Andy@MaxwellTherapy.co.uk
07438 826 660
maxwelltherapy.co.uk

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou

Psychotherapy and counselling provide a chance to explore your emotions freely and without judgement. Sharing and working through your feelings, thoughts and behaviours with a skilled professional who is separate from your daily life can bring you huge relief and start the change you are looking for.

I work with individuals, couples and families. I will help you better understand and manage your feelings, thoughts, behaviours and relationships, and I will support you in making the sorts of changes you’d like – to improve the quality of your life.

Integrative Therapy with Andy Maxwell MBACP

The most important ingredient for successful psychotherapy or counselling is a trusting relationship. Whether you come as an individual, a couple or as members of a family, together we will build a mutually open and honest relationship, one where you can explore your fears, difficulties and anxieties in a safe and welcoming environment. My aim is to help you get to the root of your problems and find meaning in them. I will help you develop more effective skills and strategies to better cope with your problems so you can choose what you would like to change in your life and how you might go about it.

Clients contact me with a wide variety of issues they’d like to explore. I’ve grouped them here into four main areas people tend to want to focus on.

Work issues. Redundancy, feeling overlooked or under-appreciated, imposter syndrome, creative block, being bullied, abused or discriminated against, lack of self-confidence, motivation or purpose, difficulties negotiating for what you want or feel you deserve. These and a host of other issues can have a massive impact not only at work but in all other parts of your life and relationships. By getting to the root problem of your work issues, you will probably find other parts of your life improve too.

Couple & Family issues. Parenting, sibling rivalry, divorce, intimacy, being a carer, blended families, adoption, gaining independence, children leaving home, ethnic/religious demands, familial conflicts and bereavement are just some of the common topics that clients struggle with. Together, we’ll look for better ways to navigate these complex issues and intertwined relationships.

Personal issues. Eating disorders, addictions, self-harm, suicidal ideation, OCD, ADHD/ADD, trauma and PTSD, Boarding School trauma, physical difficulties, anxiety, depression, abuse, bullying, body image, phobias and much more can make life intolerable. We will look at how your past may have shaped these present feelings and actions, and use practical skills to help you cope better and adapt to a healthier lifestyle.

Male issues. These are not exclusively ‘men’s problems’, but men tend to experience and respond to these sorts of difficulties differently to women. Infertility, sex, divorce, competitiveness, power and control, anger and assertiveness, fatherhood, being a son/brother, caring for parents. Some men feel they can talk more openly and honestly to another man about these sorts of topics.

This is not an exhaustive list, and you may not be able to define the issues you are struggling with. However, you probably have a sense that your life and your relationships could be better, and you’d like some help achieving that.

How we would work together

Whether you come as an individual, as part of a couple or with family members, I will offer you a space to feel heard, understood and accepted, in all aspects of yourself. I will help you become more aware of how your past experiences could be influencing the way you think, feel and behave in the present, and the impacts they may have in your relationships, so you can decide what you would like to change and how you would like to approach your future. As we talk, I will draw on a range of therapeutic approaches to help you find your way.

I will invite you to try to put into words your most sensitive, vulnerable thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This can be difficult, but we will work together, so you can start to process, understand and find some meaning in your suffering. Then, as we explore, you will begin to experience changes in the way you relate to yourself and to others.

I am dedicated to offering non-discriminatory and inclusive therapy. I welcome diversity and clients of all cultures, faiths, genders, sexualities, and identities, as well as those with different physical or mental processes and abilities. I also recognise the often-difficult relational forces at play between people with a variety of similarities and differences living in a multicultural society.

Where and when we would work together

It can take longer than you would like to feel the positive effects of therapy. So, I recommend a free introductory phone call first, to discuss in general what’s troubling you and how I might be able to support you. That is often followed by an introductory session, so you can experience what therapy with me is like, before deciding to commit to regular weekly sessions.

I prefer to work ‘in-person’, as I believe it is the most effective form of talking therapy. However, there are benefits to working online occasionally, so we may also meet via Zoom.

Your first session

Introductory Call: I offer a free 15-minute phone call, so I can get a little understanding of what you are struggling with, what your hopes for and concerns are about therapy, and how I might best help you.

Introductory Session: If, after our introductory call, you are interested in therapy, we can meet for an initial session. This will give us the chance to get to know one another a bit better. We can talk in a bit more detail about what you would like from therapy, your concerns about it, the commitment you can give to it, possible session times, location, etc. and anything else that would help you decide your next step. This ‘one-off’ session would be charged at my usual rate and is without further obligation on your part. If you then decide you’d like to continue with weekly sessions, we’d agree a regular session day, time and location.

What I can help you with

… and many more.

Clients I work with

Adults over 18.

How I work with you

There is a lot of jargon in all businesses and therapy is no different, so if you have any questions about theoretical approaches or anything else, please feel free to ask me. My approach is Relational, exploring how you relate to yourself and others. I use a blend of traditional Psychodynamic and more modern Humanistic modalities. Occasionally, I’ll introduce some CBT to help you develop coping skills and strategies. Each session lasts 50 minutes and the number of sessions you attend can depend on a lot of factors. Therapy can be long or short-term, face-to-face or online. Some clients like to ‘walk and talk’ outside, which we can do in the summer if it feels appropriate.

My experience and qualifications

I started my professional career as an architect working internationally. I would creatively help clients work out which parts of their physical environments – their home, their workplace etc – they were having problems with, what they would like to change and how they might achieve that. I find the psychotherapy and counselling process is not that dissimilar. Now I creatively help people work out which parts of their emotional environments – their feelings, thoughts or behaviours – they are having problems with, what they would like to change about them and how they might go about achieving that.

I believe my 30 years of managerial experience working with people in corporates before I trained to become a psychotherapist have helped me better understand and relate to clients who are struggling with issues in both their personal and professional lives. I find my creative approach to life’s problems helps wherever I work – in private practice, educational establishments, corporates or charities.

I qualified as a therapist through a variety of complementary training programmes.