What is psychotherapy and who can benefit?
Psychotherapy provides an opportunity to talk to a therapist about emotional difficulties. It is a mutual exploration between therapist and client in trying to gain an understanding of the difficulties that the client is experiencing.
In psychoanalytic psychotherapy, we believe that we are affected by experiences in our childhood and that it is helpful to be able to understand how these experiences may influence relationships in our adult life. Most of us experience emotional difficulties at some point in our lives. Sometimes we repeat patterns of behaviour that lead to unfulfilling relationships or that give rise to feelings of discontentment. We may have a general feeling of unhappiness or dissatisfaction about our lives and this can lead to feelings of sadness, loneliness or anger. This may have caused anxiety, panic attacks or depression and these feelings can have an effect on our self-image or may have been as a result of abuse or a negative relationship.
Together with the therapist, psychotherapy can help to explore these difficulties in a safe setting and think about how they can be changed.