We all face problems and difficulties at some point in our lives, being confronted with the end of relationships, losses or grief, and sometimes it all seems too difficult to manage on our own.

Talking therapies can help people deal with their present difficulties which are often related to past experiences.

Therapy allows people to have a private and confidential space to talk and explore their thoughts and feelings without being judged. It can also help you to become more aware of how you relate to others so that you can develop a greater understanding of yourself, enabling you to make more of your relationships, opening up opportunities to a fuller and more fulfilling emotional life.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy explores unconscious conflicts, together with more conscious difficulties, within a safe relationship built between the client and the therapist. Exploring these issues and re-experiencing unresolved or problematic feelings within a containing therapeutic relationship opens the way for insight and change.  It can make unbearable feelings bearable.

Psychodynamic therapy, also known as insight-oriented therapy, focuses on unconscious thought processes which manifest themselves in a client's behaviour. The approach seeks to increase clients’ self-awareness and understanding of how their past influences present thoughts and behaviours, by exploring their unconscious patterns.

Psychodynamic counselling or psychotherapy evolved from psychoanalytic theory.  However it tends to focus on more immediate problems, be more practically based and shorter term than psychoanalytic therapy.

Several different approaches to brief psychodynamic psychotherapy have evolved from psychoanalytic theory and have been clinically applied to a wide range of psychological disorders.

Clients are encouraged to talk about their childhood, relationships with parents and other significant people, the primary focus being to reveal the unconscious content of their psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension. The therapist tries to keep their own personality out of the picture, in essence becoming a blank canvas onto which the client can transfer and project deep feelings about themselves, their parents and other significant players in their life. The therapist remains focused on the dynamics between the client and the therapist.

Time-Limited Psychodynamic Therapy

Short-term or time limited psychodynamic therapy is focused therapy and is offered over 6 to 12 weeks.  Practitioners of brief psychodynamic therapy believe that some changes can happen through a more rapid process or that an initial short intervention will start an ongoing process of change that does not need the constant involvement of the therapist. A central concept in time limited therapy is that there should be one major focus for the therapy rather than the more traditional psychoanalytic practice of allowing the client to associate freely and discuss unconnected issues.

Time limited therapy can be extremely useful when clients experience problems such as:

  • Bereavement

  • Depression, stress and anxiety

  • Difficulties in relationships

  • Work related difficulties

  • Harassment and bullying

  • Traumatic experiences

  • Feeling under pressure

The client and the therapist will agree a specific goal to work towards in the weekly sessions, also lasting for 50 minutes. The sessions will provide clients with an opportunity to explore their presenting problems in some depth with the therapist enabling them to gain a better self-awareness and to explore the possibility for change. The specific goal or central focus singles out the most important issues and thus creates a structure and identifies a goal for the work. In time limited therapy the therapist is expected to be fairly active in keeping the session focused on the main issue presented by the client.

DIT - Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy

DIT is a form of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy (16 sessions) developed for treating depression and mood disorders. It can help people with emotional and relationship problems. The primary aim is
> improved interpersonal functioning and an enhanced capacity for understanding self and others. DIT assists in understanding the link between depression and both current and past relationships.

DIT explores difficult things in the past that continue to affect the way people feel and behave (relate with others) in the present. It is specifically designed to address presenting symptoms of depression and anxiety. It is being rolled out within IAPT services (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) as the brief psychodynamic model for the treatment of depression.