Delyse Ledgard - Psychotherapy - Counselling

Qualifications

MA in Counselling Psychology.
Gestalt Training.
EMDR advanced level.
Somatic Transformation - working with trauma and the body.
Developmental Approach to couples counselling.

Practice Description

PSYCHOTHERAPY IS ABOUT CONNECTION AND RELATIONSHIP. Through developing a relationship with me you will have the opportunity to discover aspects of yourself that have been denied or lost, and allows you to become conscious of your experience. We create suffering in our lives by attemting to avoid pain. The irony is that the more we can tolerate our experience the easier it becomes to deal with whatever life throws at us. Typically people report a mixture of feelings at the beginning of therapy. There is often relief from feeling supported and safe to express oneself, and overwhelmed by those experiences you may have buried.

The heart of therapy is in developing a conscious relationship to yourself. In counselling you don’t have to worry about taking care of anyone else. The core of emotional pain is that your experience did not matter, and therefore in some way you had to detach from your emotional life. Therapy creates a space to connect in a manageable way to all aspects of yourself.

What happens between you and your counsellor is important therapeutic material. How you experience me will reflect your perspective and the experiences you have encountered in your life. How I experience you, can give me clues to these experiences and the ways you may be protecting yourself. Direct feedback about this experience is part of the process.

So as you connect more fully with who you are you can begin to have a different relationship with yourself. You will develop more ease with difficult experiences and have less reactions to others opinions or reactions. Therapy is also about encouragement. Only you can change things in your life, but therapy provides a place to rehearse and prepare with the support of your counsellor.

To this end I use a number of approaches that respond to each person and what may be needed at any given time.