Services
Nick Swan Psychotherapy
The term psychotherapy originally derives from Greek words, which loosely translate as ‘care for the soul’. In engaging in psychotherapy you are participating in both a deeper caring for yourself and also discovering whom that self is - who you have become. We all accumulate a 'story-line;' patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour that we identify as being ‘me’. Psychotherapy can help us experience these habitual patterns more clearly, loosen up this limited sense of ‘me’ that I have become. In so doing we can experience a greater understanding of our ‘inner lives’ and our way of being in the world.
Some people come to psychotherapy to work on a specific issue or difficulty and some come more to step back a little, take stock of their lives and ‘grow in awareness’. Either way the aim of therapy is to improve our relationship to ourselves and with others. The assumption is that our sense of self and much of our distress has its roots in relationship – often our formative relationships that we grew up in. The healing process is also relational; hence the relationship between therapist and client is the crucible for healing, insight and transformation to arise.
Within the safety and support of the therapeutic relationship a depth of awareness can be developed in which we can reclaim ourselves, be more present to our experience, painful or otherwise – as it is.
In essence, I see psychotherapy as a vehicle to enable us to know and be ourselves more fully- to access more of our aliveness. My intention is to create a space where people can be themselves as they are and unfold at their own pace. This unfolding often comes as a growth of awareness where we become ‘ bigger’ than the difficulties we face and so can ‘be with’ ourselves with more ease and spaciousness.
I would also hold that a psychotherapy worth its salt needs to be able to encompass more than our histories and personal psychology and be able, if called upon, to help explore our existential and spiritual concerns. What does it mean to us to be alive? What are our lives for? What's important? And "where are we going in life?" are fundamental questions for us all.
Core process psychotherapy belongs to a number of forms of therapy that can be termed ‘psychospiritual’. What this essentially means is that our human-beingness is recognised as much larger than our individual psychologies – than a narrow sense of self. From this perspective we are much more than our emotional and relational difficulties – we are part of a larger dimension of being that can be accessed through awareness. The term ‘ core’ is a metaphor referring to this larger dimension, which is beyond any limited sense of self. We are much bigger than we think we are!
The term ‘Process’ refers to our ongoing experience of thoughts, memories, images, feeling tones and sensations that arise in the body. The quality of core process work is a deep listening and sensitive following of ‘process’. This ‘process’ often follows particular patterns or shapes that can constellate into ways of being that create suffering. By becoming aware of our patterns or ‘ shaping process’, we begin to relate to ourselves from a place that is bigger. This ’bigger place’ – the Core, has within it, intrinsic qualities of openness, clarity and empathic warmth that enable us to form a relationship with suffering that is transformative.
Core Process work is simply a bringing together of the joint awareness of therapist and client to whatever is happening in the present moment such that we can see clearly our ‘process’ and also begin to sense the fluidity and freedom inherent within it. We may then find ourselves living more consciously, reclaiming the lost or hidden parts of ourselves, and find greater depth and meaning in our lives.
You can find more information about me and how I work at the Counselling Directory.
