COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY

The first Talk Therapy counselling session is just an exploratory, to allow you to get a feel for the work we do. It is just as an assessment on both sides, to see if we are able to work together.  Longer first sessions (One and a half hours) are available, to help you to resolve some issues faster and with more clarity, and for us to help you more... We offer clients an introduction/exploratory session at reduced price in Milton Keynes, Bucks.

If you want even faster results then perhaps the newly developed BPT, (BY-Pass Therapy) or Clinical / Analytical Hypnotherapy, or CET, NLP, or EFT, is what you may need. Click on the side bar for the page and more information.

The counselling practitioners of Talk Therapy will usually offer you one or two simple sessions (limited help) for emergency advice. However, it may be more helpful to you, so we will also offer you a basic six/eight/ten/twelve week course of discovery; to assess what your needs are really all about. It is important to give a full assessment which takes a good six weeks to complete. Obviously more regular weekly appointments would make this faster.

Differences between counselling and psychotherapy are important to understand. We will utilise a simple talking therapy, or if you need something different, or more specialised and you are willing, we may use an 'Arts' style of therapy, or some other way for us to access the unconscious mind safely and speedily, especially if you need some quick answers.

Our normal Talk Therapy Counselling Practice usually starts on a short term and we review it at regular stages together and it could be only one single session, or it may even last up to 18 months or more, if required, although we major in brief therapy solutions. I usually get people out of depression within 2 weeks to three months for example. There are no guarantees. It is like saying how long is a piece of string? But we will always review regularly and try to keep therapy to a minimum where needed.

The lines between Counselling and Psychotherapy are somewhat blurred these days, mainly due to many educational facilities not distinguishing them correctly (for various reasons - possibly financial) and in the author's view, it is incorrect.  

It appears that instead of Counselling remaining at the entry level of higher education, or supportive client levels of basic counselling, where it was initially, and still is, seen to be extremely useful, suddenly in later years it has been confused with deeper Psychological levels of Psychotherapy.  

It may not be realised that general Counselling is not Psychotherapy and it is important to know that a Psychotherapists have had to be in personal therapy for a minimum of 3 years and in constant clinical supervision and also had to study for many years, usually at least 5 years or more, after these basic counselling skills are acquired, precisely for that distinction to become apparent in technical ability and experience in supervised client hours usually about 650 minimum and at least 150 hours of personal therapy. 

Therefore we ought to identify the difference, so that the general public as well as for the professions referring patients, it would be good to understand the differences and to see more of the specialised nature of the psychotherapy training one has to undergo.  It is also relevant to add, the costs involved in completing the training are enormous, by comparison to simple counselling skills.

It is relatively easy for someone to do a short course in Counselling up to undergraduate 2 yr diploma level and call themselves a Counsellor, and we have to understand now that to qualify as a Counsellor at Level-4 is much harder than it used to be, though to call oneself a Psychotherapist, within CPFI, BACP, NCS, or UKCP  guidelines, the student will have usually undergone at least four or five years, and needing to be working in training at a post graduate level.  Initially psychotherapists need to be trained in all the normal counselling skills, nevertheless deeper issues and wider experience usually means earlier interventions that work and bring about some early changes. This does not happen so fast usually, with simple Level-4 diploma Counsellor training, in our experience.  

A Psychotherapeutic Counsellor qualified at Level-5 acts like any counsellor initially, as there is a need for information gathering from the client, along with reflective and active listening, to establish trust and relationship between patient and therapist. 

It is possible for the psychotherapeutic counsellor to access and see issues and reasons behind acting out, or the presenting problems, that ordinary counsellors are unable to see, due to their lack of training and understanding at the deeper psychological level.  

It has to be said that some patients may in extreme cases, need to continue for several years.  This is particularly relevant for those who are very deeply disturbed and therefore traumatised in the present.

At Talk Therapy we work in an Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy style. We will only move forward when the client feels ready to move on.

All Talk Therapy counsellors and therapists are under Supervision at all times and are fully insured for this work.

At Talk Therapy we feel It is very important to work at the client's pace to enable growth, and clients do this by dealing with their' issues and taking responsibility for their own' life. We care enough to be there, for however long it takes.