Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if psychotherapy will help me?

This is a really valuable question to ask yourself. Many people find pychotherapy to be a powerful enabler of change and you are most likely to benefit if you are open to reflecting on your experiences and looking at things from a different perspective. It also helps to know what you want to get from coming and this would be the focus of our first session. We would then review how helpful you are finding the process as we went along, to make sure you were getting the most from it and to change our approach as need be.

Do I want therapy or coaching? And what’s the difference?

Both are non-directive, so I won’t tell you what to do. Instead I will facilitate you discovering your own answers and supporting you on your journey, whatever that looks like.

Generally speaking psychotherapy is most helpful if you are unsure what isn’t working in your life, you’re generally unhappy, think that your relationships keep following the same unhelpful pattern or you are suffering from mental health problems. Coaching is the best approach for more distinct areas of your life that you want to change but are either unsure how to go about it, don’t quite know what direction to take next or need help overcoming some obstacles on your path.

How much of a commitment would I need to make?

That depends entirely on you and what you want to get from the process. Coaching tends to be of a more fixed duration, with longer, less frequent sessions. Four to six sessions of an hour and a half, every 4 – 6 weeks is common.

Psychotherapy is more frequent, generally weekly for 50 minute sessions at a time. We can agree the number of sessions initially and then review progress and agree as we go on whether that still seems the best fit for you. Short term psychotherapy is generally up to 6 – 8 weeks. Long term could be 6 months, a year or open ended, i.e. with no agreed end date. With long term work we would review from time to time what you were getting and still might need from our work together.

Do I have to do anything in between sessions?

Coaching will invariably involve agreeing actions which you commit to carrying out between sessions in order to progress towards your goals. So far as psychotherapy is concerned, sometimes e.g. with the coherence therapy which I often use in the Memory approach and many of the coping strategies/resilience methods, I do suggest prompts and reminders for you to try out in between sessions. You don’t have to do any of them but you are far more likely to see the benefit of the work we do in the sessions if you do.

What happens if I can’t make a session?

If you have to cancel or cannot make a session for any reason, I ask for the following notice:
In-person therapy sessions: one week
50 minute, online sessions: 48 hours 
Online single session therapy: 24 hours.

In each case cancellation or not attending at less than the required notice will unfortunately mean the full session fee must be paid.

What if I can’t get to you?

I provide both psychotherapy and coaching face to face in Brighton and Maidstone. In some circumstances I can also offer both by VSee (similar to Skype but more secure) so if this is of interest to you, please do get in touch to see whether this would be possible.