Michael Apáthy – Psychotherapist

I almost always start therapy by asking people what the problems are that they're having. This can be a surprisingly difficult question to clearly answer. My job is to help make that easier for you by asking useful questions that clarify the problem, and begin to help us to understand anything that's happening for you psychologically that's contributing to the problems. By the end of the first appointment we should have reasonable sense of some of the psychological parts of the problem that will be useful to work on. This doesn't mean the problems are resolved yet, but usually people feel relieved and feel some hope, because the difficulties are understandable, and because we've made a start.

I wish I could give a simple answer to this. Occasionally people get everything that they're looking for from a single appointment. Many people come for half a dozen or a dozen appointments. Some people do many more appointments, even over years. It depends on the effort that we both make on your behalf, how complex the problems are, and how fully you want to resolve the problems. It is always up to you to decide, and I will always support your decision to either continue or to finish therapy. It's also normal to have some uncertainty about this. If that's the case, it's my job to help you to reflect on your priorities and needs.

By the end of the therapy, you should have resolved to your satisfaction whatever the problems were that brought you to therapy. This should mean that they really are permanently resolved - not being reliant on therapy, or just being able to cope with the problems. Months or years after finishing therapy, occasionally people come back for a little bit more therapy, if they realize that there's a little bit more for them to heal, but that's a good thing. It just means you can have a better life than you realized. Finishing a successful therapy should mean more than just resolving one particular difficulty. Usually it also means people have found quite a different perspective on themselves, and on relationships of all types. Usually people can feel more accepting and loving of themselves and others, and find that they have a greater capacity for intimacy, and can handle stress better. For some people therapy is more like a little bit of fine tuning, whilst for others therapy is literally life changing, they finish up feeling like quite a different person - in a good way!

There are thousands of different types of therapy practiced by different counsellors, psychologists, and psychotherapists. Whilst some people are curious, luckily the vast majority of people don't actually need to understand the many different types of therapy in order to become more well psychologically. The most important thing to understand better is yourself. That said, I do have a specific main approach to therapy, which is called Affect-State Therapy. It is an integrative form of therapy, which means that it draws together some of the best understandings from cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, attachment theory, body focused therapies, and modern neuroscience.

- Registered Psychotherapist