Therapy is (by necessity) a private practice. Your friends might speak about their therapy sessions, but it’s unlikely that they’ll go into detail. That can be daunting. Are you really going to talk about yourself for 50 minutes? What happens in the weeks when everything is just OK?
You talk about whatever you like
Nothing is too small, or too big, for therapy. You might want to talk about something you’ve got on at work.You might be nervous about it, or unsure. Or you might not like your boss. They might be micromanaging or patronising and you know why that bothers you in the moment but why do you take it home with you? Why are you still thinking about it when you’re making dinner?
In the session, we are unlikely to get a definitive answer to this, or any question, but the point is to talk about it, explore, and see where it takes us. We might both be surprised.
There will be weeks when nothing much happens. Your boss was fine and things are going well with your partner. But perhaps you’ve been thinking about something from your past, or something that’s coming up in your future. The thoughts might have been going round and round. Maybe you’ve felt a tension in your body or your throat that has been with you as long as you can remember. We can talk about that tension, or we can talk about the thought. Or what was going on when you first remembered it.
Or, we don’t have to talk about anything. Silence is welcome here. Perhaps you want to just come and sit, and we’ll sit together. Or you want to fidget or draw or play with your hair. There is no right or wrong here. You can just be.
That might sound hippy-dippy. It might grind your gears in some way. But it’s revolutionary.
In life, we so often have to play a role, we’re often given a script. That might have been given to us, or it might be a role that we had to play in order to navigate our lives, in order to feel safe. What would it be like to be sat in a space, with no expectation to perform? There is something radical in that.
What you’ll get from me
Therapy can be daunting, and part of that is the sense from popular culture of the therapist as the blank slate, silently observing. This is not me. Like you, I am a person.
I will do most of the listening, and you will probably do most of the talking. But I won’t be silent. I might ask you to expand on what you’ve just said, or I might reflect back on what I’ve heard. It’s all in service of understanding your experience, and how you relate to it. I work with people who have lost themselves. Therapy is the process of finding.
I might also challenge you, gently. I might notice something you’re avoiding, or you might skip over something that feels important. I will reflect it back, and we’ll see what happens.
I might get it wrong too. I probably will. But if I do, you can tell me. This is a journey we’re on together. If I’m pointing in the wrong direction, we can course correct.
It won’t always be that simple, of course. I might get it wrong in ways that are hurtful. You might also uncover something unexpected. You might be describing something that you’ve never talked about before. Or it might be something you’ve talked about a million times, but this time, somehow it’s different. You might feel intense pain. And that too, is welcome. I have tissues. I am here. We will both survive this.
Integrative therapy means that we can choose how we want to work together. We can talk, or we can draw, or we can move. We can do whatever you need. This is your chance to do things differently.
What happens between us
I am a relational therapist too. That means that what is happening between you and me is information. It’s an invitation too. For me, that means being honest about what I see and hear, and perhaps what might be going on for me is an indication of what might be going on for you. I might say something like “when you said that, I felt quite sad”. That might not be anything to do with you. But I wonder if it was, what could it mean?
And for you, relational therapy is an invitation to take risks. You can be with me however you want. Therapy is like a petri dish, a contained environment to experiment. What happens between us doesn’t follow you out the door. You can be fun and playful, or you can be aggressive and rude. It’s all ok. The joy of therapy is that we meet every week. It doesn’t matter if we left on a high or a low. We will meet again, and again.
And in the meeting, I hope you begin to believe me. I hope you can begin to feel, in the fibres of your being, that you are safe here. There is nothing you can tell me that will make me walk away. I am here, for as long as you need me.
It all starts with a free 15-minute call. From there, we’ll meet in my room in East London. I will talk for a few minutes, and set the scene. You can ask any questions that you have. And then, the work will begin.
The Beginning and the End
And one day, our work will end. When you no longer need me, we will say goodbye. We’ll take our time with it, no slammed doors, and you will walk back into the world, perhaps a little lighter than before.