Psychotherapy in Carlton
Psychotherapy is about understanding your patterns of behavior, thought and emotional responses, which may be contributing to difficulties in your life. Rather than a quick fix, psychotherapy is a longer and deeper conversation between two people, which helps you to understand what makes you who you are and how you can gain who you want to become. Psychotherapy often offers a positive alternative to individuals who have been disappointed by the medicalised approach to psychological challenges and who are hoping for long-lasting and more deep rooted change.
What is Psychotherapy?
How Psychotherapy Works
"Psychotherapy" as a word, comes from two Ancient Greek roots: psyche (meaning breath, spirit, or soul) and therapeia (meaning healing or medical treatment). As the name implies, psychotherapy is a healing conversation between two people, two souls, which helps to alleviate suffering and gain more well-being and meaning in life. Psychotherapy has evolved over the last 100 years to include a vast array of approaches to helping to understand psychological distress. But throughout these different models, what makes psychotherapy unique to other forms of psychological treatment, is that relationship in the room is the most important vehicle for change.
Our psychotherapists each have unique styles and training which help individuals in different ways. Below you will find a description of those different methods, but the treatment generally unfolds in the same way - a few sessions of 'intake' where your therapist gains an understanding of your challenges, a focused period of therapy and a conclusion in which you reflect on and strengthen your insights. Psychotherapy can be short term (10 sessions or less) but is commonly long-term, spanning beyond a year and perhaps lasting a supportive relationship for many years. This is because changing deep rooted patterns of behavior, thought and feeling which cause us issues in life, also takes some time to remap. The commitment to long-term psychotherapy leads to true, lasting change.
Psychotherapy resolves mental health issues and life difficulties through understanding
Psychotherapy address mental health issues like depression, anxiety, phobias and addiction through understanding, rather than diagnosis or medication. Through a reflective conversation with a caring and interested therapist, psychotherapy helps guide you to new ways of understanding how and why you experience the world in that unique way that you do. Psychotherapy understands human suffering to be the result of the outdated ways we have learnt to cope with distressing relationships or events in the past. What has helped us to adapt and survive in the past, may be causing us difficulties in the present. For instance, our nervous system may be persistently heightened, seeking out danger and causing feelings of anxiety. Or the reactivity towards our intimate partner, might be a remanent of past experiences of having to 'fight to be heard' in our youth. Psychotherapy begins with your present challenges and symptoms, and helps to resolve them through a deeper inquiry into their source. This is a process of finding long-term change rather than temporary relief.
Therapeutic Approaches We Draw On
Psychodynamic Therapy
Based on the understanding that our minds develop through the most important relationships in our lives, Psychodynamic therapy supports you in understanding how the past influences the present, to liberate you from chronic and unhelpful patterns of thinking, behaving and relating.
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory suggests that the bond between an infant and their primary caregivers becomes the blueprint for future relationships. When individuals experience repeated, maladaptive patterns in their intimate relationships, attachment repair may be therapeutically supportive.
Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy
When individuals have experienced adversity, it is important they get the right support to deal with the physiological, psychological and emotional legacy of trauma. Our therapists offer a safe environment to gain the necessary skills and insights for your healing.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT draws on mindfulness and the belief that ‘we are more than our thoughts’. This empowering model can help you let go of ruminative thoughts and make action-orientated decisions. ACT is an evidence-based approach to treating OCD, anxiety and depression.
Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy
CBT is a practical approach to support individuals in changing unwanted, unhelpful behaviours through becoming aware of and changing their thoughts. This model offers structured approaches to treatment and through exercises and worksheets provides tools with tools they can begin using today.
Mentalisation-Based Therapy
Through a reflective process between client and therapist, mentalisation supports clients in understanding their minds in a supportive and curious environment. Collaboratively, client and therapist make meaning of their own and other’s feelings and behaviors. Valuable for all individuals and particularly those with personality disorders.
Systemic Approaches
Whether utilising a psychobiological or family systems approach, our therapists seek to understand the context in which you developed and live. Therapeutically understanding the cultural, social and political environment, can support clients in gaining liberation from oppressive forces and live more authentically.
Parts Work
A range of models capture the idea that our minds are composed of different ‘parts’ or ‘functions’. Therapist may draw on Gestalt therapy or Internal Family Systems, to assist clients in becoming aware and understanding the origins of the co-inhabiting and sometimes competing parts of their mind.
Existentialism
Existentialism is a philosophical approach, which reflects on the universal givens of life. Death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness are invited as topics for contemplation; leading to individuals gaining a greater sense of personal meaning and purpose in life. Helpful for those experiencing transition, grief and loss.
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