For many people, ‘psychotherapy’ is an unfamiliar term. People tend to know it is part of the field of mental health but, understandably, it’s often confused with psychiatry or psychology. When I explain what I do people often say ‘oh, like counselling’.
But, what is counselling? It may be a term that people know, but people often don’t really understand what is involved and it is definitely one of those things which is better understood through experience! It is such an individual experience with many different practitioners, approaches, and clients that each experience truly is unique.
Psychotherapy and Counselling are talking therapies and the terms are often inter-changed. Typically, the training and approaches in practice are different. There are also Psychotherapeutic Counsellors which tend to bring the two trainings together.
Irrespective of training, client and therapist generally meet weekly and the client talks through what is going on for them, what they are struggling with or what they would like to explore.
At one end of the spectrum is solution focussed short term counselling which is goal oriented, typically looking at one specific issue. At the other end there is long-term Psychotherapy which more slowly, over an undetermined timeframe, explores the roots of a struggle and identifies themes in the bigger picture of someone’s life. The roots can go way back, through a family history and across the generations.
There are of course lots of ways of working which sit along the spectrum and deeper longer work can dip in and out with solution focused bits along the way too. I work in various ways offering short term solution focussed support as well as long term deeper open-ended work. The work isn’t linear, it ebbs and flows depending on what is going on for the client.
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