Why Now?

Many people come to therapy because something in their life no longer works. Perhaps relationships feel painfully repetitive or anxiety and depression have become overwhelming. Perhaps there is a persistent sense of emptiness, self-criticism or feeling disconnected from yourself, despite all appearances to the outside world.

Oftentimes, we have spent years trying to understand these difficulties and ourselves, having read books, listened to podcasts, spoken to AI, developed insight and worked hard to change. Yet something persists in the same way.

Long term psychotherapy recognises that there are good reasons for why we feel this way and that our ways of thinking, feeling and relating aren’t random. These develop over many years, shaped by early relationships and experiences that we may not be consciously aware of. What may have once helped us adapt, later may become the very patterns that limit us.

Long-term psychotherapy requires a willingness to be curious about yourself over time. It is not a quick solution or a set of techniques to master. We create a space where difficult feelings can be thought about rather than avoided and where new ways of understanding yourself can gradually emerge.

For those who are seeking more than symptom relief and who want to understand themselves at depth with a view to create lasting change, long-term psychotherapy offers the possibility of a different relationship with yourself and with the people who matter most.

Long vs short-term therapy

Meaningful psychological change cannot be rushed. The expectation can sometimes be that therapy will remove painful feelings altogether. Life, however, continues to bring disappointment, loss, uncertainty and conflict that we have to contend with. The aim is not to become someone who never struggles but rather to expand your capacity to think about your emotional life instead of being overwhelmed by it, to develop relationships that feel more authentic and less driven by unconscious repetition and to cultivate greater freedom in how you respond to yourself and others. The changes are often subtle before they are profound.

Long-term open-ended therapy creates the space for deep trust and a meaningful relationship to develop. This is not to say that short-term therapy can’t be very impactful. However, due to the time limit, the work has to be focussed on a few things that can be reasonably attended to in the time that we have.

Our defences developed and continue to exist for a reason. Often they protected us from experiences that once felt unbearable. Rather than trying to dismantle them quickly, long-term therapy respects their purpose while gently exploring whether they are still needed now in the present. This process rarely follows a straight line and there may be sessions that feel illuminating and sessions that feel ordinary. Moments of movement may be followed by periods of uncertainty.

Therapeutic Process

There is no expectation that you arrive in therapy with clear answers and goals. Our work is not about performing insight or saying the ‘right thing’ but about allowing yourself to become increasingly seen and known, both to yourself and within the therapeutic relationship.  Feelings of uncertainty, silence, confusion, anger, shame, hope, longing and even boredom all have a place in therapy.

Sometimes, we can be cautious of therapy as an excuse to ‘blame our parents or our past and not letting things go.’ Yes, we do explore the past and upbringing but with a view to gaining an understanding of what has shaped our thinking, ‘our norms’, ways we behave and to be able to put that in a context of who we are and want to be going forward.

Experiences of anxiety, depression, perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional withdrawal or difficulty trusting others for example often tell a story about how we have learned to protect ourselves and manage our world.

Long term psychotherapy uses the relationship between therapist and client as a vehicle for healing. It enables familiar patterns to emerge within a trusting, confidential and boundaried relationship which can then be explored rather than focussing on immediate relief from distressing symptoms.

Together, we become curious about what is happening between us in the relationship. The aim is not to judge or criticise you, but to understand the ways you have learned to be in a relationship. This allows the emergence and conscious identification of patterns that previously were unthinkable or difficult to understand.

As an example, you may experience annoyance in the therapy for not being provided the immediate relief you seek. In psychotherapy we would be asking for you to be curious ‘what might these symptoms be trying to communicate to me’ rather than a not uncommon wish to know ‘how do I get rid of this or how do I solve this? This is where long lasting and profound change can transpire. Often, change is only recognised in retrospect, when you notice that you are responding to yourself and others differently than you once did.