Psychotherapy and Counselling

Psychotherapy (literally, healing the soul) and counselling offer ways to address emotional concerns at every level of intensity. For many people, pain and confusion bring them into therapy. Others may feel they are managing their life well, but want the opportunity therapy offers for further self-development and growth.

The problem with needs
Ideally, a feeling arises, claims our attention, is resolved and subsides, to be followed after a pause by a new feeling. A primary way in which feelings arise is in response to a need – maybe a basic need such as for food or safety, or a more complex need such as for beauty or spiritual meaning. Feelings are successfully resolved when the need which gave rise to them is met.

If the need is not met, or is met in an inappropriate way, or if a traumatic event intervenes, then the feelings can remain inflamed and become fixed over time, eventually becoming a chronic problem. These painful feelings are often accompanied by negative and self-limiting thoughts and beliefs. As time passes, the unmet need may wear many guises and the person’s attempts to deal with it may give rise to a range of troubles: for example, destructive patterns in relationships, addictions, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression or physical illness.

How does knowing this help?
Some needs seem to be common to almost all people, while others are highly individual. Within any person there will be some needs that seem to conflict, such as the need for freedom versus the need for security. Psychotherapy offers you an opportunity, in an unhurried and confidential setting, to explore your needs and the ways that you currently go about meeting or not meeting them.

You will find that this seemingly simple agenda will lead us wherever you need to go in your process of healing or becoming whole, and can result in you having a greater sense of self-worth, more satisfying relationships, increased self-awareness, increased creativity, and an expanded range of choices in your life.

A focus on your personal needs will not usually remain a purely individual matter, as the threads that connect us to others are complex and far-reaching. Your immediate relationships, or lack of them, with family, friends and colleagues may be an important dimension of our work together.

You may also want to explore your place in the much wider community, your values and your sense of purpose as a human living at this time. This may include your relationship to the land, animals, birds and plants of this planet through Ecopsychology and Earth-Centred Therapy. You may want to explore your spiritual life, your relationship with the divine, or spirit, or whatever words you are comfortable with. We can work as deeply, as extensively, or as narrowly as you wish. My only concern is that we do the work that you need to do, at this time in your life.

What will happen in a session?
Psychotherapy or counselling with me is a collaborative activity. You don’t have to be or do or feel or think or say anything in particular, or indeed anything at all, but you do have to show up, with a truthful desire to take part in our work together. I say this because if you are not able to make that basic commitment, therapy is probably not for you.

In our sessions we will evolve together the ways of working that are most helpful for you. This will probably include a fair bit of time sitting and talking together, although if you want to avoid this to begin with, that is possible. (If you are new to being a client in therapy, it can feel strange at first.) However we do it, our work will centre on exploring the issues that are most important to you in your life. We will pay equal attention to what you feel, what you think, what you experience in your body, and what happens between us.

We can also use various creative approaches, for instance drawing, writing, modelling, using elements of theatre and play, and visualising inner journeys. You will never be under pressure to do anything that feels too difficult for you.

We can work in an open-ended way, reviewing our progress as we go. Or if you have a clear focus for what you want to work on, with a defined objective, we can agree to a set number of sessions. When we’ve talked together we will have a clear sense of which is the right arrangement for you.

My usual practice is to incorporate healing into our psychotherapy work. Clients seem to benefit so much from this combination, that these days I rarely take on clients exclusively for psychotherapy.

Couples therapy
I also offer therapy for couples who want to work on their relationship. It can be enormously helpful to work with a therapist who brings support for the relationship, as well as clarity to the understanding of the couple’s ‘system’. As the couple continues working together in between sessions, positive changes can often happen very quickly.

In this context ‘couple’ can refer not just to a love relationship between partners, but to any two-person relationship, such as parent and adult child, friends, colleagues etc.

Fees
A standard therapy session lasts one hour. The length of session and fee is the same for individuals and couples.

My fee for psychotherapy/healing is £50 per hour, or £70 for one-and-a-half hours.

In case of genuine difficulty this fee is negotiable to some extent, down to a minimum of £40 per hour or £60 for one-and-a-half hours.

Location
I work as a psychotherapist and counsellor in Dartington, Totnes, South Devon. My practice is easily accessible from the South Hams, Torbay, Dartmoor, Plymouth and Exeter.

Training and experience
My primary training is in Gestalt Psychotherapy. For more information about my training and experience as a psychotherapist and counsellor, please click on about Moira.

If you have questions, please try clicking on FAQ as you may find the answers there.