Since you are contemplating psychotherapy, I want to take a few moments to explain what psychotherapy is and how it can support you. I describe psychotherapy as being invited into a nurturing setting as who you are and work on aspects of yourself that you feel are in need of further attention or that you are not happy with in the company of a practitioner that you trust enough to make a start on doing this.

Reflecting on the sentence I just made, I contemplate on how psychotherapy is generally considered to be a treatment of things we are unhappy with, but psychotherapy is also a way to get in touch with sides to us that we have covered up in the face of external or internal demands, such as our excitement, joy, and inventiveness.

Given that people come to therapy for so many different reasons, the practitioner needs to attend to these meetings with a good enough grasp of how different people have different needs and experiences which are specific to them. Psychotherapy sets out to develop new and different ways of thinking, being and feeling by nurturing the client’s self-support.

When I am asked to conceptualise ‘self-support’, I sometimes bring the image of a tree or the remains of a tree-stump to mind. It’s been documented that each of the tree rings that are there represents one year of the tree’s life, starting with the smallest ring at the centre of its core. 

I explain that the tree has over the years grown and grown into adulthood, and that all the accumulated rings are together forming the supporting stem of the tree. Translating this into human terms, the child and the adult parts of the whole-of-the-being have the potential to hold one-another well-enough – this is self-support.

Now, as I take in the proud-looking tree stood outside of my window, I think about the withered shape we sometimes turn into and how therapy can support your branching into a different future.