Psychodynamic Counselling

Psychodynamic counselling is a talking therapy that can help you understand what you’re feeling, why you respond or behave in certain ways, and how this affects your relationships. It can enable you to get to the root of the problem, for long lasting change. To help you to understand how current feelings and behaviours are shaped by your experience(s), your unconscious mind and what certain impulses might be about. What happens in our early years can be a blueprint throughout our life, dynamics of which we take into future relationships. This can be explored, bringing conscious awareness, understanding, and healing in the present.

It can help with many different problems, including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, relationship problems, trauma, bereavement, loss, eating disorders and addictions. It is for people that consider themselves not to be happy, fulfilled, are overstretched, feel isolated, lonely, or for those who want to make sense of things. 

It is not typically a directional therapy, it allows each individual to talk and express what they need during a session. It’s important for you to get to know your feelings, see yours and others behaviours, and why certain actions are taking place, even if facing those emotions can be painful.  Together this can be explored safely.  

One of the key ideas behind psychodynamic therapy is that when we experience something painful in our lives we might try to [consciously or unconsciously] ignore it, push it away, avoid it, cover it up and create defences, simply as a coping mechanism. We can consciously lose sight of it completely. However past experiences can continue to affect our behaviour, how we feel, and contribute to who we are, years later, and even have an impact on our health. They don’t go away entirely.

Working together in a trusting therapeutic relationship you can untangle why you feel the way you do, becoming consciously connected with what you now need, so you can bring this into your life, and grieve as is required.

selfconnect utilises Psychodynamic Pyschotherapy together with Person Centred Counselling, Life Coaching and NLP, and many years of psychology reading and personal self development training, so can also be considered Integrative Counselling. If you’d like to compare to the other counselling modalities to consider before deciding what might be right for you, please see here.