Testimonials
‘The sessions, although tough at the time, provided me with an escape, a chance to understand my mind & process information……. It also helped me understand what was important to me. I must thank you for your time and effort, you helped me immensely, for which I am eternally grateful’.
Thank you for all your fantastic support and encouragement. I know I am in such a different place to when we first met. The counselling has been a great help and I feel I’ve been set on the right path now to travel onwards in a new journey.
Thank you for helping me have a happy life. Thank you so much for all you have done for me – I will carry your wisdom always!
Thank you so much for your help over the last four months.
I will be recommending you.
Having attended 6 sessions with Geoff over a number of weeks, my fears could not have been further from the truth. Geoff’s approach is in no way judgemental and allowed me to explore, over my time with him, the reasons behind my worries. There was no ‘silver bullet’ but, by understanding more about the ‘why’, I have been able to understand myself better, forgive myself for my imperfections and put in place my own coping strategies to stay calm and mitigate my feelings of anxiety moving forward.
Thanks Geoff .
You have given me the tools to a better life, they will stay with me forever.
I couldn’t have done it without you.
Quotes
We are the result of our conditioning and experiences. We have been greatly influenced by significant people with who we have lived with, grown up with, been educated by or, with who we have shared mutual interests. We have adopted beliefs, opinions and behaviours many unconsciously all of which have impacted upon our lives – sometimes to the good but sometimes not. We may sense that there is something amiss, something which causes us to feel uncomfortable, distressed or depressed but cannot understand why. By appreciating the earlier influences upon our lives and therefore raising our self-awareness we become aware of the choices available and the decisions we need to make if we are to act in our own best interest.
Therapy helps us change our lives. It teaches us skills and helps us see ourselves in a more realistic light. Therapy helps us get rid of misconceptions about ourselves and the world and also helps us function better both in the world and more specifically in relationships. Therapy can fill that gaping hole inside that some of us feel. It can teach us how to live effectively with illness, whether that illness is mental or physical. Therapy can help us find relief from emotional pain. Therapy can help us deal with the stress of living in a very chaotic and complicated world. In general, therapy can help us be better partners, parents, lovers and people. It can help us find the peace and happiness we deserve.
The end result of therapy is a self which is more self-aware and detached, a self which can monitor itself in a rational way and detect emerging difficulties. A self which has loosened the bonds of dependency. A self which is more ‘free’ in every way.
“To be that self what one truly is” involves still other components ……. the individual moves toward living in an open, friendly, close relationship to his own experience. This does not occur easily …… only as he experiences such a hitherto denied aspect of himself.
The unease people experience in their relationships often stems from a more basic unease with themselves and with life in general. Those who are confused about their own direction and purpose are bound to feel overwhelmed by the presence of others who appear to want to push them along in various directions. Blaming their difficulties on negative relationships with others is rarely correct or useful. Indicating that problems in living are entirely determined and caused by destructive and traumatic experience in childhood relationships to their parents is even less useful and probably no more correct.
Taking stock of one’s life, which is the initial task of existential work, requires attention to be paid to three aspects in particular. First, assumptions about the world, on all four dimensions (natural, private, public and ideal), need to be recognized, defined and questioned. Assumptions are the things one normally holds true without questioning. They determine one’s perception of things as real or unreal. Second, values need to be recognized or determined, in order to establish ultimate and vital concerns which make things worthwhile and meaningful. Third, personal talents need to be recognized, defined and elaborated, as they are the source of what makes life possible and actual.
In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
The concept of presence allows a therapeutic relationship to be as actual as face-to-face. This allows the typed word to convey a therapeutic reaction as real as in the counselling room, and therefore may be considered counselling.
… the individual has it within himself the capacity and the tendency, latent if not evident, to move forward toward maturity…… This tendency may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defenses (sic); it may be hidden behind elaborate facades which deny its existence; but it is my belief that it exists in every individual, and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed.
The use of technology in counselling and psychotherapy is changing the face of the profession…….. ignoring technology, as it becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, suggests ignoring, firstly the client’s choice of receiving mental health assistance in this way and, secondly, the suggested possibilities, such as improved efficiency, that technology may afford the profession as a whole.