Counselling and Psychotherapy - Polly Plowman Counselling, Psychotherapy and Training Website, Essex UK

who is it for?
Anyone can benefit from counselling or psychotherapy during periods of stress or unhappiness. Skilled assistance at the right time can make all the difference between being overwhelmed by one’s difficulties for a time, and being able to resolve them creatively. When one’s life is not in crisis, sessions can still be useful to help us to help us to build a life that is fulfilling.
While psychotherapy and counselling are not solely for the sick, I do not recommend this work for people who are actively suffering from acute mental illnesses, nor in the crisis phase of breakdown. However, later on this work may well be helpful to stabilise the situation and to assist in preventing relapse

counselling
is the term most often used for a problem-solving approach, which generally involves coming for weekly individual sessions for a short or limited period. During these sessions we focus remains on clarifying the issues, devising strategies to address them, and improving your quality of life.

psychotherapy
is similar to counselling, but is generally seen as a longer-term commitment. Its aims are to reveal, untangle and heal the underlying patterns that cause the same problems to crop up repeatedly in our lives, in spite of all our attempts to change them.

couple-counselling
offers the same help from a trained, impartial outsider, but focuses on the relationship between two people, usually married or sexual partners. This approach is also useful for other relationships that experience troubled periods, such as friendships, business partnerships and neighbours.