Dr. Ralph Goldstein CPsychol AFBPsS PhD MPhil BA

Abuse, Anger, Anxiety, Bereavement, Bipolar Disorder, Cancer, Childhood Issues, Codependence, Couple Relationships, Creativity, Cultural Issues, Depression, Dissociation, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Eating Disorders, Exile Issues, Faith Issues, Fear, Grief, History of Mental Illness, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS, Identity, Inhibitions, Lack of Meaning in Life, Loss, Marriage (Marital relations), Midlife Crisis, Panic Attacks, Personal Growth, Personal Relationships, Personality Difficulties, Personality Disorders, Post Natal Depression (PND), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Psychosexual Issues, Psychosis, Psychosomatic Symptoms, Self Development, Self Esteem, Self Harm, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Behaviour, Sexuality, Spirituality, Stress, Suicidal Thoughts, Transgender Issues, Transitions, Trauma, Unresolved Issues, Work Issues and Relationships

Art Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Jungian Analysis, Schema Therapy

Male

Psychotherapy is no more than a particular kind of conversation so it may seem strange that specific kinds of conversation can be genuinely helpful both with formal mental health problems and with deep puzzlements and upsets in life.

If you are finding your journey through life blocked, or even derailed, then psychotherapy may be helpful. At such times your emotional response is likely to be a mixture of anxiety, frustration and depression; perhaps even a feeling of helplessness and despair as a familiar worldview is shaken about.

Perhaps a clinical depression has taken hold, or something safe and important in life has changed. Well tried purposes in life no longer seem meaningful or sensible. Relationships with familiar people no longer seem mutually beneficial.

At such times you need to make sense of these feelings and emotions; to rediscover a way through life. And this almost always means rediscovering oneself and finding new or forgotten strengths and relinquishing some old ways of being, which have lost their original usefulness.

Meetings with a psychotherapist can be helpful at such times, because the purpose of the conversation is always to reflect on yourself with the aim of finding direction and meaning. In this sense the psychotherapist behaves a little like a rather special kind of mirror bending the light just enough to add new colours and new shades of meaning.

Since psychotherapy is a journey into the future as well as a review of the past, there is no way to know exactly how long it will take, nor what will be discovered.

Conversation is the central business of psychotherapy, but I also work with dreams and drawings. Weekly meetings are the typical arrangement, following an initial session or two.

I am a Chartered Psychologist on the British Psychological Society's Register of Psychologists specialising in Psychotherapy as a senior practitioner.