Below is a brief description of some therapeutic approaches I employ.
Regardless of the type of therapy we choose, the most important thing is that you feel that treatment is valuable and helpful and that you feel safe and supported within the therapeutic alliance.
This model is based on psychodynamic, humanistic, and integrative traditions, theories, research, and practice. All humans are shaped by their social contexts, and their sense of self is entwined with their relationships. Problems in relationships lead to considerable psychological distress. If relationships can cause problems, they can also be repaired through relationships that facilitate growth and change.
This approach to therapy focuses on the individual's personal meaning, privileges the client's individuality, offers ways of understanding the self, and emphasises the potential for self-determination, development, and change.
The therapist and client work together in identifying relational aspects that might be problematic. Relationship dramas are often transferred into the counsellor-client relationship, which provides a way for them to be re-experienced, explored, and understood.
CBT is a type of talking therapy that focuses on how an individual's thoughts, beliefs, personal meanings, and attitudes affect his/her feelings and behaviour. If a negative interpretation of situations goes unchallenged, these thoughts, feelings and behaviour patterns can become part of vicious cycles.
Through collaborative exploration, the person could develop skills and techniques to gain more control in managing and addressing difficulties. Sessions are interactive and begin with identifying and clarifying problems, then agreeing on "homework" tasks that the person experiments with to determine the most effective techniques for him/her. These tasks include writing diaries, confronting and modifying negative thoughts, experimenting with different behaviours and noting the outcomes. The therapist's role is to listen, teach, and encourage, while the client's role is to express concerns, learn, and implement what is learned.
This approach emphasises clients' life histories and their effects on the present. It often helps to understand how a child's worldview can be transferred into the present, bringing old feelings and thoughts that may be unhelpful or self-defeating. By exploring this, an individual's awareness could be increased, thereby improving the causes of problematic behaviour or painful emotions.
However, it is worth noting that the therapist is usually less active in order to provide time and space for the client's introspective process. The practitioner's role is to help explore unconscious motivations, conflicting feelings, and ways of relating to others that can cause difficulties.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a humanistic, systemic, experiential model that postulates that people and relationships can grow and change. EFT was developed in the 1980s by Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, incorporating adult attachment theory and developmental theory of personality and intimate relationships. This well-researched approach provides evidence for efficient couple intervention, but it is also used to alleviate individual depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
EFT is collaborative and respectful of clients, integrating experiential techniques with structural, systemic interventions. EFT aims to provide order and reorganise critical emotional responses when interacting with others, expand the individuals' core sense of self and how they respond to others, and foster emotional balance and coherence that enhances a sense of competence and worth.
These lead to more open and responsive engagement with others.
The goal of the EFT therapist is to identify the patterns, access and reprocess the emotions and attachment longings that drive the cycle, and create bonding events to fundamentally change it from negativity to positivity, nurturing, and security.
Professor Paul Gilbert developed Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) to work with people with enduring mental health problems, many of whom had high levels of shame and self-criticism. This approach helps one learn to feel kinder towards oneself and others, and to feel safe and capable in a seemingly overwhelming world. Compassion includes sensitivity, sympathy, non-judgment, empathy, well-being, self-care, and distress tolerance.
Compassion-focused therapy may help with mental health challenges such as self-esteem and confidence, self-criticism, severe depression, anxiety, and panic disorders. Psychological research and science have found that individuals can positively affect both their brains and immune systems by focusing on developing compassion. Parts of the brain are shown to light up when individuals are kind to themselves or others.
The blending of different theoretical frameworks reflects the complexity of human beings, where no single approach is adequate for all clients, circumstances and situations. The integrative approach in therapy is more holistic, addressing emotional, cognitive, behavioural, spiritual and physiological levels of functioning. This integration promotes personal growth and encourages you to make new connections with previously disowned parts of yourself.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapeutic approach that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress resulting from disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR interventions, people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference.
EMDR therapy demonstrates that the brain's information-processing system naturally moves toward better mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Clinicians use detailed protocols and procedures that help clients activate their natural healing processes.
(Phone: 07762210876) - (Email: elena@dorsetpsychology.com) - (Address: 37 Roman Road, Broadstone, Dorset BH18 9DG)
