
What types of therapy are there?
CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
CBT helps you deal with things affecting you in day to day life. It is based on the premise that your thoughts, feelings, behaviours and physiology are interconnected and that together these can trap you in cycles of unhelpful and negative behaviours.
You and the therapist focus on, for example, low self-esteem, and then how this affects your day to day feelings and behaviours, and uncover what steps you can take to improve things. CBT is not concerned with underlying patterns, history. It is a well-structured therapy and you will need to do work between sessions. These can be written exercises, thinking exercises, and as well as practical ones – agreed by you in conjunction with your therapist.
CBT’s effectiveness comes from the work done between sessions so be prepared to spend time on this, it can be time-consuming. Sessions are weekly but may move to fortnightly as the work develops.
A course of CBT usually lasts ten-twelve weeks, though more is not unknown depending on the issue you would like to address.
Psychodynamic therapy
Is a reflective conversation, increasing self-awareness and understanding – by discovering, exploring and expressing aspects of yourself which are influencing your life in ways that may not be obvious or taken into consideration.
Focussing on the deep-seated causes of behaviour, for instance, patterns of behaviour stemming from a person's upbringing and learning from early life experiences, which continue to resonate in the present-day
This is not a fast process, nor is it an easy undertaking. It is a long-term investment in yourself that allows for a deep and wide-ranging of the many aspects which make up you to long-lasting effect