David Soward

My practice at the Wellbeing Clinic at 1 Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7BL ('Headington shops' on London Road) is well served by public transport both from central Oxford and from outside town. There are a number of nearby car parks.  Appointments are usually during working hours. 

My work begins and ends with you, how much you want to change, and how well we work together.  One wise person commented: 'The glory of the human being is our ability to remake ourselves.' Whatever your past, whatever your present, we all need (in Auden's words) to feel 'able to face the Future as a friend'.

You may feel some discontent or distress, some unresolved sadness, a sense of being at a crossroads or facing an impossible dilemma, or a lack of motivation and joy in life. 

I will spend time getting to know you and helping you to get to know yourself. We will work together and agree what we want to achieve, checking in every so often to review our progress. 

I came to counselling quite late in life, which means that I have many life experiences to draw on and a range of cultural and philosophical as well as practical and psychological insights to guide me.  My training is integrative, which means I bring a number of theoretical approaches to my work, but am not limited in drawing on knowledge and experience.  

Ultimately the 'therapeutic alliance', as it is grandly called, is just that: a matter of how we get on professionally and how much or how far we decide to explore.  That means that both of us are comfortable to pursue that self-awareness and see where it takes us.  My aim is therefore to provide an atmosphere of openness and warmth, as well as understanding and empathy. 

Much is said these days about meditation and mindfulness, which are valuable in that they give us a chance to pause and increase awareness.  In many ways therapy or counselling are also an opportunity to pause, but in the context of an ongoing conversation between you and your therapist.  We may sometimes actually decide to pause and take a guided 'breathing space', but for the most part our discussions will take the form of actively standing back from everyday life:  we will explore, examine, question, experiment with, even play with different ideas and possibilities. 

If you want to change, it helps to know where you are starting from.  So we will give ourselves the opportunity to look at your past and your present and to open up to possible futures.  We may be discussing events and encounters in the last week, or thinking back to distant relationships and formative experiences.  You are in control and we will explore any area of your life which you choose to bring to the session, without judgment or prejudice. 

Billie Jean King, the tennis star, said in a recent interview, speaking of her own experience of psychotherapy:  'The thing they do so well is they don't tell you what to do. You just start to hear yourself saying what you should or could do."

The first session is all about finding out how we would work together.  I need to begin to get to know you and you need to judge whether you feel heard and understood.  Am I someone you feel you can talk to and potentially feel safe to open up with? The real work might take some weeks as we both need to develop the relationship, with understanding and empathy growing over time. 

Together we will discuss what you are looking for and how we might work towards it.  I prefer to do this in an open way rather than through a questionnaire, giving you every opportunity to bring up what you think is important at this stage.