Nicholas Opyrchal

I currently have availability in my practice for new clients. 

My working hours are from 10am until 7pm on most weekdays however I do not work on the weekends.

I normally take time off over the month of August, the Easter period and the Christmas period, however please contact me via email during these times if you are interested in therapy; as these are the time periods in which new regular slots are more likely to open up, and therefore there may be more availability. 

I am a transpersonal-integrative psychotherapist and counsellor. What this admittedly wordy title means practically is that I use a variety of therapeutic lenses and perspectives to tailor your psychotherapy to your personal needs, seeing you as a unique individual who requires a unique approach. 

The 'transpersonal' part of my professional title refers to the fact that I do not only focus on personal symptoms, but also look at larger, more fundamental questions: What your life purpose is, what your spiritual beliefs (or lack of them) mean to you in the wider context of your life and what gives your life meaning or value. As a doctoral candidate studying the impact of political ideology on psychotherapy, I am also very interested in the way that the social environment shapes our experience of the world. I am interested in the influences of politics, ideology and identity on the psyche; and would look at this with you in our work together a therapeutic, non-partisan and non directive way. 

Practically the way I work in psychotherapy is by using the therapeutic relationship as a diagnostic tool in order to understand your personal issues as well as the unconscious dynamics that might be at play in influencing your experience of life. The way that we relate to each other in therapy will tell us a lot about the way that you relate to the outside world. I also draw on methods such as dream analysis, visualisation and other uses of the creative imagination in order to do gain understanding of your unconscious process, when clinically appropriate.  

As a psychotherapist, the way that I work is through seeing clients on a once-weekly basis, meeting at the same time each week (either online or face to face, depending on the agreed format). I can also see clients in a small and private woodland near to my home should this be of interest. Through these weekly meetings we build a therapeutic relationship, and I am able to help you through the various issues that might appear within this context. 

I follow the industry standard of offering roughly 50 minute sessions weekly. I keep strong boundaries in my practice as I believe this to be the most ethical approach to working as a psychotherapist. As a result I keep a 72 hour cancellation policy.

I only take time off during designated holiday periods each year. 

In our first session, I would leave our interaction generally open ended. The reason for this is that it can then function as a 'getting to know you' session; in which we can both gain an understanding as to whether we feel right working together on a more regular basis. Not every client is right for every therapist, and therefore I would want to make sure that you (and I) feel comfortable, and that our relationship seems like it would be productive before we commit.

Should we decide to continue after this first session, I would send you a therapeutic agreement outlining the boundaries of our work together. We would then have a second session which would be more of a formal assessment, in which I would ask you more directive questions about your background and psychological history.