Counselling in Surrey with Penny - 07768 468103 or penny@counsellinginsurrey.co.uk
Counselling and Psychotherapy - what's the difference?
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Counselling
Both therapies aim to make space for you to focus on yourself, authentically and in a way that you might not often do. Both help you to look more closely at yourself, your patterns, your needs, to consider your desired outcomes and goals and both allow you to learn about you and how to live differently. Quite often the two terms are used interchangeably but there are some differences.
COUNSELLING can help when we find ourselves unexpectedly navigating some of life's more difficult transitions and changes, for example bereavement, serious illnesses, relationship problems, a job loss, and times of high stress or worry.
It can offer you a place to talk through and explore how you feel about your day to day living with no judgement or criticism, only a warm containing space where the counsellor can help you work through where you are and process your thoughts and feelings.
Speaking to a therapist helps us to look at ourselves closer and with more awareness, which can be uncomfortable at first because it's not something we're used to doing. But it can help us understand our own patterns of relating and personal development often leads to change.
When we are able to gain more perspective and feel more in charge of our emotions, we can feel more at ease, become better at making positive decisions, solve problems, manage crises - we build resilience to help navigate those difficult transitions.
Sometimes counselling can help in just a few sessions, particularly if the issue is specific and you feel you have made the progress you were looking for. More complex layered difficulties that have become entrenched can take longer to work through.
Psychotherapy
PSYCHOTHERAPY tends to look deeper into your past history. The way that we are as humans, our feelings, thoughts, behaviours - our view of ourselves and of the world - starts when we are very young and with our earliest relationships, usually our parents or caregivers. Sometimes we don't know why we react the way we do, or why we feel the way we feel, we have the sensation that something isn't right but can't figure it out on our own.
In our sessions together we might explore some of your early relationships, how they formed your experiences and the way that you view the world, the way that you are in the world; self-exploration and self-awareness means looking in some depth at these experiences and how they affected you, both positively and negatively. In psychotherapy we take some time uncovering who you are inside and how your life got to where it is; this can both help you make sense of where you are right now and also to consider how you may want to make any changes for your future.
Our work is likely to include the different ways that you relate or interact with people, patterns that you might find yourself repeating with others or alone, we might look at unhealthy behaviours and your sub-conscious, or unconscious, attitudes and actions. We will work together to bring these into your consciousness, your awareness.
In general psychotherapy can take longer because of its depth. There tends to be several strands to learn about and work through at a deeper level; you may have a specific focus area and move on to other areas or we can pause in our work and return to others at a later date, or you may choose to stay with your main goal. All clients have their own needs; there is no 'one size fits all' formulaic approach; each of us is unique and we come with our unique set of experiences. I will work with you towards achieving your goals in therapy.