Counselling/Psychotherapy and Supervision in Leeds, West Yorkshire
Tel: Leeds (0113) 262 5783 email: kristal@kristalclark.com web: www.kristalclark.com

>>A personal introduction
>>My training and experiences
>>What I can offer you - psychotherapy, counselling
>>Couples counselling
>>FAQ
>>Photos: where I practice
>>Who do I see?
>>Fees and times
>>What is counselling/psychotherapy?
>>What to do next?
>>The initial appointment
>>Contact

>>Homepage

What is psychotherapy or counselling?

Counselling or psychotherapy helps you to talk through any problem, difficulty, dilemma that is adversely affecting you. it is a process that involves sharing your thoughts and feelings in order to understand yourself better. The act of talking openly about something can sometimes be enough to bring clarity to a situation.

Psychotherapy or certain forms of counselling offer you the opportunity to talk through a personal, work, family problem or a conflict. The problem may be a short-term conflict that can be resolved within a time-limit, or a long-standing personal or family problem that affects how you function in your life. A psychotherapy approach gives you a place to talk, to reflect, to express yourself more freely than you are used to and to get in touch with yourself more deeply. Psychotherapy can be experienced as an on-going process of self-discovery and self-awareness through sharing yourself with another person in a confidential setting. This relationship involves talking, expressing emotions and reflecting together on what things mean to you. Psychotherapy gives you an opportunity to learn how to take charge of yourself in a helpful way and it is a chance to see both pleasant and unpleasant aspects of yourself.

There is a misconception that seeing a therapist means that you are "mentally ill". This is not necessarily the case. The central focus is 'you' and how you see yourself, how you experience yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, yuor impulses. This does not necessarily mean that you have to be in crisis with yourself although the main reason people are prompted to see me is because they feel in crisis.

Whilst psychotherapy or counselling involves talking a lot, it is an emotional experience. It will be an emotional experience from the moment that you phone to make your first appointment. You will discover how you usually handle your feelings and part of the talking process is to become aware of your feelings or to become more aware of how you express yourself to others. The process of this happening can be liberating and will also be difficult at times.

My work is bound by the psychotherapist's code of ethics and a specific structure of weekly or twice-weekly appointments.

For how long do I have to come?

There are several possibilities. You may choose a short, fixed amount of time in order to work on something specific - this can be from 12 to 20 sessions.
You may want a one-off appointment to talk through a particular issue.
You can choose an open-ended agreement where you take as long as you need.

Some people attend for months, some for years - it depends what you need help with and how far you are prepared to go for yourself. We both need to be clear, at some stage, about the length of time you want to commit to even if this changes.

How will I know when to end?

How long is a piece of string? there is no definitive answer to this question. You will probably find that you will come to this decision yourself and it will be helpful to talk about ending. However, endings are a part of life and all relationships e.g. the changing seasons, parents who separate, the death of someone, moving schools, moving house, redundancy, retirement, car accidents, births, loss of good health, loss of youth. Endings are with us all the time and therefore are part of your therapy/counselling and talking about the ending will be useful to bring to the sessions. It is not until you bring this to a session that its relevance comes to the surface and so ending is as important as the start of your therapy/counselling. The way you end with your therapist will reflect something about how you relate to people and it can be helpful to be aware of this so that you can decide whether to continue to repeat an unhealthy pattern of behaviour or to change an unhealthy pattern.

Concerns about therapy or counselling

There are many therapists and counsellors to choose from. Ultimately it is your choice who you decide to work with and it is important to ask yourself why you want to stay with one person and not the other. Whatever your thoughts, it will be helpful to discuss them at the time.

Counselling or therapy will bring thoughts or feelings to the surface that you may not want to know about and it might be your pattern of behaviour to run away as soon as the going gets tough. Seeing a therapist can therefore be supportive at these times. Ultimately, the therapist is there to help and be on your side.

Mutual self-help - a system of therapeutic mutual support which takes place with another person or several other people who are trained in the same way in order to address your difficulties in life. I co-teach on this course which provides you with skills and an experience of yourself which can help you to feel more in control of your life and to give you greater self-awareness.

see www.co-counselling.co.uk

I