Theory & training Articles
Notice certain official logos repetitively appearing on websites when seeking a therapist? Or read that a counsellor or psychotherapist is ‘registered’? What is this about, and how does it affect you? What is a ‘registered therapist’? A registered therapist is a counsellor, counselling psychologist, or psychotherapist who has attained the sufficient advanced level of education,...
You might have seen the term ‘evidence-based’ on different psychology and psychotherapy sites. It sounds impressive — but what does it really mean? A Definition of ‘Evidence-Based’ The term ‘evidence based’ means that the best available facts and information have been taken into account. It’s a term mostly used in connection to health services, although...
When we are ‘conscious’ of something, we are aware of it. So the conscious mind, in psychology, refers to all of the thoughts and memories we have that we know we are having. The unconscious mind is a psychological concept that addresses the opposite. It refers to the part of our mind that we can’t...
Free association is a tool used by some psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapists. The purpose of free association is to help you understand what you really think and feel about yourself, others, and the situations you are experiencing, versus what you tell yourself you think and feel. Note that free association is not used to discover...
With so many types of therapy to choose from nowadays, how can you know which one is right for you? Questions to ask to determine if psychodynamic therapy is for you Are you curious about how your past affects your present? Like other forms of modern counselling, psychodynamic therapy is concerned with your current struggles...
At heart, therapy is a relationship between a client and a therapist. And, like any relationship, sometimes the boundaries can get tricky. There are two words related to this in therapy – transference and countertransference. Transference is when you unwittingly put feelings for someone from your past onto your therapist. For example, you might find...
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is one of the most popular forms of talk therapy in the UK. Used for individual therapy as well as couples therapy and family therapy, it is traditionally a more long-term form of psychotherapy. Psychodynamic therapy is also a popular school of psychotherapeutic thought drawn from by integrative therapists. What is psychodynamic psychotherapy?...
Since the end of the 19th Century, when Freud developed his ‘talking’ cure, psychotherapy has become a burgeoning field in the Western world. In fact Wikipedia now lists over fifty kinds of psychotherapy. But behind this overwhelming array are really only a handful of schools of thought, or psychotherapeutic approaches, from which they derive. The...
“Who are you? Should you be doing more with your life, feeling more? Why do other people seem to have more fun than you? What is it that has you feeling so lonely and like you just don’t belong? And what is the real point of this thing called life, anyway?” Given the vast array...
When existential therapy came into being it was rather revolutionary, in that it believes in finding ways to improve wellbeing not by looking to psychology or to medicine, but to philosophy. What is existential psychotherapy? It is a talk therapy that recognises that the meaning and purpose we feel in life is hugely important to...
