Profile
I am a psychodynamic therapist registered with the BACP.
My experience includes providing psychotherapy to people from a broad range of socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural groups (Black, Asian, minority groups, expats), as well as working with individuals that identify with LGBT+.
I am able to work with many different types of presenting issues, however there are certain areas in which I do have particular experience and/or training. These focus areas include:
- Struggling with anxiety: Feeling nervous or uneasy, generalised anxiety disorder, overcome by worries or fears, social anxiety, panic attacks, difficulties with control, feeling trapped, anxious in confined spaces.
- Experiencing depression: Feeling sad, hopeless, suicidal, empty or lacking motivation, apathy, loss of interest in activities, loss of sexual desire, changes in sleep and appetite.
- Holding yourself in low regard: Low self-esteem, low self-confidence, low self-worth, a sense that you don’t matter or aren’t important, that your opinions/views are not of interest to other people.
- Experiencing relationship problems: Difficulty communicating what you are thinking and/or feeling, family issues, experiencing conflict or tension, feeling unfulfilled in the relationship, disconnected, wanting to repeatedly withdraw/end relationships, lack of sexual and physical intimacy.
- Sexuality: Confusion or questions around sexuality, experimentation with sexuality and different forms of relationships, kink interests, shame, concern around sexual experiences.
- Struggling with emotional instability: Diagnosed personality disorders and bipolar disorder, problematic swings in emotional state, sense of disintegration/falling apart.
- Struggling with issues around parenthood: Soon-to-be parent, recent birth of child, change of relationship with partner, identity loss, IVF/struggling to conceive.
- Experienced trauma: Experiencing a distressing event or series of events, flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of certain situations or people, dissociation, bereavement.
- Struggling with substance abuse or addiction: Using drugs or alcohol in a way that causes problems in daily life, difficulty quitting or reducing use.
- Struggling with your body image: Holding a negative perception of either the whole or part of your physical self.
- Intrusive thoughts: Obsessive thoughts, false memories, paranoia, thoughts you find disturbing or shameful, a fear of acting out certain thoughts.
I feel very strongly about the potential that therapy has to make a change in a person’s life. I say that as someone who has experience of being both therapist and client.
Therapy is a shared space between us both with the potential for so much to be said and felt. There is a privilege for me in hearing your story and who you are – the story that you’ve shared countless times with others and the one that you’ve never shared before because it feels too shameful or difficult to say.
It is those stories, that narrative of your life, with all the nuances, the emotion, the inner monologue, the perception of your world and how you believe others perceive you, that creates the richness of our work together.
I make no assumptions about our relationship and understand that trust, real trust, is earned and never to be taken for granted. Trust and vulnerability may feel like very difficult concepts, and I will offer you the space and time to allow that to develop. Where it feels important to do so, I will also offer challenge to ways of your thinking and being, and ask you to consider things that you may never have considered before.
Rates
Please contact me directly to discuss my rates.
Contact
Please call me on 07480 068560 or email [email protected] if you have any further questions or to arrange your first session.
Website: www.maxchainey.com