Spectrum’s approach to psychotherapy
The personal development programme offers individual psychotherapy and skills development for individuals, couples and families, as well as an extensive programme of workshops, long term groups and residential courses. Within the staff team we have therapists who specialise in particular areas: working with families, parents, children and young adults, sexual development, communication skills, men’s work, women’s work, working with anger, dream work and formative psychology.
The reasons why people engage in psychotherapy are personal and varied, but there seem to be three general areas of interest. One, people may be hurting, feeling dissatisfied, feeling that something is missing in their life or have a sense that things could simply be better. Two, they want to acquire power to be able to manage and influence their own behaviours. Three, they want to grow and develop to be an active participant in their own forming.
Our work is to support these goals and in doing this we emphasise the integration of people’s therapeutic experience into their everyday lives. Our commitment to this process is to create a caring and informative learning environment in which people can heal, grow resilience and learn to shape themselves and their relationships in new and fulfilling ways. To do this we focus on three important areas: healing, education and personal development. Healing is the experiencing and working through of psychological difficulties. Education is learning practical methods for influencing behaviour and the way we function. Personal development is how we can be active in the process of our own forming. On the following pages, we have tried to give a sense of the different aspects of working individually and in groups to help you make choices.
Working individually
Individual work primarily emphasises an intrapersonal focus; an exploration of my relationship to myself. Through one-to-one contact we can also learn a lot about how we enter a relationship, how we organise our thinking and feeling to be in a relationship and we can reflect on how we have handled other one-to-one relationships in the past.
One of the most common statements people make about their time in individual therapy is how important it is to have somebody there for them over time and on a regular basis. This is an important experience to have and in itself can have a positive influence on our self-esteem and confidence. Some people feel that the issues they want to talk about in therapy are too sensitive to talk about in a group situation. If this is how you feel then it is probably a good indication that individual work is appropriate. In individual therapy, while each session is usually an hour and initially you will probably meet once a week, the frequency and length of therapy is decided by therapist and client together.
Sometimes people feel they want to participate in group work as well as working individually. This combination can be very useful as groups often provide material that can be worked on in individual therapy and vice versa.
Individual work is offered in both brief and long term psychotherapy to take into account different needs. Brief therapy focuses on specific issues within a contracted number of sessions. The number of sessions may be re-negotiated as necessary. Brief therapy may also work for those people who have logistical problems for which short contracted periods of personal work may be the answer.
Long term psychotherapy involves a different commitment, both in terms of time and a deeper exploration of our relationship to ourself. All of our therapists have regular review discussions with their clients to look at how the work and therapeutic relationship is progressing. This on-going review of the work also helps to contain the work and give it shape.
Working in groups
Groups operate on an ‘us’ level of awareness and emphasise learning with others. We offer three different ways of working in groups: workshops, on-going groups and residential courses.
Workshops are usually time limited. They have a theme and may range from a one day event to a ten evening course. On-going groups continue over time and usually require a certain period of notice to end which varies according to the therapist and is agreed before a person joins the group. Residential courses take place outside of Spectrum and are usually held in a country setting.
Groups can offer participants an opportunity to come out of isolation with their issues and to share and compare their experience with others. They may also provide an excellent forum for receiving feedback about our interpersonal behaviour, how we are seen and perceived by others as well as how we see and perceive others. The degree of emphasis placed on interpersonal work will vary from one group to the next in relation to the theme of the group and the therapists’ style of work.
The positive outcome of any group is directly related to the stability of membership through attendance. Because of this we ask that you only do workshops at a time when you will not be distracted by holidays or any other commitments. All personal work at Spectrum is treated confidentially and we ask that all group participants also maintain this boundary.
If you would like more information about a group call the group leader at Spectrum. If you would like to talk to somebody about what group would suit your needs we will be happy to put you in touch with the appropriate person. The groups in this brochure only represent some of the work that takes place at Spectrum. If you would like to find out about other workshops please talk to the office staff or arrange a time to visit and view the notice board or check our website www.spectrumtherapy.co.uk.
Another way to find out about our work is to come to an open evening where you can visit the practise, meet some of the staff and practitioners, and see and hear about our way of working. Our next open evening is Friday, October 2, 2009, 6.30-9.30pm. The open evening date for 2010 will be Friday, October 1, 2010, 6.30-9.30pm. There is no charge for these evenings.
