Analytical Counselling and Psychotherapy
The main aim of analytical psychotherapy is to address the underlying problem (unconscious) and not the surface issue (conscious). Putting it simply, it removes the sticking plaster, in order to deal and heal the underlying wound, rather than trying to keep it covered.
This involves a process where you have to come to terms with your personal unconscious. The reason being is that the source of our problems lie in our unconscious mind. People are complex systems, with both a conscious and an unconscious mind. I quite like using the metaphor of an iceberg to describe this internal state of affairs. Think of the small mass of ice sticking out of the water as our conscious mind, and the huge mass under the water as our unconscious. As you can imagine the small mass out of the water is very tiny compared to the huge mass underneath; and so, ultimately, much of our waking life is influenced by the huge unconscious mass lurking beneath the water.
Analytical psychotherapy helps you to connect with feelings and emotions that generally relate to various painful issues that our conscious mind has found too unbearable to integrate, and as a result, has redirected them to our unconscious mind. To begin with, this can feel like one big mass of despair or depression which is difficult to explain. Analytical psychotherapy offers an opportunity to disentangle this mass into tangible pieces of insight. It is these tangible pieces of insight, combined with the release of emotions, that eventually enable the person to understand their own mind. This represents an inner journey of self-discovery and personal meaning, sometimes arduous, but profoundly rewarding and unique in each person. For more information concerning my approach please visit my blog page, where I have written a number of articles.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
– Carl Jung