Individual psychotherapy

What individual psychotherapy is

Psychotherapy is a process that unfolds across a series of sessions, not a single conversation or a piece of advice. It can take in specific difficulties, relationships, repeating patterns, emotional responses, bodily experience, or a more general sense that the way one is living no longer does.

The direction of the work is set jointly by the client and the therapist, and it can change as the process goes on.

The reason does not have to be named in advance

Some people begin therapy because of a specific difficulty — anxiety, panic responses, burnout, trouble in a relationship, a separation, a loss, or a period of sharp change.

Others cannot easily point to one problem. There may be a recurring dissatisfaction, difficulty in the relationship with oneself or with others, a sense of being stuck, or simply a need to understand better what is happening.

Either way, there is enough to start from.

How the therapy goes

Individual therapy usually takes place once a week, on an agreed day and time. The regularity lets the work run without interruption and lets themes be followed over time.

A session lasts 50 minutes.

Conversation is not the only way of working

Depending on the therapist, the approach and the particular process, attention may go not only to thoughts and to the account, but also to bodily experience — tension, breathing, movement, sensation, and the way the body responds in certain situations.

Body-oriented work does not automatically mean physical contact. Where exercises or touch are used, they are explained beforehand and happen only with the client's consent.

The direction is set together

At the start the client and the therapist discuss what brings the person to therapy and what they would like to be different. Sometimes the aim is clear from the beginning; other times it takes shape gradually.

As the work goes on we can return to the question of what is changing, what remains hard, and whether this way of working is still useful.

How long it lasts

There is no universal length. With a specific and bounded theme the work is sometimes shorter. Where long-standing patterns, relationships or more complex traumatic experience are involved, the process usually takes longer.

After the first few sessions the therapist and the client can discuss what the work looks like and whether there is reason to continue.

The right therapist matters

Not every therapist suits every person or every theme. The therapists' profiles describe their training, how they work, and the areas in which they have deeper experience.

If after the first session the therapist judges that another specialist would suit you better, that is discussed openly.

See the therapists →