FAQ | Blog | About Tim

My fees are £50.00 per 50-minute session.  (The fee for the first session is £30.00).

For couples the fees are £90.00 per 90-minute session.  (The fee for the first session is £60.00).

I offer concessions (on a sliding scale) for those whose means are limited.

Person-centred therapy (PCT) has been reliably shown over the decades to be broadly as effective as other leading types of therapy, such as CBT and psychodynamic approaches.  (For example, see Person-Centred/Experiential Therapies Are Highly Effective: Summary of the 2008 Meta-analysis, Elliot et al).  In fact, person-centred therapy is the approach offered by the NHS’s IAPT scheme when all other options have failed, and this ‘counselling for depression’ enjoys high success rates.

Person-centred therapy was the original ‘evidence-based’ approach, arising from clinical observation over thousands of hours.

PCT is based on a paradigm of personal growth, not one of ‘disease’.  The effectiveness of PCT is easily quantifiable in terms of client feedback, but it is not easy to compare the client feedback approach of PCT to the diagnostic ‘clinician knows best’ approach of the medicalised approaches.  It is difficult to do medical-style research on non-medical approaches such as PCT.  This is because PCT is not dependent upon the controversial diagnostic categories that still dominate ‘medicalized’ approaches to psychotherapy.  Who’s to say you have anxiety, or depression, or whatever?  You’ll probably get different diagnoses from different clinicians(!)

In 2019, Professor Mick Cooper of the University of Roehampton had this to say about the effectiveness of PCT:

1. “Humanistic and experiential therapies, of which person-centred approaches form a substantial part, bring about large and significant reductions in psychological distress (see Elliott et al.’s 2013 comprehensive meta-analysis for the definitive review).
2. The effects of humanistic and experiential therapies are similar, on average, to other therapies—including CBT. This is particular true when the allegiance of the researchers is taken into account (again, see Elliott et al., 2013). It’s also true whether the effects from different studies are compared against each other, or whether two therapies are directly compared together.
3. Studies which compare the outcomes of person-centred therapy in real world settings (e.g., IAPT) again show that these are very similar to CBT and, indeed, may be achieved in a shorter period of time (see Pybis et al., 2017).
4. There’s no consistent evidence that CBT or psychodynamic therapies have longer lasting effects than person-centred therapy, or that they ‘work’ more quickly.
5. It’s the dodo bird, stupid (though maybe don’t say the ‘stupid’ bit to your manager!). Again and again, what the research shows is that ‘everyone has won and all must have prizes’—all therapies, overall, do about as well as each other.
6. There is an overwhelming body of data to show that Rogers’s three ‘core conditions’—empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence—are all associated with positive outcomes (see Norcross and Lambert, 2019).
7. Studies which ask clients what they found helpful in therapy (whether CBT, psychodynamic, or humanistic) show, again and again, that much of what they most value is relational qualities closely associated with a person-centred approach: e.g., therapist warmth, caring, and trustworthiness (see here for one very recent example).
8. Consistent with person-centred theory, research shows that, by far, the largest contribution to therapeutic outcomes comes from clients: their levels of motivation, involvement, engagement. It’s clients that make therapy work, not therapists (Bohart and Wade, 2013).
9. Person-centred counselling with children and young people also shows good outcomes, at a level consistent with other therapeutic orientations.
10. Even if there are small differences in the overall effectiveness of different orientations, this doesn’t take into account the fact that different clients do better or worse in different therapies (and at different points in time). Research shows, for instance, that clients who are more independent, who deal with issues in a more ‘internal’ way, and who particularly want space to talk are likely to do very well in a person-centred approach (see my Facts are Friendly).”

[See this link for Prof. Cooper’s full blog article on this: person-centred-therapy-myths-and-realities].

Person-centred therapy is predicated on a model of personal growth, rather than the ‘treatment’ or ‘disease’ model that has been imported into psychotherapy from medicine.  Research in recent years has, however, greatly supported the ideas that Carl Rogers put forward.  He believed that it is interpersonal relationships that cause psychological distress, and that it is relationships that facilitate healing and growth.  He also believed that concepts such as assessment and diagnosis are not well-suited to psychological distress.  In addition, he found through extensive research that techniques and ‘interventions’ are less important to successful therapy than aspects of the relationship between the client and her therapist.

Unfortunately, for the time being most doctors, clinical psychologists and insurance companies are still highly invested in the medical ‘disease’ model, and seem to find it more expedient to provide medication than talk therapy.

Every client’s journey through therapy is unique, especially with relationship-based approaches such as person-centred therapy.

In the first session I will take some basic information (contact details, mental health history etc).  We will talk about what you want to get from therapy / counselling / coaching  (you get to decide what we call it).  We will discuss your preferences: for example, would you prefer to talk about the past or the present, would you prefer to focus on behaviours or thoughts, would you prefer to to be directed or challenged, or to take charge of the conversation?  I will tell you how the process works, because it is really important that you understand, from the outset, what is happening and how to make the most of it.  At the end of the session I will provide you with a standard ‘client contract’ that sets out the main expectations and boundaries for the therapeutic relationship.

After the forms are completed the therapy can begin.  This will involve a noticeable change in the way we talk with each other, with the client working hard to articulate and process their difficult experience/s, and the therapist working hard to provide and maintain an environment in which the client can continue to move forward.  You will be talking with someone who does not judge you in any way, who is on the side of the part of you that wants to move forward, and who is clearly being sincere, open, and genuine.

Over time we will, hopefully, develop a strong and trusting connection, which will allow you to become ever more confident in your capacity to make sense of your difficulties and decide the best way forward.  Change can often happen very rapidly, right there in the session.  (This is a major difference between the person-centred approach and other approaches).

From time to time I will ask you how we are doing, inviting you to step back from the therapy and assess our progress.  Then we can move forward again, until you eventually get to a point where you feel you no longer need help.  You get to decide this for yourself – another thing that helps to define the person-centred approach.

Here are three brutally short descriptions:

A psychotherapist provides ‘talk therapy’ of one sort or another.

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who focuses on the prescription of medications.

A psychologist is a scientist who studies the human mind.

A counsellor is, in person-centred terms, essentially the same as a psychotherapist (the term was invented because psychologists were not legally permitted to call themselves psychotherapists).  In practice, non-person-centred psychotherapists are often better qualified than counsellors in the same modalities, but this does not necessarily mean that they would attain better outcomes.  And in person-centred terms there is no meaningful distinction between a counsellor, therapist or coach: it is all the same skill set.

Some Background

One major reason why psychotherapy training takes longer than ‘counselling’ training is because many courses have inherited the strange idea that a trainee therapist requires many hundreds of hours of personal therapy.  This is a direct hangover from the ideas of Freud, over 100 years ago(!).  This is related to another anachronism, snobbery: many therapists are still very tied to the idea that more scout badges = better therapy.  They can’t imagine engaging with a client as equals.  This is closely linked to the therapist’s fragile ego: a need to hide behind certificates and the rather outrageous idea that they can in some way be an expert on you and your world.

It has been very well proven over a very long time that such ‘expert’ knowledge is based on flawed science.  Diagnostic categories are increasingly acknowledged as not scientifically valid, so any related scout badges cannot automatically be regarded as helpful.  It is also very well established that such expertise-driven, directive (‘therapist-knows-best’) approaches are no more effective than relationship-driven approaches, but snobbery is stubborn.

You might hear the new term ‘psychotherapeutic counsellor’ (as if there is any other kind!), which has emerged as an expression of the directive therapists attempts to place themselves above the non-directive ones.  This might well lead to the creation of a new professional body to represent the interests of non-directive psychotherapists, if existing bodies like UKPC and BACP cannot demonstrate sound understanding of the person-centred/ non-directive modality, and make space for its radical methodology.  This issue is also highly politicised beyond the profession itself.  If it truly takes 4 years to train a psychotherapist then very few will be able to afford it.  We will never have many therapists who are not financially supported by The Main Breadwinner: i.e. the industry will become even more dominated by rich women.  Perhaps other voices are also needed.

My own opinion is that there are far too many people in this sector.  Very few can actually make a living at it, yet the universities continue to create vast piles of under-utilised therapists.   I would prefer fewer, better therapists (who were busy enough to charge less!) but this cannot be at the expense of non-directive, relational approaches.

Person-centred therapy: the misunderstood miracle

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