Counselling and Psychotherapy for Men
You might know exactly what you want help with, or simply know that something is not working as well as it could.
Men come to therapy for many different reasons — anxiety, stress, anger, relationship difficulties, low mood, pressure at work or home, loss of confidence or direction, or feeling stuck in patterns that are becoming difficult to shift.
You do not need to arrive knowing exactly what to say. We can start with what is happening now, work out what you would like to be different and decide together what might be useful.
There is no assumption that one approach will suit everyone.
A practical, focused approach
In my experience of working with men, many prefer therapy to have a clear purpose.
You may want to understand what is happening, work out what is keeping a problem going, and find something useful you can do differently.
We can agree what you want from the work and keep returning to that. Sometimes the focus is practical and solution-focused. At other times, understanding the feelings, experiences or relationship patterns underneath the problem becomes an important part of moving forward.
A relatively small number of sessions can sometimes be enough.
For other people, the work develops into longer-term psychotherapy because there is more they want to understand or change.
The aim is not to keep you in therapy for longer than you need. It is to make the work useful, while being realistic about the time and cost involved.
What brings men to therapy
There is no single reason men come to therapy.
Sometimes something has happened recently, sometimes a problem has been building for a long time.
You might be dealing with anxiety, low mood, anger or frustration, relationship difficulties, work or financial pressure, loss, changes in identity or confidence, or a sense that life has become harder to manage than it used to be.
Sometimes you know exactly what the problem is. At other times, you may simply notice that you are not feeling or functioning quite like yourself.
You do not need to decide beforehand whether your problem is “serious enough” for therapy.
We can start with what is happening and work out together whether therapy is likely to be useful.
Anger, pressure, withdrawal and feeling stuck
Not all distress looks like sadness or anxiety.
Sometimes it shows up as becoming more irritable, shutting down, avoiding conversations, feeling constantly under pressure, working harder, drinking more, losing patience or feeling increasingly disconnected from the people around you.
Anger can sometimes be part of the problem, but it can also be a signal that something underneath needs attention — frustration, hurt, shame, fear, disappointment, pressure or a sense of not knowing what else to do.
Therapy can help make sense of what is happening without excusing behaviour that is causing harm. The aim is to understand the pattern clearly enough to make different choices possible.
You do not need to have the right words for it before you start.
You may prefer to start by reflecting on what is happening in your own time. The CFT Reflective Tools offer a few simple prompts to help you think about patterns, pressure and what you might want to change.
Not ready to contact someone yet?
