Counselling and Therapy with the Chiswick and Acton Service

The decision to go into counselling is a significant step in anyone's life, but the next step, of finding the right source of help, can also be fraught with difficulty; how do you find the right type of counselling for you, how do you find the right counsellor?

We understand this, and at the first appointment we will explore your situation together as we would in a regular session so you get a direct sense of what we do at the outset. This is the assessment session, which not only gives us the opportunity to come to some understanding of whether our type of counselling is right for you, but also allows you to come to some sense of whether it is right for you, and to address any initial concerns and questions you may have. By the end of the session we will both (or in the case of couples all) have more of a sense of whether what we offer is suited to you, and if not we will indicate the type of treatment that may be helpful, where you may be able to find it, and often we may be able to put you in touch with a suitable source of help. Sometimes the counsellor or you may feel that a further session is desirable to help reach a conclusion.

If you and the counsellor agree that our type of counselling is right for you, you will then usually agree to meet on a regular basis, normally once a week but sometimes more.

The type of counselling or therapy offered within this network is "psychodynamic". This means that your counsellor will want to work with you to identify the roots of your difficulties so that you can begin, in the counselling, to relate differently to familiar patterns and consequently begin to change the way that you experience yourself and the world around you. To this end, your counsellor will be interested not only in the issues that you want to bring to counselling, but also in the way the direct relationship between you develops as well.

The types of difficulties for which psychodynamic counselling can be helpful include:


anxiety

stress

phobias

post traumatic stress disorders

trauma experienced in childhood

obsessional/compulsive thoughts/behavior

grief and bereavement

low moods

relationship difficulties

isolation

difficult relationships with food

difficulty controlling feelings

self-harm

feeling of pointlessness or deadness

low self-esteem/ difficulties with self-worth


Very often, people look for counselling when a crisis is occurring in their lives, and this type of counselling can help to sustain them through the crisis. It can then proceed to an exploration of the underlying situation behind the crisis and the development of a new relationship to it.