Psychotherapy

Couples Therapy

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Psychotherapy Couples Therapy *

Psychotherapy

Have you been struggling with your emotions or facing challenges in your personal relationships or at work? Perhaps you would like to feel less anxious and more confident in your life or understand why you experience certain emotional reactions. Maybe you have felt depressed or low in mood for longer than you would like to admit.

Sometimes you might realise that you have unresolved traumas from the past that you have not processed or come to terms with and you recognise that they need addressing.

There are many different reasons why people seek therapy and there are times in all of our lives when certain emotional experiences feel too confusing or overwhelming to make sense of alone.

​Therapy can support you to address the emotional challenges that you are facing, gain a deeper understanding of yourself and help you to develop strategies to effectively manage your difficulties. 

 During your initial session, we will explore what has brought you to therapy and what you hope to change or understand. Some people have a specific goal in mind, however many people do not.  You might be confused about the emotions you have been experiencing and therapy can help you to make sense of this. 

Therapy can help you to gain clarity and understanding of the origins of your difficulties, as well as supporting you to make changes.  My way of working combines psychodynamic psychotherapy with evidence-based techniques drawn from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT). 

​Understanding how past experiences might be shaping your current emotional patterns is at the core of my approach to therapy. 

​I offer both short-term (6-20 sessions) and long term (open-ended) therapy for a range of difficulties. 

All therapy sessions are 50 minutes and are charged at £125 

Dr Joanna Harvey Chartered Counselling Psychologist & Cognitive Analytic Therapist

Areas I can support you with include: 

  • Relational difficulties

  • Attachment and difficulties in relationships

  • Worry and anxiety ​​

  • Low mood and depression 

  • Low self-esteem and lack of confidence

  • Pregnancy & Postpartum

  • Issues in the workplace

  • Life transitions

  • Anxiety

    Anxiety and panic attacks can have a significant impact on your ability to enjoy life and do the things you want to do. Often when you feel anxious, you find yourself avoiding people, places or things that you think make the anxiety worse. Although this might work in the short term, in the long term it can actually be the very thing that is keeping you stuck. Generalised anxiety disorder is not linked to a particular fear or worry, but is a more pervasive sense of worry about many different things that can make life feel unmanageable, as you are always predicting the next catastrophe. Although anxiety can occur after a specific event that sows the seeds of other worries, anxiety can also originate from growing up in an environment that feels unpredictable and unsafe.

    Anxiety often has a physical component as your body reacts to a perceived threat, this is known as fight or flight mode. Symptoms can include feeling nauseous, shaky or tense, experiencing a dry mouth, increased heart rate, sweating or feeling dizzy. You might feel some of these symptoms but not others- everyone is different. Racing thoughts, a sense of dread and imagining worst case scenarios are all commonly experienced.   

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  • Relationship Issues

    We all need connection with others to survive but for many people, relationships can be confusing and a source of stress. The breakdown of a romantic relationship can be devastating for both parties, even if you were the one who decided to end it. Grieving a life together that you will no longer share or struggling with the pain of rejection and betrayal can cause significant emotional strain. Friendships and professional relationships at work can also be a cause of distress. You might have found yourself in repeating patterns in your relationships and wondering why this might be happening to you; perhaps you find yourself in similar conflicts in every job you have, or you feel that others take advantage of you because you find it difficult to say what you want and hide behind people pleasing. Understanding our own relational patterns and what might attract us to certain relational dynamics can help you to understand yourself and showing up differently in your relationships.

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  • Low mood & Depression

    Low mood and depression can be triggered by a particular life event, such as losing a job, a relationship breakdown, the loss of a loved one or even a period of illness that leaves you feeling lacking in energy or physically depleted. However, there isn’t always a specific event that causes depression and it can creep up over a longer period of time. If you grew up in an environment that was harsh, critical or neglectful, you can internalise these negative and adverse childhood experiences so that the emotional effects are felt far into your adult life. These might manifest as never feeling good enough, using alcohol or drugs to numb painful feelings, avoiding close relationships or a lack of confidence that leaves you feeling unfulfilled and unmotivated in life

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Couples Therapy

Relationships change over time and can present us with many challenges.

 Couples therapy can provide an opportunity to explore difficulties that have emerged and work towards a resolution and improved mutual understanding.

I aim to help couples to identify patterns of unhelpful or damaging behaviour in their relationship so that they are able to look for new ways of being together. 

Although couples often come to therapy when the relationship feels at breaking point, seeking therapy when difficulties initially emerge can be more beneficial.  

All couples therapy sessions are 60 minutes and are charged at £175  

Pink wildflowers in a field against a light sky background.

How Therapy Can Help You

Life can present you with many different challenges; some of these arise in childhood and the emotional impact follows you into adulthood. Others may occur throughout your life in relation to more specific events or relationships.

Whether you have been struggling with a particular problem for several years or are seeking therapy for a difficulty that has arisen more recently, therapy can help you to make sense of your emotions, shift your perspective, and provide you with therapeutic tools and techniques to feel different.  

Engaging in therapy can support you to thrive in your life and improve your personal and professional relationships.

What to expect from therapy 

The relationship between therapist and client is the most important aspect of therapy.  I recommend booking an initial session with me first, so we can see how we could work together and if I am the right therapist for you.

If you would like to continue therapy with me, sessions are typically once a week for 50 minutes.

I have a warm and compassionate approach to therapy and take the view that many of our difficulties are survival strategies we once adopted to make our world feel safer but can then create obstacles for us later on. My aim for therapy is to support you to achieve greater emotional wellbeing and facilitate psychological growth by gently challenging you when needed.

  • Postnatal Anxiety

    Feeling anxious after giving birth is very common and understandable given that having a baby is a huge life transition and a time of vulnerability. As you adjust to caring for a newborn, your anxiety and worries lessen. However, for some women postnatal anxiety develops and starts to negatively impact your daily life and can leave you feeling that your worries are out of control and that you are constantly on edge. Postnatal anxiety can feel like persistent anxious thoughts around your baby or harm coming to your baby. Whilst this will manifest differently for each woman, common symptoms of postnatal anxiety include frequently checking for baby’s breathing whilst they are sleeping, feeling overwhelmed at the thought of leaving the house, not being able to leave baby with anyone else even for brief periods of time and not being able to relax or sleep even when baby is sleeping. 

  • Emotional Overwhelm

    Having a baby and becoming a Mother is a huge life transition; you are learning how to care for a baby, or learning how to care for multiple children if this isn’t your first baby, whilst being in a physically and emotionally vulnerable state yourself. It can be an emotionally intense time and for many women, bring up unexpected feelings that can be confusing or distressing. Although society would have you believe motherhood is a blissful experience, it is more complex than this. It is not unusual to have feelings of ambivalence towards your baby, find caring for an infant 24/7 overwhelming and struggle with the changes in your relationships at this time. If you are finding yourself frequently irritable, becoming angry or frustrated when your day with baby doesn’t go to plan or finding it difficult to remain calm when your baby is upset, you might be experiencing emotional overwhelm.