Chris Cleave Therapy
Psychotherapy is a confidential space for exploring the deeper issues in your life.
My clients usually arrive to overcome a current difficulty – perhaps challenges in relationships, an episode of depression or anxiety, chronic pain or illness, a bereavement, a recent or historic abuse, a betrayal, an unhappiness with their body, issues with alcohol or drugs, or a sense of being directionless or stuck.
In psychotherapy we work with the difficulty in a way that includes your life experiences, your family history, your mind, your cultural inheritance, your relationships, and the system we live in. The purpose is for you to discover a way to navigate your current difficulties that is true to your deep reality.
How we work
In your first session you begin to let me know your situation. We start to work straight away in that session, and we get an idea of how it could be to work together. If we feel that there is a fit, and if you would like to go ahead, then I commit to a regular weekly time that works for you.
One-to-one sessions last 50 minutes, while I recommend 90-minute sessions with couples. We can agree a certain number of sessions from the outset, or you may prefer to keep it open. Psychotherapy is a developing process, and you will know when that process is achieved for you.
My approach
I am an existential psychotherapist. Existential psychotherapy is based on psychological and philosophical inquiry. It centres on your own experience of life, which we take the time to take seriously.
Existential therapy has no manuals or off-the-shelf techniques. Instead it looks for a way of navigating your current difficulties that is uniquely and authentically yours. And it believes that finding your way will open up your relationship with your whole life.
