Susan Stevens

I offer psychological therapy (CBT and/or EMDR), and/or counselling (using a person-centred approach).

How I work:

Sessions last 50 minutes (unless otherwise agreed)

I find it helpful to have a longer first session, possibly up to 90 minutes, to give us both a bit more time to get to know each other, and ask all the questions we need to (and fill out some basic paperwork).

The fee for this extended session remains the same as for an hour’s session.

We can then agree how to run the sessions, maybe by using a highly-structured problem-solving approach (eg CBT, EMDR) to address a specific problem, or a more free-flowing, exploratory approach (person-centred), or a combination of the two.

I find it can take us a few sessions to get to know each other well enough to be confident we can work well together, to find the best way forward for you.

Some psychological problems can be sorted out quite quickly - sometimes all it takes is one or two sessions to talk things through, and you find you feel much clearer and quite settled about your difficulties. Or it may be that a limited number of structured CBT sessions (6, or maybe more) will be enough to resolve the problem. Sometimes however the difficulties are complex, or hard to understand and even harder to address, and a long-term view is more helpful.

A health warning:

There can be potential negative side-effects of therapy.

I offer therapy - this is supposed to be therapeutic and help with distress. Sometimes, however, for various reasons, distress can increase during or after sessions.

This can sometimes happen during treatment for PTSD, for example. It is therefore really important to feel able to discuss this in advance, and make sensible plans to manage any increase in distressing memories, dreams or emotions between sessions.