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Clicking! Those ten seconds first impression and the subsequent 'positve vibe' confirmation you get over the next hour or so is a fundamental reason for which you should or should not continue with someone. Therapists come in as many flavours as human characters come, and like teachers, nurses, priests, and just about everyone, therapists too may, sometimes, NOT be moved by the most noble of reasons.

Compatibility in therapy is also a matter of 'chemistry-beyond-reason'. Sometimes we wish we could help, but we just don't feel to have what it takes. It's frustrating! But at some level I need to be in a position where I can relate easily and calmly to your issues, and be able to hold a place of safety and comfor in most occasions of sharing. If the chances of me being able to do so are low, I may have to turn down the opportunity to work together.

No, therapists differ in at least two very important ways: 1) the value in healing they attribute to thinking, feeling or bodily processes 2) the degree to which they are directive or collaborative in establishing the way forward. Research shows that it is not the theoretical approach to therapy that accounts for the majority of positive outcomes, but the degree to which the therapist is able to maintain empathic contact with you. This depends on your natural learning style (eg. doer, thinker, feeler, observer) and the degree to which your preference for autonomy or direction match those of the therapist. Be sure to do a bit of research to determine these in advance both in you and the therapist you might be contacting.

I place as much value on feeling, observing, and doing as I do with thinking. Having lived in the East for almost ten years, I have become acquainted with the therapeutic value of non-mentalised processes and use these continually throughout therapy. As you may have discovered on the Approach page, however, I also encourage all my clients to self-educate themselves in whatever way they might enjoy. The more you know about the way you function, the more empowered your relationship to yourself and healing becomes.

At times! Talk therapy assumes that dialogue, talking things out and through, has a therapeutic effect on suffering. As the famous sage Lao Tzu once said: "Watch your thoughts for they become your words. Watch your words for they become your actions. Watch your actions for they become your habits. Watch your habits for they become your destiny" ... and physical health too!. In other words, thoughts play a central role in our well-being. Talking things out and through, therefore, can be a means to health.

Said this, talk therapy has important limitations that go often undenounced, first of which is that life-healing change is ultimately about action, not reflection or mental analysis alone! Those immersed in a process of talk therapy, including counsellors, can sometimes fall into the feeling that things are getting better just because "the talk is getting smoother". I ask: "Is your environment getting smoother? Is your ability to act differently getting smoother? Is your ability to sooth yourself getting smoother?...", in other words, is talk-therapy converting into action-therapy? If the answer is yes, then it's all good, if no, then perhaps the effectiveness of talk-therapy is to be questioned. Alternatives abound, talk-therapy has its time and place!

Compassion! Expect to be heard and met with curiosity and understanding. Expect also to be received with some probing questions and feedback from me, things that might not directly confirm your opinion of the situation or of yourself. As I explain in the Approach page, the ultimate therapeutic benefit will come from you opening up to your own Self. As strange as this may sound, becoming someone who is able to hold space for the hurt and lost parts of your own Self, instead of numbing it in those hundreds of ways you know about, is one of the hardest things to achieve in life and therapy alike. Often, unconsciously, and through conditioned habits, we sell ourselves short, we judge ourselves way too harshly, and often have given up hope in places we shouldn't have done so. Questioning the alignment of your idea of yourself with the unexplored potential of your psyche is my job. To do so sensitively and in a manner you can relate to is my skill. But being prepared to accept and work this through is your wisdom!

The effectiveness of talk-therapy will depend on:

1)  how active you are in other aspects of your healing
2) the effectiveness of talking things out and through things in session

3) how deep your issues are to begin with

4) how much your environment is lending itself to change in a direction you need

It could take as little as three sessions, and as much as a year of weekly meetings, but remember, this is a process, and meetings only happen one at a time. What matters here is not how long it takes, but whether therapy is doing something for you each time!!

Ultimately the consent of the person in the therapeutic process should always come first. If the parent clicks with a therapist but the child doesn't, it's a bad start and one that is bound to increase the issues that make the therapeutic process necessary in the first place. A lot of our suffering comes from us not being validated rightfully, and children have clearly the same legitimate need as adults to be acknowledged fully. Utmost care needs to be taken here!

Further, if a child is thought to need therapy, the first question to ask is: "To what extent I or other important adult person in his or her entourage, are responsible for his acting out? Children are unconscious processing 'machines', in the sense that every child's secret mission is to process unconscious parental wounds. All children become in one form or another, the avatar of the parental unprocessed unconscious, thus therapy with children is most appropriate there where a carer is really keen to understand something about his or herself.