THERAPY

Individuals often find that when they attempt to use strategies on their own to deal with negative thoughts or overwhelming emotions, they experience some improvement, but it does not last, or even worse, the strategies do not help. This can be deeply frustrating. Lasting or meaningful change is most likely to happen when there is some degree of understanding or insight, combined with strategies. For this reason, the therapy provided at Lambeth Psychology rests heavily on insight-oriented approaches as a foundation.

Insight-oriented therapy (sometimes called Psychodynamic Therapy) is used to explore the ways in which our emotional experiences during early childhood, combined with our life circumstances and past events, shape our current functioning, our struggles, and the way we view the world. Insight-oriented therapy helps you understand how past experiences shape your thoughts, feelings, and actions, and guides your choices. In other words, engaging in this type of therapy helps you develop a deeper understanding of your inner world. This understanding is important because, often, we are unaware of how the past is connected to our current life and the struggles we are experiencing. We may find ourselves repeating unhealthy or destructive patterns, or feel unhappy with our relationships, without understanding why the patterns repeat. It can be deeply frustrating to be “stuck” in patterns that no longer serve us. With clearer insight into why you think, feel, and act that way you do, we can help you identify ways of implementing meaningful change.

Therapy at Lambeth Psychology can be thought of as integrative. This means that, while gaining insight is a core principle, other approaches to therapy are integrated to help you take specific steps towards change (sometimes called “strategies” or “skills”).

The therapies that are most commonly integrated with insight-oriented, psychodynamic approaches include:

• Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy

• Interpersonal Therapy

• Emotion Focused Therapy

• Brief, Solution Focused-Therapy

These approaches are integrated in a way that creates a unique treatment plan, specifically for you. Insight and strategies for change reflect the ongoing process of therapy.

Adolescence is a period of tremendous growth, exploration, and change. It can equally be a time of tremendous turmoil – complicated relationships, impulsive decisions, intense emotions, feeling lost, identity confusion, struggling at school, or just an overall sense of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or irritability. Therapy with adolescents is highly integrative to meet the youngster’s unique needs and stage in their development.

Adolescents are capable of profound insight and, so, there is a core foundation of insight-oriented work to build their understanding of “Why do I think, feel, and act the way I do?” Many adolescents find themselves overwhelmed by their thoughts and feelings, and feel insecure about their ability to meet the demands of their life. For this reason, therapy with adolescents also integrates approaches that allow for skill building and learning healthier ways of coping. Insight and building strategies for change are consistent goals throughout therapy.

Therapy with young adolescents often involve varying amounts of parent/caregiver involvement. This is guided by the specific needs of the youth, their circumstances, and their level of development.

Parents and caregivers seek therapy for their young child for a range of reasons. Common concerns that might lead a parent to seek therapy for their child could include:

• Fears that seemed “normal at first” but do not resolve

• Sleep issues

• Intense (or “really big”) emotions

• Being easily hurt or “sensitive”

• Somatic concerns, like headaches or stomach aches

• Family conflicts or difficulties

• Confusion related to gender, gender identity

• Trauma

• Difficulty adjusting to change

• Anxiety in social situations

• Difficulty making or keeping friends

• Worrying “a lot”

• Difficulty paying attention

• Anger

With young children, therapy is an integration of sessions with their parents as well as individual play-based therapy with them. Play therapy is a mix of talk and play. Through play, children have an opportunity to express and work through their thoughts and feelings, and their view of their world. Sessions with parents focus on developing an understanding of their child – their attachment patterns, relationships, interests, development, and so forth. Sessions with parents also allow for an understanding of the child’s environment. With this understanding of the child’s world, therapy can identify specific strategies that can be used to foster the young child’s development.

In some circumstances, parents are not necessarily seeking therapy for their child. Rather, they are looking for therapy to help them understand the challenges they are experiencing in parenting and identify steps they can take towards supporting their child’s emotional, social, and behavioural development. Lambeth Psychology also provides stand-alone parenting guidance.