Charlotte Medlicott

I am an experienced psychodynamic counsellor, offering a safe, confidential space in which you can really be listened to, and heard. Making the decision to come to counselling can be an enormous step forward in itself. I work with all sorts of people on a wide range of issues, with the aim of gaining insight and clarity into not just the difficulty that brings you to counselling, but what lies beneath it.

The struggles that have brought you to counselling may themselves have formed over a period of many years. Psychodynamic counselling is not about finding immediate solutions to fix present problems, but rather about working in an exploratory way together over a longer period of time in order to navigate and address these complex issues. By understanding and processing your experiences, at a pace that is right for you, we can gain insight to help you change and grow in the future.

You may have come to counselling because you are aware of patterns in your life that feel impossible to break, or because you are overwhelmed by difficult feelings that impede you from feeling as though you are really living your life. We will work together to identify and explore how the conscious difficulties you are experiencing in the present may have their origins in old, unconscious attempts at solving these difficulties. It is these attempts that can lead to distress, keeping us stuck in unhelpful patterns. 

I won’t ask you lots of questions, or give you exercises to complete, but rather allow you to say whatever is on your mind. We will also think together about the feelings that come up for you in the sessions and how you experience me, because that can tell us a lot about how you feel in relation to others beyond the counselling room. 

You may have questions about beginning counselling, and before we agree to work together it is important that we establish that my approach is a good fit for you. I therefore treat the initial two sessions as assessment sessions. This will allow you to experience psychodynamic counselling, and together we can explore your reasons for wanting counselling at this time and think about whether this approach is right for you. If you decide you want to begin counselling, we will make an agreement to meet for 50 minutes at a fixed time and day each week. Ongoing work is once-weekly and open-ended.