a good handle on their historical traumas using counselling and psychotherapy work and then decide it’s time to set goals and start moving forward in their lives with the help of coaching. Some other goal-focused clients might start with coaching but might unexpectedly uncover a trauma which needs to be dealt with using more of a counselling or psychotherapeutic approach. We should not get too hung up about drawing neat boundaries between approaches. Indeed, sometimes it is a blend of approaches which is needed. What is most important is that there is a compassionate human being using their common sense and commitment to work with you on your challenges. I am in your corner.

For an informal no-obligations chat to discuss your needs, please fill out the form in the ‘Contact’ section and I will be in touch shortly.