Psychotherapy

Individual psychotherapy is a way to help people with a broad variety of mental illnesses and emotional difficulties. Psychotherapy can help eliminate or control troubling symptoms so a person can function better and can increase well-being and healing.

Problems helped by psychotherapy include difficulties in coping with daily life; the impact of trauma, medical illness or loss, like the death of a loved one; and specific mental disorders, like depression or anxiety. There are several different types of psychotherapy and some types may work better with certain problems or issues. Psychotherapy may be used in combination with medication or other therapies.

Sessions are typically held once a week or every fortnight for 50-60 minutes. Both patient and therapist need to be actively involved in psychotherapy. The trust and relationship between a person and his/her therapist is essential to working together effectively and benefiting from psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy can be short-term (a few sessions), dealing with immediate issues, or long-term (months or years), dealing with longstanding and complex issues. The goals of treatment and arrangements for how often and how long to meet are planned jointly by the patient and therapist.

At Sprout Psychology, we support a diverse range of personal issues, such as:

Anxiety
Depression
Developmental (Complex) Trauma
Adjustment
Supporting autistic, ADHD individuals across lifespan

Individuals and their partners may experience more conflict than neurotypical couples, for many reasons.

What is Empathy?

What is Love?

How do neurodivergent individuals demonstrate both?

Theories that explore into this dynamic include the Double Empathy problem.

Our work is to build around mutual understanding and skills to improve the quality of relationship and communication between neurodivergent individuals and their partners.

According to the Family Systems Theory (Murray Bowen, Psychiatrist), the family unit is a complex social system in which members interact to influence each other's behavior.

"Families so profoundly affect their members’ thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the same “emotional skin.” People solicit each other’s attention, approval, and support and react to each other’s needs, expectations, and upsets. The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others."

Kerr, Michael E. “One Family’s Story: A Primer on Bowen Theory.” The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. 2000. http://www.thebowencenter.org.

It is critical to understand and work with the individual's family within therapy.