Fees

My standard fee for psychotherapy is £80 per session.  I have a small number of spaces for clients of very limited financial means, although these are often full. If you need to discuss the fee and what you can afford to pay, please let me know on initial contact.

My current fee for supervision is £60 per session. This is a lower fee to reflect my pre-accredited status.

How will I know you are the right therapist for me? 

This is perhaps one of the most important questions you could ask.  

Research has confirmed what many clinicians intuitively knew – that it is the quality of the therapeutic relationship that is key to whether the treatment works or not.  That means that a client needs to have a sense that they feel comfortable enough with the therapist to be able to engage in what can sometimes be very painful and challenging work. Many people know within a minute or so of meeting someone whether they connect, so it is important to trust your gut instinct on this.       

The other important issue to consider is the model that the therapist uses, or put more simply, the beliefs they hold about the origins of emotional distress. My belief is that the roots of our emotional distress can often be traced back to our childhood and early infancy, often before we learn to talk.  Obvious examples of this would include abuse of any form (sexual, physical or emotional), neglect, or being cared for by carers who are struggling in their own right, perhaps with untreated mental health problems, financial difficulties, or who are very isolated.  All of these can (but not necessarily will) mean that the carer is not as available as a young infant needs.  

Another core aspect of the model I believe in is that there are aspects of ourselves that are out of our awareness.   In psychotherapy terms this is called the unconscious, but in everyday terms it can be understood if we think about how overwhelming it would be for our brain to hold an active memory of every single thing that happens to us. Most things get filed away, sometimes in easy access files that we can call on quickly and easily, other times in hidden, dusty files that have not been opened for years, or that might have been forgotten about altogether. But these files might start showing their need for attention and understanding (for example, via dreams), or in a similar vein to computer viruses, impact on the other healthy files (such as when depression, anxiety, low self-esteem might make all aspects of life difficult to manage) . It is at this point that therapy can help make sense of these 'files', memories or events.  

Going back to the scenario of difficulties in early childhood, such difficulties may also present themselves via our unconscious.  This is purely and simply because they happen before we have words to understand them, and because our memory of our early life is implicit (meaning embedded within ourselves, perhaps in our body, but outside of our awareness), not explicit (within our awareness, when we can bring a memory to mind).

How long will need I therapy for, and what can i expect?

‘How long’ is one of those "How long is a piece of string?" questions.  As someone who has benefited from therapy over many years I believe the value of therapy continues to grow the longer you stick with it, I would add that therapy is my job and my life - I am committed to being the best version of myself I can, for my clients, my family and friends, and for myself - so I continue to have regular therapy. But I appreciate that not everyone wants to be in therapy for a long time, and that finances are often a key factor in deciding how much time can be given over to the process.

Therapy is certainly not cheap, but whilst the value of other purchases might depreciate over time (for instance, a new car or clothes), last a brief time (e.g. holidays, a hair cut), or feel like a worthy investment in the moment but turn out to not be so great (the gym membership that never quite gets used as much as it could), therapy should add value to your life, both at the time and after you stop therapy. You might be able to form more meaningful and lasting relationships, cut down on or stop unhealthy behaviours, feel more comfortable in your skin and so on. So it can be helpful to think of it as an investment, and that the more you put in, the more you get out.

Over the time I’ve worked as a psychotherapist, I have noticed a natural rhythm to therapy. People come knowing that they want to address certain distressing issues. To begin with, there is an urgency to the work - the ‘problem/s’ that triggers someone to seek therapy feels hard to manage, and life feels challenging. If the fit between therapist and client is good, there is often an immediate sense of things improving - ‘a problem shared’, and all that. But as the work continues, sometimes things might actually feel harder for a bit. This is normal - therapy encourages us to face our problems head on, to avoid the avoidance, as it were. And that can be hard. But hopefully, with the right support, things begin to feel more settled and the work can become really productive.

Often clients feel excited as they make more sense of their problems, make connections between different aspects of their life and inner world, and find different ways to move forward. This can be a wonderful process that always feels a privilege to be part of. At times, when things feel more under control, clients might begin the session saying, “I don’t have anything to talk about today”. It can feel hard to come to a session when you feel this, but in my experience, if you are able to embrace the opportunity to explore what ‘bubbles up’, such sessions can be hugely rewarding and often produce fascinating insights.

Over time, as things improve, people can notice that therapy becomes less of a priority for them. Unlike at the height of distress and/or therapeutic productivity, when therapy sessions might have been the focus of your week, a level of resentment or annoyance about coming to a session might surface. This is important to discuss with your therapist, as it might indicate an area that needs time and space to understand and explore together. But if it continues, it might mean that perhaps your need for therapy is waning; that looking outwards and exploring life is more enticing that looking inwards and/or backwards. And so, it might be time to move on and say goodbye to therapy - perhaps permanently, perhaps temporarily. I say perhaps temporarily because, as an attachment based therapist, I think of therapy as a secure base/safe haven. Therefore, when a client returns to do more work, I feel honoured that they feel safe enough with me to share their on-going psychological journey.

So how long does this all take? We are back to the “How long is a piece of string?” question. Clearly everyone is unique and so ever therapy is unique, but I have noticed that for many the length of time this whole process takes can be around 1-2 years. That’s not to say that it might be shorter or much longer - if your own therapy doesn’t match what I have just described, but is making a big difference to you, trust the process. It is also important to say that if someone has had a very difficult early life (which may have included abuse of some kind, but not necessarily) the therapy can take longer and have a different feel. But for many of the people I have worked with, 1-2 years of therapy has enabled them to make significant and lasting changes.

Another important area concerns the frequency of sessions.  Often people come to therapy once a week, but many people can really benefit from twice weekly sessions (or sometimes even three sessions per week).  This makes the gap between sessions, when we might feel adrift and alone, shorter and more manageable. Plus progress can be more obvious, and the work deeper. Many people say they notice a real difference between once weekly sessions and more frequent sessions.   

Working out what the right length and frequency of therapy is for you is central to how I work, and is done in collaboration with you from day one.