Long-term

While short-term counselling focuses on developing effective strategies to manage difficult situations, long-term therapy tends to be a more in-depth exploration of how your past, thoughts, or experiences may affect your life today.

Long term therapy helps with understanding deep-rooted feelings - it looks to uncover and process painful feelings and memories. Going through very stressful, frightening or distressing events is often called trauma. Some people use the term Adverse Childhood Experiences (also known as ACEs) to describe difficult experiences in childhood, including sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect. The effects of trauma can last for a long time, or come and go. A longer therapy commitment is most appropriate for supporting with developmental trauma.

The approach seeks to look beneath the surface of difficult emotions, behaviours and relationships to help children, adolescents and their families to understand themselves and their problems. I am trained to carefully observe what a child or young person might be communicating non-verbally through their behaviour and play, as well as in their conversation.

My extensive training enables me to develop and sustain relationships with children and young people to help them to make sense of their experience. Confused, frightened, hurt, angry or painful feelings can gradually be put into words rather than actions. As a result the child can begin to express their emotions in a regulated way. They can feel less anxious, more able to learn and better equipped to sustain relationships.