Counselling, Psychotherapy and Coaching

What is the difference between Counselling and Pyschotherapy?

I used to think that counselling was when you had a particular problem you wanted to work through and that psychotherapy was more for general growth and understanding about yourself. These days the two terms are interchangeable and both describe the same process……. using a practitioner to help you understand your feelings, behaviour and reactions and, if you want to, change them.

Some problems can be quite simple to sort out, others take time and courage, there is no straightforward answer. Whatever you come to therapy for, you are bound to come out a stronger and wiser person.

Coaching is more about looking to the future and helping you to find and achieve your goals rather than looking into your past and understanding where things went wrong.

There are also as many methods as there are problems. I use a multi-disciplinary approach drawing on different theories and skills. By matching the client with the best approach for their personality and needs and by being flexible enough to mix and match, we can find the most appropriate solutions . If you want to know more about these theories and approaches, please ask. If I list them here they can sound quite intimidating, but it does include the often mentioned CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) but that is not always what is most suitable.

Challenging yourself while understanding what is happening in your thoughts and feelings makes changing inevitable.