Therapy

Each person is different with unique characteristics, experiences, processes and needs.  There is not one form of therapy which is superior to the rest or effective for everyone. For this reason, psychological therapy often starts with an assessment which enables us to understand your difficulties holistically and accordingly form a treatment plan which feels right for you.

My goal is to adapt my clinical knowledge to your therapeutic needs, taking into consideration bio-psycho-social factors, clinical protocols, psychological theories and ethical guidelines.  My work is based on the guidelines provided by the British Psychological Society, Health and Care Professions Council and Cyprus Psychologists Association.

Psychological therapy can take different forms, depending on your treatment goals, and aims to promote mental health and well-being.  For example, we could work on:

• Increasing your self-awareness
• Identifying and managing emotional and relational patterns which cause distress
• Acquiring new skills (e.g. assertive communication, emotional regulation, etc.)
• Managing distress caused by thoughts, emotions, and behaviour
• Work-related stress
• Decreasing symptoms of psychological difficulties (e.g. anxiety symptoms, panic attacks, depression, phobias, etc.)
• General psychological support
• Exploring past and present issues, etc.
• Past traumatic experiences

The treatment plan and duration differ from client to client, as they focus on each person’s psychological needs.  Therapy takes place in a warm, respectful, non-judgmental environment and aims to help you help yourself.

Techniques

The types of therapies currently offered are cognitive-behavioural therapy, humanistic therapy (person-centered and emotion-focused) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (trauma-focused therapy).

Cognitive-behavioural therapy focuses on the ‘here and now’.  This problem-oriented approach suggests that thoughts, emotions, behaviour and physiology are interrelated and interdependent.  When these systems are dysfunctional, they are more likely to contribute to the development and maintenance of mental health problems. Therapy focuses on re-visiting our thoughts, emotions, behaviour and physiology and identifying ways of improving our mental health.  This approach is very psycho-educational and focuses on improving and/or learning new coping skills for managing mental health.

The objectives of person-cantered therapy is to promote personal growth, to understand and experience emotions, to increase self-acceptance, to decrease distress, and to allow ourselves “to be”; content, towards the journey of self-actualization or fulfillment.

EMDR is a structured approach focusing on altering the emotions, thoughts and responses resulting from past traumatic experiences through the use of bilateral stimulation (eye movements).  This type of technique has been associated with a reduction in the distress and vividness of the trauma.

Other techniques that might be used during therapy are adopted from Gestalt, compassion-focused and mindfulness approaches.