David Wakeham

Individual Psychotherapy in Newbury, Marlborough and On-line

My Approach:
                        
Working with a psychotherapist can help you make sense out of whatever might be troubling you or dampening your experience of life and can help you understand more fully why you feel the way you do. You might feel ashamed or confused about who you are, how you feel, ways you are behaving, ways you are relating to others, or ways you are reacting emotionally, and might be struggling to make sense of your life. 
                        
My approach to psychotherapy aims to help you understand yourself in the context of your past experience and to realise that you are not behaving as you are because you are a bad person, nor are you being stupid or weak for feeling as you do, you are simply responding to and dealing with life in the best way you can given your experiences up to now. Most importantly I offer a safe space to explore yourself and to gradually, at your own pace, learn to be with, express and make peace with what is going on within you. I believe that it is when we learn to change our relationship with and accept our troubled emotions and parts of ourselves, including those relating to distressing experiences in our distant or more recent past, that they lose their power over us and our suffering can be greatly reduced. In my view it is then, when we are not hiding from or pushing down these parts, that we learn to live more in the full vitality of the present moment and can come to get more out of our lives. 
                        
Alongside the psychodynamic element of my approach which explores and makes sense out of our lives in the context of the past, and my strong emphasis on a relational approach and the importance of the therapeutic relationship, I see mindfulness based therapy as key to my work. This places emphasis upon being present with our emotions as they are felt in our body (on what is commonly referred to as our “felt sense”). What is particularly valued is opening to the fullness of our experience and learning to listen and stay with what our body feels in a spacious and kindly way.
                        
Finally, I see psychotherapy as being not only for those with a diagnosable psychological issue, or for someone who can be labelled as having something 'wrong' with them. I believe it can benefit anyone who wants to get more out of life and who is prepared to explore themselves with an open mind.
             
Further information: 
                        
Psychotherapy and counselling sessions with me last 50 minutes each with a view to continuing on a weekly basis as an ongoing process of exploration, discovery and personal development. I offer a confidential, supportive and non-judgemental environment for this exploration to take place. I charge £60/ session.
 

• MA in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy, at Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and
  Counselling (BCPC). Accredited through Middlesex University
• Foundation Certificate in Counselling and Psychotherapy, BCPC

Individual: £55