Counselling and Psychotherapy are often terms that are used interchangeably. Whilst counselling has historically been seen as the approach that came out of the work of Carl Rogers’ Person Centred Therapy, psychotherapy has a longer and more complex history.

There are many approaches you could benefit from when engaging in psychotherapy, and when you come to your first session we can together work out what might be the best place to start.

The type of approach we use as we go along might change, which is important, as from our perspective psychotherapy should be suited to you and your personality and needs, not you adhering to one approach to psychological understanding. In short, we adapt to you and what you need, not the other way around.

Psychotherapy is sometimes see as being longer term, which also doesn’t have to be the case. Plenty of people that have come to Colchester Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice have benefited from just a few sessions.

So, what are the different psychotherapy approaches you can experience? Let’s look at them …

• Psychodynamic – The focus in this approach leans towards your childhood development, so issues, ideas, and learnings from your childhood, that may be influencing your present adult life.

• Humanistic – This approach works primarily with how your past has shaped your present, and how gaining understanding into the aspects of your life development can influence your future growth in all aspects of living.

• Existential – Working with this type of approach brings a philosophical element to making sense of your life, and the struggles that you have already, and will in the future encounter. In doing so you can begin to gain a deeper relationship with yourself, and become able to consider what there is to learn from life’s struggles.

• Cognitive Behavioural – Often a briefer approach to psychotherapy, CBT is focused on helping you to get the outcomes you want. Read more about CBT here.

• Integrative – As the name implies, this approach integrates various aspects of all the different approaches to psychotherapy, choosing to merge them and creating an approach that is led by the needs of the you the client, and which fits the relationship between the you and your therapist, so that you both work together to find the insights and resolutions you need.

Each of these approaches brings with them different techniques and methods of helping you gain insight and clarity into your life, with the aim of enabling you to make informed choices, clear decisions and live your life as you choose.

We’ll find what works for you and mould the therapy to work best for you.

You can get started today by sending us a message here.