Gary Smith

About Counselling and Psychotherapy - plus fees

What is Counselling and Psychotherapy?

Counselling is a way of exploring problems and personal issues in a safe, supportive and confidential setting. This can be done with individuals, couples, in a group setting or with whole families.
Counselling training involves rigorous self-examination and the development of skills in listening, empathy and understanding, in order to help facilitate self-awareness, personal growth and change. A counsellor receives regular supervision from a trained supervisor and agrees to abide by a code of ethics.
There is no simple and clear distinction between counselling and psychotherapy, and what they both deal with is broadly similar, but generally psychotherapy will be exploring issues in more depth and over a longer period of time. However, counselling can and does work at depth and psychotherapy can also be short term.

What is Creative Therapy?

Creative Therapy and Gestalt
The Creative Therapy that I offer is broadly integrative, with firm roots in gestalt psychotherapy. Gestalt is a holistic and humanistic client centred approach, that acknowledges the unity of mind, body, emotions and spirit, allowing all aspects of an individual to be included and valued. It takes a positive view of human potential, acknowledging the natural tendency of individuals towards growth and development and the recognition that we are all in essence complete and whole individuals with our own unique relationship to the world.
Past events often leave deep wounds that limit the full expression of our personality.
While acknowledging these past events and unresolved issues, gestalt therapy attempts to work in the here and now, with a focus on gaining awareness of your inner state, your current needs and your present life situation, exploring how you relate to the world and your potential for growth and change.
Accepting things as they are is one of the key concepts in gestalt therapy and the basis of any change. Without accepting 'all of you', even the parts of you that you dislike and want to change, you are creating a resistance to the full expression of yourself and the fulfillment of your needs.
The main focus and goal of therapy is to support you to achieve a greater awareness of how you relate and interact in the world, to become aware of what nourishes you and what is less satisfying, and come to an appreciation of and access to a wider range of life choices and ways of relating.

One-to-one sessions last for 1 hour and may include talking, using art materials and found objects, writing, action drama or meditation. Being good at art or having a creative talent is not at all necessary to find benefit from this approach. Many people find talking about a problem through the means of an image or a metaphor very helpful in clarifying and understanding the way they relate to the world. A simple image, a line from a poem or a fragment of a dream can reveal unexpected insights, helping the therapeutic work to reach a deeper level enabling you to see situations as they are without the filter of the rational mind.

Meditation can bring a quietness to the mind and help to focus attention on your needs in the present.

I view the therapeutic relationship as an integral part of therapy and I aim to work in collaboration with clients to encourage a sense of personal responsibility and autonomy.
Over a period of time, sessions can help to unravel the fixed and often unhelpful patterns of behaviour you have created in your life, to enable a freer expression of yourself and allow more fulfilling relationships to develop.

How Do I Get Started and How Much Will it Cost?
The first meeting will be an information gathering session to assess your particular needs. Following that we will negotiate a contract to meet weekly or fortnightly with regular review sessions built in.
There is no fixed length time for counselling or therapy. The number of sessions will vary according to need and will be discussed at your first meeting and reviewed regularly. Some people find a series of short-term sessions (10 - 12) helpful in dealing with a particular current issue, while others may want to spend a much longer period of time, perhaps over several months or years, to explore themselves in greater depth. It will be entirely your choice in how long you wish to work for.

I charge £45 for a full 1 hour session.
I offer a concession rate of £35 for students or people on a low income.
For Couples I charge on a sliding scale of £50 - £60 per hour, concessions £40.
Family work is charged at £55 per session.
Missed sessions or cancellations of less than 24 hours notice will be charged for.
Please phone at least 24 hours beforehand if you are unable to make one of your sessions.

What Conditions Can it Help?
Stress, anxiety, depression, bereavement, relationship difficulties, sexual problems, lack of self-confidence, sexual identity, low self-esteem.
Sometimes a person is not experiencing a particular problem but is aware that something is missing. This can take the form of a spiritual searching or a longing for greater satisfaction in life. These feelings can be explored in therapy through talking, creating images, writing or devising an appropriate experiment in collaboration with your therapist, to enhance awareness.
I can work with couples and families who are experiencing problems, including children and young people. I can also offer a group therapy experience. See Groupwork page.
I also have a lot of experience of working with men, both individually and in men's groups. Statistics show that fewer men present for counselling, and tend towards working their problems out on their own. I am interested to explore why that might be.

What Benefits can be Expected?
The safety of the therapeutic relationship can enable the expression of difficult feelings. These feelings may relate to your current life situation, or experiences in your past. To be able to find a voice, and speak about issues and struggles you face, or about a way of behaving that you feel has been with you since childhood, can be very helpful and healing in itself. Developing a trusting relationship with a therapist can be a first step in learning to trust other people.