How Do I Work?
I'm trained in a style of talking therapy called transactional analysis, or TA for short. There's more than one school of TA, and I draw from more than one school when working, depending on what's the most helpful to you. Here are the four main schools:
Classical TA - Full of useful, easy to explain models, and great for helping you to understand yourself and others.
Redecision - The theory behind this one is that when you were very little, you made decisions about yourself, other people, and the world in general (e.g., "I'm stupid", "Other peoples' feelings are more important than mine", "the world is a dangerous place"). Those worked for you when you were little and lacked the powers of an adult - the ability to get a job, to have a bank account, to live safely without somebody else's care and supervision, etc.), but now you do, and you might want to revisit some of those decisions. Perhaps you'll decide something different, this time? Making "redecisions" like this is one thing, but committing to them over a longer period of time and learning the skill-set to get good at sticking to that commitment, are another. If your therapy is primarily redecision-based, then this is the work we'll do together.
Cathexis - This approach has its roots in psychiatric care, but there are lots of useful parts to it that can help people without a serious psychiatric diagnosis. If you're curious, "cathexis" means shifting energy. Do you spend most of your time feeling angry at other people? Then moving that energy to another part of your life will change things. The cathexis school of TA helps us to do that by exploring discounting (ignoring one aspect or another of reality, which warps how we solve problems), symbiosis (the nature of our bonds with a special other person), passivity (how active, and how passive, are we as we go about our lives, and *how* are we being passive, exactly?), and redefining (human beings are suprisingly good at doing this. How many times have you asked someone a question and they answered a slightly different question? Exactly!). I use bits of cathexis theory with my clients whenever I think they'll be useful.
Relational - There's very little in the way of models with this one. Instead it's about the interpersonal connection you and I share. It's "emergent", meaning we meet in my therapy room and see what arises as we talk. To put it into layman's terms, it's a pretty safe bet that whatever's important to you will come up in conversation. It sounds very simple when I put it that way, but my job when using a relational approach is that when you feel safe with me, you can do the work of healing.
You can't heal if the other person's attacking you, after all.
Cost and Availability
I charge £60 per 50 minute session.
You can find details about my availability on the page of each location I work at. See the location details near the top of each page.
