Ben James Counselling & Psychotherapy
      West London and The City

Psychotherapy
If you choose to undertake psychotherapy it’s possible that the problems you are looking to resolve have built up over time, perhaps over a period of years.

For everyone, making the choice to go into therapy is an important first step in acknowledging problems and making a commitment to resolving them.

If a trusting relationship between the psychotherapist and the client can be built up over time, and if there is a genuine willingness to take responsibility for our part in the difficulties we have, then there’s a good chance that psychotherapy can help.

This is why psychotherapy is usually conducted on a long-term basis. This gives the time that is required to be able to explore, under the right conditions and in sufficient depth, the problems and difficulties that have built up over a long period.

Generally, psychotherapy is based on talking to the therapist, but it can also include other ways of working, including creative approaches such as visualisation and meditation, and the use of art materials.
The way a psychotherapist works very much depends on how they have been trained and the approach they have chosen to take.

You can find out more about the way I work and the issues I work with by going to: ‘Services’.


Counselling
Like psychotherapy, counselling provides an opportunity for you to talk through, explore and express your problems, thoughts and feelings in a safe and confidential setting.

Counselling can be solution and goal-orientated, enabling you to both discover practical ways of taking responsibility for immediate difficulties, and ways of realising your aims and objectives.

Counselling usually takes place over a short-term fixed period, but usually for a minimum of 12 weeks. During that time, there may be a review point to assess whether or not the work is on-track and therefore whether more sessions are needed before the agreed end.

My approach
Underpinning my approach is the importance of the relationship between therapist and client, or supervisor and therapist. So while trust takes time to establish in any relationship, I believe it is key to good counselling, psychotherapy and supervision.

Continuity, safety, professionalism, combined with integrity and warmth, are all important ingredients that help build the right conditions within which insights and change can occur.


How I work
Although I draw from a wide range of modalities or schools of thought (in other words an integrative approach), my work is under-pinned by working in a way that combines the intuitive and the analytic.

I tend to use the initial assessment as an opportunity to gather history and information on what you are looking to work on and change. It is also a chance to get a feel for whether we can work together. Both these will help me to evaluate whether I am the right therapist for you. The initial meeting is also an opportunity for you to get a feel for whether you would like to work with me.

In either counselling, psychotherapy or supervision, I am conscious of how building trust can take time, and am always respectful of the pace at which you need to work.


Who I work with
I welcome working with women and men of all ages regardless of sexuality, cultural/religious background and nationality, and my experience covers a wide range of issues (see below):


What I work with

General dissatisfaction with life, feeling stuck
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Relationship issues; inc. repeating the same patterns
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Self-esteem issues
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Work issues
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Men’s issues
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Women’s issues
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Sex and sexuality issues
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Depression
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Addiction
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Loss and bereavement
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Gay, lesbian and bisexual issues
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Life choices and indecision
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Stress and anxiety
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Anger
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Abuse
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Phobias
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Eating disorders
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Stuck creativity
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Spiritual crisis
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Difficulties arising from family life



Area of specialism
I specialise in relationship and psychosexual issues, addictions, sexual compulsivity and sexual identity.


An integrative approach
My overall training and approach is Integrative, which means that in practice I draw from a variety of modalities or schools of thought, incorporating them into the work when appropriate. To some extent the personality of the client will determine which modality or modalities are applied. For example, while one person may be more comfortable drawing images as a means of self-expression, another may be more comfortable using words, whilst another may be comfortable with both.


Person Centred
Although I am not a person-centred counsellor/psychotherapist, I am person-centred in that the client is my focus, and my starting point. Wherever you are, or whatever you present, will provide the point from which the work will begin. Crucial to the person-centred model are the core conditions of accurate empathy, genuineness or congruence, warmth and unconditional positive regard which must be established in the relationship between client and therapist if the client is to move closer towards self-actualising, or becoming who they really are.


Psychodynamic
Derived from Freudian psychoanalysis, the psychodynamic model is not psychoanalysis! This approach explores the knowledge and theory of human behaviour and its motivation, whilst recognising the role of the unconscious and how it influences behaviour, which itself is determined by past experience, genetic inheritance and what is happening in the present. Here, insight is the tool by which what is unconscious is brought to consciousness, freeing you to make new choices.


Analytical Psychology
Developed from Jung’s revolutionary discoveries about the archetypal and mythical worlds and the Self, life is a dramatic story in which all our experiences take on meaning and can be described symbolically. In working with dreams and the creative imagination insights are gained from which healing and transformation become possible. This symbolic approach works with the indefinable, the intuitive and the imaginative, and provides a challenge to more literal ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us.

Here, the client is encouraged to own, accept and come to terms with aspects of their unconscious (or Shadow) which, if denied, can be potentially powerful and destructive. There is an attempt to bring more of the Shadow into the light of awareness so that greater integration and individuation can be made possible.


The Transpersonal
The transpersonal perspective proposes that, at our core, we humans are spiritual beings. There is no subscription to any religious creed, dogma or religion, but a believe that a spiritual approach to counselling and psychotherapy can: enable us to harness our longing to grow and unfold; help us own the more difficult aspects of ourselves instead of projecting them out on to other people or circumstances; allow us to recognise that it is often through crisis and suffering that positive transformation is made possible; teach us to tap an inner strength than enables us to take risks that encourage growth in our lives; help us find the meaning and purpose in our lives, and to enable us to develop the qualities we need to maximise our potential as spiritual beings.

To facilitate the transpersonal perspective clients are offered the opportunity to work with their creative imagination; with guided imagery, drawing, sub-personalities and visualisation techniques. Last, but by no means least, working with dreams may also play a part.


Gestalt
Gestalt is a German word and loosely translated means ‘pattern’ or ‘form’, which when incomplete we can talk of in terms of unfinished business. The approach aims to help people become self-supportive, self-responsible through an awareness of what is going on in the self at any given moment in the ‘here-and-now’. Psychodrama and body awareness are key tools that support the approach.


Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT is applied mostly to short-term solution-focussed counselling, and focuses on the adjustment of ‘thinking’ as a way of influencing behaviour. Negative thoughts and ‘self-talk’ are challenged using the techniques including use of imagination and the introduction of different ways of thinking.