Kate Trench

I am currently taking referrals for psychotherapy or counselling. 

I am an accredited psychotherapist with a long-established practice working therapeutically with adults. I have more than 20 years' experience of working with people bringing a wide range of different issues affecting their mental health and their ability to live their lives to the full.

Rather than giving advice I aim to foster a working relationship in which my clients feel heard and understood, and gradually empowered to take more charge of aspects of their life which may have felt out of control.

The theoretical underpinning of my work is psychodynamic which lends itself to a collaborative approach to the therapeutic process. 

I work mainly face to face with my clients although online sessions are possible when necessary. 

Therapy sessions normally happen once weekly at an agreed regular time. Sessions last for 50 minutes. I reserve a number of places for lower fee paying clients who may be students or unwaged.

I offer both fixed-term counselling of between 12-20 weeks and open-ended psychotherapy which may involve more than one session per week. 

My approach is informed by psychodynamic ideas about how the mind and sense of self develops and processes experience. This approach shares with other talking therapies the aim to help someone understand their feelings, behaviour and relationships better in the context of a trusting professional relationship.

Psychodynamic therapy attends to aspects of our mental life that are affecting us and our relationships but which remain largely outside our awareness. We don't always know why we behave or feel the way we do, or why we end up in the same situations even though they repeatedly frustrate or disappoint us.

Childhood and growing-up experiences, memories, fantasies and even dreams may be thought about in psychodynamic therapy with the aim of making sense of how traumatic, painful or confusing experiences and relationships in our past influence how we behave and relate to others in the present. This includes the relationship with the therapist: psychodynamic psychotherapy considers the client's relationship with their therapist as one of the key therapeutic agents of change.

The psychodynamic approach also pays attention to how social pressures and experience of cultural and other differences may exert a powerful yet hidden influence on someone’s life which can be unpacked in therapy.

Psychodynamic therapy can, over time, help build the emotional capacity and resilience both to deal with life's immediate challenges and also to discover the freedom to live more fully as yourself. 

Your first session with me is an opportunity for you to get a feel for the way I work and ask any questions you have about therapy. 

You will have time to fully explain what has brought you for therapy and what you are hoping for from working with a therapist. I will listen and may make the odd comment but I won't assume that you want to start therapy until we have agreed this explicitly. I will explain the terms and conditions I work to as well as the Ethical Code I abide by. 

The initial meeting is 50 minutes long and charged at the same rate as ongoing sessions. We may agree to have more than one initial consultation if more time is needed to consider the best approach for you.

As a supervisor I bring psychoanalytic training and clinical experience over nearly twenty years. Having worked both in private practice and in organisations I also bring systemic thinking to how unconscious dynamics may play out both between therapist and client but also within the organisation they are in, with a view to illuminating the client's difficulties and supporting the therapist in their work. My approach as a supervisor is a collegiate one. I see supervision as an essential aid for every therapist and I am in my own supervision.