Johnathan Sunley
Psychotherapy and
my approach
What is psychotherapy?
People have psychotherapy for a wide range of reasons.
There may be a worry you can’t stop thinking about. Or a feeling of unhappiness that is equally persistent. Perhaps it’s reached the point where you are turning more and more to addictions of one kind or another — food, social media, alcohol, porn, drugs — just to get through the day. You might be struggling in the aftermath of an illness. Or a bereavement. You may be having difficulties in a close relationship. Perhaps you feel stuck in your career.
Therapy, or the ‘talking cure’ as it has been called, can be a great help if you are struggling with issues like these. It can also be beneficial when you feel not that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you so much as you aren’t making the most of your potential.
You may have a wish to be more creative, for example. Or to pursue a dream of some kind before it’s too late. Possibly it’s a search for meaning you need to embark on, looking for answers to existential or spiritual questions with a particular significance for you.
If I work with you, what should I expect?
My approach to therapy is informed on the one hand by an appreciation of the power of the past. Patterns of relating laid down as we were growing up can hold us back later on. That’s why they need to be carefully understood. Then we can gain some choice over how much they continue to affect us. But no less vital to our flourishing is what might be termed the call of the future.
Where are we heading in life? What do we want from it? And perhaps also: what is it asking of us?
True psychological change or transformation takes place not in the head but the heart. This is a process that takes time, patience and courage.
Meeting once a week and more frequently than that if we decide it might be helpful, my aim is to provide a safe, supportive space in which we can together explore whatever now seems dark or difficult. Feelings of all kinds, no matter how unlikely or unwanted, will be our best guide through this landscape. If these can be put into words, new perspectives can open up that may lead to new beginnings.