Many people view psychotherapy or therapy of any kind as an admission of defeat; that they can’t sort out their own problems without help. However, there will be times in all of our lives when we will experience emotional difficulties and living our day to day life has become problematic. This may be a time when we do not have the ability to think clearly and constructively and it can help to talk to others. For various reasons, we may not choose to talk to family or friends but find it helpful to talk things through with someone who is professionally trained to help and support you. The Mary Clegg Clinic see therapy as a supportive way forward. You may only need a few sessions or you may need to be supported more long term. Whichever you choose, therapy has a good track record and there is good evidence to show that if you seek help sooner rather than later outcomes can be more optimistic.
Therapy is a safe place which is non-judgemental, confidential and complies with strict ethical codes to give the client the best possible outcome. We work with your goals to ensure all the work we do with you is relevant, proactive and timely.
In therapy, you will be asked questions and your problems will be explored. This is the “assessment phase”. The assessment can be done in the first couple of sessions as the therapist gets to know you or it may be an ongoing process. During this time a formulation of your difficulties will be produced so that your therapist can agree with you a treatment programme or way of working with you. Your therapist will be looking for the predisposing factors: “how come you are the way you are”. They will help you understand perhaps how your behaviour has been adapted over the years to cope with your environment.
Secondly, they will look for the precipitating factors. These are any reason or trigger that lead to the presentation of symptoms that you feel you need help with. Understanding how you are triggered in given situations is enormously helpful as it will help you maintain a clearer sense of yourself during stressful moments.
Thirdly they will seek to understand the maintaining factors. These are the external thoughts and behaviours that maintain the problem in your life. So they may look at how behaviour can be changed to help you have more effective coping strategies.
Finally, they look at the protective factors that will help support and encourage you through to the resolution of your issues. We call these resources. They could be how well you cope with things on your own, do you have a “phone a friend” who can see the picture in a non-judgemental way, do you exercise, how well are you supported by your GP and so on.
Your therapist will support, encourage and guide you through all of these processes so you have a clearer understanding of your issues. Therapy with the Mary Clegg Clinic is not a “quick fix” but a long-lasting positive effect on your life way into the future.
So you can see that in order to help and support you moving forward with your life, psychotherapists are highly trained professionals who have completed a minimum of 4 years of training and each year they have to do many hours of continued professional development to maintain their professional status. They all have to have regular supervision where their caseload is brought under scrutiny. This is, of course, anonymised so that you cannot be identified but this ensures that your therapist is fit to practice and maintains the gold standard practice that is Mary Clegg Clinic’s deserved reputation. All therapists working for the Mary Clegg Clinic are supervised by Mary Clegg and they work to high standard protocols. This facilitates audit trails and outcome measures which is possibly unique in the therapy world.
Harville Hendrix in his book Getting the Love you Want says that there are three phases to a relationship Ideal – Ordeal – Real Deal When you reach the Ordeal phase let the Mary Clegg Clinic help you to the Real Deal Click here to book an appointment.