Peak Health Therapies

What is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy, often also called 'Talking Cure', aims to help clients to better cope with problems of life such as anxiety, stress, depression or difficulties encountered in personal or work relationships and so achieve their full potential.

Psychotherapy can be provided on a one-to-one basis, with couples or in group therapy. After an initial consultation, client and therapist usually commit themselves to a minimum number of sessions.

What is Integrative Psychotherapy?

The term 'integrative' refers to the process of integrating the personality: taking unwanted, disowned, unaware, or unresolved aspects of ourselves and making them part of a cohesive whole.

This process gradually reduces the need for defences that inhibit our spontaneity and limit our flexibility in problem solving, health maintenance, and relating to others.

Through integration, it becomes possible for people to face each moment openly and freshly without the protection of a pre-formed opinion, position, attitude, or expectation. As a result, the quality of a person's functioning is maximized with due regard for each individual's own personal limits and external constraints.

How does it work?

Integrative Psychotherapy takes into account many views of human development and functioning. It acknowledges that each of these views only provides a partial explanation of behaviour, thoughts, feelings and physical symptoms. Integrative psychotherapy believes that selective integration of a range of such differing perspectives enhances each in turn and enables the therapist to fine-tune her approach to suit each individual client.

Integrative Psychotherapy is based on developmental research and theories and draws on a range of techniques to address self-protective defences used when there have been interruptions in the client's past development. The techniques include role play, relaxation and dream interpretation.

The Peak Health Therapies Psychotherapist is Hildegard Wiesehfer BSc, MAMM, PG Cert Counselling. Hildegard is a Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is bound by the BACP's Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy, the Ethical Guidelines for Researching Counselling and Psychotherapy (where practitioners undertake research) and am subject to the Professional Conduct Procedure for the time being in force.

Charges for Psychotherapy are on a sliding scale according to income, which helps to improve access for individuals who may be on a limited income.