Professional Counselling, South Devon and online
Explore, Understand, Evolve
What happens in counselling or psychotherapy?
Therapy generally encompasses three interweaving stages: EXPLORE; UNDERSTAND; EVOLVE.
We start by exploring your situation - the things that are troubling you as well as your resources for handling stress and distress. We look back - thinking about your early upbringing and family relationships, school days - and we look forward - do you know where you would like to get to? Or do you just need to stop and take stock of what is going on?
Through the process of exploration, making connections, developing insight and self-compassion, we arrive at deeper understanding of how you have got to where you are at this point in your life. It's important that this understanding is underpinned with deep self (and other) compassion: that you are able to reach a point of greater awareness of how your internal world has emerged in response to the environment(s) you've traversed so far in your life.
And - with this exploration and understanding you may find that you sense a shift in attitude, in ability to be with yourself and others, and perhaps, a readiness to make some changes (internal or external)... to evolve.
Of course, these three stages are not purely linear and we move between all three during the course of our contact with each other, which continues until you recognise that you are ready to move on alone without therapy. This may be a short, intense process - or it may last many months. We stop from time to time to consider where we are - how things are going - and to agree how you want us to work together in further sessions.