Have you been wondering about counselling or therapy?
Does your worry, anxiety and stress sometimes feel overwhelming?
Worry, anxiety and stress can make you feel overwhelmed and strangely lonely.
There’s a mixed-up knot of worry inside you.
And to make matters worse, you may feel you have no reason to be feeling this way.
You tell yourself you ought to be grateful, and that you should learn to be content with how things are.
You feel cross with yourself for not being able to simply enjoy life and be happy with how things are.
Integrative Arts Psychotherapy might be exactly what you need.
Once a week, in the privacy of my Art Psychotherapy studio, we begin together to make sense of your life.
Together we figure out what’s been missing, and how you can feel whole again.
You can begin to get glimpses of the loveable inner spark that you feared was lost.
Integrative Arts Psychotherapy isn’t something that’s ‘done to you’; instead, we work in partnership.
As an Integrative Arts Psychotherapist, I help you to help yourself. Here’s how:
- Deeply listening to you on many different levels.
- Helping you develop skills and techniques so you can calm your nervous system more effectively.
- Helping you get in touch with your feelings in a gentle way that feels safe, understood, and manageable.
- Helping you to piece together your life story, so that it makes sense, and stops being such a jumbled mix of feelings, odd memories and worrying thoughts.
- Helping you compassionately integrate the aspects of you that you always felt were shameful and too difficult to accept or understand.
- Helping you to connect to your own creativity and discover that you too are a creative person.
- Providing a confidential, non-judgemental, accepting relationship that has clear boundaries and enables you to feel safe and understood.
- Holding the space for you to gradually figure out what ‘being yourself’ actually means.
Therapy may help you connect with your own deep-down sense of meaning and self-acceptance.
If you’re interested in discussing how Integrative Arts Psychotherapy or creative counselling sessions here near Colchester in north Essex CO7 might help you, contact me today and book your free 15-minute phone consultation.
If you are interested in online counselling, you can read more here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do sessions take place?
My consulting room is in a quiet area in Wivenhoe, near Colchester, Essex CO7. There are good transport links: direct rail from London Liverpool Street and ample free street parking just outside the premises.
My clients come from around Essex and Suffolk, including Chelmsford and Ipswich, and it’s around 90 minutes’ drive from Cambridge.
What actually happens in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy sessions?
We sit and talk together. And I guide you to try things out: techniques for calming and de-stressing, meditations and visualisations, creative imagination exercises.
We might add in arts materials such as pens/pastels/crayon, sand-tray, puppets, paints, clay, play-dough, collage, poetry-writing, and postcards.
Most of all, Integrative Arts Psychotherapy is about the wonderful, positive transformations that can happen in your brain and nervous system when you truly ‘feel felt’.
You can read more about Art Therapy here.
Is it a kind of counselling?
Yes. I like to think of it as counselling with ‘bells & whistles’: extra options to go both wider (more tools) and deeper.
I sometimes think of the shorter term work (for example 12 sessions) as ‘counselling’, and the longer term work as ‘psychotherapy’. But really, the overlap is very vague and broad so therapists and counsellors (including me) will often use the terms interchangeably, and that’s fine.
How much does therapy cost?
My fee is £70 per session.
How many therapy or counselling sessions will I need?
It really depends on what you are looking for, and what difficulties you’re bringing.
Occasionally just one or two counselling sessions can be enough to help someone get themselves on the right track (this is quite unusual, though).
Most people will start with one session per week for six weeks, and then we will reassess and decide whether to continue.
And yes, after this, most of my clients find they choose to work longer term, which could be for six months, a couple of years, or longer. It depends what’s needed, and what each client wants.
Do I have to be good at art?
No! This is not about being ‘good at art’. The arts are a powerful channel to help you access the wisdom and lived experience held in your whole brain (and body). Artistic skill does not make this process any more (or any less) effective.
Art Psychotherapy is completely different to an art lesson! We’re not interested in judging artwork.
You and I together just enquire and get gently, respectfully curious, knowing that your creativity can open a precious window into your deeper self.
Is there a guarantee that Integrative Arts Psychotherapy will help me?
I’m afraid not! No single type of therapy, and no single therapist or counsellor, can be ideal for all clients and their needs. Integrative Arts Psychotherapy may not be right for you.
But my hunch is, that if you’ve read some of the stuff on my website, and if you feel like it ‘speaks’ to you, then you are likely to be able to benefit from working with me.
I’m really interested. When would I be able to start?
The first step is to find out if I am the best therapist for you, or if another therapist might actually be a better fit for what you need. So first, we need to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation.
After that, if we both feel that we would like to try an initial assessment session, we can then schedule a time to meet in my consulting room near Colchester, Essex CO7. This can usually be arranged within a few days, so you won’t have long to wait.
The assessment session is a chance to get more of a feel for what’s needed, and to decide if you and I feel we can work well together. An assessment session costs the same as a normal session.
Do you work online by video, email, live chat or phone?
Yes. I have a Diploma in Online Therapy, which means that I am specially trained to work online.
You can read more about online therapy here.
Useful links:
Your First Counselling Session: 12 Things You Need to Know
How to Get the Most out of Your Therapy or Counselling
Creative Solutions for Dealing with Difficult Thoughts
Emotions – 17 things You Need to Know About Your Feelings
* Restrictions operate regarding UK therapists working online with people residing in certain other countries; if you live abroad and need more information about this, please ask.